Quote for the Day--Leave the Sandbox

"In the perspective of mysticism, most of us are still playing in the world as if we were children in a giant sandbox. We have our rattles, we hold on tightly to our Popsicles; for the vast majority of us, most of life is spent with toys. Figures like Sri Krishna, Christ, and the Buddha come to the edge of the sandbox and remind us gently, “Look, your hair is turning gray. Do you want to play here forever? There are vast worlds to be discovered.” But often we reply, in effect, “Right, Lord. Just let me finish this one sand castle"...If we keep playing with pleasures and possessions for decades, before we realize it the sandbox becomes our universe. Then we have no thought for what we really are, who is within us, what is our destiny, whether life has any goal.”

-- Eknath Easwaran

Quote of the Day

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.
– John Muir

When we see the world with new, spiritual eyes, we realize it is God’s beach, God’s ocean, God’s world. We see ourselves as waves in the ocean of love that is God. We are not separate from one another, we realize, but we all exist as part of the sea, as a wave of the infinite ocean. This is seeing spiritually: seeing everything joined together – the waves of the sea, the light in the sky, the birds skimming along the whitecaps, the dogs running, the children playing, the warmth of the sand – everything together.

It is impossible to put this experience into words, but all those who try to do so describe it as a deep sense of fellowship with all creatures, from the little sandpipers to the mighty leviathans of the deep.
--Eknath Easwaran

Overcoming Poverty of the Spirit

And I marveled to find that at last I loved you and not some phantom instead of you; and I did not hesitate to enjoy my God, but was ravished to you by your beauty.
– Saint Augustine

To deepen our love, to unify our desires, the Lord – the Self within – on occasion gives us a fleeting taste of the joy of union. Once we taste this joy, all we want is to be permanently aware of him in everyone, everywhere, every minute. This intense longing is the mark of genuine spiritual experience.

At the same time we experience the joy of union, we see clearly the great mass of self-will that weighs us down and keeps us from our most cherished goal.

Yet none of us need feel disheartened. Remember how even great figures like Saint Augustine almost despaired when they saw how powerful was the pull of selfish satisfaction. That is our human conditioning, and it is no reason to give up. All of us can learn to reduce our excess baggage.
--Eknath Easwaran

If I'd ever had Easwaran's "fleeting taste of the joy of union" with the Lord, perhaps I would hunger and strive with all my heart to know it permanently. But I have not, and so I do not.

How can I, and how do I? By meditating and contemplating enough? How much is enough? And how does one do enough without the inspiration of which Easwaran writes? Just as one needs money or other resources in order to earn more money, doesn't one also need to feel inspired in order to make an enduring effort to make big spiritual gains? I often feel like a man who is too poor to become rich.

I don't say this because I am depressed or demoralized; I say it because I don't know what to do, yet, I continue to look for it.

Question for the Day

"If I go on grabbing and grabbing, at what point do I become secure and feel no more need to grab?"
--Eknath Easwaran

Wise Discrimination

The Buddha, the most practical of teachers, defined the wise man or woman in a thoroughly practical way: "One who will gladly give up a smaller pleasure to gain a greater joy." That is discrimination, the precious capacity to see life clearly and choose wisely. When it is understood, every choice becomes an opportunity for training the mind.
--Eknath Easwaran, Conquest of Mind, p. 66

Easwaran has written that he loves great symphonies, novels, and other works of art but that what he loves most is the "perfectly crafted life." That to him, and to me, is the supreme work of art, more beautiful and inspiring even than Michelangelo's David. Indeed, it seems to me, we can look at how we live our lives as a process of sculpting. Every choice we make chips away a piece of the precious stone we've been given. Every bad choice makes it that much harder to craft a great work of living art; every good choice fosters our effort. Sooner or later, we will run out of stone, and the potential we once had to sculpt a moving, breathing David will have crumbled into dust. Why waste time when we don't know how much we have left? Why make bad choices that undermine the most important project of a lifetime?

