Next Saturday, October 27, a local group in Tomales will gather at Ramagiri Ashram with Christine Easwaran to share readings, watch a video, and meditate together.
We invite you to set aside time for your own celebration – whether that be a special dedication of your morning meditation, taking a day for a personal retreat, or organizing an event with passage meditator friends. You could do it on October 27, or find another day and time that works better for you.
How would you like to take part in the worldwide celebration of Easwaran’s life and teachings? Create a plan and share it with us!
Here are some possible activities:
Try out any of the activities in Week One and Week Two that you haven’t tried already.
Meditate for 30 minutes.
Watch the Life Celebration video, a special Easwaran video created for the event. The video will be available on Monday October 22 – it’s a great resource for your own celebration!
Write your mantram dedicated to peace and well-being in the world, or for a person or situation you’re concerned about.
Take a silent walk, repeating your mantram.
Share a meal with others.
Plan on taking a photo and sending it in! We’d love to share some photos afterwards of all the groups all over the world taking part in this event. You can post your photo in the Facebook Group or send it to us at satsang@easwaran.org.
We are beginning a special month of celebration. Each October, a local group gathers at Ramagiri Ashram in Tomales, California, to honor Eawaran’s life and teachings. We invite our worldwide community of passage meditators to join in and to look upon the whole month of October as a time of re-dedication to our spiritual life through Easwaran’s eight-point program.
Please read the excerpt from Easwaran’s article, “Our Real Identity” below. What speaks to you in this reading?
Try an experiment. Over the next few days, look for a small instance of when you feel an inner tension between your yearning to be a spiritual being and your past conditioning as a separate, physical creature, “like a ball batted back and forth.” For example, you could be trying to put someone else first, or resist a small selfish desire. In that moment, recall Easwaran’s story about the two forces within, and try putting more effort into one of the eight points. What do you notice?
Thank you all for your ongoing engagement with this month’s topic of transformation. In our final week exploring this deep topic, we will offer both a reading and a video from Easwaran in which he touches on the radiant end goal of transformation through samadhi – union with reality. This is how Easwaran describes that supreme goal of meditation in The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living, Volume 2, “Like a Thousand Suns.”
We invite you to allow this reading and the video below to just wash over you as inspiration to give your best to your practice of the eight-point program. See if you can capture the desire for transformation this week.
This week, we will continue our conversation on opportunities for transforming our personalities to reflect our divine Self. Easwaran invites us to learn to live in freedom with a playful approach to our likes and dislikes that come up constantly in our everyday lives.
In the following reading study excerpt, Easwaran gives a number of practical suggestions for learning flexibility and true enjoyment through the senses.
Is there a line or two from the reading below that motivates you to play with your likes and dislikes? Is there a small “juggling” experiment that you’d like to try this week? We’d love to hear your perspective another angle of transformation.
Below is an excerpt from Conquest of Mind by Easwaran.
Easwaran often highlights the opportunities for transformation in strong emotions like fear, anger and greed. The reading excerpt below from Easwaran in The Mantram Handbook goes into detail about the ways we can apply the mantram to the tremendous forces within us for the benefit of others and ourselves, and why it can help.
We invite you to read the following excerpt from Easwaran and to consider these questions:
Have you experienced a taste of this kind of transformation of personality through the mantram?
Do you have a current situation that you’d like to apply the mantram to?
Questions about how it can work?
We’d love to hear from you! Please share in the comments below.
After our rich, lively experience of “bringing a retreat home” over the past two months, we’re now inviting you to explore the concept of transformation throughout the month of September. When Easwaran writes about transformation, he emphasizes the power of the inspirational passage.
The big and small changes we experience in life provide us with opportunities for going deeper in our meditation and experiencing our own spiritual transformation. Over the next month, through a series of reading and video studies, we’ll strive to absorb Easwaran’s teachings on the overriding goal of spiritual transformation, and find ways we can take our own small steps each day using the eight points.
What are some ways you’ve used the eight-point program to help you during times of change, big or small? Do you have particular go-to passages that you use when you’re facing a difficult internal or external change? We’d love to hear from you! Please share in the comments below.
In the following 3-minute video, Easwaran reminds us of the true goal of our striving for transformation: “You have a loving relationship with everybody, and you express it every day in your life.”
Thank you all for such a rich period of immersion in the eight-point program. Each of your contributions and endeavors at home has helped us to get a better taste of “bringing the retreat home”. It’s been a wonderful time for reflecting individually and as a community of passage meditators.
