A Prayer for Today: Lord, Make Me an Instrument of Thy Peace

Posted on September 11, 2011 by  | Add Comment

With today’s head­lines, what could be more heal­ing than to read the Saint Fran­cis Prayer:

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,
And it is in dying that we are born to Eter­nal Life.

Lis­ten to Easwaran read­ing it here.

May we find in this prayer, as Easwaran said, “a river of inspi­ra­tion that flows with­out end.”

Mantrams and prayers for the people of Norway

Posted on July 23, 2011 by  | Read 2 Comments | Add Comment

Our hearts go out to the peo­ple of Nor­way after the recent tragic events.

Easwaran often quoted from Gandhi at times like this, so here is a pas­sage from our web­site that we hope will bring solace.

In the Midst of Darkness

I do dimly per­ceive that whilst every­thing around me is ever chang­ing, ever dying, there is under­ly­ing all that change a liv­ing power that is change­less, that holds all together, that cre­ates, dis­solves, and re-creates. That inform­ing power or spirit is God. And since noth­ing else that I see merely through the senses can or will per­sist, He alone is.

And is this power benev­o­lent or malev­o­lent? I see it as purely benev­o­lent. For I can see that in the midst of death life per­sists, in the midst of untruth truth per­sists, in the midst of dark­ness light per­sists. Hence I gather that God is Life, Truth, Light. He is Love. He is the Supreme Good.

– Mahatma Gandhi

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.)

Free Introductory Presentations on Passage Meditation in Seattle area: June 22 and 23

Posted on June 6, 2011 by  | Add Comment

We hope you can join us for a free intro­duc­tory pre­sen­ta­tion to pas­sage med­i­ta­tion in the Seat­tle area on June 22 or 23.

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 at one of these locations!

Wednes­day, June 22, 2011, 7:00 to 8:15 p.m.
Microsoft Build­ing 122, Con­fer­ence Room 1075
15120 NE 40th Street, Red­mond, WA 98052
Meet in the lobby of Build­ing 122

Loca­tion and direc­tions: http://campusbuilding.com/b/microsoft-building-122

Thurs­day, June 23, 2011, 7:00 to 8:15 p.m.
Faith Lutheran Church (in the library)
8208 18th Ave. NE, Seat­tle, WA 98115

Loca­tion and direc­tions: http://www.faithseattle.org/directions.htm

The park­ing lot is located on the north side of the church build­ing, off of 18th Avenue N.E. (there is also usu­ally plenty of park­ing in the neigh­bor­hood around the church block). Enter through the dou­ble doors on the North (park­ing lot) side of the build­ing. The library is on the same floor, just down the hall­way to the left.

The Buddha’s Birthday: May 17, the Wikipedia Home Page, and Twin Verses

Posted on May 17, 2011 by  | Add Comment

This year, the day that is tra­di­tion­ally cel­e­brated as the birth­day of the Com­pas­sion­ate Bud­dha is May 17th. For sev­eral hours on May 17th, Wikipedia included a link on its home page to a new Wikipedia page that fea­tures Easwaran’s trans­la­tion of the Dhammapada.

Easwaran’s trans­la­tion of the Dhammapada

We can cel­e­brate the Buddha’s birth­day by read­ing an extract from one of the best-known chap­ters in The Dhamma­pada, titled “Twin Verses” in Easwaran’s translation:

Twin Verses
1 Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Suf­fer­ing fol­lows an evil thought as the wheels of a cart fol­low the oxen that draw it.

2 Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Joy fol­lows a pure thought like a shadow that never leaves.

3 “He was angry with me, he attacked me, he defeated me, he robbed me” – those who dwell on such thoughts will never be free from hatred. 4 “He was angry with me, he attacked me, he defeated me, he robbed me” – those who do not dwell on such thoughts will surely become free from hatred.

5 For hatred can never put an end to hatred; love alone can. This is an unal­ter­able law.

6 Peo­ple for­get that their lives will end soon. For those who remem­ber, quar­rels come to an end.

7 As a strong wind blows down a weak tree, Mara the Tempter over­whelms weak peo­ple who, eat­ing too much and work­ing too lit­tle, are caught in the fran­tic pur­suit of plea­sure. 8 As the strongest wind can­not shake a moun­tain, Mara can­not shake those who are self-disciplined and full of faith.

9 Those who put on the saf­fron robe with­out puri­fy­ing the mind, who lack truth­ful­ness and self-control, are not fit to wear the saf­fron robe.

10 But those who have puri­fied their minds, who are endowed with truth and self-control, are truly fit to wear the saf­fron robe.

