A little over a year ago, we launched the current interactive format for the eSatsang. It’s enabled us to communicate with each other more directly and in a timely manner on Easwaran’s teachings. As a one-year celebration, we’d like to re-visit the seventh point in the eight-point program: Spiritual Fellowship!
Throughout this month, we’ll look at how Easwaran encourages us to seek spiritual fellowship, or satsang, in different ways in our daily lives. We’ll explore this topic through a reading study of Chapter Seven in Easwaran’s book, Passage Meditation.
This month’s theme will culminate with the next Returnee Online Workshop on Saturday, June 23, at 2:00p.m. – 3:15 p.m. San Francisco Time. Many members of the eSatsang will be taking part, so it’s a chance for some real-time satsang and to extend our discussions. Please join us!
We’ve come to the final week of our month-long look at our use of technology, and how we can apply the eight-point program to it. It’s been interesting hearing all of your successes and challenges, and inspiring to hear about the creative ways you’ve been experimenting.
In the tenth of Easwaran’s technology aphorisms, he asks for “technology with a human face.” Have you seen creative examples in action of “technology with a human face”? To conclude this month’s topic, we’ll leave Easwaran with the last word in the reading excerpt below. In the following article, he reminds us of our ultimate goal and responsibilities. He encourages us to take “discriminating action”, and to learn how to choose freely the things that will make us the most compassionate and kind person we can be. We look forward to your comments!
Thank you again for all of your thoughtful comments regarding technology use and how it relates to our spiritual practice. Have you noticed benefits to an additional focus on your use of technology as seen through a spiritual lens over the past few weeks?
In the next section of our ongoing reading study, Easwaran suggests that we cultivate discrimination by trying alternative forms of entertainment, particularly in the company of children. Is there a substitution you’ve made in the past that you’ve found enjoyable? Is there a technology-free entertainment you’d like to try this week? Please feel free to share your reflections on this week’s reading study or on your experience with alternative entertainment. We look forward to hearing your ideas!
Thanks to all of you for your insightful comments and engagement with our current theme of technology. It’s a rich topic, and it’s great you’re taking the time to consider it as a satsang. Were you motivated to look more deeply at your technology use or to try something new this week?
Have a look at the three aphorisms below from Easwaran. Is there something tangible and specific you can try in your regular life at home, inspired by one of these? Or is there an idea here that you’ll think about and be more aware of this week? For example, you might do your spiritual reading this week while being more attuned to the sages’ understanding of the “indivisible, the full.” Or perhaps you can create a small sense-training experiment around technology for the week – you decide!
This month we’re shifting to considering the relationship between our use of technology and our practice of the eight-point program. We’ll be using the latest Blue Mountain Journal to lead us.
This is a special opportunity to share as a satsang about technology. It’s a topic that touches us all, so this is a chance to slow down, and reflect on our own technology use – with the eight points at the forefront. It’s a chance to speak openly about experiments you’ve tried or ask for tips with a specific challenge.
In each week of May, we’ll focus on three different aphorisms from Easwaran (about his relationship to) on technology. We invite you to reflect on his statements (one or all three) as they relate to your life. We’d love to hear your technology triumphs and trials. In addition to the three aphorisms, we’ll share a longer reading excerpt for inspiration.
Thanks to everyone for your enthusiasm and engagement during our study of Easwaran’s book, The Compassionate Universe over these past two months. It’s been a dynamic and inspiring closer look at the connections that Easwaran makes between our practice of the eight-point program and the Earth we all inhabit together.
We’d like to leave Easwaran with the last word as we conclude this theme. In the excerpt below from The Compassionate Universe, Easwaran reminds us about the need to change our conditioning in order to find satisfaction in a more selfless lifestyle.
What part of this reading resonates with you? Please share your thoughts and ideas regarding the art of living in simplicity. We’d love to hear about any small or big changes you’ve been making to live a more efficient and selfless life.
