Meditation for Busy Parents: “The hugest help in maintaining peace of mind.”

Posted on February 17, 2012 by  | Read Comment | Add Comment

Is it right for busy par­ents to take time out to med­i­tate? And how can med­i­ta­tion help you become a bet­ter par­ent? These ques­tions prompted the fol­low­ing lively answer in one of our online discussions:

“I started med­i­tat­ing when my chil­dren were 12, 9 and 6. Now they are 28, 25 and 22. It was hard and I was majorly sleep deprived, but it was and is the hugest help in main­tain­ing my peace of mind and bal­ance in rais­ing my chil­dren. Don’t be hard on your­self. Don’t expect your prac­tice to be ‘per­fect’ when you have chil­dren around. Your inter­ac­tions with them are your area for growth, to sup­port and chal­lenge them to be bless­ings to the world. They are going to push your but­tons and chal­lenge your self will.

“What a gift you are giv­ing by being a med­i­tat­ing par­ent. The 8 points will give you the dis­crim­i­na­tion needed when rais­ing chil­dren. It is pure grace that you are on the path. Even if they’re only 5 months now, by the time they’re 6 they’re out the door a lot! Easwaran says to say the mantram while you’re preg­nant. I think a 5 month old would love hear­ing the mantram sung to him! When he’s older teach him to say a mantram when he’s scared. Say the mantram with him before meals. Read spir­i­tual children’s books to your child. You are going to have a blast!”

See our free online course if you’d like to try Easwaran’s method of pas­sage med­i­ta­ton, or if you want to make your med­i­ta­tion prac­tice more regular.

A Strategy for Staying Kind: Using the Director’s Cut

Posted on December 23, 2011 by  | Read Comment | Add Comment

A friend shared this story: “A few days back, some­one I barely know gave me a big speech on how I have made incor­rect choices in life and what I should be doing instead. Unfor­tu­nately, I got very agi­tated and blew up.

“I felt quite bad about using harsh words and went for a mantram walk as a way to for­give myself and move on. Then after a phone sat­sang with dear friends and watch­ing one of Sri Easwaran’s DVD talks titled ‘Break­ing chains,’ I came up with a sim­ple strategy.

“The next time when I was in a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion I tried to look at the whole sit­u­a­tion as a skit (lots of poten­tial to make it funny). When the mind started paint­ing agi­tated sto­ries, I applied the director’s cut, shouted “Rama” in my head and reminded myself that the skit is a com­edy so there is no room for tragedy. :)

“I was able to lis­ten to the other per­son with more detach­ment and humor. It enabled me to be com­pas­sion­ate with oth­ers and with myself as no one is per­fect. There is no point in beat­ing one­self up about any­thing or hold­ing a grudge against oth­ers. Life is too short not to be kind and lov­ing to all.”

Our friend was using his mantram, Rama, to help him­self stay calm and cheer­ful under pres­sure. We thought there were some good tips here for main­tain­ing har­mony in the hol­i­day season.

One-pointedness...in a busy, open-plan office?

Posted on November 10, 2011 by  | Add Comment

How can you prac­tice one-pointedness in a busy office? That’s one of the ques­tions addressed by some young adults in a BMCM online fel­low­ship group. The dis­cus­sion started with this com­ment from a young manager:

“My envi­ron­ment is very open, that is, there are almost no doors or rooms, every­body shares the same space. It’s a very cool way to work, but I have a huge trou­ble to con­cen­trate, because there are always one, two, or three per­sons talk­ing at the same time around me and all of them are talk­ing about sub­jects that affect my work directly or indirectly.

“In med­i­ta­tion I am able to ‘not lis­ten’ to the sounds around me, like cars, chil­dren play­ing, birds, and even more dis­tract­ing sounds. But at work I won­der if it’s even pos­si­ble to do that.”

The man­ager quickly received a num­ber of tips from group mem­bers in dif­fer­ent con­ti­nents. One cor­re­spon­dent sent an email that includes direct quotes from Easwaran, with sug­ges­tions as to how to apply them:

“When I used to study, I was eas­ily dis­tracted by other peo­ple and also the com­puter. I think what Easwaran advises us to do when dis­trac­tions come in med­i­ta­tion also apply to other sit­u­a­tions where we need con­cen­tra­tion. The more we try to resist a dis­trac­tion the stronger it becomes. Instead, bring the mind gen­tly back to the task at hand.

“In med­i­ta­tion we train the mind to be one-pointed by con­cen­trat­ing on a sin­gle sub­ject – an inspi­ra­tional pas­sage. When­ever the mind wan­ders and becomes two-pointed, we give more atten­tion to the pas­sage – over and over and over again. It is cer­tainly chal­leng­ing work, but grad­u­ally the mind becomes dis­ci­plined, tak­ing its proper place – not as the mas­ter of the house, but as a trusted, loyal ser­vant whose capac­i­ties we respect.” — from Pas­sage Med­i­ta­tion

“I’m not sure what your work exactly involves but if what your work-mates are talk­ing about, even if it’s rel­e­vant to your work, doesn’t help you per­form the imme­di­ate task at hand, then it’s prob­a­bly not worth tun­ing into. I strug­gle with this too some­times, but one thing that’s helped me improve my con­cen­tra­tion at work or stud­ies is to make a con­tin­u­ous effort all day at being one-pointed.

