Thank you all so much for your wonderful insights and genuine efforts during last month’s video study. We deeply appreciate your comments and contributions – particularly since we were trying a new medium! We have heard your positive feedback, and we’ll definitely offer this format again.
We’re really thrilled to share our focus for the month of April because it is anchored in an invitation to participate in a special shared practice day for our worldwide community.
In honor of Easwaran’s grandmother, Ramagiri celebrates the yearly Kerala Spring holiday called Vishu. The significance of Vishu is to mirror the pure spark of divinity within each of us, making this ancient ritual a very modern remedy for our times.
Friends at Ramagiri Ashram will celebrate Vishu on Sunday, April 14 and welcome us to join them in a day of shared contemplative practice. Would you like to participate? Although we won’t be together physically, the spiritual forces that connect us are far beyond the borders of time and space. Together, wherever we will be, we can collectively deepen our meditation to light the lamp of wisdom within us all.
Below is the full schedule of Vishu events and suggested activities, providing several opportunities to be together in spirit throughout the day (5:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. Pacific Time). Have a look and consider what you and maybe a few friends might like to join in on. We hope that some or all of these options work for you as we’d love to ‘be’ with you on April 14!
Let’s dive into the spirit of Vishu with an explanation from Easwaran about the significance of this holiday. In the reading below, Easwaran reminds us that there is a divine source of love, wisdom, beauty and compassion in all of us. Please share what stands out to you in the comments section below. Feel free to summarize what you heard and/or share implications for your meditation practice. We look forward to hearing from you!
A Vishu altar like those used in Easwaran’s family in Kerala state, India.
This is Part 1 of Easwaran’s article “Bringing Heaven to Earth” in the 2008 Summer Blue Mountain Journal.
In Kerala state, South India, where I grew up, the new year is ushered in with a ceremony many centuries old. The night before, while most of the family is asleep, a special shrine is assembled with all kinds of lustrous objects – yellow flowers, brassware, gold jewelry, ripe fruits, lighted oil lamps – arranged around a mirror draped with garlands. The next morning, each member of the family is led to the shrine with eyes closed and asked, “Would you like to see the Lord?” We open our eyes, and shining in the midst of this bright setting we see our own face in the glass. It is a beautiful reminder of the divinity in each of us – the viewer and everyone else around.
Naturally, the reminder tends to get forgotten later, as life closes in again. But in my home, whenever one of us children began to misbehave, my grandmother had only to ask, “Do you remember where you saw the Lord on New Year’s?”
When you and I look into a mirror, we see a familiar face with a distressing tendency to show fatigue or age. But that is not what the mystics see. They look at us – through us, into us – and see something transcendent, luminous, timeless, “the Face behind all faces”:
I look into the mirror and see my own beauty;
I see the truth of the universe revealing itself as me.
I rise in the sky as the morning sun, do not be surprised . . .
I am Light itself, reflected in the heart of everyone.
This is of fundamental importance, because it touches the very heart of our image of ourselves – our idea of what the human being and human nature essentially are. The great mystics of all religions are telling us unanimously that at the very core of the human personality, in the very depths of our consciousness, lies a divine spark that nothing can extinguish. Not all the mistakes we have committed, not all the problems we may have brought upon ourselves and others, can extinguish this spark. Nothing can. It is, as Meister Eckhart says startlingly, an uncreated light – the essential core of divinity present in every creature.
If you can remember this every day in moments when you are inclined to look down upon yourself, this reminder will restore your faith and inspire you to put all your efforts into releasing this beautiful image from the mirror of possibility into your everyday life.
Original Goodness
In Western mysticism, discovering this divine core of personality is considered superhuman – rising above the ordinary human level to a plane far, far higher. This is certainly true, but the point of view of Indian mysticism is just as accurate: we are subnormal now; our task is to become normal. Our natural condition is love; anger, hatred, animosity are unnatural. Our natural condition is to be a saint; anything less is a masquerade.
This sounds like Polyanna, but the mystics are not denying our negative side. They are well aware of the many serious flaws in human character. But it is refreshing and practical to remember that before original sin came original innocence. The core of personality is original goodness. It is covered, if you like, by sin, but the covering can be removed, and when it is, the essential goodness of our nature is revealed.