To celebrate Earth Day this Sunday, April 22, we’re having a “Mantram Relay for Earth.” Will you join us?
To participate, choose a time of the day that you are available (any of the 24 hours), and fill out your name and location on the sheet. During your chosen time, we invite you to write your mantram with as much concentration as possible, in honor of Mother Earth. Feel free to write your mantram outside or near natural surroundings.
This week we encourage you to try your chosen activity again or to try a new one. Remember, Easwaran suggests many small activities from the reading last week. What other suggestions do you have? And please let us know what challenges and successes you’ve experienced.
For inspiration, please enjoy this three-minute clip of Easwaran commenting on a poem by Kabir, in which he draws parallels between the rainforest and the mind, and reminds us how all of the activity within it can be quietened.
Thank you for participating in our contemplative Compassionate Universe activities last month! We're happy to be continuing our environmental theme for the month of April also. Join the “Mantram Relay for Earth” on Sunday April 22, 2018 in honor of Earth Day. As a community, we’ll take turns to fill as much of this 24-hour period with mantrams.
Easwaran often shared about the balance between needing to go inward in meditation, in order to gather resources to do good out in the world. This week, we’ll look at how we can make small contributions to the natural environment in practical and subtle ways.
As you read the excerpt below from Easwaran’s book, The Compassionate Universe, are there lines or paragraphs that are inspiring to you, or that strike you?
Thank you for sharing your reflections on our compassionate universe experiments over the last few weeks. It’s been an inspiration to hear from each of you. If you haven’t had a chance to try one of our previous activities, this week is another opportunity!
We encourage you to continue your contemplation in nature by choosing one of the following activities:
- Experience the mantram in nature for 15 minutes, again!
- Reflect on the passage “Let Me Walk in Beauty” and/or begin memorizing it.
- Read and comment on the excerpt from Easwaran’s The Compassionate Universe below.
Also, a reminder that if you already have this passage memorized, have you been using it in your meditation this month? Have you noticed an impact?
This week we’ll continue our reflection on the passage “Let Me Walk in Beauty”, and we’ll expand our theme of the Compassionate Universe to include the mantram.
This week, try to find time to experience the mantram in nature. If you haven’t spent focused time with the mantram in nature before, no problem! The idea behind this exercise is to say the mantram silently with as much concentration as possible for 15 minutes, while you experience the outdoors. Keep the mantram at the forefront of your mind.
Please also feel free to take some dedicated time to repeat the mantram while taking exercise outdoors, while walking, for example. Please share what you do!
Thank you for submitting your choice for our Compassionate Universe passage study. There are so many beautiful passages in God Makes the Rivers to Flow that link nature with the spiritual life. This month, most of you requested “Let Me Walk in Beauty” by Chief Yellow Lark.
Which lines or stanzas of this passage speak most to you? Can you think of the qualities you might gain by meditating on this passage?
If possible, review this passage and reflect on the questions outdoors or by a window while looking onto the outdoors. How does this affect your experience with the passage? Please share your reflections with us. We love to hear from you!
As Spring approaches in Tomales and Earth Day approaches for the globe, we thought it would be timely to learn more about how Easwaran’s teachings encompass caring for the natural world. Over the next two months, we will be immersing ourselves in how the eight-point program relates to stewardship of the environment. In the following excerpt from The Compassionate Universe Easwaran discusses our how we can understand the source of our actions, and what he means by a “compassionate universe”. And a reminder that there's still time to make your selection on the passage we'll study this month!
For next month's theme, we'd like to have your help in selecting a passage to study. Follow the link to cast your vote! Thanks to each of you for contributing your experiments, and for contributing to last week’s online workshop. It was a great boost to continue striving towards Putting Others First.
As promised, we are very interested to hear how your experiments went this past week. What did you learn? Did you try something new? Feel free to share any reflections.
To keep us inspired, we’ll leave Easwaran with the last word. In this six-minute clip, he comments upon how we are all looking for love, and can find it in our own communities, by joining the sea of love that is the Lord.
