The City of Brahman

Posted on February 13, 2012 by  | Read 2 Comments | Add Comment

This excerpt is from a talk given by Eknath Easwaran where he 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 for 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 80 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.

The com­plete talk, DVD 13: Find­ing Immor­tal­ity Within is avail­able here.

Read about other talks here.

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“Any new videos?” Another chance to see how Easwaran turned to meditation

Posted on January 20, 2012 by  | Add Comment

Our friend Christy was ask­ing us over break­fast in the retreat house if the BMCM has pro­duced any new videos of Easwaran. We asked her if she’d seen the short video from Novem­ber fea­tured on our web­site – the one in which Easwaran describes very mov­ingly how he turned to med­i­ta­tion. Christy had been trav­el­ing, so she’d missed it. She sug­gested we should pub­lish another post about it: “It’s a great start to the year, in any case.” We agreed, so here it is again:

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The Thousand Names of God

Posted on January 16, 2012 by  | Add Comment

This excerpt is drawn from a series of talks that Easwaran gave on the Thou­sand Names, an Indian devo­tional text which lists one thou­sand names for God. Over the course of sev­eral years he com­mented on every one of those names, reveal­ing their prac­ti­cal impli­ca­tions for daily living.

He returned often to the theme of the repeat­ing a mantram, or name of God, silently in the mind through­out the day as a way to keep the mind peace­ful and secure, even dur­ing dif­fi­cult periods.

The first col­lec­tion of excerpts, enti­tled “The Thou­sand Names of God,” starts by iden­ti­fy­ing the cause of much anger: inflated self-will. It goes on to offer var­i­ous means to rise above angry behav­ior, all of which draw upon the spir­i­tual power released by med­i­ta­tion and the use of the mantram.

The com­plete talk, DVD 12: Using the Mantram to Trans­form Anger is avail­able here.

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The Face Behind All Faces

Posted on December 19, 2011 by  | Add Comment

This excerpt is from a talk given by Eknath Easwaran in April, 1987, on the evening before Vishu, a South Indian spring fes­ti­val. The tra­di­tional cer­e­mony to cel­e­brate Vishu, which is focused on an altar dec­o­rated with a holy image and a small mir­ror adorned with Spring flow­ers, pro­vides Easwaran with his theme: learn­ing to see the divine in our­selves and oth­ers – what the mys­tics call the Face behind all faces.

Accord­ing to Easwaran, when we gain this vision of the Self we achieve the pur­pose of life. We see the divine “In all of us, in our home, in our school, in our clinic, in our com­mu­nity, in our coun­try and our world. This is not just a prophetic vision. It’s a prac­ti­cal real­iza­tion, attested to by all the great mys­tics of all the great religions.”

The com­plete talk, DVD 8: What Is Life For? is avail­able here.

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The Noblest Life

Posted on December 5, 2011 by  | Add Comment

This excerpt is from a talk by Eknath Easwaran on the story of the Com­pas­sion­ate Buddha.

Easwaran begins by pre­sent­ing the Indian con­cept of divine incar­na­tion, as given in the Bha­gavad Gita, where the Lord says, “When­ever dharma declines and the pur­pose of life is for­got­ten, I man­i­fest myself on earth.” (4:7) Against this back­ground, Easwaran sees the Buddha’s life as a man­i­fes­ta­tion of divine com­pas­sion, in response to the world’s spir­i­tual need.

At other points in his­tory, that divine response has come in the form of “very ordi­nary” peo­ple who trans­form them­selves through spir­i­tual dis­ci­plines. Mahatma Gandhi is a supreme exam­ple, but Easwaran also sees his own life and the his­tory of the Blue Moun­tain Cen­ter as proof that ordi­nary peo­ple can become “hum­ble instru­ments in the hands of the Lord.”

Easwaran nar­rates the story of the Bud­dha not as an ancient tale, “but as a truth that can be ver­i­fied by any­body in any coun­try, in any reli­gion, who has the deter­mi­na­tion, the dar­ing, the sus­tained enthu­si­asm,” to fol­low spir­i­tual dis­ci­plines and become a self­less instru­ment of peace.

