Timeless Truths

Posted on June 30, 2011 by  | Add Comment

The fol­low­ing excerpt is from an arti­cle by Eknath Easwaran which appeared in the Spring 2009 issue of the Blue Moun­tain journal:

I have spo­ken at times of a light in the soul, a light that is uncre­ated and uncre­at­able . . . to the extent that we can deny our­selves and turn away from cre­ated things, we shall find our unity and bless­ing in that lit­tle spark in the soul, which nei­ther space nor time touches.

– Meis­ter Eckhart

These words, addressed to ordi­nary peo­ple in a quiet German-speaking town almost seven hun­dred years ago, tes­tify to a dis­cov­ery about the nature of the human spirit as rev­o­lu­tion­ary as Einstein’s the­o­ries about the nature of the uni­verse. If truly under­stood, that dis­cov­ery would trans­form the world we live in at least as rad­i­cally as Einstein’s the­o­ries changed the world of science. 


Meis­ter or “Mas­ter” Eck­hart – the title attests to his schol­ar­ship, but seems to fit even bet­ter his spir­i­tual author­ity – lived almost exactly at the same time and for the same span as Dante, and both seem born to those lofty regions of the spirit that do not belong to any par­tic­u­lar cul­ture, reli­gion, or age but are uni­ver­sal. Yet, also like Dante, Eck­hart expressed per­fectly some­thing essen­tial about his times. The end of the thir­teenth cen­tury was a period of intense tur­moil in Europe, and the Rhine val­ley, where Eck­hart was born, was the breed­ing ground of var­i­ous pop­u­lar reli­gious soci­eties which alarmed con­ven­tional Chris­tians. Yet a God who could be known per­son­ally and a path by which to reach him were what an increas­ing num­ber of peo­ple yearned for, and Eckhart’s pas­sion­ate ser­mons, strain­ing to con­vey the divine in the words of the street and mar­ket­place, became immensely popular. 


And what did he teach? Essen­tially, four prin­ci­ples that would later be called the Peren­nial Phi­los­o­phy, because they have been taught from age to age in cul­ture after culture:


First, there is a “light in the soul that is uncre­ated and uncre­at­able”: uncon­di­tioned, uni­ver­sal, death­less; in reli­gious lan­guage, a divine core of per­son­al­ity which can­not be sep­a­rated from God. As St. Cather­ine of Genoa put it, “My me is God: nor do I know my self­hood except in God.” In Indian mys­ti­cism this divine core is called sim­ply Atman, “the Self.”


Sec­ond, this divine essence can be real­ized. It is not an abstrac­tion, and it need not – Eck­hart would say must not – remain hid­den under the cov­er­ing of our every­day per­son­al­ity. It can and should be dis­cov­ered, so that its pres­ence becomes a real­ity in daily life.


Third, this dis­cov­ery is life’s real and high­est goal. Our supreme pur­pose in life is not to make a for­tune, nor to pur­sue plea­sure, nor to write our name on his­tory, but to dis­cover this spark of the divine that is in our hearts.


Last, when we real­ize this goal, we dis­cover simul­ta­ne­ously that the divin­ity within our­selves is one and the same in all – all indi­vid­u­als, all crea­tures, all of life.


Words can cer­tainly be ambigu­ous with ideas such as these, and “mys­ti­cism” is no excep­tion. In my teach­ing, a mys­tic is one who not only espouses these prin­ci­ples of the Peren­nial Phi­los­o­phy but lives them, whose every action reflects the wis­dom and self­less love that are the hall­mark of one who has made this supreme dis­cov­ery. Such a per­son has made the divine a real­ity in every moment of life, and that real­ity shines through what­ever he or she may do or say – and that is the real test. It is not occult fan­cies or visions or eso­teric dis­courses that mark the mys­tic, but an unbro­ken aware­ness of the pres­ence of God in all crea­tures. The signs are clear: unfail­ing com­pas­sion, fear­less­ness, equa­nim­ity, and the unshak­able knowl­edge, based on direct, per­sonal expe­ri­ence, that all the trea­sures and plea­sures of this world together are worth noth­ing if one has not found the uncre­ated light at the cen­ter of the soul.


These are demand­ing cri­te­ria, and few peo­ple in the his­tory of the world can be said to have met them. I often refer to these men and women col­lec­tively as “the great mys­tics,” not to obscure their dif­fer­ences, but to empha­size this tremen­dous under­cur­rent of the spirit that keeps resur­fac­ing from age to age to remind us of our real legacy as human beings.


On this legacy the mys­tics are unan­i­mous. Noth­ing can change that orig­i­nal good­ness. What­ever mis­takes we have made in the past, what­ever prob­lems we may have in the present, in every one of us this “uncre­ated spark in the soul” remains untouched, ever pure, ever per­fect. Even if we try with all our might to douse or hide it, it is always ready to set our per­son­al­ity ablaze with light.


