A Practice for Today: Spiritual Reading

Posted on August 31, 2011 by  | Add Comment

“When­ever our con­fi­dence ebbs – for most of us as fre­quently as the ebbing of the sea – we can turn to the words of these men and women of God and renew our hearts, draw fresh breath, and bring back into sight our supreme goal.

“Their tri­als put our obsta­cles into per­spec­tive, and their tri­umphs give us courage. We see just what we can be as human beings: our capac­ity to choose, to change, to endure, to know, to love, to radi­ate spir­i­tual glory. Per­son­ally, I never tire of read­ing these pre­cious doc­u­ments. How blessed it is to be in the holy pres­ence of a St. Teresa or a Sri Ramakrishna!”

- Eknath Easwaran

Spir­i­tual read­ing means draw­ing inspi­ra­tion from writ­ings by and about the world’s great spir­i­tual fig­ures and from the scrip­tures of all reli­gions. Click here for instruc­tions on spir­i­tual reading.

Breaking Chains

Posted on August 29, 2011 by  | Add Comment

In this video excerpt, Easwaran talks about the inner bonds of rigid likes and dis­likes that limit our abil­ity to con­cen­trate, to make pos­i­tive changes, and to feel com­fort­able and secure with our­selves and others.

But in Easwaran’s pre­sen­ta­tion of this topic, the process of free­ing our­selves from these fet­ters is any­thing but grim. The best way to free our­selves from the chains of habit, he says, is to cul­ti­vate the con­fi­dent or even dar­ing approach of an expert jug­gler: “Hey! Watch this! Just see what I can do with what life has given me.”

The com­plete talk, “Break­ing Chains,” can be found on DVD 28: Break­ing Chains.

A Closer Look: At Being (Really) in Love

Posted on August 26, 2011 by  | Read 4 Comments | Add Comment

“In lighter moments,” Easwaran writes, “I have thought I might try my hand at a sequel to Romeo and Juliet. Instead of dying, the two lovers would get mar­ried and set­tle down together – long enough to become the nois­i­est cou­ple in Verona. Once Juliet thrilled to the touch of Romeo’s hand; now the same fin­gers feel clammy. Her lips seemed as unsul­lied as a rose­bud in the morn­ing dew; now he notices they are often in a pout. She was so inno­cent; how is it that she now seems so imma­ture? He used to be so witty; how could she have for­got­ten that she detests puns? And their quar­rels are all ‘Why didn’t I stick with Ros­aline?’ and ‘I wish I’d never gone to that wretched ball!’

“‘Call it not love that changes,’ Juliet says. Very wise for a fourteen-year-old. Self­ish attach­ment, infat­u­a­tion, waxes and wanes; love only grows.

“I have to con­fess that I am not a writer of tragedies. In my sequel, Juliet goes to her nurse and pleads – just as I have heard so many young peo­ple plead – ‘What hap­pened to us? Is he dif­fer­ent now? Am I dif­fer­ent? Have I lost the capac­ity to love?’ and the nurse tells her ten­derly, ‘Not at all...’ When self­ish desire is removed from a rela­tion­ship, there is no han­ker­ing to get any­thing from the other per­son. We are free to give, which means we are free to love. Then we can give and sup­port and strengthen with­out reservation.

“Only then can we really see each other clearly. It is infat­u­a­tion that is blind; love sees. The infat­u­ated mind can­not help car­i­ca­tur­ing. It sees only what it wants; then, when desire passes, it sees only what it does not want. When two peo­ple are really in love, they do see each other’s weak­nesses; but they sup­port each other in over­com­ing those weak­nesses, so that each helps the other to grow.”

- Essence of the Upan­ishads, pages 133 — 134

Isn’t this extract beau­ti­ful? That last sen­tence strikes us as a win­ner for all of us, young and old.

Do write in and tell us if you like this extract, and share any reflec­tions on wise and lov­ing rela­tion­ships. Write in the com­ment box below, or email us at info@easwaran.org, with “Time­less Wis­dom blog: Lov­ing rela­tion­ships” in the sub­ject line.

We’re always very pleased to hear from you!

The Self-Willed TV (and a special offer on Conquest of Mind)

Posted on August 24, 2011 by  | Add Comment

“Imag­ine that you are sit­ting in your liv­ing room, lis­ten­ing to lit­tle Joey tell you about his bas­ket­ball game, when sud­denly the tele­vi­sion switches on. ‘Here,’ it com­mands. ‘Watch me!’ You say, ‘Yes, sir.’ You don’t like the pro­gram, and you don’t really want to look at tele­vi­sion when Joey is try­ing to talk to you. But the TV has caught your atten­tion. The set says, ‘I feel like show­ing this now, so you sit back and watch.’ And while Joey goes on, you look at him occa­sion­ally and say, ‘Uh-huh,’ but you’re not really there; your mind is on the tube.

“Then, abruptly, the set announces, ‘That’s it for now.’ And despite your pleas, it turns itself off.

“Most of us, if we had a set like this, would think we were caught in a science-fiction movie. But this is exactly what the mind does. It puts on any show it likes and that is what we have to think; it switches chan­nels when it likes and we have to accept. ‘I can tell my hand what to do,’ Augus­tine once observed, ‘and it obeys. Why can’t I do the same with my mind?’

