Thank you all for such a rich period of immersion in the eight-point program these past two months. Each of your contributions and endeavors at home has helped us get a better collective taste of “bringing a Tomales retreat home”. 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.”
To close, we’ll have an opportunity to hear from Easwaran. In the 6-minute video below, Easwaran summarizes the insights of the sages of ancient India, and discusses how these insights can transform our daily life and our world.
This week, we’ll focus on the last of the eight points: Spiritual Fellowship and Spiritual Reading. These are topics that are typically experienced in person during a weeklong retreat in Tomales. For us here on the eSatsang, we have the following opportunities to experience these virtually as a community. You might consider joining fellow meditators for a virtual meditation next Saturday morning at 6:30 a.m. Pacific Time. you might join Thomas à Kempis and your fellow eSatsang friends, by spending time with “The Wonderful Effects of Divine Love”. Feel free to just enjoy being with this passage. Is there something you would like to you try? Let us know if there’s already something you do to familiarize yourself with passages in an enjoyable way, and then share your ideas with us!
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. Putting others first is a direct way to reduce our self-will. 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!
This month we will continue “bringing a Tomales retreat experience home”, by focusing on this year’s BMCM Weeklong Retreat theme of “Deepening Our Meditation.” We’ll suggest ways in which you can get a taste of a weeklong retreat from wherever you are.
This week, we will explore some of Easwaran’s teachings on sense training in a reading study and a practical activity. He shows how we can use simple sense training activities as a means for gathering and focusing our energy so we can direct it towards life’s bigger challenges. In this way, he links sense training to grand qualities like freedom, joy, and loyalty.
Easwaran reminds us that
“By seeking the Self through meditation, we will come to live in awareness of the unity of life expressed in everyone, everywhere, every minute.”
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. To start your experiment, here’s some inspiration from Easwaran in this three-minute video clip about the purpose of training attention.
This week, we will explore how slowing down the mind can increase concentration on the passage, thus deepening meditation. 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. Regarding the current topic of Slowing Down, what are some successes you have had?
Do you have a specific challenge that you’d like tips for? Review the Easwaran reading for ideas, or ask your eSatsang friends!
As we continue our theme of “bringing a BMCM retreat home” we’ll discuss deepening our meditation through the lens of the mantram.
You might carve out some dedicated mantram time this week in a way that works for you. Is there an 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! Our reading from Easwaran emphasizes using the mantram to build the will so we can be kind in challenging situations.
Thanks to all of you for sharing your introductions and joining as you can in our exercise of “bringing a BMCM retreat home”. Your reflections are always inspiring because they remind us that Easwaran speaks to each of us in just the way we need. This week, we’ll revisit Easwaran’s teachings about deepening our meditation.
As another way to bring the retreat experience home, you might like to meditate with others this week. Perhaps you have an in-person satsang to facilitate this, or another place to meditate with others. We’ll share a way you can do that! This week, we’ll also continue our reading study in which Easwaran discusses how deepened meditation brings wisdom to every aspect of our lives.
we would like to explore the idea of how you might bring a BMCM retreat experience to wherever you are in the world.
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, which he named Gokulam, in 1997:
“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’ll start with a reading study that emphasizes the theme of this year’s weeklong retreat: Deepening Our Meditation. We’ll be referring to Easwaran’s book Seeing With the Eyes of Love. Feel free to read along if you have a copy of the book, or use the excerpts provided on this site.
This week we’ll wrap up our month-long video study with Part Four of Easwaran’s video talk. Easwaran concludes that the glory of the goal helps us take all difficulties in stride. He promises that the Supreme Goal of life allows us to be at home everywhere, and at home with everyone, all the time.
Is there at least one idea you will be taking away from this month of video study and reflection? Do you have something new you can continue to explore? Have you noticed an impact on your meditation practice?
In this week’s video study, Easwaran vividly describes the beauty of the moon, using a number of phrases in English and Sanskrit. He tells us that we all have the moon in our consciousness, and that there are ways to see the beauty of the moon by making our hearts pure.