11 The deluded, imag­in­ing triv­ial things to be vital to life, fol­low their vain fan­cies and never attain the high­est knowl­edge. 12 But the wise, know­ing what is triv­ial and what is vital, set their thoughts on the supreme goal and attain the high­est knowledge.

13 As rain seeps through an ill-thatched hut, pas­sion will seep through an untrained mind.
14 As rain can­not seep through a well-thatched hut, pas­sion can­not seep through a well-trained mind.

15 Those who are self­ish suf­fer here and here­after; they suf­fer in both worlds from the results of their own actions. 16 But those who are self­less rejoice here and rejoice here­after. They rejoice in both worlds from the results of their own actions.

17 The self­ish per­son suf­fers here, and he suf­fers there; he suf­fers wher­ever he goes. He suf­fers as he broods over the dam­age he has done. He suf­fers more and more as he trav­els along the path of sor­row. 18 Those who are self­ish suf­fer in this life and in the next. They suf­fer see­ing the results of the evil they have done, and more suf­fer­ing awaits them in the next life.

19 Those who recite many scrip­tures but fail to prac­tice their teach­ings are like a cowherd count­ing another’s cows. They do not share in the joys of the spir­i­tual life. 20 But those who know few scrip­tures yet prac­tice their teach­ings, over­com­ing all lust, hatred, and delu­sion, live with a pure mind in the high­est wis­dom. They stand with­out exter­nal sup­ports and share in the joys of the spir­i­tual life.

Over the next few weeks we will be post­ing more extracts from Easwaran’s trans­la­tion of the Dhamma­pada, in honor of one of the world’s best-loved teach­ers. Please feel free to write in to us by com­ment­ing on this post or by send­ing email to info@easwaran.org with the address line: Time­less Wis­dom blog: Hon­or­ing the Bud­dha, to nom­i­nate your favourite extract from the Dhamma­pada — either from the trans­la­tion itself, or from Easwaran’s introduction.

Thank you!

Easwaran in India, 1963: An old letter, and the little selfish mouse

Posted on May 12, 2011 by  | Read 9 Comments | Add Comment

Just recently we uncov­ered a remark­able let­ter dat­ing from Octo­ber 1963, that Easwaran wrote in Kota­giri, India, to one of his stu­dents in the West.

It’s easy enough to guess the ques­tion that prompted this gen­tly humor­ous reply – and Easwaran’s wise answer can guide all of us read­ing this blog today, just as it must have guided those lucky recip­i­ents nearly forty years ago.

My dear ____,

Your lov­ing let­ter arrived last evening and here is my reply. None of us would have come into this world if we had not a “deep-seated self­ish­ness,” as you call it, in our con­scious­ness. The sages of ancient India have given it the name of ahamkara or the prin­ci­ple of indi­vid­u­a­tion by which each indi­vid­ual comes to con­sider him­self or her­self as sep­a­rate from oth­ers. It will take us the tire­less labor of our entire life to bring about the dis­so­lu­tion of this deep-seated self­ish­ness known as the ego, and we must not get dis­ap­pointed or even sur­prised when we see a self­ish ele­ment in us as long as we are impris­oned in a phys­i­cal body. What is much more impor­tant may be said to be our con­stant endeavor not to let this self­ish ele­ment break out into action. So don’t scream if you see now and then a lit­tle self­ish mouse scut­tling across your consciousness!

The ego has a num­ber of clever tricks up its sleeve, and one of them may be said to be to get us to dwell on our faults, fac­tual or fan­cied. We are not help­ing to dis­solve our ego when we try to probe into our draw­backs and self-deprecation is to be avoided as much as self-appreciation by all of us who are tread­ing the spir­i­tual path. . . .

With my deep­est love to you both,

Yours ever,
Easwaran

Kota­giri, Nil­giris, India Octo­ber 10, 1963

Next time we see that lit­tle self­ish mouse we should have our mantrams ready and remem­ber not to dwell on our drawbacks.

Did you like this let­ter as much as we did? If so, do write a com­ment in the box below, or email us at info@easwaran.org with the address line: Time­less Wis­dom blog: The lit­tle self­ish mouse. We’d love to hear from you!

Easwaran’s Passage Meditation book sold 3,000 copies last year in China

Posted on May 5, 2011 by  | Add Comment

Pas­sage Med­i­ta­tion, trans­lated into sim­pli­fied Chi­nese, was pub­lished in 2010 by our Chi­nese pub­lisher Bei­jing Zhengqo­ing Culture-Artco Ltd. They have just informed us that they sold 3,000 copies in the first year!