The com­plete talk, DVD 9: The Noblest Life is avail­able here.

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A Great Teacher Remembered: Second video clip on Easwaran’s enthusiasm for meditation

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

In the sec­ond of our two video clips drawn from pre­vi­ously unpub­lished archive mate­r­ial, Easwaran shares sto­ries of his early expe­ri­ences on the spir­i­tual path and describes the role of divine grace in uni­fy­ing his desire for the supreme goal. “Even before I took to med­i­ta­tion,” he says, “I had the capac­ity for flam­ing enthusiasm...the more obsta­cles you put in my way, the more enthu­si­as­tic I will become....”

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A Great Teacher Remembered: New video clip on how Easwaran turned to meditation

Posted on November 25, 2011 by  | Read 2 Comments | Add Comment

For our obser­vance of Easwaran’s Memo­r­ial this year at Ram­a­giri Ashram we pre­pared two short video clips, both from pre­vi­ously unpub­lished mate­r­ial. We’ll share one today and the other tomorrow.

In this first clip, Easwaran tells the mov­ing story of how, at a time of cri­sis, he turned inwards and started med­i­tat­ing. “I put the Gita by my side. And to con­sole myself, I closed my eyes and started repeat­ing these verses. I don’t know how long I must have sat there.... Once I got this inner win­dow to my con­scious­ness, I began to find time for med­i­ta­tion and grad­u­ally I made it reg­u­lar in the morn­ing, in the evening...”

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Swimming Against the Current

Posted on November 7, 2011 by  | Add Comment

In this talk given dur­ing Autumn 1985, Eknath Easwaran draws on the teach­ings of the Bud­dha to present the art of “swim­ming against the cur­rent,” or learn­ing to make choices inde­pen­dent of our per­sonal con­di­tion­ing or the rigid, self­ish, or unthink­ing pat­terns in the world around us.

In this excerpt, Easwaran com­ments on putting oth­ers first, a con­cept which is, as he says, not a nat­ural one at all. But through it he dis­cov­ered that “when I try to make all of you happy I become supremely happy.”

In liv­ing for oth­ers we finally for­get our­selves. “That is how hap­pi­ness comes. Nir­vana is when you have for­got­ten your­self all the time. That state in which you never think about your­self, in which you are always think­ing about all those around you, that is the state of high­est happiness.”

The com­plete talk, DVD 10: Encour­age­ment from the Bud­dha is avail­able here.

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That Thou Art: The Perennial Philosophy

Posted on October 24, 2011 by  | Add Comment

In this talk, Easwaran lays out the fun­da­men­tal posi­tions of what Aldous Hux­ley called the Peren­nial Phi­los­o­phy, a set of cen­tral truths that under­lie all reli­gions. Easwaran presents the prac­tice of spir­i­tual dis­ci­plines as our means to real­ize these truths, thereby enabling us to act on them effec­tively in daily life.

In this excerpt, Easwaran quotes one of the so-called “great state­ments” of ancient India, or mahavakyas as they are called in San­skrit: tat tvam asi. Tat means “That” – the Supreme Real­ity, or God. The sec­ond word, tvam, means “you.” And asi means “you are.” So this mahavakya means “That is what you are,” or “You are That.”

The com­plete talk, DVD 14: Learn­ing to Live in Unity is avail­able here.

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The Fruits of Meditation

Posted on October 10, 2011 by  | Add Comment

In this talk from 1987, Easwaran com­ments on lines by the medieval Ger­man mys­tic and poet, Mechthild of Magdeburg.

In this short excerpt, Easwaran com­pares Mechthild to Mahatma Gandhi. Both Mechthild and Gandhi dis­played immense vital­ity as well as pro­duc­tiv­ity in a self­less cause, because in med­i­ta­tion they drew from an end­less reser­voir of love, devo­tion, and resourcefulness.

The com­plete talk, DVD 16: Chris­t­ian Mys­tics East and West is avail­able here.


  • 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.

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