“Today, of course, most homes have a remote-control device for the tele­vi­sion set. You lean back in a chair, press a but­ton, and the set goes on. If you don’t like the com­mer­cial telling you what to have for break­fast, you press another but­ton and the sound goes off. If you want to change chan­nels, press a but­ton; if you want to stop the show, just press again – when­ever you choose. So when I go to a friend’s home to watch ten­nis, my host puts the remote con­troller in my hands. I watch Boris Becker play Ivan Lendl, and the moment a com­mer­cial cuts in or the com­men­ta­tors start talk­ing about how much money is at stake, I turn off the sound and rest my eyes. This is using the tele­vi­sion in free­dom, and it is the way to use the mind in free­dom too.”

This extract is from Con­quest of Mind by Eknath Easwaran, and here’s the spe­cial web offer: if you buy a copy of this book from our web site you can also down­load one of Easwaran’s MP3 talks, Five Obsta­cles to Med­i­ta­tion, for free. We paired this par­tic­u­lar talk with the book because both draw on the Buddha’s teach­ings, and both are as enter­tain­ing as they are instructive.

Have you any thoughts to share on using the mind and the TV in free­dom? Or on Easwaran’s Con­quest of Mind? If so, please write to us in the com­ment box below, or email us at info@easwaran.org, with the sub­ject line: Time­less Wis­dom blog. We’d be very pleased to hear from you.

Easwaran on Thomas a Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ: Talk 31

Posted on August 22, 2011 by  | Add Comment

This is the 31st 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 3, Chap­ter 1, “Christ Speak­ing Inwardly to the Faith­ful Soul.”

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 Closer Look: Giving Helpful Criticism

Posted on August 19, 2011 by  | Add Comment

We know from Easwaran’s sto­ries that he’s faced many of the dilem­mas that keep us awake at night. One such dilemma can be the need to give crit­i­cism, at work or home. Here’s Easwaran’s advice.

“It is the men­tal atti­tude – the tone, the respect, the gen­uine con­cern – with which we put for­ward ideas opposed to oth­ers’ that makes the con­tri­bu­tion effec­tive. I would sug­gest that when­ever you feel you have to make a sug­ges­tion opposed to some­one else’s, take time to get detached from the sit­u­a­tion by repeat­ing the mantram silently. Then, when your mind is calm, offer your sug­ges­tions in a friendly, warm­hearted man­ner with gen­uine respect. This takes prac­tice, but you will find that it works. It is effective.

“Most per­sonal dis­agree­ments, I would say, arise from the unwill­ing­ness to see the other person’s point of view. It is not that we have to accept it, but under no cir­cum­stances should we refuse to acknowl­edge that the other per­son has a point of view – one that deserves to be lis­tened to with respect and eval­u­ated with detachment.

“Most of us acknowl­edge this in prin­ci­ple, but in prac­tice it is too rare. It took years of retrain­ing my mind to learn to lis­ten with respect to opin­ions utterly opposed to mine, weigh them objec­tively, and either retain my own opin­ion or revise or throw it out accord­ing to what I learned.

“When we are able to do this – to be com­pletely loyal to our own ideals while respect­ing the integrity of those who dif­fer from us – often they begin to respond. What mat­ters is the friend­li­ness we show, the com­plete absence of any sense of superiority.”

- Strength in the Storm, pages 123 – 125

As Easwaran says, these are skills that need a lot of prac­tice. We appre­ci­ated the tip about repeat­ing the mantram to calm our minds down before say­ing anything. There’s more on this topic in chap­ter five of Strength in the Storm.

How about you? If you have any thoughts about this extract, please write in the com­ment box below, or con­tact us at info@easwaran.org with “Time­less Wis­dom blog: Giv­ing crit­i­cism” in the sub­ject line.

All com­ments are welcome!

A Practice for Today: Training the Senses

Posted on August 18, 2011 by  | Add Comment

“Choose what you eat by what is good for your body rather than by taste. Sim­i­larly, the mind eats too, through the senses. Choose very care­fully what you read and watch and lis­ten to. Ask your­self whether it ele­vates or low­ers your image of your­self and others.

“Remem­ber that we are what we think. What goes into your mind becomes part of what you are.”

- Eknath Easwaran

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

Finding the Tools to Fight Stress

Posted on August 17, 2011 by  | Read 4 Comments | Add Comment

“I have been too long at the mercy of my own mind,” writes 17 year-old Natasha, who dis­cov­ered Easwaran and med­i­ta­tion at a sat­sang in India. Her mes­sage offers hope for any­one who bat­tles with stress.

“Med­i­ta­tion is an ancient prac­tice because it deals with an ancient struggle: to gain con­trol over the mind. It is a con­cept that I find irre­sistible and com­pelling, because I have been for too long at the mercy of my own mind, of the crea­ture that anx­i­ety can cre­ate within my head. A poi­so­nous beast I can­not soothe, with panic as its venom. And then I dis­cov­ered Eknath Easwaran’s Eight Point pro­gram, begin­ning with pas­sage med­i­ta­tion and rep­e­ti­tion of the mantram.

