This month, we’re taking a deeper look at one of the eight points that we touch upon lightly during retreats and satsangs: Spiritual Reading.
To get us started on this topic, we have a reading study below! This reading will also prepare us for next week’s optional live real-time satsang opportunity during our Online Workshop.
Online Workshop Invitation
We warmly invite you to join us for an online workshop on Saturday, November 10 9:00 a.m. – 10:15 a.m. San Francisco time. This is a 75-minute workshop and many members of the eSatsang will be taking part, so it’s a chance for some real-time satsang on our theme of Spiritual Reading.
Reading Study
During the online workshop we’ll be studying an excerpt from the Blue Mountain Journal, Spring/Summer 2016, focusing on Easwaran’s teachings on Spiritual Reading. Here on the eSatsang, we’ll have the opportunity to study/discuss the excerpt featured in the online workshop in more depth, and to develop our understanding of the eighth point through reviewing additional readings throughout the month.
In the reading below, Easwaran reminds us that the purpose of spiritual reading is to inspire our daily spiritual practice.
Please share any reflections you have on the reading below. We are always eager to hear from you!
Have you considered your time for spiritual reading as a chance to go to the “sources of radiance?” What does this mean to you?
Why do you think Easwaran suggests we “go directly to the great mystics themselves”? And what has your experience been with this?
The excerpt below is from the book Passage Meditation, by Eknath Easwaran.
Mystical literature differs from other forms of writing in that as our understanding deepens, we draw more from it. Most books are not like that. We exhaust our interest in a murder mystery once we discover that the butler’s uncle did it, and even a fine novel is circumscribed by the awareness of the author. But there is no limit to the profundity of spiritual writings, because they have come from those whose consciousness has merged with the infinite. We take away as much as we can carry.
I do need to sound a few cautions about spiritual reading, though. Many of us are so intellectually oriented that we can easily misunderstand its purpose. Spiritual reading is meant to inspire us to change and show us how to change, but I feel sure the mystics themselves would agree — some having learned it through trial and error — that reading cannot be substituted for experience. No matter how many mystics we read, we cannot move forward on the spiritual path without practicing their teachings in daily life.
A hard admonition for some of us. One contemporary thinker put it very well when he remarked that if we had to choose between uniting ourselves with God and hearing a lecture about it, most of us would hunt for a good seat. I must admit that I myself once believed that all knowledge lay between two endpapers, and I responded to the smell of a newly printed book just as a gourmet responds to the smell of a piquant sauce. I delighted in opening a new acquisition carefully, admiring the printing and binding, and looking forward to the moment when I would be able to settle into my easy chair, open to chapter one, and drink in its wisdom. I have since learned to be more discriminating.
I once visited the home of a well-known writer on spiritual themes who took me into his exceptionally full library. There were books on every conceivable kind of meditation, really an impressive collection. “With all these books on the subject,” I said, “you must be an adept in meditation.”
He looked a little embarrassed, “Frankly,” he said, “I’m so busy reading and studying that I don’t have time to meditate.”
Then he pulled down some of his favorites from the shelves. “You must be familiar with all of these.”
I too looked a little embarrassed. “Only a few.” I did not want to say so, but instead of reading about meditation, I had used my time to practice it.
If you want to know the mystical tradition, don’t rely on books about the mystics; go directly to the great mystics themselves. A scholarly presentation may have its place, but personal testimonies are infinitely more helpful. When I was a student of English literature, we were expected to know a great deal about Shakespeare’s plays: Hamlet’s motivation, the psychology of Lady Macbeth, the kinds of comedy in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. How many books I read by how many scholars, critics, producers, theater historians, actors — all of it about Shakespeare; scores and scores of books from secondary perspectives. I read what Richards thought about Bradley’s comment on Coleridge’s opinion of Dryden’s evaluation of Shakespeare in his “Essay of Dramatic Poesy.” Endless! Only later did I realize that by poring over the words of Shakespeare himself, I could have penetrated into the characters, the plot twists, the poetry, the very texture of the plays and of Shakespeare’s spirit. But I did not know this at the time; I probably lacked the confidence to put it into practice. Only after I learned to meditate and began to trust my own powers of observation did I see that I had mistaken a packet of maps for the land.
So please read the words of Saint Augustine and don’t do what I did with the Bard and read what A claims B said C thought about Saint Augustine. The opportunities to detour increase all the time; so many books on the spiritual life are available, an overwhelming array. Don’t spend time on faint reflections; go directly to the sources of radiance.
Books chosen from the annals of mysticism should be read slowly and well. We are not after information, but understanding and inspiration. Take in a little every day, reflect on it, and then try to practice what you have learned.
There is a tale of a man who found on the road a large stone bearing the words, “Under me lies a great truth.” The man strained to turn the stone over and finally succeeded. On the bottom was written, “Why do you want a new truth when you do not practice what you already know?”
In spiritual reading, too, it takes time to assimilate the truths we meet. Far better to read a few books and make them your own than to read many books quickly and superficially — just as you will grow more crops by cultivating your own garden, however tiny, than by flying in an airplane over all the farmland in the county.