To close, we’ll have an opportunity to hear from Easwaran. In this 18-minute video he reminds us about all the opportunities that our numerous desires offer to us for gaining a firmer, fitter will. He will also discuss the practical ways in which we can make great strides towards realizing our real Self within. We hope you have been deeply inspired by this satsang together. At the same time, we know that attending a weeklong retreat can take your practice and your dedication to a new level. For that reason, we offer sliding scale fees as well as financial aid for our Tomales retreats. If this is your hope, even if it feels like a wild dream today, don’t lose sight of that dream. As Gandhiji says, “What is impossible for man is child’s play for God.”
It’s been wonderful sharing a taste of “bringing the retreat home” with you over the past two months! We’ve enjoyed hearing from you, and appreciate all the ways you have been taking part from a distance.
Throughout the month, we’d asked you to select a passage that illustrates to you the ideals you strive for in building the will. We’d love to know which passage you’ve chosen! Feel free to share your passage with us in the comments below, but we also encourage you to join us for a special virtual satsang on Saturday, September 1 from 11:00 a.m.–12:15 p.m. (San Francisco time.) During the virtual satsang we’ll meditate together and read our passages aloud in order to round out our home-retreat experience of the past two months.
As this study comes to a close, what is one piece of wisdom that you are taking away? Is there one practical experiment that you had success with and would like to keep up into the future?
Join us for a bonus virtual satsang! Please choose a passage from God Makes the Rivers to Flow or from our website that speaks to you about building your will. We’ll have a virtual satsang session to share these passages aloud, followed by 30 minutes of passage meditation on Saturday, September 1 at 11:00 a.m.-12:15p.m., San Francisco time.
This week, we’ll look at Putting Others First, one of the more nuanced of the eight points. How you put one person first is not necessarily how you will put the next person first – and it will even vary with the same person from situation to situation.
You may already be Putting Others First in many ways. This week, see if you can take the opportunity to do one focused selfless act. Perhaps you can help a friend or family member with a physical project in the yard or garden. Or maybe, you’ll take some time to write the mantram for someone going through a difficult time. Decide what is right for you. Give it a try, reflect on the experience, and let us know how it went! Easwaran reminds us that our true nature is selfless, and that meditation can free us from self-will to use our inner resources for the benefit of others. Have you tasted the benefits of setting aside your self-will by Putting Others First in the context of your personal relationships?
This week, we will explore how Easwaran links simple sense-training activities to grand qualities like freedom, joy, and loyalty in relationships. We’ll also have an opportunity to try some of these activities.
Is there an area of sense training that you do well, or that comes to you naturally? Please share this with us for inspiration! Suggested Activity: Think of a specific situation in your daily life where you would like to practice sense training. For example, you might try getting free from a sensory craving for a type of food or entertainment. You could list a few healthy substitutions for your craving and try one the next time a craving sneaks up on you. We’d love to hear about your experience with this activity. Please share in the comments section.
As a bonus activity, feel free to enjoy this audio recording of Easwaran and Christine reading aloud passages. This is a practical opportunity to enjoy spiritual inspiration as uplifting entertainment.
This month we will continue our experiment of bringing a Tomales retreat experience home, by focusing on this year’s BMCM Weeklong Retreat theme of “Building the Will.” We’ll suggest ways in which you can get a taste of a Weeklong Retreat from wherever you are. As a practical way to approach this week’s focus, think of an instance in your daily life where you’d like to apply One-Pointed Attention more. Please share this with us! Hearing about your efforts helps us all to develop our skills.
Consider how you might make the most of this opportunity for applying more One-Pointed Attention during the week. You might choose an idea from the list below, adapted from a worksheet in the Weeklong Retreat, or choose an idea of your own. You may decide to extend an instance where you already have success with One-Pointed Attention. Choose something that will work for you!
This week, our reading from Easwaran discusses how practicing One-Pointed Attention, or ekagrata in Sanskrit, helps us to build our will and deepen our love and loyalty to everyone around us. Please feel free to highlight particular lines or sections from the reading that resonate with you.
This week, we will explore how slowing down the mind can provide a critical inroad to building the will. Slowing down can be challenging, but we have many opportunities throughout the day to keep trying. Remember that slowing down isn’t only about pacing, but also about setting priorities.
During retreats we often work together in small groups to reflect on an Easwaran reading or video talk and to brainstorm practical suggestions to try. Regarding the current topic of Slowing Down, what are some successes you have had? How has Slowing Down helped you to build your will?
