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!

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 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!

A Closer Look: Transforming Anger

Posted on August 5, 2011 by  | Add Comment

It’s so easy to be short-tempered occa­sion­ally, par­tic­u­larly with those we live with – and then we regret it. Anger man­age­ment is a pop­u­lar topic in many self-help books, but for Easwaran, anger trans­for­ma­tion is the way for­ward. He sees anger as a source of power to be har­nessed through spir­i­tual dis­ci­plines, and he gives his typ­i­cally prac­ti­cal instruc­tion for how to do so.

“When­ever I talk about using the mantram to trans­form fear and anger, peo­ple nod approv­ingly as long as I am talk­ing about fear. After all, no one wants to be fear­ful; no one wants to worry. But the nods of approval often stop when I ask peo­ple to repeat the mantram in moments of anger. ‘You’re not ask­ing us to repress anger?’ they ask. ‘Isn’t it bet­ter to express anger than to repress it?’ This is a legit­i­mate ques­tion, but it is based on the assump­tion that we have only two choices where anger is con­cerned: expres­sion or repres­sion. Either way, anger even­tu­ally works against us, under­min­ing our rela­tion­ships, our secu­rity, and even our health. But there is a third alter­na­tive: we can trans­form anger, through the rep­e­ti­tion of the mantram. Anger is power, and the mantram can trans­form this neg­a­tive power into its pos­i­tive coun­ter­part, which is compassion.”

“. . . This is how we can become slow to anger and quick to for­give. Do not wait until you have devel­oped a full-blown rage, when judg­ment is clouded and the mind is heav­ing up and down; it will be very dif­fi­cult to hang on to the mantram then, or even to remem­ber it. Try to remem­ber the mantram as soon as you feel anger begin­ning to rise, when the first storm warn­ings are out. If pos­si­ble, go out for a fast walk repeat­ing the mantram. I need hardly add here that you are much more likely to remem­ber the mantram at times like this if you have been using it reg­u­larly through­out your day.”

- Eknath Easwaran, The Mantram Hand­book, pages 115 and 119

What strikes you in these sen­tences? Although we’ve read this book sev­eral times, we’re still struck — and inspired — by the very idea that we can use the mantram to trans­form the neg­a­tive power in anger into the pos­i­tive power of compassion.

* If you’d like to share a phrase or sen­tence that struck you from these excerpts,
* Or, if you exper­i­ment with apply­ing Easwaran’s teach­ings in your own life and would like to tell us about it,

please write to us in the com­ment box or email us at info@easwaran.org with the sub­ject line “Time­less Wis­dom blog: Trans­form­ing Anger.”

Do write in – we’d love to hear from you, and your com­ments will help us all to put the mantram to work!

A Closer Look: Death and not delaying spiritual life

Posted on July 29, 2011 by  | Read 4 Comments | Add Comment

Death may seem an odd choice for this week’s closer look, but for Easwaran it is a great moti­va­tor for the spir­i­tual life. He tack­les the sub­ject directly in this dra­matic story:

“I once read a story about a man who kept putting off tak­ing to the spir­i­tual life in order to have just one more fling, to make one more deal. Time after time he told him­self that next week, or next month, or next year, he would change his life. Then one night he had a dream: he dreamed that he was dying. There was no chance now to change his direc­tion; time had run out on him, and all his plans for mak­ing a new start in life could never be ful­filled. It was a ter­ri­fy­ing expe­ri­ence, and as he strug­gled to wake up, he vowed pas­sion­ately not to post­pone the prac­tice of med­i­ta­tion a sin­gle morn­ing more. But it was too late. When he tried to sit up, he found it was no dream; he was on his deathbed.

“It is a sober­ing story, but most of us have a ten­dency to post­pone in just this way. Once we have fin­ished paint­ing the kitchen, we say, once we have fin­ished our term paper, once we have paid off our loan, then we will have time to devote our­selves whole­heart­edly to trans­form­ing our lives. But when the kitchen has been painted and the term paper has been turned in, there will still be let­ters to write, check­books to bal­ance, garages to clean, places and peo­ple to see. So the Bud­dhist mys­tic Milarepa advises, ‘The affairs of busi­ness will drag on for­ever; do not delay the prac­tice of meditation.’”

A good, if stark reminder – very help­ful for one of our blog team, who’s been so caught up with fam­ily duties over the last week that she’s been going to bed late and falling asleep in morn­ing meditation. She’s resolved to drop some of the less impor­tant chores and go to bed on time!

How about you?

* If you’d like to share a phrase or sen­tence that struck you from these excerpts,
* Or, if you exper­i­ment with apply­ing Easwaran’s teach­ings in your own life and would like to tell us about it,

please write to us in the com­ment box or email us at info@easwaran.org with the sub­ject line “Time­less Wis­dom blog: Not delay­ing the spir­i­tual life.”

If you want to read more, this extract comes from an arti­cle in the Sum­mer 2011 edi­tion of our free quar­terly Blue Moun­tain journal.

Do write in – we’d love to hear from you, and your com­ments will help us all to put our pri­or­i­ties where they matter!