“The first step is the sys­tem­atic prac­tice of med­i­ta­tion, which is the per­fect way to learn this skill. There is another valu­able aid too: to refrain from doing more than one thing at a time, to aban­don totally our habit of try­ing to per­form sev­eral oper­a­tions simul­ta­ne­ously.“
 – from Pas­sage Med­i­ta­tion

“When I make a con­certed, enthu­si­as­tic effort to be one-pointed from the moment I wake up, by the time I’m at work, I’m fully focused and, if I main­tain that through to the night, my evening med­i­ta­tion allows me to go much deeper than usual (I say usual because I have a feel­ing that I haven’t even entered the stratos­phere of con­scious­ness, yet). I think main­tain­ing one-pointedness in your leisure time as well, when you’re lis­ten­ing to music or car­ry­ing a con­ver­sa­tion with a friend, really helps when you need it most.

“I still strug­gle to be one-pointed and con­cen­trated and to ignore dis­trac­tions but going back over Easwaran’s words always renews my commitment.”

Good advice, and thanks to the con­trib­u­tors! More details about the online fel­low­ship group for young adults can be found here.

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!

Meditation, Chocolate Chip Cookies, and the Fruits of Perseverance

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

“I have been hav­ing prob­lems with enthu­si­asm over the past few weeks,” wrote an hon­est young friend.

“Med­i­ta­tion has felt like noth­ing more than a chore; I’ve been miss­ing evening spir­i­tual read­ing most days; etc. Yes­ter­day in par­tic­u­lar was going really badly: I couldn’t muster the willpower to med­i­tate in the morn­ing, telling myself I’d do it in ‘just a lit­tle while.’ Just a lit­tle while turned into a lit­tle while longer, and a lit­tle while longer; finally, after bak­ing a batch of choco­late chip cook­ies, eat­ing too many of them, and read­ing an entire novel all day long, I told myself at 8:00 PM that I really had to med­i­tate now. I sure didn’t feel like it, but I haven’t missed a day since Jan­u­ary 1, 2011 and I didn’t want to break my record.

“Ok, so far this may seem like just the oppo­site of an inspir­ing e-mail :)

“How­ever, what hap­pened is that, to my com­plete sur­prise, I had the most won­der­ful med­i­ta­tion I’ve had in months. I was med­i­tat­ing on ‘Hold­ing to the Con­stant,’ and I felt that I felt and under­stood the mean­ing of the words like never before. It’s funny — I’ve been med­i­tat­ing on that pas­sage most days for weeks, but last night I felt like I had never even heard it before, it felt so real and sig­nif­i­cant in such a new way.

“I felt such a peace and tran­quil­ity that when my 30 min­utes were over I didn’t want to stop. (Of course, I did stop, remem­ber­ing Easwaran’s reminder not to go longer than 30 min­utes.) Luck­ily that sense of peace didn’t imme­di­ately go away when I stopped med­i­tat­ing. I did some spir­i­tual read­ing, and came across this pas­sage from Vol­ume 1 of the Bha­gavad Gita for Daily Living:

“Every day the work you do in med­i­ta­tion is prepar­ing you for shanti. You may have slept a lit­tle, digressed a lit­tle, or lost the pas­sage at times; still your med­i­ta­tion is bring­ing you closer to the supreme ful­fill­ment that is shanti. One day when you least expect it, your con­cen­tra­tion will become com­plete...” (p. 141)

“I’m sure that my con­cen­tra­tion wasn’t fully com­plete last night — far from it — but it was a lot closer than ever before, at least recently, and it cer­tainly did hap­pen when I least expected it! I’m sure this wouldn’t have hap­pened if I hadn’t gone through all those days of med­i­ta­tion that seemed, at the time, so pointless.

“Any­way, after that expe­ri­ence last night I resolved to put more energy and deter­mi­na­tion into my prac­tice. I repeated my mantram for all I was worth while falling asleep, woke up early and med­i­tated this morn­ing, and tried my hard­est to remain one-pointed and slowed down dur­ing my work today.

“I guess I would say that for me, this has bol­stered my belief that per­se­ver­ance will pay off sooner or later. I’m sure I will go through many rough peri­ods of lag­ging enthu­si­asm again, but I will try to keep in mind that if we just con­tinue to do the best we can — even if on some days that might not be very much — we will begin to reap some of the rewards. Last night after med­i­ta­tion I felt that it really was worth it, and more — all those days on which med­i­ta­tion had been such a strug­gle and I hadn’t seemed to be get­ting anywhere.”

