Silence: A Passage for Facing Difficult Situations

Posted on October 27, 2011 by  | Add Comment

A friend in the med­ical pro­fes­sion told us recently that when she has to face a very dis­tress­ing sit­u­a­tion at work she chooses a pas­sage from God Makes the Rivers to Flow – Easwaran’s anthol­ogy of sacred texts from the world’s tra­di­tions. She then copies that pas­sage out to calm her mind, so that she can find her own deeper resources of strength and com­pas­sion, and be in a bet­ter state to help her patient.

This is a pas­sage she chose recently:

Silence

I weave a silence onto my lips.
I weave a silence into my mind.
I weave a silence within my heart.
I close my ears to dis­trac­tions.
I close my eyes to attrac­tions.
I close my heart to temptations.

Calm me, O Lord, as you stilled the storm.
Still me, O Lord, keep me from harm.
Let all tumult within me cease.
Enfold me, Lord, in your peace.

- God Makes the Rivers to Flow, page 150

Is there a pas­sage from God Makes the Rivers to Flow, or from Easwaran’s other anthol­ogy, Time­less Wis­dom, that you use when you need to calm your mind? If so do con­tact us via the com­ments box or by email at info@easwaran.org, with “Time­less Wis­dom blog: Pas­sages to calm the mind” in the sub­ject line. We’re always very pleased to hear from you!

Holding to the Constant: A Taoist Passage for Meditation

Posted on October 14, 2011 by  | Read 2 Comments | Add Comment

In a pre­vi­ous post a young friend men­tioned a pas­sage by Lao Tzu that she was using for med­i­ta­tion. It’s on page 34 of God Makes the Rivers to Flow, and here:

Hold­ing to the Constant

Break into the peace within,
Hold atten­tion in still­ness,
And in the world out­side
You will ably mas­ter the ten thou­sand things.

All things rise and flour­ish
Then go back to their roots.
See­ing this return brings true rest,
Where you dis­cover who you really are.
Know­ing who you are, you will find the con­stant.
Those who lack har­mony with the con­stant court dan­ger,
But those who have it gain new vision.

They act with com­pas­sion;
within them­selves, they can find room for every­thing.
Hav­ing room, they rule them­selves and lead oth­ers wisely.
Being wise, they live in accor­dance
with the nature of things.
Emp­tied of self, and at one with nature,
They become one with the Tao.
The Tao endures for­ever.
For those who have attained har­mony with the Tao
will never lose it,
Even if their bod­ies die.

And here’s a note about Lao Tzu:

Lao Tzu (“Mas­ter Lao,” c. 604 — 531 B.C.E.), a leg­endary sage of ancient China, is con­sid­ered the founder of Tao­ism. The leg­ends relate that he worked as an archivist in the royal court until he decided to with­draw com­pletely from worldly activ­i­ties. As he was leav­ing the king­dom for­ever, a gate­keeper begged him to record his teach­ings for pos­ter­ity. He sat down and quickly wrote out a series of poetic state­ments about how to live in har­mony with the nat­ural order of the uni­verse — verses that have been trea­sured for twenty-five hun­dred years as the Tao Te Ching. “Hold­ing to the Con­stant” is one of the trans­la­tions writ­ten for this book by Stephen H. Rup­penthal and included in his Path of Direct Awak­en­ing: Pas­sages for Med­i­ta­tion (Berke­ley Hills, 2003).

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.

My Favorite Passage: “Silence” for calming myself, and weaving my mantram into my life

Posted on June 10, 2011 by  | Add Comment

It’s high time for another favorite pas­sage, and Anna wrote in to nom­i­nate a Gaelic prayer, “Silence.” She writes:

“This prayer speaks to me in so many ways of calm­ing myself inter­nally as well as in my rela­tion­ships with other peo­ple. I seem to rein­ter­pret new mean­ings in this sim­ple prayer every time I recite it. It seems to speak to me of weav­ing my mantram into my life in all areas and oppor­tu­ni­ties to think and act.”

Silence
I weave a silence onto my lips.
I weave a silence into my mind.
I weave a silence within my heart.
I close my ears to dis­trac­tions.
I close my eyes to attrac­tions.
I close my eyes to temptations.