A Closer Look: Shopping, sales, and a test of love

Posted on July 22, 2011 by  | Read 2 Comments | Add Comment

There’s some­thing about sales – of clothes, tech­nol­ogy, or what­ever – that makes them hard to resist, at least for some of us. Easwaran was in favor of a rea­son­able level of com­fort in life, but he urged dis­crim­i­na­tion. Here he takes a pen­e­trat­ing look at the pit­falls of shop­ping, and he offers us a gen­tly humor­ous chal­lenge as well:

“In today’s con­sumer world, a lot of power is wasted in pro­duc­ing items which are nei­ther nec­es­sary nor ben­e­fi­cial. But buy­ing less and own­ing less con­serves per­sonal energy as well. Shop­ping for things we do not need, for exam­ple, wastes a lot of vital­ity, even if it is only win­dow shop­ping; energy flows out with every lit­tle desire. It is a sur­pris­ing con­nec­tion, but an extrav­a­gant shop­per will find it dif­fi­cult to love. When such a per­son goes shop­ping, he or she scat­ters love like largesse all over the depart­ment store base­ment. We can become bank­rupt in love this way, just as we can in money. So if you want a good, stiff test of your capac­ity to love, go into your favorite store some day – prefer­ably when there is a sale – and see if you can walk straight through, look­ing nei­ther left nor right, and come out unscathed. It may sound impos­si­ble, but it can be done.”

From Love Never Faileth, pages 73 — 74. This excerpt is from a chap­ter on Mother Teresa titled “Hunger for Love.”

The phrase here that struck our blog team was “an extrav­a­gant shop­per will find it hard to love” – as Easwaran says, that’s a sur­pris­ing con­nec­tion. Do you have any reflec­tions that you’d like to share with us? A vari­a­tion on Easwaran’s test of love is to go into a depart­ment store with your shop­ping list and buy only what is on the list – no “bar­gains”! Let us know how it goes if you try it.

Please write in the com­ment box below, or email us at info@easwaran.org with the sub­ject line “A Closer Look: Shopping.”

A Closer Look: How to Be Happy

Posted on July 8, 2011 by  | Read 2 Comments | Add Comment

Here’s the first post in our new series, where we take a closer look at Easwaran’s writ­ings – this time, in three short extracts on how to be happy.

“After cen­turies of civ­i­liza­tion, you would think we would have dis­cov­ered that there is only one way to be com­pletely happy, and that is to for­get our­selves in work­ing for the wel­fare of oth­ers. It’s a per­plex­ing para­dox: so long as we try to make our­selves happy, life places obsta­cles in our path. But the moment we turn away from our­selves to make oth­ers happy, our trou­bles begin to melt away.”

“It is from this kind of giv­ing that joy comes: not from hav­ing a lot of desires that must be sat­is­fied, but from reduc­ing per­sonal desires to free time and energy for help­ing those around us. In the end, the goal of all spir­i­tual seek­ing is to live in this state of self-forgetfulness permanently.”

“Then we don’t have to go look­ing for joy: joy comes look­ing for us.”

– Eknath Easwaran


Plenty of food for thought here, and our blog team high­lighted the sen­tence: “...the moment we turn away from our­selves to make oth­ers happy, our trou­bles begin to melt away.” That’s a point to remem­ber, and to work on.

How about you? If you’d like to

* Share a phrase or sen­tence that struck you from these excerpts,
* Or, if you exper­i­ment with apply­ing one of Easwaran’s state­ments above in your own life and would like to tell us about it,

please write to us in the com­ment box or email us at info@easwaran.org with the title line “Time­less Wis­dom blog: how to be happy.”

If you want to read more, these extracts come from an arti­cle in the Spring 2011 edi­tion of our free quar­terly Blue Moun­tain journal.

Do write in – we’d love to hear from you, and your com­ments will help us all to gain a deeper under­stand­ing of true happiness.

New Series: An Invitation to Take a Closer Look

Posted on July 6, 2011 by  | Add Comment

When we’re busy and a bit tired, we like to take just a few lines from Easwaran’s writ­ings, slow down, and read them care­fully, let­ting the mes­sage come through. It’s both nour­ish­ing and relaxing.

In a new series of posts – start­ing soon – we will take a short extract from Easwaran and really focus on it, per­haps not­ing a sen­tence that we really want to remem­ber. The new series is called a “A Closer Look” and we’ll take a range of sub­jects, start­ing, as you’ll see, with the secret of happiness.

We saw from our “Favorite Pas­sage” series that many of you enjoyed read­ing the com­ments and sug­ges­tions that other read­ers con­tributed, and said how it helped you to appre­ci­ate the pas­sages more fully.

So, we’re hop­ing that you’ll also enjoy con­tribut­ing to our “closer look” series. And if you have any sug­ges­tions for top­ics, please send them in, either via the com­ments box of by email to info@easwaran.org with the sub­ject line “Time­less Wis­dom blog: Top­ics for a closer look.” We’d be very pleased to hear from you!


  • 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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