Thanks to all of you for your insightful comments and engagement with our current theme of technology. It’s a rich topic, and it’s great you’re taking the time to consider it as a satsang. Were you motivated to look more deeply at your technology use or to try something new this week?
Have a look at the three aphorisms below from Easwaran. Is there something tangible and specific you can try in your regular life at home, inspired by one of these? Or is there an idea here that you’ll think about and be more aware of this week? For example, you might do your spiritual reading this week while being more attuned to the sages’ understanding of the “indivisible, the full.” Or perhaps you can create a small sense-training experiment around technology for the week – you decide!
Easwaran on Technology (continued) #4-6, excerpted from the Blue Mountain Journal, Spring/Summer 2018
4 Science and technology deal with the fragmented, the divided. The sages deal with the indivisible, the full. Life is indivisible, so we should look to the saints and sages for guidance.
5 There is a seductive glamour about technology that very, very few human beings can resist. It is only a few very daring men and women who can step out of the conditioning of their time.
6 Telecommunications are no substitute for human contact. If we persist in the direction in which we are going, human relationships will break down.
What are your thoughts on Easwaran’s comments on technology? What stood out to you in the article? You can share your reflections below. We’d love to hear from you and continue the conversation.
Making Wiser Choices – Part I
By Eknath Easwaran
When I first started meditating, many, many years ago, in the midst of an active academic life, I had difficulty finding time for it. Most of my activities were harmless enough, but they were numerous and consumed a good deal of time and energy. I read a lot of books in those days, and much of what I read I don’t think was useful even for the literature classes I was teaching. I read those books because I enjoyed them and because I had been trained to believe that literature is for enjoyment. That was the appeal made by many important figures: literature for its own sake, art for its own sake.
As my meditation deepened, however, these attitudes began to change. Nothing, I realized, is for its own sake; everything is for life’s sake. This one insight simplified my priorities enormously. I began to prune my activities, lining out things that made no real difference to anybody, including myself.
In the service of all
At first it was difficult to make myself put my books aside an hour earlier to make time for evening meditation. Often my mind would protest, “Can’t we read just a little more?” Yet the joy that fills my life today cannot even be measured on the same scale as the pleasures I once held dear.
Today, everything I do from morning meditation on – eating breakfast, going for a walk, writing, reading, even recreation – is governed by one purpose only: how to give the very best account of my life that I can in the service of all.
The Buddha, the most practical of teachers, defined the wise person 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 choose wisely. When it is understood, every choice becomes an opportunity for training the mind.
To act wisely, we must see life clearly. “Does this particular choice bring me closer to my partner or my family? Does it resolve a conflict, foster clean air, bring peace to my mind or to people around me?” If the answer to such questions is yes, that course of action is in harmony with the unity of life. If the answer is no, it is not – however pleasant it may be.
Temporary pleasure or lasting good?
One of the most stirring of the Sanskrit scriptures, the Katha Upanishad, uses two marvelous words to help us see which course of action will lead to trouble in the long run and which will lead to detached, loving living.
I say “marvelous” because these words apply to every choice, in every circumstance, so they dispel the haze that often surrounds a difficult situation. Wherever you have a choice, ask yourself this question: “Which is preya, that which pleases, and which is shreya, the long-term good?”
Preya is what we like, what pleases us, what offers immediate gratification to our senses, feelings, or self-will. Shreya is simply what works out best in the end. Preya is the “pleasure principle”: doing what feels good, whatever the consequences. Shreya means choosing the best consequences, whether it feels good or not – often forgoing a temporary pleasure for the sake of a lasting benefit.
Junk food is one of the clearest illustrations of preya: sugar, salt, and saturated fat so fast and easy that you don’t even have to sit down for it. The consequences are equally clear.
Or look at exercise: “no pain, no gain.” Training and toning the body is often not pleasant. We do it for the sake of its long-range benefits – because later we will really feel good in a deeper, longer-lasting, more satisfying way. That is shreya, choosing what is best.