Calm me, O Lord, as you stilled the storm.
Still me, O Lord, keep me from harm.
Let all tumult within me cease.
Enfold me, Lord, in your peace.

Thank you, Anna. This prayer is from the Celtic Chris­t­ian tra­di­tion, active from the ear­li­est cen­turies after Christ in Ire­land, Scot­land, Wales, Britain and Brit­tany, and it’s taken from the Ortha nan Gaid­heal, Alexan­der Carmichael’s nineteenth-century col­lec­tion of Scot­tish oral literature.

If you’ve read the back­ground notes in God Makes the Rivers to Flow, you may also have seen another lit­tle gem — a morn­ing bless­ing from the same collection:

O God, who brought me from the rest of last night
Unto the joy­ous light of this day,
Bring me from the new light of this day
Unto the guid­ing light of eternity.

We’re prob­a­bly com­ing to the end of this series for now, but if you still have a favorite pas­sage that you’d like us to include, do please write in – here’s how:

  1. Please choose a pas­sage from one of Easwaran’s antholo­gies – either God Makes the Rivers to Flow, or Time­less Wis­dom. If you don’t own these books, you can find many pas­sages on our web site. (We rec­og­nize and respect the great inspi­ra­tion from other spir­i­tual writ­ers, but for this blog we are request­ing that you select a pas­sage that has been explic­itly cho­sen by Easwaran, as the mis­sion of the www.easwaran.org web site is to pub­lish Easwaran’s works.
  2. Tell us why you par­tic­u­larly like this pas­sage, and let us know if there’s a par­tic­u­lar line, or stanza in a long pas­sage, that appeals to you. You can give us your rea­son in just one sen­tence, or write more if you like.
  3. Con­tact us with your pas­sage choice in one of two ways. You can write a com­ment below this post, or below any of the “favorite pas­sage” posts, with the title of your pas­sage and a brief rea­son for your choice. We’ll then repro­duce your com­ment, with the com­plete pas­sage in a sub­se­quent post.

Or, if you’d like to write more about your choice, email us at info@easwaran.org, with the address line: Time­less Wis­dom blog – my favorite passage.

Either way we’ll be delighted to hear from you, and we’ll get back to you.

My Favorite Passage: “Unshakable Faith” to ground me in the moment

Posted on May 25, 2011 by  | Add Comment

Do you find your­self trou­bled by wor­ries or regrets? If so, you might like to see the pas­sage that Can­dace uses to keep her­self firmly in the present.

“My favorite pas­sage of late has been ‘Unshak­able Faith.’ I often use the line ‘Let noth­ing of the past or the future dis­turb you.’ This line really squelches those between-the-ears trips to the wor­ri­some future or regret­ful past and grounds me in the moment. For me it is a very pow­er­ful and use­ful direc­tion or statement.”

Here’s the pas­sage, by Swami Ram­das, a mys­tic whom Easwaran and Chris­tine vis­ited when they were in India:

Unshak­able Faith
Unshak­able faith in God and His will:
Noth­ing short of this.
Take thor­ough refuge in Him.
Give up all fears,
All anx­i­eties, all doubts,
All thoughts of weak­ness.
You have put your­self under the guid­ance and con­trol
Of an all-powerful being.
Let Him do what he pleases with you.
Give up I and mine. Make no plans.
Let noth­ing of the past or future dis­turb you.
God is the sole doer and you are His child, His ser­vant.
Your I and mine has no exis­tence. It is all he, He alone.
Sub­mit, resign, sur­ren­der your­self to Him.
Be always cheer­ful, peace­ful, and bliss­ful. In this state
You will always remain. This is your goal.
God is always in you and you always in Him.
He and you are one. This is the truth.

- Swami Ram­das

Swami Ram­das (1884 – 1963) was born in Ker­ala, South India, and led an ordi­nary life as a house­holder and tex­tile tech­ni­cian until, plagued by episodes of doubt and idle­ness, he was ini­ti­ated by his father into the use of a mantram – the rep­e­ti­tion with deep devo­tion of the name of God, whom he called Rama. The prac­tice trans­formed his life: he became a pil­grim, accept­ing joy­fully and with no lit­tle humor what­ever befell him. This pas­sage is from Poems, by Swami Ram­das (Anan­dashram, India, 1984).