I have made countless bad choices, and I'll be fifty-five in March. I don't know how much stone I have left, and I have many, many mistakes to overcome to forge my modest masterpiece from what raw material remains.

The Making of a Teacher

I am still an educator. But formerly it was education for degrees; now it is education for living.
--Eknath Easwaran

I'm reading a wonderful biography. The book is entitled The Making of a Teacher: Conversations With Eknath Easwaran. It was written by two of Easwaran's students, Tim and Carol Flinders, who lived with him at his ashram, The Blue Mountain Center of Meditation. Easwaran was a marvelous writer despite the fact that English wasn't even his native language. He grew up in the southwestern Indian state of Kerala and spoke Malayalam as his mother tongue, learning English as a second language in school and mastering it along with Sanskrit through his own diligence. In fact, he excelled so well in English that he became the leader of his high school debate team, fell in love with English literature, and became a very successful university professor of English in India.

However, he felt a higher calling over time to take up a spiritual path grounded in meditation and was transformed through his discipline and experience into a spiritual sage who came to the USA in 1959 on a Fulbright scholarship and ended up teaching, at U.C. Berkeley, what may well have been the first accredited meditation course in a major university anywhere in the country if not the world. He also founded the Blue Mountain spiritual center and retreat and the Nilgiri Press.

In the late 1980's, Tim and Carol Flinders, who lived at the Blue Mountain Center with Easwaran in a community of his devoted students from all walks of life, spent several months interviewing him for a biography they planned to write about him. The Making of a Teacher was the remarkable result, and I recommend it to anyone who is interested either in Easwaran in particular or in simply reading about the life experience of an enlightened and much beloved spiritual teacher.

Below is a passage from the book that deeply moved me. I read it in the wake of a recent oil spill in San Francisco Bay that has befouled water and beaches and killed and imperiled birds and other wildlife all along the area. In reading it, I also thought of my beloved Smokey and wished I had stayed with him until the very end. The passage illustrates beautifully how Easwaran looked at life and death and taught about them in his mindfully loving way.

Halfway up the beach, six teenagers stood in a huddle, scuffing the sand with their bare feet. They were looking down at something, and as we approached we saw that it was an immature harbor seal that lay just above the water line. It was panting heavily, its eyes wide open. Easwaran stopped and looked down at it. The trembling pup turned its eyes toward him, too weak to retreat. Carefully, Easwaran knelt on the sand and began to stroke the unresisting, doglike head, running his gloved hand back and forth over its damp fur. The seal did not turn away.

The teenagers watched with cautious interest. One of them was tall and slender, with quick, serious eyes and a headful of blond hair that moved with the breeze. He stepped forward from the group, then dropped to his knees beside the seal. He looked into its eyes, then looked long and steadily at the man who was stroking it.

Easwaran didn't look up but continued to stroke the seal's small, pointed head. For some time, the pup lay still, its wide, dark eyes fixed on Easwaran. Finally, the eyes dimmed and turned lusterless.

Easwaran turned to the boy.

The boy asked, "Is it dead?" "His body is dead," said Easwaran, standing up and brushing the sand from his knees.

"You mean. . .?" The boy glanced at the group of friends standing nearby, then back at Easwaran, who smiled warmly at him. Encouraged, he stood up slowly and asked, "Did you see how that seal looked at you?"

"Perhaps he knew I was his friend," Easwaran answered.

The boy pushed the long hair out of his eyes and paused again. He appeared to be struggling to frame another question.

Easwaran waited, unhurried. His seriousness matched the boy's own--softened, though, by the transparent affection that young people always elicit in him. He returned the gaze of the young man who was asking him, wordlessly, what the death of the seal pup meant. "It means that this same thing will happen to all of us," Easwaran said quietly, anticipating him. "To me, to you, to your friends here." He looked at the faces of the others, who stood watching with patient incomprehension. Then he turned back to the young man beside him. "But it will not be the end. Not for any of us."