Read the entire article

A Practice for Today: Training the Senses

Posted on June 28, 2011 by  | Add Comment

“Jug­gle with your opin­ions too, espe­cially when you find that you are rigid or emo­tional about them. The opin­ions you cher­ish may actu­ally not be any bet­ter than those of other people.”

- Eknath Easwaran

Train­ing the senses means over­com­ing con­di­tioned habits and learn­ing to enjoy what is ben­e­fi­cial. Click here for basic instruc­tions on this point.

Easwaran on Thomas a Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ: Talk 27

Posted on June 27, 2011 by  | Add Comment

This is the 27th 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 10, “Of Grat­i­tude for the Grace of God.”

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

My Favorite Passage: “Whatever You Do” from the Bhagavad Gita

Posted on June 23, 2011 by  | Add Comment

We’re round­ing off our favorite pas­sage series (for now) with a pas­sage from the Bha­gavad Gita and, appro­pri­ately, with Easwaran read­ing it.

Mike wrote in to draw our atten­tion to a beau­ti­ful line from the Gita, which Easwaran trans­lates for med­i­ta­tion in God Makes the Rivers to Flow as “Those who love me, they will never perish.”

Thanks, Mike. This line comes from a pas­sage called “What­ever You Do,” from the last verses of Chap­ter 9 of the Bha­gavad Gita.

What­ever You Do

A leaf, a flower, a fruit, or even
Water, offered to me in devo­tion
I will accept as the lov­ing gift
Of a ded­i­cated heart. What­ever you do,
Make it an offer­ing to me –
The food you eat or wor­ship you per­form,
The help you give, even your suf­fer­ing.
Thus will you be free from karma’s bondage,
From the results of action, good and bad.

I am the same to all beings. My love
Is the same always. Nev­er­the­less, those
Who med­i­tate on me with devo­tion,
They dwell in me, and I shine forth in them.

Even the worst sin­ner becomes a saint
When he loves me with all his heart. This love
Will soon trans­form his per­son­al­ity
And fill his heart with peace pro­found.
O son of Kunti, this is my promise:
Those who love me, they shall never perish.

Even those who are hand­i­capped by birth
Have reached the supreme goal in life
By tak­ing refuge in me. How much more
The pure brah­mins and royal sages who love me!
Give not your love to this tran­sient world
Of suf­fer­ing, but give all your love to me.
Give me your mind, your heart, all your wor­ship.
Long for me always, live for me always,
And you shall be united with me.

Lis­ten to Easwaran read­ing this pas­sage (Click the Play but­ton on the page to start the audio.)

Thank you for all your emails and com­ments! We’re always very pleased to hear from you, and you’ll see soon that we’re start­ing a new series of posts based on arti­cles from our quar­terly Jour­nal, in which we’ll again be ask­ing you to write in.

Easwaran on Mahatma Gandhi and the Bhagavad Gita

Posted on June 20, 2011 by  | Read Comment | Add Comment

This video excerpt is from a talk where Easwaran com­ments on verses from the eighth and tenth chap­ters of the Bha­gavad Gita, with spe­cial empha­sis on how we can use med­i­ta­tion and the mantram to purify our think­ing process and fit our­selves for the divine vision described by the Gita.

For Easwaran, the expe­ri­ence of divine union is insep­a­ra­ble from inner peace, and in this talk (in its entirety) he gives very prac­ti­cal advice for grad­u­ally estab­lish­ing that peace in our mind and heart.

The more peace­ful we become, the more we are able to per­ceive the unity and beauty of the world around us until, even­tu­ally, the bar­ri­ers fall and we our­selves become instru­ments of God’s love in the world.

In this excerpt, Easwaran talks about what the Bha­gavad Gita meant to Mahatma Gandhi.

The com­plete talk “The Source of Inner Peace” can be found on DVD 20: The Gita’s Divine Vision avail­able here.

Read about other talks here.

Bearing Cheerfully with Life

Posted on June 17, 2011 by  | Add Comment

The fol­low­ing excerpt is from the book Patience, by Eknath Easwaran.

“In India we have many names for the Lord and for the Divine Mother that remind us of his patience, her for­give­ness. One such name is ‘He who bears with us and for­gives us our mistakes.’

“This name encour­ages us, too, to be patient and bear up cheer­fully when life hands us some­thing that we would rather not have to deal with. To judge by our responses to life’s ordi­nary ups and downs, most of us say, ‘Give me only things I like. Don’t give me any­thing I dis­like; give it to Brian instead.’

“Even good peo­ple, when they have been struck down by ill­ness or mis­for­tune, some­times ask, ‘Why did this hap­pen to me?’ This is a most pecu­liar ques­tion. What we should ask is, ‘Why should this hap­pen to any­body?’ Sim­ply ask­ing this ques­tion at a deeper level of aware­ness brings the patience to bear tragedies, releas­ing the insight and com­pas­sion to help oth­ers and to grow ourselves.