Thanks, Can­dace, and if you’d like to com­ment on her choice, or if you have your own favorite pas­sage that you’d like us to include in this series on the Time­less Wis­dom blog, here’s how:

  1. Please choose a pas­sage from one of Easwaran’s antholo­gies – either God Makes the Rivers to Flow, or Time­less Wis­dom. If you don’t own these books, you can find many pas­sages on our web site. (We rec­og­nize and respect the great inspi­ra­tion from other spir­i­tual writ­ers, but for this blog we are request­ing that you select a pas­sage that has been explic­itly cho­sen by Easwaran, as the mis­sion of the www.easwaran.org web site is to pub­lish Easwaran’s works.)
  2. Tell us why you par­tic­u­larly like this pas­sage, and let us know if there’s a par­tic­u­lar line, or stanza in a long pas­sage, that appeals to you. You can give us your rea­son in just one sen­tence, or write more if you like.
  3. Con­tact us with your pas­sage choice in one of two ways. You can write a com­ment below this post, or below any of the “favorite pas­sage” posts, with the title of your pas­sage and a brief rea­son for your choice. We’ll then repro­duce your com­ment, with the com­plete pas­sage in a sub­se­quent post.

Or, if you’d like to write more about your choice, email us at info@easwaran.org.

Either way we’ll be delighted to hear from you, and we’ll get back to you.

My Favorite Passage: “Living on Love” by a saint as strong as she was sweet

Posted on May 19, 2011 by  | Read 2 Comments | Add Comment

Joe wrote: “My favorite pas­sage is “Liv­ing on Love” by Therese of Lisieux. The pas­sage appeals to me mainly out of my respect for Therese. Some peo­ple think she’s too sweet. I had one per­son tell me that she was so sweet he had to brush his teeth after read­ing her auto­bi­og­ra­phy! But he missed the truth, which is that she’s one of the tough­est peo­ple you’ll ever meet. There’s lots of proof of this in her “Last Con­ver­sa­tions” book. I love the com­bi­na­tion of her sweet­ness with her iron will and determination.

“A line from the pas­sage that appeals to me is ‘Liv­ing on love is giv­ing with­out limit, with­out claim­ing any wages here below. I give with­out count­ing, truly sure that when one loves, one does not keep count.’

“As a 40-year-old father of two, I’m in a phase in my life that requires a lot of work. This line helps me give a work effort more gen­er­ously and to do it while com­plain­ing less.”

Here is an extract from “Liv­ing on Love” that includes Joe’s favorite line:

Liv­ing on Love
On the evening of love, speak­ing with­out para­ble,
Jesus said: “If any­one wishes to love me
All his life, let him keep my Word.
My Father and I will come to visit him
And we will make his heart our dwelling.
Com­ing to him, we shall love him always.
We want him to remain, filled with peace,
In our love...“
...
Liv­ing on Love is giv­ing with­out limit
With­out claim­ing any wages here below.
Ah! I give with­out count­ing, truly sure
That when one loves, one does not keep count!...
Over­flow­ing with ten­der­ness, I have given every­thing,
To his Divine Heart...lightly I run.
I have noth­ing left but my only wealth:
Liv­ing on Love.

- Saint Thérèse of Lisieux

Here’s a lit­tle more about Saint Thérèse, from the notes on pages 319 – 320 of Easwaran’s God Makes the Rivers to Flow:

“Thérèse Mar­tin (1873 – 1897) was born into a pro­foundly devout Catholic fam­ily in which all five daugh­ters entered reli­gious life. She was admit­ted to a Carmelite con­vent in her home­town of Lisieux when she was fif­teen and lived an utterly hid­den exis­tence there until her death at age twenty-four. These scant bio­graph­i­cal details con­ceal an inner spir­i­tual jour­ney – nar­rated in her slen­der auto­bi­og­ra­phy, The Story of a Soul – that places her among the great mys­ti­cal pio­neers in any era....

