We are now one week away from our worldwide celebration of Easwaran’s life on Sunday, October 25 – we hope you will join us! You can read details of how to participate at www.bmcm.org/celebration. Here in the eSatsang we have been preparing by studying the 2017 Blue Mountain Journal Teacher and Student. This week we will read Easwaran’s article “In the Depths of the Unconscious” on pages 55–59. Easwaran explains, “At first we train the mind during meditation and throughout the day, keeping our attention off ourselves and focused on the job at hand. Going through the day with a one-pointed mind is itself quite an achievement. But after many years of effort, imperceptibly, a hole opens in consciousness.” And, he tells us, that is just the beginning! “Our teacher stands like a lighthouse,” he explains, when we journey into the depths of the unconscious.
Continuing our preparation for Easwaran’s life celebration on Sunday, October 25, let’s study Easwaran’s article “The Good Student: Earnestness and Enthusiasm” on pages 46–53 of the 2017 Blue Mountain Journal Teacher and Student. Here Easwaran narrates, “I kept plugging. Every day my limitless love for Sri Krishna reassured me that someday, somehow, a door would open and let me through.” Let us keep plugging too this month and together move closer to our teacher and our goal! You can read details of how to participate in the Life Celebration at www.bmcm.org/celebration.
With our worldwide celebration of Easwaran’s life coming Sunday, October 25, we continue to enjoy the 2017 Blue Mountain Journal Teacher and Student. You can read details of how to participate in the Life Celebration at www.bmcm.org/celebration. This week in the eSatsang, we’ll again read two short articles: “My Teacher Was My Real ‘Me’” on pages 24–26, and “We Are All Teachers” on pages 42–44. In the first article Easwaran shares tender moments with his granny, his spiritual teacher, and reflects, “When I would run home to see my granny, I did not know I had an Atman. Now that I look back I see that my grandmother was my Atman. That is why I loved her; she was my real ‘me,’ my perfect ‘me,’ my pure ‘me.’ I didn’t know this intellectually, but deep inside, from the very depths of my heart, a little voice was saying, ‘That’s you.’”
In this week’s reading, Easwaran explains, “You see, when a person becomes aware of God, he or she is no longer just a person, but a living force. My grandmother did not die; she merely shed her body. She was – she is – very much alive in me. Once I knew that, I knew that I was in her hands and that there was nothing to fear. She has protected and comforted me ever since.” Let’s continue our study of the 2017 Blue Mountain Journal Teacher and Student by reading Easwaran’s articles “The Need for a Teacher” on page 16–19 and “The Outer Teacher and the Teacher Within” on pages 21–22. We are studying this journal in support of our annual Celebration of Easwaran’s Life and Teachings. You can read details of how to participate at www.bmcm.org/celebration.
We are now entering the month of our annual Celebration of Easwaran’s Life and Teachings. You can read details of how to participate at www.bmcm.org/celebration. Here in the eSatsang, to deepen our connection with Easwaran, we will be studying the Blue Mountain Journal Teacher and Student issued in Fall/Winter 2017. Let’s start by reading “An Inner Command” on pages 5–14, where Easwaran tells his own story. In one gripping section, Easwaran narrates, “Late in the evening and long before dawn, while the world slept, I would be alone and awake in meditation, searching inner realms for a forgotten path that would take me home – some bridge between the world of change and the changeless, the transient and the eternal, the individual and the universal, the human and the divine.”
For the final week of our study of Forgiving Others, Forgiving Ourselves, the 2016 Blue Mountain Journal, let’s read the passages included or excerpted in this issue of the journal. You can begin by reviewing “A Prayer for Meditation” from Easwaran on page 4 (which we studied two weeks ago) and then continue to the passages on pages 12, 17, 20, 21, 25, and 39. And we can give Easwaran the final word, savoring his brief statement on page 45 titled “An Ocean of Mercy.” There Easwaran begins, “I can testify to you from my own life, without reservation, that whatever sins we have committed in life, we can receive forgiveness from God.”
Continuing on the theme of forgiveness, this week Easwaran counsels us on freeing ourselves from the burden of guilt in his article “Learning to Forgive Ourselves” on pages 36–41 of the Summer 2016 Blue Mountain Journal. Easwaran gives both practical tips and strong consolation: “Whatever we have done, we can always make amends for it without ever looking backwards in guilt or sorrow. One of the most consoling implications of this is that no matter what mistakes we may have committed in the past, no matter what liabilities we are oppressed by in the present, our real Self can never be tarnished; the core of our personality is always pure, always loving, always wise.”
We hope our study of forgiveness is inspiring you to make small experiments in your own life! We’ll continue with the 2016 Blue Mountain Journal Forgiving Others, Forgiving Ourselves, this week reading Christine Easwaran’s introduction to the issue on pages 2–3, along with a short article from Easwaran titled “Our True Self” on pages 32–33, and “A Prayer for Meditation” from Easwaran on page 4. In her introduction Christine writes, “We think of forgiveness as a response to wrongs, but the forgiveness the mystics plead for is universal: a state of mind that Easwaran said absorbs ill will as trees absorb carbon dioxide in the air and transform it into life-giving oxygen.”
