Like owners of an elegant Victorian home, many of us focus elaborate attention on the exterior: our appearance and surface pursuits. To find our divine core, however, “we cannot stay outside. We need to open the door of the Victorian house of the mind and go in.”
In this week’s essay from Climbing the Blue Mountain, Easwaran uses this “homely illustration” to help us remember an eternal truth: “that by whatever name we call him, the Lord of Love is always present in the depths of our consciousness. Nothing we do can displease him. And human life has one single purpose: to discover this divine Self through the practice of spiritual disciplines, of which the foremost is meditation.”
This week let’s read the first half of “The House of the Mind,” pages 93–98, ending with “…impossible to go at all.”
Which lines particularly strike you, and how can you apply them to your life this week?
Easwaran writes, “Exercising discrimination is part of being kind. We need to combine a soft heart with a hard nose.” This week, watch for examples of people who exercise good discrimination and are able to be warm-hearted yet firm when necessary. Are there situations when you can exercise this skill yourself?
Our spiritual treat this week is a four-minute video of Easwaran sharing the meaning of Vishu: learning to see the divine in ourselves and others, “the Face behind all faces.”