“Her last months were marked by the debil­i­tat­ing pain of tuber­cu­lo­sis and an inte­rior trial of faith that con­tin­ued till the end. All this she offered to Jesus as an act of love which asked for noth­ing but the capac­ity to keep on lov­ing. ‘Liv­ing on Love,’ writ­ten when she had just received the first indi­ca­tions of her impend­ing death and had been asked to begin work on her auto­bi­og­ra­phy, con­veys the full ardor of her soul. This pas­sage is from The Poetry of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, trans­lated by Don­ald Kinney...”

Thank you, Joe!

If you have a favorite pas­sage that you’d like us to include in this series on the Time­less Wis­dom blog, here’s how:

  1. Please choose a pas­sage from one of Easwaran’s antholo­gies – either God Makes the Rivers to Flow, or Time­less Wis­dom. If you don’t own these books, you can find many pas­sages on our web site. (We rec­og­nize and respect the great inspi­ra­tion from other spir­i­tual writ­ers, but for this blog we are request­ing that you select a pas­sage that has been explic­itly cho­sen by Easwaran, as the mis­sion of the www.easwaran.org web site is to pub­lish Easwaran’s works.
  2. Tell us why you par­tic­u­larly like this pas­sage, and let us know if there’s a par­tic­u­lar line, or stanza in a long pas­sage, that appeals to you. You can give us your rea­son in just one sen­tence, or write more if you like.
  3. Con­tact us with your pas­sage choice in one of two ways. You can write a com­ment below this post, or below any of the “favorite pas­sage” posts, with the title of your pas­sage and a brief rea­son for your choice. We’ll then repro­duce your com­ment, with the com­plete pas­sage in a sub­se­quent post.

Or, if you’d like to write more about your choice, email us at info@easwaran.org, with the address line: Time­less Wis­dom blog – my favorite passage.

Either way we’ll be delighted to hear from you, and we’ll get back to you.

We’ll be pub­lish­ing another favorite pas­sage story soon.

My Favorite Passage: “Let Nothing Upset You” and comments from three Easwaran readers

Posted on May 13, 2011 by  | Add Comment

Teresa of Avila’s lit­tle “book­mark prayer,” found in her bre­viary after her death, is clearly a favorite of many of Easwaran’s readers.

Roy, from Aus­tralia, wrote: “Know­ing that our daily lives are filled with prob­lems that are ephemeral and that there is a whole dimen­sion of God that is our refuge, that is avail­able to us through med­i­ta­tion, is so comforting.

“In the sphere of ‘this too shall pass’ or ‘even bad times will end’ it is dif­fi­cult to not get some peace and hope from these lines dur­ing dif­fi­cult times.”

Let Noth­ing Upset You

Let noth­ing upset you;
Let noth­ing frighten you.
Every­thing is chang­ing;
God alone is change­less.
Patience attains the goal.
Who has God lacks noth­ing;
God alone fills every need.

- Saint Teresa of Avila

Colleen com­mented that she finds this pas­sage to be very pow­er­ful, espe­cially the line: “Who has God lacks nothing.”

And Sylvia, who at age 99 is pos­si­bly our most senior Easwaran reader, says that when she can’t sleep she recites this prayer to her­self, and then “wor­ries lessen, fears subside.”

Thank you all for con­tact­ing us!

Here’s a lit­tle more about Saint Teresa:

Teresa de Cepeda y Ahu­mada, born in Avila, Spain, in 1515, is one of the best-loved saints in the Catholic tra­di­tion and a spir­i­tual fig­ure of uni­ver­sal appeal. A viva­cious, tal­ented girl, she entered a Carmelite con­vent at eigh­teen and passed more than twenty years there in doubt and divi­sion before she was able to ded­i­cate her­self com­pletely to God. After that, her life is one of intense prac­ti­cal activ­ity – estab­lish­ing con­vents, teach­ing, writ­ing, trav­el­ing – cen­tered in the deep­est spir­i­tu­al­ity and inner peace. Her three books are clas­sics of world mysticism.