Not a muscle moved in the young man's face, but the look of struggle was gone. His gaze was eager now, and searching.

Easwaran clapped him on the shoulder, gave him another smile, and said good-bye. Then, waving to the others, he took Christine's hand and started up the beach. Had the boy been a few years older, I guessed, Easwaran would have let himself be drawn out a little more. Later he confirmed my guess, recalling his favorite Upanishad, the Katha, in which a teenage boy boldly demands answers about the meaning of death from a sage who is as fierce as he is wise. "Teenagers can show tremendous spiritual potential," Easwaran said. "They have the passion, the desire, the idealism, the reckless daring to stake everything they have on an almost impossible goal. But these young people need time, you know. My way is terribly demanding. Before they take on meditation and these other disciplines, they need every opportunity to explore all the innocent pleasures of life--and they need to begin to see through them too!" Still, he added, if the young man on the beach were to turn up at one of his Tuesday night talks, he wouldn't be surprised. "I would be more than happy to see him."

More than happy. Spiritual teachers in the Indian tradition keep ceaseless watch for that special light in the eye of the most gifted students--the glint of gold. When the teenage hero of the Katha has passed the tests placed before him by the teacher and proved himself worthy of spiritual instruction, the crusty sage breaks into an uncharacteristic smile: "Blessed are you, Nachiketa!" he exults. "May we find more spiritual seekers like you!" (133-135)

Playing Kooee With God

People see his pleasure-ground; him no one sees at all.
– Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

When I was a boy in my ancestral home in South India, the children used to play a game called kooee. One little boy or girl would run and hide in a room of the labyrinthine building. Then he would call out “kooee,” and we would hear “kooee” echoing from all corners. “Kooee” would be coming from upstairs and downstairs; from the ceiling “kooee” would reverberate. We would race through the halls, tear through each room in search of the one who was crying “kooee.” Then at last we would catch her, and the game would be over.

This is the game we are all playing. Some people hear the call coming from the bank. Others hear the call from the haunts of pleasure. Many hear it coming loud and clear from status and prestige. Still others, tragically, seek power that calls to them with a loud voice.

We need to open our ears, so that when we hear the elusive call we will say, “Oh, that is Krishna playing on his flute. That is Jesus beckoning to us to follow him. That is the Divine Mother calling us home. That is the Buddha trying to wake us up.” Finally, we learn how to trace the sound to its source and say, “Caught you at last!”

--Eknath Easwaran

Changing the World Within and Without

You never enjoy the world aright, till the Sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars; and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world, and more than so, because men are in it who are every one sole heirs as well as you.
– Thomas Traherne

In our relationship with the environment, the real power does not lie in the hands of technologists or politicians or directors of multinational corporations. It is individuals like you and me who make the final decisions about what is bought and sold in the stores, how much carbon dioxide is pumped into the atmosphere, and what is dumped into the sea. Each of us can begin to heal the environment right away by changing our daily habits.

And beyond that, there is another area which deserves our immediate attention: the world within. For each of us has an entire world within, an internal environment as real as the one we see around us. This internal environment has a powerful effect on the external environment: the way we think affects the way we treat the earth. When we purify this inner environment, we are not only making ourselves more secure and fulfilled, but we are also making an important contribution to the health of Mother Earth.

--Eknath Easwaran

Empathy Through Unity

You see, when you are continuously aware that all life is one, your awareness reaches out into the world like an open nerve. It registers both the pain and the joy of its creatures. It is the price to be paid for becoming aware of the underlying unity of life.

--Eknath Easwaran

How to Choose a Spiritual Teacher?

I had a very good discussion with someone in the comments section of one of my recent entries. Part of our discussion was about how to progress spiritually. This person suggested that one needs to find an authentic spiritual teacher and that Eknath Easwaran, although he seemed like a "nice" enough guy with some commonsensically sound things to say about religion and spirituality, was essentially just an "English teacher"and not a "genuine vehicle of the divine grace." When I asked how one knows an authentic teacher from a charlatan, this person replied:

it is so important to remain within orthodoxy, as these are guaranteed sources of grace. They have an established record, like a boring mutual fund that you know will appreciate over time, as opposed to some hot stock that may or may not grow.

