Easwaran and Christine mantram-walking on Dillon Beach.
Thank you for sharing your reflections and highlighting aspects of transformation that are inspiring to you as we continue our reading study of the Summer 2019 Blue Mountain Journal!
We’re continuing to learn from Gandhi’s example of transformation seen through Easwaran’s eyes. This week, Easwaran highlights the mantram as a tool for transformation – and one that became Gandhi’s greatest support.
After reading the excerpt below, please share your reflections in the comments section. Feel free to type a line or two that really stood out to you, or write any thoughts or questions that arose. Again, your contributions inspire all of us and they help us take our understanding of the message to a deeper level.
We’d also like to suggest a practical exercise for this week. Try giving extra effort to applying the mantram to negative thoughts or feelings as they arise. You might consider ways to catch the negativity with the mantram – before it grows. Perhaps you might do some mantram walking , or notice new opportunities for mantram moments throughout your day. You might look at this as another pathway into understanding how you can contribute to your own spiritual transformation.
This is an excerpt from the article “Transforming Anger in Our Own Lives ” by Easwaran in the Blue Mountain Journal, Summer 2019.
It takes time to get love going. Most of us are conditioned to get angry at the slightest provocation, and a lot of plain old patience is needed at the outset. Gandhi repeated over and over that none of this came easily to him. When he was asked, “Is this the best way to become nonviolent?” he replied, “No, it is the only way.”
Every day we have to renew our commitment: to try to regulate our thinking process so that whatever is done to us, we will treat people with love and respect.
Gandhiji would say that although on the surface of consciousness a person may behave unkindly towards us, there are subterranean selfless forces in every heart. These forces have only to be reached. The other person may still turn away every time we make a conciliatory gesture, but underneath, subtle work is going on.
Returning kindness for unkindness is not simply being kind to that particular person. We are being kinder to ourselves, because we are undoing a compulsion, taking one more step towards being free.
The deconditioning process is straightforward enough: when anger comes up, don’t act on it. When it tries to tell you what to do, say no. This calls for a great deal of inner toughness, a great deal of “true grit,” but there are a number of ways in which you can deal with rising anger.
Repeat the mantram
The simplest thing to do when you are caught by anger is to go for a long, fast walk repeating the mantram. A mantram is a spiritual formula which seekers from all traditions have found can transform what is negative in the personality into what is positive: anger into compassion, ill will into good will, hatred into love. By calming the mind, it gradually integrates divided and opposing thoughts at a deeper and deeper level of consciousness.
Rama, Gandhi’s mantram, is a formula for abiding joy. Gandhi used to walk for miles every day repeating it to himself until the rhythm of the mantram and his footsteps began to stabilize the rhythm of his breathing, which is closely connected with the rhythm of the mind. When fear or anger threatened him, clinging to Rama used the power of these emotions to drive this formula for joy deep into Gandhi’s mind. Over the years, as the mantram penetrated below his deepest doubts and fears, he became established in joy. It was a habit of mind which no surface turbulence could shake, no threat of violence destroy.
“The mantram becomes one’s staff of life,” he wrote, “and carries one through every ordeal.”
This may sound simplistic, but try it. Go for a fast walk repeating Rama, Rama, Rama or Jesus, Jesus, Jesus in your mind, and you will find that the relationship between the rhythm of your breathing, the rhythm of your footsteps, and the rhythm of the mantram has a deep influence on your consciousness.
Just hold on
Recently a friend of mine told me she had discovered that when she was upset, if she could just hold on to the mantram for twenty minutes while she walked, it could transform any negative emotion. “When I realized that,” she said, “I realized that any transformation is possible.”
Fear and anger and greed agitate the mind; they churn the mind up like a stormy sea. When your mind is heaving up and down, it may be difficult to hold on to the mantram if your mantram is long. For emergencies like this, I would recommend using a shortened form of the mantram, the kernel of the mantram: Rama if your mantram is Hare Rama Hare Rama; Jesus if you use some form of the Jesus Prayer such as Lord Jesus Christ or Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me. This kernel of the mantram is the most potent word in the holy name; it is short and simple. No matter how agitated your mind is, you can hang on to it while it does its work of harnessing and transforming the power that was rampaging in you.
Do not wait until you have developed a full-blown rage, when judgment is clouded and the mind is heaving up and down — it will be very difficult to hang on to the mantram then, or even to remember it. Try to remember the mantram as soon as you feel anger beginning to rise, when the first storm warnings are out. Then, when your mind has quietened down, you will remember the good things that person has done for you and forget the bad things on which you have been dwelling.
If we can take advantage of all the opportunities for repeating the mantram — while waiting, while walking, while falling asleep at night — the mantram can help keep the mind calm and secure.