See a short video demo of our new book Gandhi the Man

Posted on March 30, 2011 by  | Add Comment

Here’s a two-minute video of our new edi­tion of Gandhi the Man. There’s no sound com­men­tary, but you can see the book and many won­der­ful pho­tographs of Gandhi and his com­pan­ions, and you can get a glimpse of the new chronol­ogy that we’ve added near the end of the book.

Above all, Easwaran’s insights into Gandhi and his spir­i­tual evo­lu­tion have given this book its endur­ing appeal. The new edi­tion has already received a num­ber of five-star reviews on Ama­zon, such as the following:

“From front to back cover, this book can­not help but draw you in. Pick it up and sim­ply flip through it: with even more pho­tographs than before – all of them dig­i­tally restored – you’ll see Gand­hiji walk­ing and laugh­ing in the pages. And the detailed chronol­ogy with map and notes make this a use­ful ref­er­ence for any­one – young and old – try­ing to under­stand the his­tor­i­cal stage on which he lived.

“Easwaran’s intro­duc­tion (not in the pre­vi­ous edi­tion) brings to light his deep desire to under­stand Gandhiji’s mes­mer­iz­ing effect on Easwaran him­self as well as the cir­cle in which he lived. His quest to dis­cover the under­ly­ing cause prompted a visit to Gandhi’s ashram so that he could spend time with the Mahatma, and under­stand the deep inner trans­for­ma­tion that Gand­hiji under­went – to the end of his life – so that his every action was con­sis­tent with his deep­est beliefs.

“I love Easwaran’s abil­ity to unlock his­tor­i­cal events by illus­trat­ing, for exam­ple, how by con­serv­ing his anger at injus­tice and har­ness­ing it instead through ‘the fierce dis­ci­pline of satya­graha,’ Gand­hiji became an instru­ment for the wel­fare of both British and Indi­ans alike. Ulti­mately, as we see here, Gandhi’s actions are far from ‘polit­i­cal’; instead, they are dri­ven by a deeper under­stand­ing of the unity of life. There is no book on Gandhi that cap­ti­vates my heart as much as this one, or shows me how to become even a small part like him, through my own inner transformation.”

Read all the reviews on Amazon

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow

Daffodils

Posted on March 28, 2011 by  | Read Comment | Add Comment

In this audio clip from 1967, Easwaran com­pares see­ing a real daf­fodil (after only hear­ing about daf­fodils) with see­ing the beauty of the Self within.

“This evening I was observ­ing the flow­ers on all sides, par­tic­u­larly the daf­fodils. I used to teach my stu­dents at the uni­ver­sity Wordsworth’s beau­ti­ful poem about the daf­fodils, but let me tell you nei­ther they nor I had ever seen a daf­fodil. I used to explain it beau­ti­fully with­out hav­ing seen a daf­fodil. When I saw the daf­fodils for the first time and the breeze was blow­ing through, I said: Oh! This Wordsworth knows what he is writ­ing about.

“See, this is the dif­fer­ence between echo and the real sound, between the log in the apart­ment house that appears to burn and the real euca­lyp­tus log that burns. The sages say every­thing that is beau­ti­ful out­side is a pale reflec­tion of the lim­it­less beauty that is within you, within me. Every­thing that is glo­ri­ous out­side is a pale shadow of the glory that is within.”

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow

Japan, and a quote from William Law

Posted on March 25, 2011 by  | Add Comment

Japan may no longer be top of the head­lines, but the Japan­ese peo­ple are still in our hearts and prayers. A close friend of the Cen­ter has been repeat­ing many mantrams for those who are suf­fer­ing. He took com­fort from this quote from the mys­tic William Law, whom Easwaran admired.

“Our power of doing exter­nal acts of love and good­ness is often very nar­row and restrained. There are, it may be, but few peo­ple to whom we can con­tribute any worldly relief. But though our out­ward means of doing relief are often lim­ited, yet if our hearts are but full of love and good­ness, we get as it were an infi­nite power: because God will attribute to us those good works, those acts of love and ten­der char­i­ties which we sin­cerely desired, and would gladly have per­formed, had it been in our power.” (From Chap­ter 20 of A Seri­ous Call to a Devout and Holy Life.)


Our friend adds: “The mantram is full of love and good­ness, isn’t it? And I sit here think­ing of how it is that the words of mys­tics are not just words for one era and one time period, but last and last and last as truths for­ever. William Law wrote this over 250 years ago.”

E-book News: Easwaran at Barnes & Noble and Apple iBookstore

Posted on March 25, 2011 by  | Add Comment

Where else can you find our e-books besides Ama­zon? The two other most pop­u­lar e-retailers for Easwaran’s books at the moment are Barnes & Noble and the Apple iBookstore.

