Invocation from the Rig Veda: 2 minute clip from Easwaran

Posted on April 27, 2012  | Add Comment

In this short clip, Easwaran com­ments on a prayer for unity from the ancient Indian scrip­ture, the Rig Veda. We’ve included the tran­script, as requested by a blog reader. Hope you find it as inspir­ing as we do!

Invo­ca­tion to the Rig Veda

TRANSCRIPT: Here is another prayer that is very dear to me, from the Rig Veda, prob­a­bly four thou­sand years old. I like to think of those sages as my ances­tors, sit­ting on the banks of the Ganges and pray­ing to the Lord.

Let us meet together — just as we are doing,
Talk together — just as we are doing.
May our minds have com­mon under­stand­ing — of what the needs of the world are, what we can do to meet them.
May our actions bear fruit together — not just Sum­ner or Tom or Michael or Brian, but all of us work­ing together.
May we share our thoughts and inten­tions — all of us work­ing together to make our coun­try a great one, to make the world a peace­ful one for our chil­dren to follow.

May we have com­mon aspi­ra­tions — not pri­vate ambi­tions, not secret desires. Com­mon ambi­tions, in which all of us will get ful­fill­ment. And, the same conclusion:

Let there be union among us always.


Gandhi and His Wife: “Each became the other’s teacher”

Posted on April 27, 2012  | Read 2 Comments | Add Comment

“It was his wife, Gandhi admit­ted later, who taught him how to love. By her per­sonal exam­ple, Kas­tur­bai showed the way to root out the anger and com­pas­sion erod­ing their mar­riage: not by retal­i­at­ing and inflam­ing the sit­u­a­tion more, but by con­stantly try­ing to sup­port him and bear with him through his out­bursts and mis­takes, keep­ing her eyes always on what was good in him and encour­ag­ing him silently to live up to her respect.

“Grad­u­ally Gandhi began to see that she was prac­tic­ing every day what he him­self had been admir­ing as a the­o­ret­i­cal ideal. He took up her exam­ple, and each became the other’s teacher as Gandhi learned Kasturbai’s patience and inspired her with his own fiery enthu­si­asm in return. It was a long ardu­ous, exact­ing dis­ci­pline, which he used to say required the patience of a man try­ing to empty the sea with a cup. But every time they over­came a bar­rier between them, they found they were not only able to love each other more, they had more love and patience for every­one else as well. By the time Gandhi had learned to bring this love to bear even on his ene­mies, Kas­tur­bai too was in prison, gath­er­ing other women to her leadership.”

From page 150 of Eknath Easwaran's Gandhi the Man: How One Man Changed Himself to Change the World.
From page 150 of Eknath Easwaran’s Gandhi the Man: How One Man Changed Him­self to Change the World.


Gandhi’s Better Half: Kasturbai Gandhi, 1869 – 1944

Posted on April 27, 2012  | Add Comment

“Kas­tur­bai and Gandhi mar­ried at the age of 13, and their stormy early years included many sep­a­ra­tions. In South Africa, after becom­ing a suc­cess­ful lawyer, Gandhi changed to a rad­i­cally sim­pler lifestyle based on self­less ser­vice and non­vi­o­lence, and directed his fam­ily to fol­low his exam­ple. Kas­tur­bai did so, with some ini­tial reluctance.

“She joined his satya­graha cam­paign in 1913 and remained his crit­i­cal but sin­cere sup­porter from then on. Gandhi described her as his teacher in non­vi­o­lence, and truly his ‘bet­ter half.’ Called ‘Ba,’ or mother, in India, she fol­lowed him to prison in 1942, and died there with her head on his lap in 1944. They had been together for sixty-two years.”

From the chronol­ogy, page 184, of Easwaran’s Gandhi the Man: How One Man Changed Him­self to Change the World.