One last reminder about our online workshop: Saturday, February 24 at 9–10:15a.m. San Francisco time. We look forward to sharing satsang with you!
Part of the online workshop suggests creating an experiment to extend our theme of learning to love in our daily practice of the eight-point program.
Think of a routine time in your daily life when you’d like to be more able to put others first. Come up with a small experiment you’d like to try around your chosen time.
Then, deepen this experiment by thinking of a way to remember your chosen time during the day.
We’d really love to hear all of the ways everyone will be planning to put others first this coming week! Next week, we’ll ask you to share any results. Your example will inspire others, so consider sharing as a way of putting your eSatsang friends first.
We warmly invite you to join us for an online workshop on Saturday, February 24 at 9–10:15 a.m. San Francisco time. This is a 75-minute workshop on the theme of Putting Others First. Many members of our eSatsang will be taking part, so it’s a chance for some real-time satsang!
This week, we’re continuing our reading study from Passage Meditation, on Putting Others First. In the excerpt below, Easwaran shares the lofty purpose for all of our efforts to reduce self-will and put others first: “unitary consciousness.” It can be helpful to have this reminder if the situation you find yourself in is a difficult one.
How does keeping your grandest purpose in the forefront of your mind help with your practice of the eight points in your daily life? We would love to hear your comments and reflections on this topic.
Would you like to meditate with others? Get an extra boost with this month’s theme, and join our passage meditation community for a virtual meditation on Saturday mornings at 6:30 a.m. San Francisco time. We'll start the virtual meditation with a volunteer reading a passage from God Makes the Rivers To Flow aloud. Then we'll silently meditate together for 30 minutes. We’ll ring a bell to signal the end of meditation, and ask for another volunteer to read aloud Easwaran's "Thought for the Day". This week, we’re sharing a video which begins with Easwaran citing Shakespeare’s sonnet 116, and continues with him sharing its similarities to the Bhagavad Gita and the Dhammapada. Easwaran is underscoring Shakepseare’s definition of love, which is something that is unchanging, immutable: “Love is a continuing state.” He also reminds us that love is a skill that each of us can learn. What does lasting love mean to you?
This month we’re delving into the rewarding topic of Putting Others First. Over the coming weeks, we will explore what Easwaran means by loving others, and test out his teachings on love in our daily lives.
This month’s theme will culminate with the next Returnee Online Workshop on Saturday, February 24, at 9:00–10:15 a.m. San Francisco Time. Many members of the eSatsang will be taking part, so it’s a chance for some real-time satsang and discussion on Putting Others First.
Putting Others First can be one of the more challenging of the eight points, so let’s get back to basics, and study a section from Easwaran’s book, Passage Meditation.
The examples of love Easwaran describes in the reading below are simple in their description, but daring in their application. Which of the practical examples that Easwaran suggests to show our love do you find the most daring?
Thanks to each of you for sharing your striving with the mantram over these weeks. It has been wonderful to strive together. For the final week of Mantram Month, we invite you think creatively about your current mantram habits. Is there a time recently when you used the mantram in a new way? What was it? How did you remember it? Have you ever been surprised by a time that you remembered to use the mantram? Is there a way you could extend that?
Or, if you could choose any time at all during your regular daily routine that you’d like to say the mantram more, when would it be? Is there something you can do to help you remember, or work towards this time?
We’d love to hear your ideas about creating a new mantram moment, or any general reflections you have about Mantram Month.
This week, we have a special mantram activity for you. It’s special because it involves falling asleep, so you will have a number of chances to practice. As you drift off to sleep this week, try to repeat the mantram. Was your sleep impacted in any way? Did you notice any results the next morning?
If you already fall asleep using the mantram, can you give extra attention to the experience and reflect on the results you notice? Or perhaps you create an opportunity this week for a mantram nap during the day. A mantram nap is a rest, but with focus on saying the mantram and keeping it at the forefront of your mind, with falling asleep as secondary.
