This week we begin Chapter Eleven of The Mantram Handbook, which puts the mantram in the context of the other spiritual disciplines Easwaran teaches. Easwaran tells us that the disciplines he presents are comprehensive, providing the tools to transform our lives into the highest form of art, in which we make “our every word and deed an expression of the unity of life.”
And he emphasizes that “these disciplines are suited for life in the modern world.” With these disciplines we too can follow the approach of his beloved granny, “in which we live in the midst of the world but never take our eyes off the supreme goal of life.”
This week let’s read pages 157–164,* which include Easwaran’s introduction and his descriptions of passage meditation and repetition of a mantram. Note that next week we’ll pause our book study and begin a special curriculum in preparation for our annual Celebration of Easwaran’s Life and Teachings.
Read this article as if you and Easwaran are having a conversation. What advice does he give you, and how can you apply it this week?
As we continue our mantram exercises, we are looking for ways to deepen them, for example by practicing more consistently or via a bit of extra effort or preparation.
This week, on your regular mantram walk, try repeating the mantram very loudly (in the mind).
In four weeks, on June 20th, the eSatsang will begin studying Easwaran’s Climbing the Blue Mountain. To prepare, make sure you have the book available.
We offer a 20% discount on books sold through our distribution partner Indiepubs.com. Here is a link to Climbing the Blue Mountain on that site.
Let’s turn again to Easwaran’s Patanjali talks** for our spiritual treat, this time with Talk Nine. The full talk is over 80 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 just the first five minutes, in which Easwaran describes the significance of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, and shares this great ancient teacher’s precise description of samadhi.
* For those using electronic versions of The Mantram Handbook with different page numbering: this week we are reading from the start of Chapter Eleven and ending before the subheading “Slowing Down.”
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