The name Brahma-Vivardhana comes from the root vardh, which means to increase, to spread. “To live up to the ideal suggested by Brahmavivardhana, we have to spread love everywhere through our personal contact with people and creatures.” This is what it means to “make reality increase,” Easwaran explains. To spread reality – to spread Brahma – is to spread love.
This week’s reading, pages 331–341 in The Constant Companion,* is full of beautiful little examples of how to do that. Here is one we enjoyed:
“The other day, as we were driving over the creek on our way into town, I spotted a turtle having a snooze near the edge of the pavement. People may not see him there, I said to myself, and they might run over him by accident. So I asked the driver to stop while we picked him up and found a safer spot for his siesta.”
Is there a relationship in your life that you wish you could improve? Read this article for tips from Easwaran. Try applying those tips, even if you can’t apply them directly to this particular relationship.
As we read The Constant Companion, we are working to strengthen our practice of Spiritual Reading. This week consider how these stories are speaking to you about your relationship with animals.
Let’s turn again to The Thousand Names Talks** in the Easwaran Digital Library for our spiritual treat, this time with Talk 9. The full talk is 41 minutes, but you can listen to part of it now and when you return the player will resume where you left off. If time is short, consider starting with the first five minutes, where Easwaran comments on the Lord as that which cannot be grasped.
* For those using electronic versions of The Constant Companion with different page numbering: this week’s reading is Easwaran’s commentary on the names The Supreme Godhead through Wisdom. (Please note that the latest edition of our ebook is titled Names of the Lord.)
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