To cite a banalogy, let's say you have a big social function coming up, and you want to look sharp. But like Gagdad Bob, you don't know anything about fashion. Whom do you trust? On the one hand, you could go to some cutting edge place on Melrose Avenue and get the latest style. You'll probably end up looking like an idiot. No, better to stay with a classic look, something timeless, something that will never go out of style. This is why Cary Grant always looks impeccable, while those who follow fashions look very silly five or ten years later.

This seems like excellent advice. If one selects a venerable teacher from within a time-honored wisdom tradition, one is largely "guaranteed" a legitimate teacher who can act as a "source of grace."

As a sideline comment on the clothing metaphor, I recently felt the need to purchase a sport coat for an important job interview for which wearing my one and only suit seemed "over the top," but anything less than a nice sport coat with dress shirt and slacks and matching tie seemed insufficient. My problem was that I have such dismal fashion sense that I hadn't a clue as to what to buy. I had the idea that I needed to get something more on the Cary Grant than Carson Kressley side of fashionability, but whom could I trust to show me what filled the bill? I decided on the Men's Wearhouse because I'm a sucker for those George Zimmer commercials where he earnestly boasts in a mellifluous tone, "You're going to like the way you look. I guarantee it." I believed that I could go to one of his stores and find something recommended by someone who knew what he (or she) was doing without having to pay what's left of my bank account for it. I'd like to think I made the right decision not only on where to shop but also on the sport coat I ended up buying, but I don't know for sure. It's not the coat I would have bought on my own by any means, and, as for trusting Men's Wearhouse, I could probably find people who know about clothes who would say that Men's Wearhouse is a good place to shop whereas others would say that it sucks big time.

In much the same way, I could probably find disagreement between even the most spiritually knowledgeable people about who, among even the most revered, is an authentic spiritual teacher and who isn't. For instance, some swear that Andrew Cohen is a great spiritual teacher, while others insist that he's an egomaniacal, cult-leading nutcase. It seems like, in the end, one just doesn't know for sure. Not only does one not know who's a genuine spiritual teacher in general, but one also doesn't know whether that teacher is right for him or her in particular. "Different strokes for different folks," and, perhaps, different teachers for different seekers. It seems to me that if one is really looking for a good teacher, one may need to find someone who not only has a sterling reputation among people who seem qualified to judge (whoever they are), which isn't always that easy to do, but also that he (or she) must strike a chord deep within oneself.

In their own ways, Spinoza, Alan Watts, Thich Nhat Hanh, Eknath Easwaran, Ken Wilber, and, yes, even Tony Robbins have come the closest to striking chords deep within me of anyone with whom I have any familiarity. All seem to have pieces of the spiritual puzzle, even though no one seems like a sufficiently complete teacher for me in and of himself. I know that Cousin Dupree would probably roll his eyes in disgust at my mention of at least two of these gentlemen, and he probably wouldn't think much of the remainder as spiritual teachers, but why should I trust Dupree's judgment about spiritual matters more than I do my own deepest instincts? Because he's far smarter and much more widely read than I am and has even had his own book about spirituality published and praised and has been interviewed in a leading magazine about spirituality? Some would say that this is reason enough, but is it?

In any case, I can't force myself to go against my instincts to embrace Dupree's or anyone else's conflicting judgments even if I wanted to. The best I can do is listen to and reflect upon what others have to say and then proceed to make my own choices based on what I think (or feel) is best. And I suspect that there's something to be said for following through with conviction and purpose with one's decision after one makes it instead of wavering diffidently from second-guessing.

