Thanks to all of you for sharing your introductions and joining as you can in our exercise of “bringing a BMCM retreat home”. Your reflections are always inspiring because they remind us that Easwaran speaks to each of us in just the way we need. This week, we’ll revisit Easwaran’s teachings about deepening our meditation.
As another way to bring the retreat experience home, you might like to meditate with others this week. Perhaps you have an in-person satsang to facilitate this, or another place to meditate with others.
As an alternative, you might try joining us for a virtual meditation next Saturday morning at 6:30 a.m. Pacific Time. This is the same time of day that you would meditate in the morning if you were in Tomales, at the retreat house.
We'll start the virtual meditation with a volunteer reading a passage from God Makes the Rivers To Flow aloud. Then we'll meditate silently together for 30 minutes. We’ll ring a bell to signal the end of meditation, and ask for another volunteer to read aloud Easwaran's "Thought for the Day". Then we'll end by asking for any mantram requests.
We use Zoom software which allows us to videoconference with each other. We'll start promptly at 6:30 a.m. every Saturday and meditation is from 6:35 a.m. to 7:05 a.m.
Reading Study
This week, we’ll continue our reading study in which Easwaran discusses how deepened meditation brings wisdom to every aspect of our lives. Please feel free to share particular lines or sections from the following excerpt that stand out to you, and tell us how they might apply to your own life. We’d love to hear from you!
This excerpt is from Seeing With the Eyes of Love by Easwaran, pages 145–146. (The book we are using is the latest edition with the blue cover.)
Today, when I use the words “Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace,” they resonate at a deep, deep level. It is no longer a matter of words; it is now a great desire encased in words – and desire is power. When the Prayer of Saint Francis discharges its power at a deep level, you will slowly start behaving like Francis. Instead of wanting other people to console you, you will start consoling them. Instead of nursing old grievances, you will be more forgiving. You will stand up and face opposition calmly, neither flinching nor retaliating. You will become a Little Flower of South Bend, or of Minneapolis!
“It is in giving that we receive,” says Saint Francis, and when these words have come to life in your heart, you keep on giving with one hand while the Lord is putting it in your other hand. You don’t have to look back and ask, “Is it exhausted? Am I on the last round?”
This experience of infinite spiritual wealth is what Thomas à Kempis means when he says love is “able to undertake all things.” When this great wealth pours into our hands, we cannot hold onto it for our own ends. If we’ve been given greater energy, we’re expected by the Lord to use it to help and support others. If we didn’t return these gifts in selfless work, we would be tormented by restlessness. Because we have limitless love pouring out from our hearts, endless energy driving our lives, we need to give it to everyone who comes in contact with us.
So don’t look to any kind of sensation, bodily or emotional, as a sign that your meditation is deepening. The real test is, “How much am I able to love? How much am I able to give, even at my own expense, even when it is painful?” In her great work on prayer, The Way of Perfection, Teresa of Avila says, “Progress has nothing to do with enjoying the greatest number of consolations in prayer, or with raptures, visions, or favors. . . .” We want to ask, “Then what does spiritual progress mean?” And later Teresa gives us her answer: “For my own part, I believe that love is the measure of our ability to bear crosses.”