In this week’s video study, Easwaran shares an anecdote from the Bhagavad Gita in which Arjuna is caught in the world of duality. Easwaran gives us a number of suggestions to help us understand how we can be equal in pleasure and pain, overcoming our own selfishness.
In March, we tried out a Video Study for the first time on the eSatsang, and many of you told us that you wanted to do again. We are happy to oblige!
This month, we’re shifting our focus to Easwaran’s videotaped talk on the Dhammapada, in a talk in which he describes how living for others brings permanent joy and harmony to our lives. He’ll give a number of practical and realistic suggestions to help us catch a glimpse of this joy.
We will close this study with Part 2 of Easwaran’s article “The Secret of Selfless Action” in the Spring 2019 Blue Mountain Journal. In the comments below, we’d love if you’d share a line or two that really stood out to you, or a practical step you’d like to emphasize for yourself and others.
Is there one thing you will be taking away from this month of reflection and practice? Do you have something new you can add to your practice of the eight points?
This week, we’re starting a new article on work and sadhana, in which Easwaran emphasizes the importance of selfless work. He places before us the promise of learning to work hard without any ego involvement at all. He reminds us that a quieter ego means a stiller mind.
Thank you for your inspiring reflections on last week’s reading from the Spring 2019 Blue Mountain Journal “The Purpose of Work”! We’re continuing our conversation as a community on cultivating a new understanding of work as an opportunity to attain wisdom and deepen our practice by reducing self-will.
This week we’re diving into Part 2 of Easwaran’s article “Work: A Chance to Grow” to continue our exploration of the profundity hidden in the routines of daily working life, in the home or outside of it. After reviewing the article, please share your reflections in the comments section below. Is there one practical thing you can experiment with this week while you work?
This month, we’re shifting to a series of reading studies from the Spring 2019 Blue Mountain Journal “The Purpose of Work”. We always like to share journals through the eSatsang because it’s a great opportunity to deepen our understanding of Easwaran’s teachings together, and gain new insights. What reflections do you have on Easwaran’s statement that the purpose of work is the attainment of wisdom? Does it inspire any reflections on the tremendous opportunity for growth in our daily lives?
Below is a story from Easwaran to illustrate how these lofty ideals look in an everyday context. As always, please share what stands out to you in the comments section. Feel free to summarize what you noted and/or share implications for your meditation practice. We look forward to hearing from you!
This has been such a rich and productive month of reflecting on the Self in our hearts and in recognizing the Self in the hearts of those around us. At the beginning of this year, we shared a message of hopefulness and a call to deepening our meditation practice. As we come to the end of the first quarter, is there something meaningful you took away from this shared Vishu celebration to help fuel your deeper practice?
Please enjoy this 3 minute video clip of Easwaran sharing Vishu’s truest meaning: learning to see the divine in ourselves and others – what the mystics call the Face behind all faces.
We are invigorated to hear about the many ways you participated in our worldwide community practice day on Vishu last Sunday. It was special to be connected with our friends at Ramagiri Ashram and with all of you as we took part in ways to deepen our practice of passage meditation. This week, consider simply reading, refreshing or memorizing one of the mirror-themed passages below that speaks to you of your true Self, or a passage that Easwaran reminded us of in his article “Bringing Heaven to Earth”. You may already have chosen one as part of the Vishu mirror ceremony on April 14. Here are a few more suggestions…
We’re all looking forward to the opportunity to ‘gather together’ for shared contemplative practice along with our friends at Ramagiri Ashram. Although we won’t be physically together, the spiritual forces that connect us are far beyond the borders of time and space. Together, we can collectively deepen our meditation to light the lamp of wisdom within us all. As you are able, we invite you to ‘join in’ on the activities scheduled at Ramagiri Ashram (Pacific Time). You might follow the schedule in your own home, or gather with a few satsang friends for some of the activities – find a way to make it work for you!