What I'm trying to say is that it seems to me that I must make a choice of whom to follow or what path to walk and totally commit to that choice long enough to get a clear sense of where it leads. I can listen to other people's recommendations, but they can't make the choice for me. I must make it for myself.

Interestingly, Easwaran, who, incidentally, moved on (or up) from being a professor of English literature (Wasn't Aurobindo also an English professor for a time?) to becoming a world-renowned spiritual teacher and writer and the founder of the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation where he lived with and taught, in traditional Indian fashion, a devoted community of students or disciples, had the following to say about choosing the right teacher:

My advice has always been to select your teacher with great care. Use common sense and don't get carried away by personal appearance. You don't go to just any stockbroker and ask him to handle your accounts, do you? You study his record; you ask your friends about him. Now, if choosing a stockbroker can command so much attention, you must pardon me if I say that you should take at least as much care in choosing a spiritual teacher. Look closely at his or her life. That is the surest test. Talk to people who have been with the teacher, who have spent time with him or her. See whether he gets depressed when things go wrong, whether she can return good for ill, love for hatred--whether he can support those who offend him, whether she can forgive those who malign her. How consistent are his actions with his words? I give students years before I accept them fully. I watch them carefully, and I expect them to watch me carefully at the same time. And I ask them to give me a reasonable margin for human error. (The Making of a Teacher, Jim and Carol Flinders, 43-44)

That, too, seems like excellent advice, although it raises its own set of questions. Primary among them are: (1) How much "human error" should we accept in an enlightened teacher? and (2) Should we turn to a living teacher with whom we can be physically present, or can we "settle" for a teacher who has either passed on or whom we can never hope to meet much less study with on a continuing basis?

What is the Self, and is it God?

As pure water poured into pure water becomes the very same, so does the Self of the illumined man or woman verily become one with the Godhead.
– Katha Upanishad

For some reason, it is very difficult for us to accept our divine nature. This has always puzzled me. We pay money for books about how destructive we are. We stand in line to see movies that emphasize our capacity for making trouble. Then, when Jesus comes to tell us that the kingdom of heaven is within us, we say, “There must be some mistake.”

It is to convince us that our real Self is always pure and eternal that men and women of God keep arising among us. More than anything, we need to hear their good news that the source of all joy and security is right within. In the Hindu scriptures there is a precise term for our real nature: the Atman. All it means is “the Self” – not the little self, the changing personality with which most of us identify, but the higher Self, our real, changeless personality.

--Eknath Easwaran

Is "God" only within me, or is It just as much outside as inside me?

If by "me," I mean my organism or body-mind, then God is both inside and outside me. If by "me," I mean the fullest and most real me, then I, in the fullest and most real sense, am God. And so, I might add, are you. At least this is what I understand many of the great or reputedly great sages to be saying, whether or not any of them happen to be Christian.

Is there such a thing as a Christian sage? If Christianity says that God and I are not the same, but the truth is that God and I are the same and that a sage knows this fundamental truth, can any true Christian be a sage?

Yet, do I understand these sages correctly, or am I distorting their message? And, if do understand them correctly, are they correct, and, if so, how do I know that they are? By doing what they do until I experience what they experience? If I try this and succeed, will I know that "I and the Father are One"? If so, how will my life be different? How will I be different? How will the world be different because I am different?

Love Everyone No Matter What?

In every veil you see, the Divine Beauty is concealed, making every heart a slave to him. In love to him the heart finds its life; in desire for him, the soul finds its happiness. The heart which loves a fair one here, though it knows it not, is really his lover.
– Jami

It is very difficult for most of us to understand to what extent our love can be expanded. Everybody has a few people with whom he can be friendly, with whom she can be tender, but the Lord tells us, “That’s not enough. If you want to become whole and never be separate again, you should have love and respect for everyone.”