We’ve been hear­ing from some of you that you’re find­ing these selec­tions, and the com­ments that accom­pany them, very help­ful. So please keep writ­ing in!

If you have a favorite pas­sage that you’d like us to include in this series on the Time­less Wis­dom blog, here’s how:

  1. Please choose a pas­sage from one of Easwaran’s antholo­gies – either God Makes the Rivers to Flow, or Time­less Wis­dom. If you don’t own these books, you can find many pas­sages on our web site. (We rec­og­nize and respect the great inspi­ra­tion from other spir­i­tual writ­ers, but for this blog we are request­ing that you select a pas­sage that has been explic­itly cho­sen by Easwaran, as the mis­sion of the www.easwaran.org web site is to pub­lish Easwaran’s works.
  2. Tell us why you par­tic­u­larly like this pas­sage, and let us know if there’s a par­tic­u­lar line, or stanza in a long pas­sage, that appeals to you. You can give us your rea­son in just one sen­tence, or write more if you like.
  3. Con­tact us with your pas­sage choice in one of two ways. You can write a com­ment below this post, or below any of the “favorite pas­sage” posts, with the title of your pas­sage and a brief rea­son for your choice. We’ll then repro­duce your com­ment, with the com­plete pas­sage in a sub­se­quent post.

Or, if you’d like to write more about your choice, email us at info@easwaran.org, with the address line: Time­less Wis­dom blog – my favorite passage.

Either way we’ll be delighted to hear from you, and we’ll get back to you.

My Favorite Passage: “Do Not Look with Fear” for faith and detachment in hard times

Posted on May 10, 2011 by  | Read Comment | Add Comment

Peter wrote in with the fol­low­ing story from a Setu retreat for seniors. His com­ment opens with the page num­ber for this pas­sage in our 2003 and 2010 edi­tions of God Makes the Rivers to Flow.

“Page 207! That’s all that needs to be said among us Setu folks to remind our­selves of the mir­a­cle we know as the pas­sage of St. Fran­cis de Sales, ‘Do Not Look with Fear.’

“In order to gain detach­ment from some of the self-destructive behav­ior our grown chil­dren were going through at the time of a Setu retreat some years ago, many of us decided to take that pas­sage into our daily med­i­ta­tion and really learn how to NOT ‘antic­i­pate what will hap­pen tomorrow.’

“At the fol­low­ing Setu retreat six months later we com­pared notes, and guess what? We had got­ten better...and so had the kids!”

Do Not Look with Fear

Do not look with fear
on the changes and chances of this life;
rather look to them with full faith that as they arise,
God — whose you are — will deliver you out of them.

He has kept you hith­erto.
Do not but hold fast to His dear hand,
and he will lead you safely through all things;
and when you can­not stand, He will bear you in His arms.

Do not antic­i­pate what will hap­pen tomor­row.
The same ever­last­ing Father who cares for you today
will take care of you tomor­row and every day.
Either He will shield you from suf­fer­ing or
He will give you unfail­ing strength to bear it.

Be at peace, then, and put aside all anx­ious thoughts
And imaginations.

- St. Fran­cis de Sales

Thanks, Peter! These pas­sages have such a ring of authen­tic­ity about them – not just spir­i­tu­ally, but per­son­ally, too. Saint Fran­cis de Sales had to over­come prob­lems in his own life, and per­haps that is why this par­tic­u­lar text is such a won­der­ful source of strength in hard times.

Here’s an extract from the notes on this mys­tic at the back of God Makes the Rivers to Flow:

“This French Catholic saint, (1567 – 1622), a Bishop of Geneva, was noted for his ser­mons to ordi­nary peo­ple urg­ing the pur­suit of sanc­tity amid worldly respon­si­bil­i­ties… A period of pro­found despair in his early years – which he over­came through prayer – deep­ened an already com­pas­sion­ate out­look. “Do Not Look with Fear” is a widely pop­u­lar dis­til­la­tion of a chap­ter in his An Intro­duc­tion to the Divine Life.”

We’ve been hear­ing from some of you that you’re find­ing these selec­tions, and the com­ments that accom­pany them, very help­ful. So please keep writ­ing in!

