Eknath Easwaran
I wanted when I began to meditate - direct, simple, practical, and based completely on personal experience. It presents the program I developed for myself in the midst of a very active life on a university campus in India, independent of any established tradition, and first taught systematically at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1968 - probably the first course on meditation ever offered for credit at a major American university.
The method has come to be known as passage meditation because it involves slow, sustained attention on the words of inspired passages chosen from the wisdom literature of the world - scriptures and mystics of all times and
The method has come to be known as passage meditation because it involves slow, sustained attention on the words of inspired passages chosen from the wisdom literature of the world - scriptures and mystics of all times and cultures.
Passage meditation can be followed equally well in any religion or in none.
Certain skills, such as slowing down and focusing on one thing at a time, deepened my concentration during meditation, and in turn that brought depth to whatever I did during the rest of the day.
As systematically as a professional athlete, I worked on my daily life, building it around the regular daily practice of meditation.
In this way I distilled from those years of effort an eight-point program for daily living based on passage meditation.
we become what we meditate on.
In India, meditation is called "the end of sorrow" and "mastery of the art of living:"
WHEN THE COMPASSIONATE Buddha began teaching meditation in ancient India twenty-five hundred years ago, little people like me, dazzled by the radiance of his personality, would gather around him and ask, "What are you? Are you a god?"
The Buddha would smile and say no.
"Are you an angel?"
No„ .
"Are you a prophet?"
"No.
"What are you, then?"
And the Buddha would answer simply, "I am awake" - the literal translation of the word buddha, from a Sanskrit root meaning to wake up.
This is the promise of meditation: to enable us to wake up into our full human potential.
To begin with, meditation has nothing to do with the occult, the paranormal.
Second, meditation does not mean making your mind a blank.
But we don't want to be inert; we want to activate our intelligence and increase our awareness.
Nor can meditation be equated with any kind of hypnosis or state of suggestibility.
Meditation is none of these.
It is, rather, a systematic technique for taking hold of and concentrating to the utmost degree our latent mental power. It consists in training the mind, especially attention and the will, so that we can set forth from the surface level of consciousness and journey into the very depths.
Modern psychology commonly asserts that we cannot enter the unconscious fully aware. The mystic responds, "Oh, yes, you can! I have done it."
On the other hand, we can learn to tame these creatures. As meditation deepens, compulsions, cravings, and fits of emotion begin to lose their power to dictate our behavior.
The Buddha explains, "All that we are is the result of what we have thought." By changing the very mode of our thinking, we can remake ourselves completely.
It takes time and sustained effort to fashion such a life.
you cannot reverse long-standing attitudes and habits by signing up for an "enlightenment weekend;' any more than you can sit down at a piano and play Beethoven or Chopin after learning to find middle C.
Here are the eight steps of this program:
i. Meditation on a Passage
2. Repetition of a Mantram
3. Slowing Down
4. One-Pointed Attention
5. Training the Senses
6. Putting Others First
7. Spiritual Companionship
8. Spiritual Reading
It helps to know at the outset that you will be running a marathon in this program, not simply jogging once or twice around a track.
The discovery that you are not the body has far-reaching consequences. For one thing, you no longer see black or brown or white people, but people with all kinds of beautifully colored jackets. You no longer identify people with their color - or their age or sex or hairstyle or any other peripheral matter like money or status. You begin to awaken to the central truth of life, that all of us are one.
In every tradition, sages often retain their vigor into their eighties and nineties.
Having come to realize in the first stage of meditation that we are not our bodies, in the second stage we make an even more astounding discovery: we are not our minds either.
And we need minds that will follow directions, not ones that are rebellious.
Augustine's words speak plainly: "I can tell my hand what to do and it will do it instantly. Why won't my mind do what I say?"
When I would give tit-for-tat to others, wax angry because they were angry or standoffish because they stood off, she would say, "Son, when you act that way, you remind me of a rubber ball. Throw it against a wall and it has to come back." It took a while, but I finally resolved not to be a rubber ball in life.
Meditation will do for you what it has done for all who practice it regularly: enable you to steer your car expertly. If you want to stay in one lane and cruise, your mind will obey you.
When you know you are not the body, you find it inaccurate to say, "I'm not feeling well:" Your body may be indisposed, but you are always well.
Now, in the second stage of meditation, you discover it equally inaccurate to say, "I am angry." The mind is angry.
A well-tuned mind helps to conserve the vital energy wasted in negative emotions.
Having discovered that we are not the body, not the mind - both subject to change, to growth and decline - the question remains, "Who am I?" In the third stage, the tremendous climax of meditation, we make the most significant discovery any human being can ever make: we find out who we really are.
Albert Einstein must have glimpsed this when he wrote from the perspective of a great physicist:
A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe;' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.
Only the sense of separateness makes us quarrelsome or difficult with others, and now no one can ever be separate from you again.
When you discover your real nature, you discover simultaneously that you and others are one.
This does not mean that differences of opinion all vanish. There is diversity on the surface of life; that is what gives it interest. But now you always have the ability to understand other points of view. Aren't people essentially the same everywhere? The differences account for only one percent; the similarities, for ninety-nine.