Jesus said, “What is the special achievement in loving those who love you? Even selfish people are prepared to do that. Bless those that curse you.” I can see the twinkle in his eye as the gathering gasps. This is the daring of Jesus. Today we talk about revolution, but I think there has never been a greater revolutionary than Jesus the Christ. He tells us that by loving those who hate us, we can win our freedom, because we will no longer be dependent on how others act towards us. The person who practices this can reach the summit of human consciousness, for it is only by loving people who oppose us and learning to bear with them that we can heal ourselves and heal them too.

--Eknath Easwaran

"Cousin Dupree" would no doubt disagree with Easwaran on this, insisting that it's further evidence of the man's foolishness. But I strongly suspect that Easwaran is right on the mark. This doesn't mean that I'll ever be able to love everyone, and I'm not going to wear myself out trying or beat myself up for failing. But I do see it as an ideal, and I believe that the older and wiser I get, the more closely I may be able to approximate it.

In the Beginning

1.1. Dhritarashtra said: O Sanjaya, after my sons and the sons of Pandu assembled in the place of pilgrimage at Kurukshetra, desiring to fight, what did they do?

In The End of Sorrow: The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living, Eknath Easwaran begins his commentary on the great Hindu scriptural classic by quoting Mahatma Gandhi:

The Gita is not a historical discourse. A physical illustration is often needed to drive home a spiritual truth. It is the description not of war between cousins, but between two natures in us--the Good and the Evil.

Easwaran agrees with Gandhi and tells the story of how a train on which he was traveling once stopped at Kurukshetra, the field immortalized in the Gita as the site of a devastating battle between the evil Kauravas and the good Pandavas, and most of the passengers disembarked to wander the hallowed field while Easwaran remained on the train because he knew that Kurukshetra was actually a metaphor for the battle against "all that is selfish, self-willed, and separate in us." Easwaran continues:

The violence we see about us is a reflection of the anger and self-will burning deep within us. Most of us carry a conflagration around with us in the depths of consciousness, and many of us are skilled practitioners of guerilla warfare right in our own homes. The war the mystics of all the world's great religions talk about is not the one erupting in the Middle East or in Southeast Asia that makes newspaper headlines; it is the one erupting from the fierce self-will afflicting all of us, estranging individuals, familes, communities, races, and nations. (23-24)

Easwaran argues that we can win this battle and that a careful study of the Gita shows us how with its eightfold path of meditation and allied disciplines that Easwaran has adopted into his own spiritual system that he's spent much of his life sharing with the world.

I read Easwaran and don't know whether to believe him or not. Is the strife and violence we see inside and around us really simply the result of our egoistic selfishness and self-will, and can we really triumph over them by waging a skillful battle against them armed with meditation, mantram, mindfulness, training the senses, slowing down, putting the welfare of others first, reading spiritual literature, and enjoying spiritual companionship?

What's more, are Gandhi and Easwaran correct in arguing that we often need myths to convey truths that expository prose cannot? Isn't the world full of people--like Christian TV evangelists and their followers or the train passengers who wandered the field of Kurukshetra--who take the myths literally and, in so doing, never understand the real point of the myth and never become transformed by its truth?

I don't know the answers to these questions, and I'm tired of reading other people's opinions and speculating. I want to find out for myself. I want to read, reflect, and blog on the Gita and Easwaran's commentary while I follow Easwaran's eight-point program within the wider context of an integral life practice and see where it all leads.

It is said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. My journey begins here.

Easwaran on Learning How to Fly

He that loveth, flieth, runneth, and rejoiceth. He is free, and cannot be held in. He giveth all for all, and hath all in all, because he resteth in one highest above all things, from whom all that is good flows and proceeds.
– Thomas a Kempis

This spring I watched six baby swallows learn how to fly. They were huddled on the telephone wires observing their mother, who came flying slowly by in front of them, doing the easier turns and showing them the basics of flying. There was no need for these baby swallows to read books or attend lectures on how to fly. They have an inborn instinct for it. Learning to fly may not be easy, but this is what birds are born to do.

