Announcement
In a year when many friends have been asking the BMCM for guidance, the BMCM is sharing Easwaran’s message of hope through this special edition of the Blue Mountain Journal. You’ll find inspiration and practical advice in two articles from Easwaran, two short pieces that Christine Easwaran wrote after 9/11, and a new, previously unpublished passage for meditation.
Here on the eSatsang, we will be studying articles in this journal together throughout January 2019. We’re sharing today however, so that you could have this resource at hand right away.
Thank you all for sharing your experiences with Slowing Down and for encouraging many of us during this busy time of year to prioritize the eight points.
When we’re more slowed down and one-pointed during the day, we’re more likely to be aware of our conditioned habits. This awareness provides us with opportunities to begin reversing or reengineering our conditioned patterns. We invite you to try a tiny experiment this month. Please make it very small! Ideally, it will fit into something you are already doing. For example, you might choose to:
Proactively remove one activity or chore from your calendar each week, at the start of that week.
Get up just 5–10 minutes earlier than normal, one morning per week.
Select a few loved ones in particular and try consciously listening with One-Pointed Attention to them when they speak. (Choosing a few people will help you remember your experiment!)
See if you can spend a couple of extra minutes on an unpleasant task before taking a break.
Create your own Slowing Down and One-Pointed Attention experiment!
Please let us know what experiment you’d like to try and if you have ideas of other small ways we can give the gifts of time and attention throughout our days and busy lives!
To inspire us for the week ahead, enjoy this reading below by Easwaran from the book Passage Meditation.
How can we reverse these patterns of hurry and tension? The first thing, as I mentioned, is to rise early so you can set a relaxed pace for the day. Eat slowly at mealtime, sharing yourself generously with others. Arrive beforehand at your job and work on the essentials at a steady rate, not pushed by the clock or competition. Build friendly and loving relations with those at work and at home by practicing patience at every opportunity. Put things in order when you leave your job, and learn to detach yourself from your work at will. Cultivate discrimination in recreation so that you choose what really revitalizes and avoid what drains your time and energy.
The mantram is also particularly helpful in the case of hurry, because it gives the restless mind something to fasten on and gradually slows it down. Repeating the mantram on a brisk walk brings the words, breathing, footsteps, and mind into rhythmic harmony. An excellent way to take a short, refreshing break from work, it is also an aid in training yourself to drop your work at will. When you begin to feel yourself rushed, just stop a minute, repeat your mantram, and then be deliberately slow in whatever you are doing. On occasion you may have created a comic skit when you dropped something by rushing and, as you went to sweep it up, knocked something else over. Then you banged your shin, and so forth. The best course to follow at that time is to repeat the mantram a few times and recollect yourself so you can proceed at a measured pace.
Nor should we ever allow ourselves to be rushed by others. If the telephone rings while you are cooking dinner, find a convenient point to stop instead of immediately running to answer it and leaving the soup to boil over. We need not be intimidated by such things as telephones. After all, a phone call constitutes a request to talk to us, not an imperial command. If the message is important, the caller will stay on the line for a time or try again later.
I have another suggestion that may be of some value. When I recommend to someone that they slow down, they often raise a legitimate question: “There is so much that I have to do; how can I go through it slowly and get it all done?” I usually answer by referring to my own experience as a teacher in India. As chairman of the Department of English at a large university I had heavy responsibilities. But I wanted very much to train myself to do things slowly and without tension because I knew it would be a help on the spiritual path.
I began by making a list of all the activities I engaged in on the campus, the things that I was expected to do and the things that I liked doing. It turned out to be a long list. I said at the time what people tell me today: I simply cannot go slowly and take care of all these vital matters.
Then I remembered my spiritual teacher, my grandmother, who had great responsibilities in our extended family of over a hundred people and in our village. She always fulfilled those responsibilities splendidly, and I recalled that she had an unerring sense of what was central and what was peripheral. So, using her example, I started striking from my list activities not absolutely essential.
I was amazed at the number that could go. Those connected with colleges know the number of conferences, meetings, symposia, lectures, receptions, and so forth that it is generally assumed we have to attend. Often the gathering has very little to do with our chief duties. So I began to avoid those functions that I could not justify to myself. I thought at first that I would be censured when I no longer appeared at the monthly meeting of, say, the bicycle parking committee. But after several months of nonattendance, I noticed from the conversation of another member of the committee that he had not even noticed my absence. Putting aside my likes and dislikes, keeping my eye on what was necessary, using as much detachment as I could, I struck more and more from the list. Soon half of it was gone, and I found I had more time to give to what seemed likely to be of permanent value.
Reengineering our patterns in the ways I have mentioned will not be easy or painless. It will require persistent effort for a long time to reverse the patterns of hurry we have built up over the years. But the benefits are magnificent, and we begin to receive them the very first day we try to make these changes. From the beginning, we have embarked on a new course that will bring us abundant energy, better health, increased peace of mind, more harmonious relations with others, rich creativity in work and play, and a longer, happier span of life.