This week, we’ll focus on the last of the eight points: Spiritual Fellowship and Spiritual Reading. These are topics that are typically experienced in person during a weeklong retreat in Tomales. For us here on the eSatsang, we have the following opportunities to experience these virtually as a community. You might consider joining fellow meditators for a virtual meditation next Saturday morning at 6:30 a.m. Pacific Time. you might join Thomas à Kempis and your fellow eSatsang friends, by spending time with “The Wonderful Effects of Divine Love”. Feel free to just enjoy being with this passage. Is there something you would like to you try? Let us know if there’s already something you do to familiarize yourself with passages in an enjoyable way, and then share your ideas with us!
Viewing entries in
Spiritual Reading
Thank you for all of your responses and encouraging experiments! It’s great to hear about all of the effort we’re collectively putting in to deepen our practice of the eight-point program.
We’d love to hear more about how your experiment with incorporating Spiritual Reading is going. What successes and/or challenges have you encountered? How has the strategy to help you remember the experiment been working?
Finally, for inspiration from Easwaran, please enjoy this five-minute video that was shown in the November 10 Online Workshop. What are your thoughts on Easwaran’s comments? Did something resonate with you? We’d love to hear what stood out to you from the video.
In last weekend’s Online Workshop, we thought about a routine time in our daily lives during which we could experiment with Spiritual Reading. We also thought about a way to remember our chosen time during the day, so that we set ourselves up for success over the next couple of months! We’d love to hear from you about what you are trying out this month. Please feel free to share any part of your experiment – the part of your week or day you’ll explore your reading opportunities, or ways in which you’ll help yourself remember to incorporate spiritual reading.
Even if you didn’t have a chance to join the Online Workshop, please feel free to consider trying a simple exercise to emphasize your use of Spiritual Reading this month.
This is an excerpt from the Blue Mountain Journal, Spring/Summer 2016 by Easwaran:
We welcome you to join us today for our Online Workshop and explore Spiritual Reading in the company of other passage meditators. We’d love to share this live satsang with you, today on November 10 at 9:00 a.m. San Francisco time. It’s not too late to register for the event, and you can pay on the sliding scale from $0–25. (The standard fee is $10.)
In the reading below, Easwaran describes our need for “transcendent companionship.” He describes the richness we can find in reading the mystics and meditating on their words in order to bring their presence into daily life through the eight points.
If you’re unable to attend the Online Workshop live, don’t worry – register below and we’ll send you the recording in a few days.
This month, we’re taking a deeper look at one of the eight points that we touch upon lightly during retreats and satsangs: Spiritual Reading.
During the online workshop we’ll be studying an excerpt from the Blue Mountain Journal, Spring/Summer 2016, focusing on Easwaran’s teachings on Spiritual Reading. Here on the eSatsang, we’ll have the opportunity to study/discuss the excerpt featured in the online workshop in more depth, and to develop our understanding of the eighth point through reviewing additional readings throughout the month.
In the reading below, Easwaran reminds us that the purpose of spiritual reading is to inspire our daily spiritual practice.
Please share any reflections you have on the reading below. We are always eager to hear from you!
To get us started on this topic, we have a reading study below! This reading will also prepare us for next week’s optional live real-time satsang opportunity during our Online Workshop.