Do you have a specific challenge that you’d like tips with? Review the reading below for ideas, or ask your eSatsang friends!
This week, we’ll continue to look at the retreat theme of building the will, and this time through the lens of the mantram.
In light of that, you might carve out some dedicated mantram time this week in a way that works for you. Is there one activity you can do to focus on the mantram? During retreats there are many opportunities for repeating the mantram such as just before eating a meal, or while taking a walk, lying down for a nap, writing mantrams at the beginning of a workshop, or creating mantram art for someone… you choose!
In the spirit of bringing the retreat experience home, you could consider sitting down to write the mantram for a period of time, dedicating your mantrams to someone who needs them. You could do this in unison with Christine Easwaran and friends at Ramagiri Ashram on Sunday.
This week, our reading from Easwaran emphasizes using the mantram to build the will so we can be kind in challenging situations. Please feel free to share particular lines or sections from the reading that stand out to you, and tell us how they might apply to your own life.
Thanks to all of you for sharing your introductions and joining as you can in our “bring a weeklong retreat home” theme. Your reflections are always inspiring because they are a testament to how Easwaran speaks to each of us differently and in just the way we need. This week, we’ll revisit Easwaran’s teachings about how our meditation practice helps build our will.
Also, you might like to meditate with others this week as another way to bring the retreat home. Perhaps you have an in-person satsang to facilitate this, or another place to meditate with others.
As an optional alternative, you might try joining us for a virtual meditation next Saturday morning at 6:30 a.m. San Francisco time. This is the same time of day that you would meditate in the morning if you were in Tomales, at the retreat house.
This week, we’ll continue our reading study in which Easwaran discusses the role that our practice of passage meditation plays in building the will. Please feel free to share particular lines or sections from the reading that stand out to you, and tell us how they might apply to your own life. We’d love to hear from you!
We are thrilled to invite you to explore the idea of how you might “bring a retreat” to wherever you are in the world. We know that some of you have recently attended a BMCM retreat in Tomales, California, others may have come to a Tomales retreat long ago, and many of you may not yet have had the opportunity to attend a retreat in person.
Easwaran felt that our BMCM retreats here in Tomales are essential to his students and to the world. Here are his words when he inaugurated our retreat house in 1994:
“Come here often, as often as you can. Renew your commitment. Come together to support each other and rededicate your lives to this supreme ambition. This is a waystation on your pilgrimage. This is your second home.”
With this in mind, over the next two months we’ll offer a taste of the retreat experience by focusing on this year’s weeklong retreat theme and providing suggestions so you can experience elements of this retreat from wherever you are.
We’d like to share one last reminder with you about our online workshop tomorrow: Saturday, June 23 at 2:00p.m. –3:15p.m. San Francisco time. We look forward to enjoying the satsang with you! Even if you’re not able to watch the workshop live, if you register now we’ll send you the recording afterwards.
Can you identify some ways in which you currently enjoy fellowship with other spiritual aspirants? Is there another time during your week that might offer an opportunity for satsang? Think of a small experiment you’d like to try for this purpose.
We’d really love to hear your ideas for cultivating satsang opportunities this coming week! Next week, we’ll ask you to share any results you experienced. Your comments 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, June 23 at 2:00p.m. – 3:15 p.m. San Francisco time. This is a 75-minute workshop on the theme of Spiritual Fellowship. Many members of our eSatsang will be taking part, so it’s a chance for some real-time satsang! n the excerpt below, Easwaran looks at how all eight points can come into play when we are with other people – both passage meditators, and also family and friends who may not practice passage meditation.
What are some of the ways that Easwaran applies the eight points to satsang, which you find surprising? Is there anything in the reading that resonates with your personal experience? We’d love to hear your comments and reflections about how interacting with others impacts your spiritual practice in positive ways.
Would you like to meditate with others this month? If so, get an extra boost with this month’s theme of Spiritual Fellowship, and join our passage meditation community for a virtual meditation on Saturday mornings at 6:30 a.m. San Francisco time. We use Zoom software which allows us to videoconference with each other. In the reading that follows, Easwaran shares how important rich personal relationships are for everyone – and in fact they “constitute one of the great blessings of this earth.” He also reminds us of the important role that relationships have in helping us train ourselves to become more selfless in daily life. Do you have examples of how you can see this blessing in your daily life? We’d love to hear about how your relationships are helping you whittle away your self-will.