The Lord sees us sitting on a perch made of pleasure, profit, power, or prestige, quaking with every variation in our bank account and every critical comment that comes our way; and he asks us if we would not rather forget our failings and learn to fly.

This is what we are born to do: to leave our perch of selfish interests and soar aloft. To soar to union with God means that all the faculties and resources which have been hidden in us can come into our lives, to the great benefit of those around us.

--Eknath Easwaran

Myth As Fact?

God has created the world in play.
– Sri Ramakrishna

A simple, childlike story in India’s ancient scriptures tells how multiplicity emerged from unity. The Lord, the One without a second, felt very lonesome one morning. After all, he was the only thing that existed in the entire universe, so when he looked around him, he could see no one but himself. This did not satisfy him at all. He wanted to play.

So he made playmates. Out of himself he created the myriads of creatures, the two-footed and the four-footed. He started playing with them, playing hide-and-seek, which is what life is all about. We are all playing this game with the Lord. We are all seeking him, and he is hiding playfully from us.

It is easy to talk about this, sing about this, paint this, but it is an entirely different matter to experience it. Yet in deepest meditation, the veil separating you and me can drop. Then, beneath the varied costumes, we will be able to perceive the same supreme Reality whom we call God, who is playing his game in the world.

--Eknath Easwaran

I like Easwaran's wonderfully clear and simple telling of this ancient Hindu story better than I do almost any other version I've come across. But the thing is, Hindus and Wilberians alike seem to take this story as fact. They may call it "myth" and explain that it "points at" rather than embodies Reality, but it seems to me that, when all is said and done, they take the story quite literally. The "Ultimate Reality" is consciousness that has intentionally "involuted" Itself into the world that subsequently struggles and evolves to regain its original unity.

But every time I hear and consider this, I wonder why the perfection of Ultimate Unity would EVER consciously--i.e., intentionally--become a messy and chaotic multiplicity wracked by suffering. Yes, I know that the Hindu and Wilberian mystics joyfully proclaim that this multiplicity and suffering is still, ultimately, a perfect Unity. But their perception and mine on this seem so far apart that I wonder if one of us isn't terribly deluded and whether I am necessarily the one so afflicted. This world seems anything BUT unified and perfect, and just because mystics and integral philosophers tell me it is doesn't mean I buy what they tell me.

Ken Wilber suggests that if I undergo the right "injunction" or spiritual discipline, I will discover for myself that the mystics are right and that my old way of seeing things was wrong. But I wonder if this is isn't all-too-analogous to saying that everyone who takes psilocybin will, at some point, see strange things happen to the objects in front of their eyes; therefore, those things are ACTUALLY happening. The floor is REALLY undulating like the ocean, and those plants in the vase before you are REALLY growing and shrinking, growing and shrinking before your very eyes.

Loving, Knowing, and Acting

When we use the word love, let us use it very carefully, in the deeply spiritual sense, where to love is to know; to love is to act.

If you really love, from the depths of your consciousness, that love gives you a native wisdom. You perceive the needs of others intuitively and clearly, with detachment from any personal desires; and you know how to act creatively to meet those needs, dexterously surmounting any obstacle that comes in the way. Such is the immense, driving power of love.
--Eknath Easwaran

Eknath Easwaran: Perfect Joy

Where there is injury, let me sow pardon.
– Saint Francis of Assisi

Once, in wintertime, it is said that Francis and his disciple Brother Leo were making a hard journey on foot through the snowy countryside of Italy. They had been walking along in silence for a long time when Brother Leo turned to Francis and asked him, “How can we find perfect joy?” Francis stopped and replied, “Even if all our friars were perfect in their holiness and could work all kinds of miracles for others, we still would not have perfect joy.”

He turned and walked on, and Brother Leo ran after him. “Then what is perfect joy?” Francis stopped again, “Even if we could speak with the birds of the air and the beasts of the field and know all the secrets of nature, we still would not have perfect joy. Even if we could cure all the ills on the face of the earth, we would still not have found perfect joy.”

