“My grandmother sometimes used to ask me to do something important, but I had so many unimportant things of my own to attend to that the task she had entrusted to me didn’t always get done,” Easwaran relates in this week’s reading, pages 83–87 of The Mantram Handbook:*
“When she would ask, ‘When are you going to do it?’ I would answer, ‘One of these days, Granny.’ She wasn’t impressed. ‘One of these days is none of these days.’ When you hear someone say, ‘I’m going to get around to it one of these days,’ you can be sure that it isn’t going to get done. The mark of the mature person is the capacity to take up a job immediately – ‘forthwith,’ as Jesus says – and do it cheerfully and with concentration.”
We can all relate to the tendency to postpone jobs we dislike, and we are eager to hear how you apply these tips from Easwaran and his granny in your own unique context.
Which lines particularly strike you, and how can you apply them to your life this week?
We have experimented with many different mantram exercises over the past few months. As we continue our study of The Mantram Handbook, let’s repeat those exercises and see if we can each find a way 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:
On your regular mantram walk, try repeating the mantram very softly (in the mind) as if whispering.
* For those using electronic versions of The Mantram Handbook with different page numbering: this week’s reading comes from Chapter 6, starting with the subheading “Cultivated Tastes” and ending before the subheading “Learning to Drop a Job at Will.”
Our spiritual treat this week is a seven-minute video in which Easwaran discusses the causes of sorrow as described by the Buddha.