Continuing our study of the 2016 Blue Mountain Journal Forgiving Others, Forgiving Ourselves, this week we will read “Ten Tips from Easwaran on How to Forgive,” on pages 23–31. The article is full of Easwaran’s practical advice and inspiration. He writes, “It takes a good deal of inner strength to remain calm and compassionate in the face of fierce opposition, never losing your balance or resorting to harsh language. But when you can do this, a kind of miracle takes place which all of us can verify. The other person becomes calmer, his eyes clear a little too; soon communication is established once again.”
This week we will begin studying the Blue Mountain Journal Forgiving Others, Forgiving Ourselves issued in the Summer of 2016. We hope this study will inspire us and provide soothing balm for us all! Here is the quote from Easwaran on the back page of this journal: “Jesus says, ‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.’ I caught the connection immediately: if I am able to forgive others for what they have done to me, I will find it very easy to forgive myself for the trouble I may have caused others. So for those who find it very hard to forgive themselves, I would suggest that they learn to forgive others.”
Let’s conclude our study of the Blue Mountain Journal Gandhi & Nonviolence: Love in Action, Transforming Anger with two brief and inspiring statements from Easwaran, on pages 3 and 63, as well as the passages included in this issue of the journal on pages 16, 19, 31, 47, 59. In the opening article Easwaran declares, “Gandhiji put all his faith in the individual. His way was for each of us to make a personal contribution in our own home and community. His genius lay in knowing how to transform the raw material of daily living into opportunities for growth and service, so that routine events become spiritual occasions.”
This week we will read Easwaran’s article “Transforming Anger in Our Own Lives,” pages 49-57 of the Blue Mountain Journal Gandhi & Nonviolence: Love in Action, Transforming Anger. Here Easwaran gives many practical suggestions for us to implement, and he writes, “Returning kindness for unkindness is not simply being kind to that particular person. We are being kinder to ourselves, because we are undoing a compulsion, taking one more step towards being free.”
We hope you are finding inspiration in our study of the Blue Mountain Journal Gandhi & Nonviolence: Love in Action, Transforming Anger. This week we will study Easwaran’s article “Nonviolence in Practice” on pages 39-45, where he says, “In mystical language, a river of divine love is flowing in the depths of every one of us. When you and I return kindness for unkindness, that cosmic river carries our act of love into the depths of the unkind person’s consciousness.”
Continuing our study of the 2019 Blue Mountain Journal Gandhi & Nonviolence: Love in Action, Transforming Anger, this week we will read the second half of Easwaran’s article “Gandhi's Message,” pages 17-30. In the article Easwaran says, “Translating the Gita into character, conduct, and consciousness was precisely what Gandhi was doing in South Africa. He knew it by heart, knew it in his heart, studied it over and over every day, used it in prayer until it became a living presence.”
This week we will begin studying a 2019 special issue of the Blue Mountain Journal celebrating the 150th anniversary of Gandhi’s birthday. The editors introduce the issue by highlighting Easwaran’s unique message on the significance of Gandhi’s example: “that anger can be transformed into irresistible compassion, and that even ordinary people like us, through the practice of meditation, can make ourselves instruments of peace whose influence can spread to everyone around us.”
Let’s conclude our study of the new digital-only issue of the Blue Mountain Journal with two brief and inspiring statements from Easwaran, on pages 3 and 63, as well as the passages included in this issue of the journal on pages 24, 45, 46, 50, 53. In the opening article Easwaran begins, “I keep in close touch with what happens in the world. And there are times when I feel deeply grieved by the suffering I read about, and I wonder why life has to be this way. But I never despair. At those times I go deep, deep into meditation until I reach the very source of love and wisdom that exists in each of us.”
We hope studying the new special issue of the Blue Mountain Journal is lifting everyone’s spirits and reminding us all of our deep connection with Easwaran and his community. This week we examine Easwaran’s article “Two Paths” on pages 29-41 of the new digital-only issue, where he says, “These two paths, the self-centered and the selfless, open to us constantly, in a thousand little choices throughout the day. Any time we choose to give rather than get, we have taken a step on the path of true fulfillment.”
Continuing our study of the new digital-only issue of the Blue Mountain Journal, this week we will read Easwaran’s article “Nine Tips for a Crisis,” pages 12-21. In the article Easwaran says, “when we have an overriding goal, we find that many of our problems fall away of their own accord. Everything falls into perspective: we know what to do with our time, what to do with our energy, and it is easier to see all the little choices that confront us every day.”
With much of our world disrupted by the pandemic, we need Easwaran’s guidance more than ever. This week we will start studying the new Blue Mountain Journal, “Wisdom and Compassion in a Global Crisis.” We hope this special issue will lift everyone’s spirits and remind us all of our deep connection with Easwaran and his community.
In our reading from Passage Meditation this week, Easwaran says about the books he has written, “They are based entirely on personal experience, and their sole purpose is to help readers make their highest ideals a part of their daily lives.”