Brother Leo was practically shouting: “Then please, Father Francis, what is the secret of perfect joy?”

“Brother, suppose we go to that monastery across the field and tell the gatekeeper how weary and cold we are, and he calls us tramps and beats us and throws us out into the winter night. Then, Brother, if we can say with love in our hearts, Bless you in the name of Jesus,’ then we shall have found perfect joy.”

--Eknath Easwaran

Eknath Easwaran: Dealing With Disagreement

Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair.
– William Blake

Though I have lived in this country for many years now, there are still many American expressions that I don’t understand. I remember trying to explain meditation to a young fellow who kept shaking his head and saying, “Man, I just don’t hear you.” In all innocence, I started over again a little louder. Finally it dawned on me what he really meant: “I just don’t want to hear you. I don’t like what you’re saying.”

This is what most of us do when there is disagreement. We carry around a pair of earplugs, and the minute somebody starts saying something we don’t like, we stuff them in our ears until he or she is through. Watch with some detachment the next time you find yourself quarreling with someone you love. It won’t look like a melodrama, but like a first-rate comedy – two people trying to reach an understanding by not listening to each other!

An effective way of dealing with a disagreement is simply to listen with complete attention, even if we don’t care for what the other person is saying. We are showing how our respect won’t waver no matter how vehemently we may disagree.

--Eknath Easwaran

Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life, and Vice Versa

Easwaran’s thought for today quotes the Buddha: “All that we are is the result of what we have thought.” That is, our lives today are shaped by what we have thought and, consequently, done up till now. Furthermore, Easwaran elaborates, what we think from now on will, by implication, determine our deeds and shape our lives from now on. Thus, if we want to change our lives, we can begin, must begin by changing our thoughts. We have the power to choose how we think, and we can increase that power and our capacity to make the right choices by daily, disciplined adherence to Easwaran’s eightfold path.

I’m not sure that either Buddha or Easwaran are correct when they suggest that every aspect of our lives today is the result of what we have thought and done in the past. I suspect that it’s a little more complicated than that. But I have no doubt that our thoughts have a tremendous influence on our actions and, consequently, on the circumstances of our lives, and that the right thoughts and, consequently, actions can help to create a good, happy life.

Conversely, I believe that our actions can influence our thoughts and feelings. If we act confident or happy, we are more likely to think and feel confident and happy than if we don’t. This, in turn, can help us to act more confident and happy, and so on in the very opposite of a vicious circle. What is the opposite of a vicious circle? A virtuous circle, perhaps?

What I am trying to do today is think the right thoughts AND do the right deeds based on my best understanding of what’s right and what’s wrong. It sounds simple, doesn’t it? Simple in principle, but enormously difficult in practice. However, I would like to think that sages like Easwaran, Ken Wilber, and, yes, even Tony Robbins can help me to do precisely that.

Meditation and the Unconscious

Eknath Easwaran says that when we learn to meditate his way properly, we will know our unconscious and gain control over it. His way of meditating is to sit with eyes closed for thirty minutes at a time saying a special spiritual passage (e.g., the St Francis prayer) to oneself silently and with total absorption over and over slowly until it’s time to stop. He says that if one sticks with it, one will eventually become so adept at this that he will be aware only of the words and nothing else to the point that these words will infuse his being and he progressively becomes a living embodiment of them not only when he’s formally meditating but also when he’s not. But during meditation, one will reach the point where there will be no bodily sensations, no wandering thoughts and emotions, nothing to distract one from the words dropping from the conscious down into the unconscious mind like precious pearls sinking from the surface of a still, clear pond to the bottom.

But if we master this kind of meditation to the point that we are aware only of the words of the passage, how will we ever know and thus gain control over the thoughts, emotions, and wayward desires seething and bubbling in our unconscious mind? Is this a process that can’t be explained but only experienced, or can it not be explained because it can’t really be done? Or is it simply I who cannot explain it?