In fact, I don’t use the word sin very much. You seldom hear me talk about sin unless I am quoting. It can become a kind of obsession, and any obsession is bad because it hinders spiritual growth. When we keep on deprecating ourselves, we can end up worthy of deprecation. By reinforcing a low image of ourselves, we come to expect no better. “I’m just a sinner,” we say. “What can you expect?”
I have met many people who suffer from such a guilt complex that it hampers their spiritual progress. This is one of the cleverest aces the ego can play. “You – you’re no good! What can you possibly say in favor of yourself?” I don’t mean we should ignore our weaknesses; in fact, the purpose of meditation is to overcome them – all of them. But to do that, it’s simply not helpful to go about deprecating yourself. The best thing is not to think about yourself at all; give your attention to those around you.
In our modern civilization, there are millions of people who have come to have such a poor, worthless image of themselves that they become accustomed to all kinds of unelevating behavior. In spite of all our affluence and all our technological achievements, the general image of the human being has been brought so low that we think we are merely physical creatures whose only aims in life are self-preservation and pleasure.
When you are brought up to believe that this is your legacy as a human being, it can lead to serious problems later on in life. I believe this accounts for a great deal of the insensitivity and self-destructive behavior that seems so common today. That is why all our children need to be brought up with the lofty image presented in all the world’s great religions: that there is a divine source of love and wisdom, beauty and compassion, in every human being, and the purpose of life is not to make money or enjoy pleasure but to discover this spark of divinity in the depths of consciousness, which will help to establish peace on earth and good will among mankind.
Mistakes and Growth
For myself, I don’t ever look back on the past and say, “Oh, I did so many foolish things! I committed so many mistakes, caused trouble to so many people, and so many people troubled me.” All this is gone. My mind doesn’t go to the past or to the future. I live right in the present, where all my attention goes into improving who I am today.
That’s why I am not afraid to confess to mistakes. I have committed most of the mistakes people make in going after things that are not worth going after. We don’t know they aren’t worth going after; we have to learn. Just as a toddler cannot walk, just as a child cannot jump hurdles, none of us can avoid making big mistakes until we learn to control the mind.
Then, once we have learned, to look back on our past and judge ourselves with our newfound wisdom seems utterly unfair. Everyone makes mistakes; every ordinary person needs a certain amount of experimentation in order to learn. When we recall past blunders committed in honest ignorance, therefore, there is no need to get overcome by regret. The point is to learn not to go on committing those mistakes today.
That is why I say not to dwell upon the past. Don’t put your attention there. If you see graffiti on the wall of your mind, don’t read it; don’t dwell on it. Concentrate more and more upon the present. Instead of giving all your attention to what you did twenty-five years ago, give it to what you are doing now. This is one reason why the approach of the Compassionate Buddha has such appeal today. The Buddha did not talk about sin; he talked about mistakes. The emphasis is much more positive and practical.
We are not wicked; we just make mistakes. We are ignorant – sometimes, I admit, a bit slow to learn, but still not wicked. If you fail a course in school, your teacher is not going to give you a W for wicked and send you to perdition. A good teacher just says, “You haven’t learned yet. You haven’t done your homework. If you do your homework and learn, you will get a good grade.” Once we get a passing grade in life, we don’t have to go through the agony of repeating the same mistakes over and over. We have graduated – we have learned.
Then the burden of the past falls away, just as when we wake up from a dream. It is as though all those mistakes have been cast into the depths of the sea. Afterwards, we don’t ask ourselves, “Why did I do those foolish things? Why did I not do better?” The person who made those mistakes is no longer the same. We have changed: the mask of our old personality has been taken off, revealing who we truly are.
Then all the energy of our full personality – all the vitality that used to flow towards selfish satisfaction and the pursuit of personal pleasure and profit – flows freely in new, creative channels. If you look back, you can see the old dry creek bed of past conditioning and say, “Yes, there must have been a river there once”; you can see the sand and pebbles. But there is no water coming. It’s all flowing towards the source now: health, happiness, love, wisdom, all the energy of a strong, new nature.