Easwaran begins chapter seven of The Mantram Handbook, titled “Excitement & Depression,” by explaining the mental dynamics behind those states, tracing them both to a racing mind. And he advises that to avoid feeling depression, “[w]e need to learn to keep our mind on an even keel.”
“Our culture places such a premium on excitement that this advice is most unwelcome. ‘Don’t let yourself get excited’ has an unpleasant, puritanical ring. But that is simply because we believe the only alternative to excitement is a flat, monotonous life. In fact, there is a third state which is neither excitement nor depression, but far, far above both: a quiet sense of abiding joy which is our real nature.”
This week’s eSatsang reading is pages 93–97,* and as usual we look forward to your comments.
If you have a particular issue you are struggling with right now, look into this reading for tips, and try them out this week.
We have been making a second pass through our mantram exercises and looking for ways to deepen them, for example by practicing more consistently or via a bit of extra effort or preparation. Here’s our mantram exercise this week:
Sit comfortably in a chair. Resolve to repeat the mantram for three minutes without having any other thought at all. Then try it. After you succeed at doing this a few days in a row, try extending that practice to five minutes.
* For those using electronic versions of The Mantram Handbook with different page numbering: this week we are reading from the start of chapter seven and ending before the subheading “Guarding against Depression.”
For our extra spiritual morsel, here is Easwaran reading the passage “Whatever You Do,” from the Bhagavad Gita.