If you have a favorite pas­sage that you’d like us to include in this series on the Time­less Wis­dom blog, here’s how:

  1. Please choose a pas­sage from one of Easwaran’s antholo­gies – either God Makes the Rivers to Flow, or Time­less Wis­dom. If you don’t own these books, you can find many pas­sages on our web site. (We rec­og­nize and respect the great inspi­ra­tion from other spir­i­tual writ­ers, but for this blog we are request­ing that you select a pas­sage that has been explic­itly cho­sen by Easwaran, as the mis­sion of the www.easwaran.org web site is to pub­lish Easwaran’s works.
  2. Tell us why you par­tic­u­larly like this pas­sage, and let us know if there’s a par­tic­u­lar line, or stanza in a long pas­sage, that appeals to you. You can give us your rea­son in just one sen­tence, or write more if you like.
  3. Con­tact us with your pas­sage choice in one of two ways. You can write a com­ment below this post, or below any of the “favorite pas­sage” posts, with the title of your pas­sage and a brief rea­son for your choice. We’ll then repro­duce your com­ment, with the com­plete pas­sage in a sub­se­quent post.

Or, if you’d like to write more about your choice, email us at info@easwaran.org, with the address line: Time­less Wis­dom blog – my favorite passage.

Either way we’ll be delighted to hear from you, and we’ll get back to you.

We’ll pub­lish another favorite pas­sage story on Friday.

My Favorite Passage: The Prayer of St. Francis for Strength, Comfort, and Transformation

Posted on May 6, 2011 by  | Add Comment

Clint chose one of the best-loved pas­sages in God Makes the Rivers to Flow:

“Not only does this prayer pro­vide me with strength, com­fort, and much to work toward. It also speaks to the notion that life, on every level, is made up of neg­a­tive and pos­i­tive energy, and that seek­ing to cre­ate a bal­ance amidst this oppo­si­tion – by way of turn­ing neg­a­tives into pos­i­tives, prob­lems into solu­tions, etc. – is extremely impor­tant and can make all the difference.”

Hear Easwaran read­ing this prayer (click the Play but­ton to start the audio).

The Prayer of Saint Francis

Lord, make me an instru­ment of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, par­don;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is dark­ness, light;
Where there is sad­ness, joy.

O Divine Mas­ter,
Grant that I may not so much seek to be con­soled, as to con­sole,
To be under­stood, as to under­stand,
To be loved, as to love;
For it is in giv­ing that we receive;
It is in par­don­ing that we are par­doned;
It is in dying to self that we are born to eter­nal life.

Attrib­uted to Fran­cis Bernadone, who was born in Assisi, Italy, in 1181 or 1182. Three great Fran­cis­can orders grew around the monks, nuns, and lay dis­ci­ples who responded to his joy­ful exam­ple of uni­ver­sal love and self­less service.

Clint also sent an excerpt from Easwaran’s talk “The Lord Is My Shep­herd” (avail­able in MP3 for­mat) which he feel con­nects nicely to the Prayer of Saint Francis:

“Anger is power, like nuclear power, it can leave radioac­tive waste in con­scious­ness which will last for a long, long time. So if you ask Gandhi, ‘What do we do?’ He says as only he can, ‘You have a great source of power. A tremen­dous source of power for bring­ing in peace where there is a threat of war, for bring­ing in health where there is sick­ness, for bring­ing in energy where there is lethargy, and for bring­ing love where there is lack of it.’”

Many thanks, Clint.

If you have a favorite pas­sage that you’d like us to include in this series on the Time­less Wis­dom blog, here’s how:

  1. Please choose a pas­sage from one of Easwaran’s antholo­gies – either God Makes the Rivers to Flow, or Time­less Wis­dom. If you don’t own these books, you can find many pas­sages on our web site. (We rec­og­nize and respect the great inspi­ra­tion from other spir­i­tual writ­ers, but for this blog we are request­ing that you select a pas­sage that has been explic­itly cho­sen by Easwaran, as the mis­sion of the www.easwaran.org web site is to pub­lish Easwaran’s works.
  2. Tell us why you par­tic­u­larly like this pas­sage, and let us know if there’s a par­tic­u­lar line, or stanza in a long pas­sage, that appeals to you. You can give us your rea­son in just one sen­tence, or write more if you like.
  3. Con­tact us with your pas­sage choice in one of two ways. You can write a com­ment below this post, or below any of the “favorite pas­sage” posts, with the title of your pas­sage and a brief rea­son for your choice. We’ll then repro­duce your com­ment, with the com­plete pas­sage in a sub­se­quent post.

