“When we do things with only a part of the mind, we are just skimming the surface of life,” Easwaran warns us in this week’s reading from Take Your Time. Throwing light on the dynamics of divided attention and its resolution, he explains:
“Nothing sinks in; nothing has real impact. It leads to an empty feeling inside. Unfortunately, it is this very emptiness that drives us to pack in even more, seeking desperately to fill the void in our hearts. What we need to do is just the opposite: to slow down and live completely in the present. Then every moment will be full.”
Let’s read this section, pages 68–73, and continue observing the connection between one-pointed attention and slowing down.
In this week’s reading, on pages 62–68 from Take Your Time, Easwaran brings the topic of one-pointed attention to focus on one of his favorite themes, personal relationships:
“Effortless concentration is the secret of all personal relationships, whether it is with casual acquaintances, co-workers, colleagues, friends, or family. And when relationships are not particularly cordial, one-pointed attention is even more important. It is an exceptional person who can give complete attention to somebody who is being unpleasant, but when you can do this, you can slowly disarm even a hostile person simply by listening without hostility, with complete and even loving attention.”
Let’s take a small step toward making the spiritual renaissance a reality in our lives by giving our best attention in personal relationships this week!
We hope you’ve been enjoying the Take Your Time book study as much as we have. We feel Easwaran used this little book to frame for us, his students, what the spiritual renaissance should look like and how we can make it happen. What an opportunity!
We are ready to dig in to chapter 3, starting with pages 57–62. Easwaran now introduces one-pointed attention and makes the case for its necessity for training the mind and living in freedom. And he reveals that the benefits extend even further:
“When we learn to recall attention from the past and keep it completely in the present, we reclaim a tremendous reserve of vital energy that has been trapped in the past like a dinosaur. Every time we do this, we restore a little more of our vital wealth to the present moment.”
This week let’s finish chapter 2 of Take Your Time, reading pages 48–54. Having offered a number of skills and strategies for prioritizing our time and relieving pressures, Easwaran now reaches what he describes as “the real crux of slowing down: developing an unhurried mind.” And he makes clear that the implications are profound:
“The Buddha called this ‘living intentionally.’ It is a way of life. Slowing down is not the goal; it is the means to an end. The goal is living in freedom – freedom from the pressures of hurry, from the distractions that fragment our time and creativity and love. Ultimately, it means living at the deepest level of our awareness.”
In chapter 2 of Take Your Time, Easwaran has been giving us a list of ways to get started with our practice of slowing down, with each being a skill he says will grow through practice. This week let’s read pages 42–48, which includes Easwaran’s “red pencil” exercise:
“Long ago, when I began to see the benefits of meditation, I wanted to be sure I made time for it every day. But I couldn’t see how I could fit it in. I had an extremely busy schedule, with responsibilities from early morning until late at night. I valued all this, but I was determined to make meditation a top priority. So I sat down and made a list of all the things I felt bound to do. Then I took my red pencil and crossed out everything that was not actually necessary or beneficial. Some of the results surprised me. I found I had been involved in activities that I couldn’t honestly say benefited anyone, including myself. I had simply become used to doing them. When I surveyed what remained, I found I had freed a number of hours every week.”
In this week’s reading, page 34 to the top of 42 in Take Your Time, Easwaran recounts:
“…gradually I understood that living completely in the present is the secret of an unhurried mind. When the mind is not rushing about in a hurry, it is calm, alert, and ready for anything. And a calm mind sees deeply, which opens the door to tremendous discoveries: rich relationships, excellence in work, a quiet sense of joy. It was a revelation. There was a door to the discovery of peace and meaning in every moment! All I needed to open it was a quiet mind.”
Then he starts right in with eight ways for us to share in that revelation by making the best of the time we have every day.
This week in our new Take Your Time book study, Easwaran presents two of his favorite lofty examples of inner strength and mastery: his grandmother and Gandhi. And for each, he highlights their complete command of time, pressures, and priorities. Of Granny, Easwaran write, “She arose daily with the morning star and worked till evening – sometimes, when necessary, well into the night, long after others had gone to bed. She did everything carefully, giving each task her full attention without pressure or hurry, enjoying her work without ever being driven by it.”
Let’s read this section, pages 27–33, and continue working together on slowing down.
In this second week of our Take Your Time book study we’ll begin chapter 1, covering pages 19–27. We hope you find this opening as compelling as we do. As usual Easwaran makes clear that the implications are practical and profound:
“It may sound paradoxical, but however tight our schedule, however many things clamor to be done, we don’t need to hurry. If we can keep our mind calm and go about our business with undivided attention, we will not only accomplish more but we’ll do a better job – and find ourselves more patient, more at peace.”
We are pleased to embark together on a book study, which is a new endeavor for us as an eSatsang. In the past we have studied journals and book excerpts, but now we’ll systematically read a whole volume from Easwaran – which is a great habit to practice together. So let’s start right in with Take Your Time, beginning with the foreword from Christine Easwaran on pages 9–18. Christine writes:
“In this book, Easwaran offers ways to develop the skill of living in the present so that we can open up the promise held within each moment of our lives. The more we practice, the more we discover in the time we have – and so the nearer we move to having all the time in the world. That, Easwaran says, is our birthright as human beings. It has already been granted to us; we simply have to learn how to claim it.”
Let’s take this opportunity to support each other in staking this precious claim!
Easwaran begins this week’s reading with a stirring quote from the Gita (6:26):
“Wherever the mind wanders, restless and diffuse in its search for satisfaction without, lead it within; train it to rest in the Self. Abiding joy comes to those who still the mind.”