Our thanks go to our friend for shar­ing her expe­ri­ences — and this really did turn out to be an inspir­ing email! If you have a story to share with us, please write in to us via the com­ments box, or email us at info@easwaran.org with “Time­less Wis­dom blog” in the sub­ject line — we would love to hear from you!

And if you’d like to know the words of the pas­sage “Hold­ing to the Con­stant” that our friend used in med­i­ta­tion, we’ll be pub­lish­ing that text in a follow-up post.

Slowing Down, Keeping My Temper: Insights from a young mother

Posted on October 7, 2011 by  | Add Comment

Here’s a real-life story from a young mother in Europe who is work­ing earnestly at stay­ing calm and kind.

“I’ve tried to adopt the prac­tice of repeat­ing mantram before speak­ing when­ever I can feel the anger is ris­ing in me. I often fail, but the out­come of this is good when­ever I remember.

“In my case the prob­lem is acute with kids (I’m a sin­gle mother), because looks like no mat­ter how early I get up and no mat­ter how calmly and well orga­nized way I try to do things, we are still always in hurry and almost late for rea­sons depend­ing on them, or so I want to believe ;-) . This prac­tice of repeat­ing mantram first has any­way many times not only saved me from los­ing my temper.

“It’s also help­ing me to see what could be done to pre­vent the sit­u­a­tion, what could be dropped from our morn­ings, and that per­haps it would be bet­ter if I let kids do things in their way even if I think my way would be so much faster or more effec­tive... This real­iza­tion is help­ing me to reduce my self-will.”

Our thanks go to the young mother for let­ting us read her account. Would you like to share a story of how you’ve applied Easwaran’s teach­ings in order to stay calm and kind? If so, do write in to us using the com­ments box below, or via info@easwaran.org with the sub­ject line “Time­less Wis­dom Blog.” We’d love to hear from you!

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.”

From a Yoga Teacher: “A Legacy of Love”

Posted on July 27, 2011 by  | Add Comment

Many yoga teach­ers enjoy Easwaran’s books, espe­cially his writ­ings on the Bha­gavad Gita. We very much appre­ci­ated this recent email:

“As a yoga teacher, the Bha­gavad Gita has had a huge influ­ence on my teach­ing. As you know, Easwaran’s three vol­ume Gita set has been a life changer for me.

“The great thing about Easwaran’s books is he always takes these deep, ancient, truths, ideals, and sto­ries and shares them in a way that you can wrap your heart and mind around — so that you can put them into prac­tice in your every­day life.

“Peo­ple often seem sur­prised when I tell them that my med­i­ta­tion teacher is no longer with us and that I never got to meet him face to face because I talk about him as if he is still alive. Well, to me — Easwaran is still very much alive in his books, in his talks, and mostly in my heart. Such a strong spirit and light can never be extinguished.

“This is the magic of writ­ing and leav­ing a legacy of love — Easwaran has touched so many lives with­out him even know­ing it.”

What a beau­ti­ful note! If you’re a yoga teacher and would like to tell us what you think of Easwaran’s books, or how you use them in your classes, please write in to us – either via the com­ment box below, or to info@easwaran.org with the sub­ject line “Easwaran for yoga teachers” – we’d love to hear from you.

The three vol­ume set men­tioned in the email is The Bha­gavad Gita for Daily Liv­ing by Eknath Easwaran.

The Magic of Meditating with Others

Posted on July 20, 2011 by  | Read 2 Comments | Add Comment

For spir­i­tual liv­ing you need spir­i­tual friends – Easwaran stresses this over and over. Some­times it’s hard to find spir­i­tual com­pan­ion­ship in the mod­ern world, par­tic­u­larly if you’re young. We were very moved by this mes­sage from a young Indian friend, who had been miss­ing spir­i­tual com­pan­ion­ship until she came to the States and found her­self liv­ing near one of our sat­sangs. Here’s how she describes her sat­sang experience:

“It was for the first time I felt at home. I was over­whelmed to find peo­ple with sim­i­lar thoughts who were so very warm to wel­come me to their spir­i­tual fam­ily. This was only about meet­ing them, but the real magic hap­pened when I med­i­tated with them for the first time. I have been med­i­tat­ing since June 2007, but this was the first time when I felt my con­cen­tra­tion deep­en­ing. I felt the words seep­ing in the depth of my soul as if it was not I but my soul itself repeat­ing them for me. The peace, the aura and the energy of med­i­tat­ing together is unimag­in­able. Though we meet only once a week, it is enough to cher­ish it for the entire week.”

Look here for more infor­ma­tion on our spir­i­tual fel­low­ship groups. And do please write in to us via the com­ment box, or email us at info@easwaran.org with the sub­ject line “Time­less Wis­dom blog” if you’d like to share your reflec­tions on spir­i­tual companionship!

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.


  • 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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