Or, if you’d like to write more about your choice, email us at info@easwaran.org, with the address line: Time­less Wis­dom blog – my favorite passage.

Either way we’ll be delighted to hear from you, and we’ll get back to you.

We’ll be post­ing another favorite pas­sage soon.

My Favorite Passage: Lao Tzu, To Help Me Think Before I Speak

Posted on May 3, 2011 by  | Comments Off

Even the kind­est and most self-controlled of us some­times talk too much. This heart­felt mes­sage from a friend of the Cen­ter will surely res­onate with many readers:

“At lunch with some dear friends recently I got unduly zeal­ous about express­ing my opin­ion on some­thing dear to my heart. I went on and on. Soon I noticed that one of my friends had become unusu­ally quiet. Slowly it dawned on me that, in addi­tion to hog­ging the con­ver­sa­tion, I had been insen­si­tive to her feel­ings. I was heart­sick. I wanted to take those words back, turn time back and try again. As the scene played over and over in my mind I felt more and more foolish.

“Then, grate­fully, I recalled Easwaran’s words that moments like these are ‘grist for the mill.’ I began to pour out the mantram to assuage my grief and get rid of this thought­less part of me. The words of an old favorite pas­sage welled up: ‘Those who speak do not know, those who know do not speak.’ I haven’t used that pas­sage for a while, but plan to use it now, and try to find oth­ers to help me remem­ber to think before I speak, and let some­one else speak first.”

Find­ing Unity
Those who know do not speak;
Those who speak do not know.
Stop up the open­ings,
Close down the doors,
Rub off the sharp edges.
Unravel all con­fu­sion.
Har­mo­nize the light,
Give up con­tention:
This is called find­ing the unity of life.

When love and hatred can­not affect you,
Profit and loss can­not touch you,
Praise and blame can­not ruf­fle you,
You are hon­ored by all the world.

- Lao Tzu

Chap­ter 56 of the Tao Te Ching, a col­lec­tion of verses about Tao – “the Way,” the indi­vis­i­ble unity of life – tra­di­tion­ally ascribed to the great Chi­nese mys­tic Lao Tzu, who lived per­haps in the sixth cen­tury B.C.

If you have a favorite pas­sage that you’d like us to include in this series on the Time­less Wis­dom blog, here’s how:

  1. Please choose a pas­sage from one of Easwaran’s antholo­gies – either God Makes the Rivers to Flow, or Time­less Wis­dom. If you don’t own these books, you can find many pas­sages on our web site. (We rec­og­nize and respect the great inspi­ra­tion from other spir­i­tual writ­ers, but for this blog we are request­ing that you select a pas­sage that has been explic­itly cho­sen by Easwaran, as the mis­sion of the www.easwaran.org web site is to pub­lish Easwaran’s works.
  2. Tell us why you par­tic­u­larly like this pas­sage, and let us know if there’s a par­tic­u­lar line, or stanza in a long pas­sage, that appeals to you. You can give us your rea­son in just one sen­tence, or write more if you like.
  3. Con­tact us with your pas­sage choice in one of two ways. You can write a com­ment below this post, or below any of the “favorite pas­sage” posts, with the title of your pas­sage and a brief rea­son for your choice. We’ll then repro­duce your com­ment, with the com­plete pas­sage in a sub­se­quent post.

Or, if you’d like to write more about your choice, email us at info@easwaran.org, with the address line: Time­less Wis­dom blog – my favorite passage.

Either way we’ll be delighted to hear from you, and we’ll get back to you.

We’ll be post­ing another favorite pas­sage soon.


  • 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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