Let’s read the article, “The Power and Peace of Meditation,” on pages 23–27 of the Summer 2014 issue of the Blue Mountain Journal along with the journal’s final article from Easwaran on page 29. And may we each be inspired to deepen our concentration in meditation!
“The essential problem in doing one thing at a time is that we don't really want to—or, more accurately, the mind doesn't want to,” Easwaran diagnoses in this week’s reading from The Power and Peace of a One-Pointed Mind. What a familiar predicament! And yet, he assures us, “The ability to work on a job with total concentration, and then put it out of your mind when necessary, is a skill which can be cultivated.” This week’s article, “Six Ways to Tame an Unruly Mind” on pages 11–22, is full of practical tips for building one-pointed attention skill. We are eager to hear how you put them into action.
After a fascinating month spent on the challenge of turning spiritual ideals into action, we’ll now drop that topic and turn to The Power and Peace of a One-Pointed Mind, the Summer 2014 issue of the Blue Mountain Journal. Let’s use this journal study to work together at deepening our practice of one-pointed attention!
We’ll start by reading the brief pieces on pages 2 and 3, and then continue with the title article from Easwaran on pages 5–10. One powerful theme Easwaran draws out here is the connection between complete attention and detachment: “Through many, many years of unremitting effort based on the practice of meditation, we can train the mind to be detached from every attempt to cling for security to anything outside. That's what detachment means: you need nothing from anything or anyone outside you; you are complete.”
In this week’s article, “How to Make Wise Choices,” Easwaran responds to the frequent question, “How can we know what the perspective of the Self is? Let alone identify with it? We don’t even know where to look.” His answer is a stirring guide for prioritizing activity throughout our lives. Here is one memorable piece of his strong advice: “…remember Sri Krishna’s injunction from the Bhagavad Gita: ‘Make Me your only goal.’ Everything can be referred to that. Will this deepen my meditation, improve my concentration, make my mind more even, make me less self-centered? If it will, I will do it; if it won’t, I will not.”
Let’s read that full article on pages 53–57, along with Easwaran’s brief article “Putting Anger to Work: The Bear” on pages 36–38 of the Spring/Summer 2017 issue of the Blue Mountain Journal.
We’ve been doing the hard work of Turning Ideals Into Action, the topic of the Spring/Summer 2017 issue of the Blue Mountain Journal. In this week’s article “All of Us Are One,” Easwaran inspires us toward this challenge, writing, “The same spark of divinity – this same Self – is enshrined in every creature. My real Self is not different from yours nor anyone else’s. The mystics are telling us that if we want to live in the joy that increases with time, if we want to live in true freedom independent of circumstances, then we must strive to realize that even if there are four people in our family or forty at our place of work, there is only one Self.” And later he explains, “When the sages talk about ‘realization,’ what they mean is making this Self a reality in our daily living. We have to practice it in our behavior.” Let’s read that full article on pages 41–46, along with the extended passage Easwaran’s article refers to, on pages 48–51.
What does it mean to make peace your state of mind? “Gradually you develop a habit of goodness, a hang-up for kindness, a positive passion for the welfare of others,” Easwaran explains. “In terms of emotional engineering, you are using the mind’s enormous capacity for passion to develop the power to put other people first: and not just verbally, but in your thoughts and actions as well. Eventually kindness becomes spontaneous, second nature; it no longer requires effort. There is nothing sentimental about this quality, either; kindness can be as tough as nails.” Continuing our study of Turning Ideals Into Action: The Spiritual Challenge from the Blue Mountain Journal, let’s read Easwaran’s article on pages 23–33 and examine more of his presentation on the dynamics of acquiring a peaceful mind.
“If you are one of the great majority of human beings who have allowed their ideals to get vague around the edges,” Easwaran consoles us in this week’s reading, “meditation can sharpen and strengthen them. Simply refreshing these ideals in meditation can bring an immediate sense of relief, as if coming home again after a long absence or finding something precious you had lost and forgotten.”
This week we take up Turning Ideals Into Action: The Spiritual Challenge, the Spring/Summer 2017 issue of the Blue Mountain Journal, starting with the first article by Easwaran on pages 5–14. May we each be inspired by this sweet promise of coming home again to our own ideals!
Easwaran presents a lofty vision in this week’s reading: “The seed is there, and the ground is fertile. Nothing is required but diligent gardening to bring into existence the God-tree: a life that proclaims the original goodness in all creation.” Please find that brief article, titled “Original Goodness,” on pages 51–52 of the Winter 2015 Blue Mountain Journal The Challenge of Choosing to Be Kind, and let’s read it along with the “Last Reminders from Easwaran” on pages 48–49 and the passages on pages 9, 13, 22, 26, and 53.
Let’s keep learning how to choose kindness! This week we’ll finish Easwaran’s answers to the frequently asked questions in the Winter 2015 issue of the Blue Mountain Journal, reading pages 30–38. Here he reminds us, “What matters is the friendliness we show, the attention with which we listen – and, more than anything else, the complete absence of any sense of superiority.”
And thanks for all your examples and inspiration throughout this past month! It is very uplifting to be studying Easwaran’s timely message together.
“I know when somebody is being rude or unkind, but it does not impair my faith in that person or lower him in my eyes,” Easwaran explains in this week’s reading. “I keep my eyes on the core of goodness I see in him, and act toward him as I would have him act toward me. There is only one way to make others more loving, and that is by loving more ourselves.” We are continuing our study of The Challenge of Choosing to Be Kind, from the Winter 2015 Blue Mountain Journal. Let’s pick back up with the title article, reading pages 21–30. We are eager to hear how you take up this challenge in the comments below!