Barnes & Noble entered the mar­ket later than Ama­zon, but their NOOK e-reader (accord­ing to some review­ers) is nicer than the Kin­dle, and they have a lot of books in their store, though fewer than Ama­zon. Apple also has fewer books than Ama­zon, but they have the advan­tage of offer­ing e-reading on their two very pop­u­lar devices, the iPhone and the iPad.

Visit this page to view to Easwaran’s e-books in the Barnes & Noble NOOK­books store. As with Kin­dle books, you can down­load a NOOK reader to read NOOK­books and free sam­ples on your own device (click a title name, and then click the Down­load Sam­ple but­ton under “Try it for FREE”). You can visit the Apple iBook­store if you have iTunes.

All of Easwaran’s books that are avail­able in the Kin­dle Store are also avail­able in the Barnes & Noble store and the Apple iBook­store. Unfor­tu­nately the retail­ers are cur­rently hav­ing prob­lems with their inter­na­tional sales, so you may not be able to find the books in these e-stores if you are located out­side the United States.

Other e-book stores are a long way behind these three lead­ers in sales, but there are two other e-stores which may offer inter­est­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties for us in the future – more on these in our next post.

As always, please write us with any com­ments regard­ing this blog – we are eager to receive your feedback!

A Passage for World Peace: Easwaran Reads the Sutta Nipata

Posted on March 22, 2011 by  | Add Comment

Read­ing the news head­lines can leave us feel­ing sad, angry, or help­less. Spir­i­tual pas­sages offer a pow­er­ful anti­dote, and lis­ten­ing to Easwaran read­ing a pas­sage is the best anti­dote of all.

Switch off the news, close your eyes, and calm your mind with Easwaran’s read­ing from the Com­pas­sion­ate Bud­dha. (Click the Play but­ton on the result­ing page to start the audio.)

Dis­course on Good Will
May all beings be filled with joy and peace.

May all beings every­where,

The strong and the weak,

The great and the small,

The mean and the pow­er­ful,

The short and the long,

The sub­tle and the gross:
 


May all beings every­where,

Seen and unseen,

Dwelling far off or nearby,

Being or wait­ing to become:

May all be filled with last­ing joy.
 


Let no one deceive another,

Let no one any­where despise another,
Let no one out of anger or resent­ment

Wish suf­fer­ing on any­one at all.


Just as a mother with her own life

Pro­tects her child, her only child, from harm,

So within your­self let grow

A bound­less love for all crea­tures.


Let your love flow out­ward through the uni­verse,

To its height, its depth, its broad extent,

A lim­it­less love, with­out hatred or enmity.


Then, as you stand or walk,

Sit or lie down,

As long as you are awake,

Strive for this with a one-pointed mind;

Your life will bring heaven to earth.

This pas­sage is from the Metta Sutta, part of the Sutta Nipata, a col­lec­tion of dia­logues with the Bud­dha said to be among the old­est parts of the Pali Bud­dhist canon.

Easwaran on The Imitation of Christ: Talk 20

Posted on March 21, 2011 by  | Add Comment

This is the 20th in a long series of talks Eknath Easwaran gave on The Imi­ta­tion of Christ by Thomas a Kem­pis. In this talk Easwaran reads and dis­cusses Book 2, Chap­ter 3, “Of a Good, Peace­able Man.”

For pre­vi­ous talks, see Easwaran on Thomas a Kem­pis, under Categories.

Note that all of the talks in this series are avail­able for down­load from our store. The series is described on this page.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow

Mantrams and a Passage for the People of Japan

Posted on March 19, 2011 by  | Add Comment

Our friend in Japan wrote again, respond­ing to our pre­vi­ous blog post, “The Ele­phant in the Room”:

“...I am doing all I can to keep myself com­pletely focused on the mantram, bathed in the mantram. It is impor­tant for peo­ple to see me car­ry­ing on my daily life with­out fear or any other negativity.”

And we shared this pas­sage from St. Patrick with her. It is par­tic­u­larly mov­ing to hear it read by Easwaran.

Let’s con­tinue through the week­end ded­i­cat­ing our prayers, mantrams, and med­i­ta­tion pas­sages to the peo­ple of Japan.

Christ Be With Me
May the strength of God pilot me,
The power of God pre­serve me today.
May the wis­dom of God instruct me,

The eye of God watch over me,

The ear of God hear me,

The word of God give me sweet talk,

The hand of God defend me,

The way of God guide me.
 

Christ be with me.

Christ before me.

Christ after me.

Christ in me.

Christ under me.

Christ over me.

Christ on my right hand.

Christ on my left hand.

Christ on this side.

Christ on that side.

