“Our real desire in life, as the Bible puts it, is to love the Lord with all our heart, all our mind, all our spirit, and all our strength. The human being’s infinite capacity to desire can never be fulfilled by anything less.” – Eknath Easwaran
Kama, selfish desire, looms large in our reading this week, pages 342–350 in The Constant Companion.* But by now we are familiar with the paradox: the lord is both Kama, Desire, and Kamaghna, Destroyer of Selfish Craving.
In this reading Easwaran provides many practical tips for freeing ourselves from compulsive cravings. He also shares an extended quote from Saint Augustine that gives a taste of the joy beyond personal desire:
“…I breathe that fragrance which no wind scatters, and eat the food which is not lessened by eating, and lie in the embrace which satiety never comes to sunder. This it is that I love when I love my God.”
What is Easwaran telling you about the workings of your own mind? This week, use this new understanding to get some cooperation from your mind when it is being uncooperative. Tell us how it goes!
We have recently been reflecting on our practice of Spiritual Reading. This week consider how your spiritual reading contributes to your role in the spiritual renaissance.
Next week we will finish our study of The Constant Companion, and afterwards the eSatsang will be reading an issue of the Blue Mountain Journal on Gandhi's nonviolence. Whereas recently we have been following the curriculum used in BMCM Satsang Live, going forward the curriculums won’t be paired – so you now have two pathways of enrichment and can use either or both as best fits your spiritual practice. We hope this will be a wonderful way for us to move forward together, and we look forward to continuing to study Easwaran with you!
Let’s close with a spiritual treat: here is an eight-minute video of Easwaran speaking on absorption in meditation.
* For those using electronic versions of The Constant Companion with different page numbering: this week’s reading is Easwaran’s commentary on the names Knower of Reality through Destroyer of Selfish Craving. (Please note that the latest edition of our ebook is titled Names of the Lord.)