Over the past several weeks as we’ve studied chapter 8 of The Mantram Handbook, “Harnessing Fear, Anger, & Greed,” we’ve seen Easwaran move from detailing the specifics of transforming those negative emotions, to the nature of desire itself, which underlies them.
Now he leads us to a forceful conclusion:
“Desire is power which we can harness or let go to waste. We have all been given this power for one purpose: to realize the indivisible unity of life; as the Buddha would put it, to cross from this shore of separateness to the far shore of unity.”
Easwaran tells us, “Begin conserving your energies to undertake the really big adventure we were all born for. Don’t postpone a day.”
As we read pages 125–128,* let’s draw on the support of our teacher and the strength of this group to renew our enthusiasm for this adventure.
What is one statement that speaks to your heart in this reading? How will you put it into action this week?
We have experimented with many different mantram-deepening exercises over the past few months. Briefly reflect and choose an exercise you found particularly helpful, and work on that again this week.
* For those using electronic versions of The Mantram Handbook with different page numbering: this week’s reading starts with the subheading “Desires Come and Go” and continues to the end of chapter eight.
For our extra spiritual tidbit, here is Christine Easwaran reading the passage “Remember Me through Grace,” from Fakhraddin Ar-Razi.