“As a novice to the prac­tice, I do not have great suc­cesses to boast of, only those rare moments when the words of the Bha­gavad Gita suc­ceeded in eclips­ing the rest of my mind, when I felt a fleet­ing calm more com­plete than any­thing I have known.

“Or else when unrea­son­able ter­ror seized me before a blood test, and only repeat­ing my mantram, Rama, saw me through.

“In this way I have given myself pock­ets of tran­quil­ity, much-needed rest for any mind that wishes to grow strong. In this way I have seen that rhythm itself has the abil­ity to weaken fear.

“And so I believe that an intro­duc­tion to med­i­ta­tion is the most price­less of the gifts India gave me this sum­mer. For while there is noth­ing so ter­ri­fy­ing as to believe that your mind is out of your con­trol, nei­ther is there any­thing so empow­er­ing as to real­ize you can rein it back in again.”

The City of Brahman: Death and the space within the lotus of the heart

Posted on August 15, 2011 by  | Add Comment

This excerpt is from a talk in which Eknath Easwaran explores the infi­nite, immor­tal core of human nature, as it is described in the Chan­do­gya Upan­ishad. In “The City of Brah­man,” the Upan­ishad por­trays our divine core as a small dwelling in a city which we can enter and dwell in through a long process of spir­i­tual growth.

This talk is extra­or­di­nary in its vivid account of the process of self-discovery. It is also one of Easwaran’s most elo­quent state­ments of a famil­iar theme in his teach­ings: the urgent need to find immor­tal­ity before death claims our body.

At the time he gave this talk, Easwaran was nearly eighty years old, and his con­fi­dent, deeply secure tone bears wit­ness that in the depths of con­scious­ness there is a “lit­tle house” which old age and death can­not enter. “When I began to under­stand these words,” he says, “my hair used to stand on end. I wanted it with all my heart, with every desire in my heart.” And his goal here is to rouse a sim­i­lar desire in our hearts.

Through­out the talk, Easwaran uses illus­tra­tions from the exter­nal world to shed light on the invis­i­ble inter­nal world described in the Upan­ishad: Our urge for travel can only be sat­is­fied when we dis­cover “the vast world within”; the attrac­tion we feel for vast land­scapes like the Amer­i­can prairie is meant to draw us toward a vast inner world which is not lim­ited by self-will and sep­a­rate­ness, in which there is infi­nite room for spir­i­tual growth; and the desires we feel for sense expe­ri­ences and pos­ses­sions can find com­plete ful­fill­ment only in meet­ing the Self within, who occu­pies this small house in the City of God.

In the orig­i­nal San­skrit, this por­tion of the Upan­ishad is a dia­logue between a teacher and his stu­dents. Easwaran now dra­ma­tizes that dia­logue through a series of ques­tions and answers: Is every desire ful­filled there? Yes, because all desires have become uni­fied. What hap­pens when the body gets old? Old age can­not enter this city. What hap­pens when the body dies? Death can­not enter this city. The per­son who lives in that city can­not be touched by any change or afflic­tion that may over­take the body.

The com­plete talk, “The City of Brah­man,” can be found on DVD 13: Find­ing Immor­tal­ity Within.

A Closer Look: Seeing Life As It Really Is

Posted on August 12, 2011 by  | Read 4 Comments | Add Comment

This week’s extract is an intrigu­ing invi­ta­tion to see life as it really is.

“Very few of us see life as it really is. Most of us see things only as we are, look­ing at oth­ers through our own likes and dis­likes, prej­u­dices and pre­pos­ses­sions, desires, inter­ests, and fears. It is this sep­a­ratist out­look that frag­ments life for us – per­son against per­son, com­mu­nity against com­mu­nity, nation against nation. In order to see life as it is, one undi­vided whole, we have to shed all attach­ment to per­sonal profit, power, plea­sure, or pres­tige. Oth­er­wise we can­not help look­ing at life through our indi­vid­ual con­di­tion­ing, and we will see the world not as it is, but con­di­tioned by our desires.

“Through many years of such con­di­tion­ing, try­ing again and again to sat­isfy the desire for per­sonal sat­is­fac­tion, we have come to believe that this is our real per­son­al­ity. In real­ity it is a mask which we have merely for­got­ten to take off. Beneath the mask is all the glory of our real self: com­plete fear­less­ness, uncon­di­tioned love, and abid­ing joy.

“When Gandhi suc­ceeded in tak­ing off this mask and ‘mak­ing him­self zero’ through many years of liv­ing for oth­ers rather than for him­self, he found that what he had elim­i­nated from his per­son­al­ity was only his sep­a­rate­ness, his self­ish­ness, his fear. What remained was the love and fear­less­ness that had been hid­den there all the time.”

- Gandhi the Man, pages 136 — 137

Did you enjoy this extract? We found it very inspir­ing — what struck you about this post?

Do con­tact us with your thoughts, either via the com­ment box or by email­ing us at info@easwaran.org with the sub­ject line “Time­less Wis­dom blog: See­ing Life As It Really Is.”

We’d love to hear from you!


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