A Practice for Today: Increasing One-Pointed Attention

Posted on April 25, 2012  | Read Comment | Add Comment

“When your atten­tion gets caught some­where other than here and now, for exam­ple, in some past event you can’t stop dwelling on, use your mantram to get your atten­tion free. Throw your­self into work, or go for a fast walk repeat­ing the mantram in your mind.”

- Eknath Easwaran

One-pointed atten­tion means giv­ing full con­cen­tra­tion to the mat­ter at hand. Click here for basic instruc­tions on one-pointed attention.


In the Forest of the Mind

Posted on April 23, 2012  | Add Comment

In this short video, Easwaran presents a short poem by Kabir, a medieval mys­tic claimed by both the Mus­lims and the Hindus.

This excerpt is from a talk in which Easwaran gives prac­ti­cal advice on how to approach the goal of med­i­ta­tion through daily prac­tice: deep­en­ing con­cen­tra­tion dur­ing med­i­ta­tion and dur­ing the rest of the day; uni­fy­ing desires; loos­en­ing one’s iden­ti­fi­ca­tion with likes and dis­likes; and get­ting free from con­tem­po­rary society’s fast-paced atmos­phere of hurry.

The com­plete talk, DVD 1: Kabir: Stages of Desire is avail­able here.

Read about other talks here.


New Video Clip: The Summit of Human Wisdom — Easwaran reads his translation from the Gita (5 mins.)

Posted on April 20, 2012  | Add Comment

“Tell me of the man who lives in wis­dom, ever aware of the Self,” Arjuna asks his spir­i­tual guide, Sri Krishna, in the sec­ond chap­ter of the Gita. “How does he talk? How sit? How move about?” And Sri Krishna replies with a descrip­tion of the high­est state of con­scious­ness that a human being can attain.

Easwaran reads his trans­la­tion from chap­ter 2 of the Bha­gavad Gita on liv­ing in wisdom.

We’ve posted the full text in the accom­pa­ny­ing post titled The Bha­gavad Gita, verses 2:54 – 72.


The Bhagavad Gita, verses 2:54 – 72 (read by Easwaran in the video clip for this week)

Posted on April 20, 2012  | Add Comment

These are the clos­ing verses of the sec­ond chap­ter of the Bha­gavad Gita (“Song of the Lord”), India’s best-known scrip­ture, a mas­ter­piece of world poetry on which count­less mys­tics have drawn for daily prac­ti­cal guidance.

The Gita is a dia­logue between Sri Krishna, an incar­na­tion of the Lord, and his friend and dis­ci­ple Arjuna, a war­rior prince who rep­re­sents any­one try­ing to live a spir­i­tual life in the midst of worldly activ­ity and con­flict. This trans­la­tion is by Eknath Easwaran, from his Bha­gavad Gita for Daily Liv­ing.

Arjuna:

Tell me of the man who lives in wis­dom,
Ever aware of the Self, O Krishna;
How does he talk, how sit, how move about?

Sri Krishna:

He lives in wis­dom
Who sees him­self in all and all in him,
Whose love for the Lord of Love has con­sumed
Every self­ish desire and sense-craving
Tor­ment­ing the heart. Not agi­tated
By grief nor han­ker­ing after plea­sure,
He lives free from lust and fear and anger
Fet­tered no more by self­ish attach­ments,
He is not elated by good for­tune
Nor depressed by bad. Such is the seer.

Even as a tor­toise draws in its limbs
The sage can draw in his senses at will.
An aspi­rant abstains from sense-pleasures,
But he still craves for them. These crav­ings all
Dis­ap­pear when he sees the Lord of Love.
For even of one who treads the path
The stormy senses can sweep off the mind.
But he lives in wis­dom who sub­dues them,
And keeps his mind ever absorbed in me.

When you keep think­ing about sense-objects,
Attach­ment comes. Attach­ment breeds desire,
The lust of pos­ses­sion which, when thwarted,
Burns to anger. Anger clouds the judg­ment
And robs you of the power to learn from past mis­takes
Lost is the dis­crim­i­na­tive fac­ulty,
And your life is utter waste.