“Pleas­ant and unpleas­ant together are the very tex­ture life. Only when we give our best, what­ever comes – good or bad – can we live in freedom.”

Read more from the book Patience

Breakfast with Easwaran: A Tip for One-Pointedness

Posted on June 16, 2011 by  | Add Comment

A lit­tle cre­ativ­ity helps a lot with devel­op­ing spir­i­tual skills. Last week we addressed one-pointedness in the “Prac­tice for Today” post, and here Stephanie offers this tip:

“I found a good way of prac­tic­ing one-pointed atten­tion when I am eat­ing a meal by myself: I brought a framed photo of Sri Easwaran with me to the table. It also helped with remem­ber­ing the mantram before eat­ing, and some sense training....”

Can you think of more tips like this for devel­op­ing one-pointedness? If so, please write in, either via the com­ments box below, or to us at info@easwaran.org, with the title line: Time­less Wis­dom blog: Tips for one-pointedness. We’d love to hear from you!

An Easwaran Story: Dharmaputra and His Dog

Posted on June 15, 2011 by  | Add Comment

We all love sto­ries, and Easwaran was a great sto­ry­teller. We’re start­ing a series of sto­ries that are per­fect to share with chil­dren, but that are also delight­ful for us to read and re-read as adults – so sit back, relax, open your heart, and enjoy!

Dharma­pu­tra and His Dog

There once lived a king called Dharma­pu­tra, who was the soul of virtue and com­pas­sion. When the time came for him to shed his body, he ascended to heaven accom­pa­nied by a dog. When he reached heaven’s gate, the Indian equiv­a­lent of St. Peter looked up his name. “Let’s see… Dharma­pu­tra. Yes, we have orders to let you in. But we don’t have any list­ing for a dog.”

“Won’t you please look again?” asked Dharmaputra?

So St. Peter looked up all the rules and said, “I’m sorry, but there is no pro­vi­sion here for dogs.”

Dharma­pu­tra did not hes­i­tate. “That dog loves me,” he said. “Wher­ever I go, he goes too, so I have got to take him with me.”

St. Peter again con­sid­ered all the rel­e­vant records. “Rules are rules,” he said finally. “Either you come in alone, or you go back.”

Dharma­pu­tra didn’t budge. He said sim­ply, “No dog, no me.”

Then a mir­a­cle took place. Sud­denly, instead of a dog, it was Sri Krishna, the Lord of Love, stand­ing at Dharmaputra’s side. St. Peter opened the gates, and, in my ver­sion of the story, as Dharma­pu­tra entered heaven Sri Krishna leaned over and whis­pered, “That was a close shave, wasn’t it?”

Easwaran adds: “Lit­tle sto­ries like this can remind us to always be com­pas­sion­ate towards our fel­low crea­tures, rec­og­niz­ing that the same Self lives in them as in us. For a spir­i­tual ecol­o­gist, every crea­ture is sacred.”

- From Renewal, by Eknath Easwaran

Do you enjoy these sto­ries as much as we do? Have you got a favorite story from one of Easwaran’s books? Is there a par­tic­u­lar les­son that you’ve learned from one of these sto­ries? If so, do share a com­ment with us or email us at info@easwaran.org, with the title line “Time­less Wis­dom blog: Easwaran sto­ries.” We’d love to hear from you!

Free Introductory Presentation on Passage Meditation in Denver: June 30

Posted on June 14, 2011 by  | Add Comment

We hope you can join us for a free intro­duc­tory pre­sen­ta­tion on pas­sage med­i­ta­tion in the Den­ver area on June 30.

Our pre­sen­ta­tions are led by expe­ri­enced med­i­ta­tors who have been care­fully trained over many years. The com­bi­na­tion of a relaxed, wel­com­ing atmos­phere and stim­u­lat­ing dis­cus­sion draws peo­ple of a wide range of back­grounds. If you decide that you would like to try pas­sage med­i­ta­tion, you will learn about free resources to sup­port you, such as online and in-person intro­duc­tory courses.

There is no need to RSVP — just turn up on the day. All are wel­come; no pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ence is needed. We hope to see you there!

Thurs­day, June 30, 2011, 7:00 – 8:15 p.m.
Uni­ver­sity Park United Methodist Church
2180 S. Uni­ver­sity Blvd.
Den­ver, CO 80210
Osborne Par­lor
(Park­ing lot off of Josephine St. Enter through the doors off the park­ing lot.)

Easwaran on Thomas a Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ: Talk 26

Posted on June 13, 2011 by  | Add Comment

This is the 26th in a long series of talks Eknath Easwaran gave on The Imi­ta­tion of Christ by Thomas a Kem­pis. In this talk Easwaran con­tin­ues to read and dis­cuss Book 2, Chap­ter 9, “Of the Want of All Comfort.”

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


  • 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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