Christ at my back.
 

Christ in the head of everyone
to whom I speak.

Christ in the mouth of every person
who speaks to me.
 

Christ in the eye of every per­son who looks at me.

Christ in the ear of every per­son who hears me today.

A Message from Tokyo

Posted on March 18, 2011 by  | Read Comment | Add Comment

A friend in Tokyo sent us this mes­sage. Her faith is an inspi­ra­tion to us all, and a reminder to keep our prayers and mantrams flow­ing to Japan.

“We sur­vived last night calmly. There had been an after­shock about 10:40 PM when I was writ­ing to you and then all was quiet. It got cold yes­ter­day after­noon, with an icy wind blow­ing for this time of year, and was cold while sleep­ing even in Tokyo and I have blan­kets. This is noth­ing com­pared to what those in the affected areas are suf­fer­ing. It is clear and cold out this morning.

“Thank you for your mantrams and prayers. We can feel them and we need them. We are united in prayer. When I think of the power of God, in spite of my human frailty, I have absolute faith.”

E-book News: Easwaran on Amazon

Posted on March 18, 2011 by  | Add Comment

E-books are still only a small part of our total book sales (about 12%), and print books will remain very impor­tant for us for a long time to come. Nev­er­the­less, our e-book sales have grown dra­mat­i­cally over the last year, so we’d like to tell you more about them.
In our last post on e-books, we talked of the for­mat­ting chal­lenges fac­ing all pub­lish­ers and e-book sell­ers, and how at Nil­giri Press we are updat­ing our e-books to improve how our books dis­play on var­i­ous e-readers.

In related posts in upcom­ing weeks, we’ll tell you a bit more about where e-books can be found, and how they got there.

Ama­zon was the first retailer to get into e-books in a big way. It has estab­lished a huge lead over other stores by pio­neer­ing an e-book reader (with its own Kin­dle), and is hold­ing on to its lead because of the vast num­ber of e-books avail­able from its store. If you’re look­ing for an e-book, it’s much more likely to be in the Kin­dle e-book store than any­where else. And since you don’t have to read Kin­dle e-books on a Kin­dle (you can view them on any reader, includ­ing a PC, iPad, or iPhone), Amazon’s advan­tage remains substantial.

You can pre­view Kin­dle e-books with­out buy­ing them: on the Ama­zon site you can down­load a free Kin­dle e-reader and down­load free sam­ples of any Kin­dle e-book. Visit this page in the Kin­dle Store to eas­ily down­load sam­ples of Easwaran’s books. (See the “Try it free” box on the right side of the page.)

Easwaran’s books were among the first e-books to go on sale on the Ama­zon Kin­dle Store, which is why we have been sell­ing a higher-than-national-average per­cent­age of our books as e-books. In a later post, we’ll tell you how that hap­pened – and we’ll also explore other e-retailers where you can pur­chase Easwaran’s e-books.

All of this activ­ity, from a Nil­giri Press mis­sion per­spec­tive, helps new read­ers – wher­ever they may be – to dis­cover Easwaran’s time­less wis­dom, and to ben­e­fit from it.

Easwaran’s author page on Amazon

More for Japan: The Elephant in the Room of the Mind

Posted on March 17, 2011 by  | Add Comment

From an older friend of the Center:

“The ele­phant in the room of my mind has slowly been get­ting larger and larger over the last few days, until it has totally filled my sur­face con­scious­ness, crowd­ing out most every­thing else. The ele­phant I am speak­ing of is the dis­as­ter in Japan.

“So yes­ter­day I decided to take Easwaran’s words about this to heart, ‘don’t ever think of your­self first, think always of oth­ers,’ and decided to focus on com­pas­sion for the peo­ple of Japan by singing the mantram of the Bud­dha of Com­pas­sion, om mani padme hum, and send­ing it to the home and land of Zen Bud­dhism. I sang it all day, from morn­ing to evening, some­times mix­ing in with singing my own mantram, out-loud singing when I could, hum­ming it when I could, and silently singing it where needed in all those vacant moments.

“When­ever I stopped the ‘ele­phant,’ the dis­as­ter, would come back to con­scious­ness, so I would take it up again. I got in sev­eral hours of this by the end of the day, and I am start­ing it again now, today.”


  • A few times a week we’ll post some­thing here to show­case the time­less wis­dom of Eknath Easwaran.

    We’ll also post items about the Blue Moun­tain Cen­ter of Med­i­ta­tion – new book announce­ments, retreat sched­ules and updates, news from our fel­low­ship groups.

    And we’ll post items from some of Easwaran’s many friends around the world who have brought his prac­ti­cal wis­dom into their lives.

    We hope you’ll join the con­ver­sa­tion as well.

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