But when you move amidst the world of sense
From both attach­ment and aver­sion freed,
There comes the peace in which all sor­rows end,
And you live in the wis­dom of the Self.

The dis­united mind is far from wise;
How can it med­i­tate? How be at peace?
When you know no peace, how can you know joy?
When you let your mind fol­low the Siren call
Of the senses, they carry away
Your bet­ter judg­ment as a cyclone dri­ves a boat
Off the charted course to its doom.

Use your mighty arms to free the senses
From attach­ment and aver­sion alike,
And live in the full wis­dom of the Self.
Such a sage awakes to light in the night
Of all crea­tures. Wherein they are awake
Is the night of igno­rance to the sage.

As the rivers flow into the ocean
But can­not make the vast ocean o’erflow,
So flow the magic streams of the sense-world
Into the sea of peace that is the sage.

He is for­ever free who has bro­ken out
Of the ego-cage of I and mine
To be united with the Lord of Love.
This is the supreme state. Attain thou this
And pass from death to immortality.


A Practice for Today: Spiritual Fellowship

Posted on April 18, 2012  | Add Comment

“It is espe­cially help­ful to spend time reg­u­larly with oth­ers who are bas­ing their lives on the same spir­i­tual val­ues. If you are try­ing to fol­low the pro­gram pre­sented here, asso­ci­a­tion with oth­ers fol­low­ing the same pro­gram is invaluable.”

- Eknath Easwaran

Spir­i­tual fel­low­ship means spend­ing time reg­u­larly with oth­ers who are prac­tic­ing pas­sage med­i­ta­tion for mutual inspi­ra­tion and sup­port. Click here for instruc­tions on this point.

Click here to view a list of fel­low­ship groups and find out if one is meet­ing in your area.


Easwaran on Thomas a Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ: Talk 48

Posted on April 16, 2012  | Add Comment

This is the 48th in a long series of talks Eknath Easwaran gave on The Imi­ta­tion of Christ by Thomas a Kem­pis. In this talk Easwaran reads and dis­cusses book 3, chap­ter 16, “That true com­fort is to be sought in God alone.”

“We may remem­ber the wise words of St. Fran­cis of Assisi in his famous prayer, ‘Grant that I may not so much seek to be con­soled as to con­sole.’ The more we con­sole oth­ers, the more we try to the great­est extent pos­si­ble, to relieve the bur­dens of oth­ers, strangely enough, the lighter our bur­den becomes, and the more we brood upon our own sor­row, our own suf­fer­ing, and wal­low in a sea of self-pity, the more we suf­fer and the greater is our burden.

“In other words, Thomas a Kem­pis is not preach­ing phi­los­o­phy to us. He is try­ing to tell us about the dynam­ics of liv­ing. If we begin in our own fam­ily to think more and more of ame­lio­rat­ing the sor­row of those around us and of never con­tribut­ing to their suf­fer­ing, strangely enough, we find our­selves more equable, more secure, and more joy­ous. This is an exper­i­ment every­body can start right in the bosom of his fam­ily or her family....”

For pre­vi­ous talks, see Easwaran on Thomas a Kem­pis, under Categories.

Note that all of the talks in this series are avail­able for down­load from our store. The series is described on this page.

Pod­cast: Play in new win­dow


New Video Clip: What Makes Us Be Unkind?

Posted on April 13, 2012  | Read 9 Comments | Add Comment

You may have noticed that we’re pro­duc­ing a num­ber of short clips from Easwaran’s talks. Would you let us know what you think of them?

Let us know also what you think of the length: do you like to watch short clips for a change, or would you pre­fer longer ones? If so, how long? And please give us any other thoughts or sug­ges­tions — we’d be very grate­ful for them.

Here’s our topic in the clip for this week: if our real per­son­al­ity is pure love, why are we some­times unkind to each other? Easwaran answers this ques­tion with insights and advice from the Bha­gavad Gita.


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  • 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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