“The essential problem in doing one thing at a time is that we don't really want to—or, more accurately, the mind doesn't want to,” Easwaran diagnoses in this week’s reading from The Power and Peace of a One-Pointed Mind. What a familiar predicament! And yet, he assures us, “The ability to work on a job with total concentration, and then put it out of your mind when necessary, is a skill which can be cultivated.” This week’s article, “Six Ways to Tame an Unruly Mind” on pages 11–22, is full of practical tips for building one-pointed attention skill. We are eager to hear how you put them into action.
Is there some tip from Easwaran in this reading that you tend to skim over because you have already heard it many times before? Try focusing on it this week to extend your practice of one-pointed attention.
In this week’s reading, Easwaran writes, “…what I recommend is simple but intriguingly difficult: do only one thing at a time and give it your full attention. This is the key to doing a good job of any kind.”
This week, try to notice a time when you feel inclined to do more than one thing at a time, and experiment with choosing to be one pointed instead. Let us know how it goes!
In two weeks, on February 28th, the eSatsang will begin studying Easwaran’s Take Your Time. To prepare, make sure you have the book available.
We offer a 20% discount on books sold through our distribution partner indiepubs.com. The discount is applied automatically when you add to cart. Here is a link to Take Your Time on that site.
Thank you to everyone who has participated in our month of mantrams for peace and healing in the world.
Here at the BMCM, we are honored to be receiving your books and pages full of mantrams. We have gathered them all together before Easwaran's picture, to be offered today, February 14 - Ramagiri Aspirations Day - when the Ramagiri residents re-dedicate themselves to Easwaran's legacy and way of life. Your efforts this month are joined with the Ramagiri residents’. This is our collective prayer for Divine help for our suffering world.
Let's keep those mantrams going, Easwaran reminds us we have no idea of the power of the mantram, so can imagine every repetition may be helping someone in need in these difficult times.
For our spiritual treat, we are pleased to share the next excerpt from the Easwaran video “Love Alters Not.” Note that the full video is 34 minutes, but the excerpt goes from 9:35 – 26:45 and the player should start and stop automatically at those times. We’ll share the final segment of this video next week. Of course, you are welcome to watch more now as well.