Attaining this state of consciousness is the highest goal we can have in life. Different religions have called it by different names: illumination, enlightenment, nirvana, Self-realization, entering the promised land or the kingdom of heaven within. But whatever the language, the experience is everywhere the same. Jesus called it "a pearl of great price" Without it, our lives will always be wanting; even if we had to give everything on earth to obtain it, the cost would not be too high to pay.
over many years of teaching meditation, I have found that Saint Francis's words have an almost universal appeal. Through
I hope you will understand that the word "Lord" here does not refer to a white-bearded gentleman ruling from a throne somewhere between Neptune and Pluto. When I use words like "Lord" or "God;' I mean the very ground of existence, the most profound thing we can conceive of. This supreme reality is not something outside us, something separate from us. It is within, at the core of our being - our real nature, nearer to us than our bodies, dearer to us than our lives.
I tell you one thing - if you want peace of mind, do not find fault with others. Rather learn to see your own faults. Learn to make the whole world your own. No one is a stranger, my child; this whole world is your own. - SRI SARADA DEVI
make me an instrument of thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; Where there is injury, pardon; Where there is doubt, faith; Where there is despair, hope; Where there is darkness, light; Where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek To be consoled as to console, To be understood as to understand, To be loved as to love; For it is in giving that we receive; It is in pardoning that we are pardoned; It is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life.
During meditation, we try to pull out the plugs so we can concentrate more fully on the
words of the passage.
A mind that is fast is sick. A mind that is slow is sound. A mind that is still is divine.
Concentrate on one word at a time,
When you concentrate on the sound of each word, you will also be concentrating on the meaning of the passage.
Trying to visualize the words - imagining them in your mind's eye, or even typing them mentally as some people want to do - may help a little at the outset, but later on it will become an obstacle. We are working to shut down the senses temporarily, and visualization only binds us to the sensory level of consciousness.
So check yourself occasionally to see that you are not developing any superfluous body movements.
As you go through the passage, do not follow any association of ideas. Just keep to the words. Despite your best efforts, you will find this extremely difficult. You will begin to realize what an accomplished trickster the mind is, to what lengths it will go to evade your sovereignty.
The only strategy is to keep your concentration on
the passage as much and as long as you can. It will be very difficult at times.
Bringing the mind back when it strays is like that. But though you may have to do it many times, this is not a pointless activity, not a wasted effort. Saint Francis de Sales explains, "Even if you did nothing during the whole of your hour but bring your mind back and place it again in our Lord's presence, though it went away every time you brought it back, your hour would be very well employed."
When your attention rests completely on the passage, there can be no attention on anything else.
So when distractions come, just ignore them.
When, for instance, you are acutely aware of noises around you while meditating, concentrate harder on the words of the passage.
For a while you may still hear the cars passing by, but the day will come when you hear them no longer.
When I was a boy, I used to hold a lens over paper until the sun's rays gathered to an intense focus and set the paper aflame. In meditation, we gradually focus the mind so that when we meet a difficulty, we can cut right through the nonessentials.
the Buddha opened his Dhammapada with the magnificent line, "All that we are is the result of what we have thought."
An inspirational passage turns our thoughts to what is permanent, to those things that put a final end to insecurity. In meditation, the passage becomes imprinted on our consciousness. As we drive it deeper and deeper, the words come to life within us, transforming all our thoughts, feelings, words, and deeds.
don't try to improve upon the words of the prayer or change them in any way. Just as they stand,
As you commit a new passage to
memory, it is good to spend some time reflecting on the meaning of the words and their practical application to your life. But please don't do this while you are actually meditating.
The best time for meditation is early in the morning.
ten seems to me a reasonable and healthful time to go to bed - very much the middle path, which avoids extremes.
For those beginning to meditate, half an hour is the requisite period. Less than that will not be enough; more than that may be hazardous. I want to stress it. Please do not, in a burst of enthusiasm, increase your meditation to an hour or longer, because such a practice exposes you to dangers.
Once you start meditating, forget about time. There is no need to keep checking the clock; with practice you will be able to time your meditation pretty well.
The scriptures say that the place of meditation should be calm, clean, and cool. I would add, well-ventilated - and, if possible, quiet.
In meditation, the only equipment you really need is the will, and you can't buy that through the mail.
The correct posture for meditation is to sit erect with the spinal column, the nape of the neck, and the head in a straight line: not like a ramrod, rigid and tense, but easily upright. Your hands may be placed any way they feel comfortable. You will find it a very natural position.
The appropriate dress for meditation has nothing to do with fashion. Simply wear loose-fitting garments, things that keep you from becoming too warm or too cool. Basically, clothes you feel comfortable in will do nicely.
As concentration improves and the neuromuscular system begins to relax in meditation, a wave of drowsiness may come to you. A beatific look spreads across your face, you begin to nod, and that's it.
As soon as sleep begins oozing through you, just at the moment you are really beginning to feel marvelous, move away from your back support and let the wave of drowsiness pass over your head. Do not give in. At the very first sign of sleepiness, draw yourself up, keep your spinal column quite erect, and give even more attention to the passage.
So whenever you feel sleepy in meditation, or the words seem fuzzy or slip away, draw yourself up. It may be necessary to repeat this over and over again. If you are still unable to dispel the drowsiness, open your eyes and continue with the passage or repeat the mantram
The problem of sleep can be distressing, but it is also reassuring. It means that your nervous system has begun to relax, that the feverish pace of the mind has begun to slow down and that new challenges are presenting themselves to you.
Without a balance between physical activity and meditation, for instance, we may become irritable or restless.
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