We like to imag­ine Easwaran hear­ing this, and wear­ing a fresh gar­de­nia on his jacket, as he always did when he was cel­e­brat­ing good news for the BMCM.

Easwaran, Christine, and Anandamayi Ma: Ageless Beauty

Posted on April 28, 2011 by  | Add Comment

For Easwaran, Anan­damayi Ma was one of the great­est saints of mod­ern India. He and Chris­tine met her by chance in the early 1960s while they were trav­el­ing in north­ern India, and, as you’ll see from the excerpts below, he was deeply moved by the encounter.

“When Chris­tine and I were vis­it­ing Vrin­da­van, the place where the his­toric Krishna lived, I learned by hap­pen­stance that a beau­ti­ful woman saint named Anan­damaya Ma was there in her ashram that day and accept­ing vis­i­tors. I ran back to get Chris­tine, and we arrived just in time. There was quite a large crowd.

“Anan­damayi Ma was a very beau­ti­ful woman even phys­i­cally, though she was prob­a­bly about sixty when we saw her. Yet that phys­i­cal beauty was lost like a can­dle in the sun because of her spir­i­tual splen­dor. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Her eyes were fath­om­less, and there was a glow on her face of a ‘light that never was, on sea or land,’ as Wordsworth says.

“As we were leav­ing, this gra­cious and saintly woman took a gar­land from her own neck and put it around Christine’s.“

Easwaran’s last com­ment on the visit gives us an inspir­ing insight into the true nature of age­less beauty:

“Anan­damayi Ma was an amaz­ing illus­tra­tion of the beauty that shines forth even in the last years of life when all self­ish desires are extin­guished. This is pos­si­ble for all of us, though it takes many, many years of med­i­ta­tion and dili­gent rep­e­ti­tion of the mantram.”

My Favorite Passage: Gandhi’s “The Path” Quiets My Inner Critic

Posted on April 27, 2011 by  | Read Comment | Add Comment

We’ve already received some great responses to our call for favorite pas­sages. Please keep writ­ing in!

Our first response came from Duff, who chose Mahatma Gandhi’s “The Path,” and draws our atten­tion to this line:

“Though, there­fore, from my weak­ness I fail a thou­sand times, I shall not lose faith.”

Duff writes that this is “one of the ear­li­est pas­sages I learned twenty years ago and it still qui­ets that inner critic who still pops up and says I am ‘not per­fect.’ If Gandhi could rec­og­nize that he failed a thou­sand times, I can rec­og­nize that I need not be per­fect in my practice.”

Thanks, Duff, and here’s the pas­sage in full:

The Path
I know the path: it is strait and nar­row.

It is like the edge of a sword
I rejoice to walk on it.
I weep when I slip.

God’s word is:
 “He who strives never per­ishes.“

I have implicit faith in that promise.

Though, there­fore, from my weak­ness I fail a thou­sand times,

I shall not lose faith.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Mohan­das K. Gandhi – uni­ver­sally known as Mahatma Gandhi; the title means “great soul” – was born in British India in 1869 and died in Jan­u­ary 1948, after hav­ing led his coun­try to free­dom through a non­vi­o­lent strug­gle based on love and self­less ser­vice. This pas­sage is from a col­lec­tion of his writ­ings enti­tled My Reli­gion (Ahmed­abad, India: Nava­ji­van, 1955).

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.

Learn Passage Meditation in Boston or Virginia

Posted on April 20, 2011 by  | Add Comment

In Boston: One-Day Retreat, April 30, 2011

In Vir­ginia: One-Day or Week­end Retreat, May 14, 2011
(with a week­end option for returnees: May 13 – 15 )

If Easwaran’s writ­ings speak to you, and if you yearn to model your daily life on his wise and gen­tle teach­ings, you can begin the jour­ney – or deepen it – at a BMCM pas­sage med­i­ta­tion retreat. We have been offer­ing med­i­ta­tion retreats for 25 years, teach­ing thou­sands of peo­ple how to prac­tice Easwaran’s eight-point pro­gram of pas­sage meditation.

Each BMCM regional retreat has two sec­tions: one for those who are new to pas­sage med­i­ta­tion, and one for those with an estab­lished pas­sage med­i­ta­tion practice.

We offer a slid­ing scale fee struc­ture and finan­cial aid. Full infor­ma­tion includ­ing times, loca­tion, and enroll­ment. Or call us at 800.475.2369.


  • 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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