Meditating on Campus

Meet Saskia, a YA meditator from England now living in California. Saskia began meditating while at university in England and found that meditating on a campus really forced her to get creative!

I started passage meditation when I was a student and 19 years old.  This is my story of what it was like to meditate at college, which was a complete life saver – but took effort and creativity too.

My mom had been practicing passage meditation for a few years, and I saw how much it helped her, and our whole family. Both my parents are open-minded and experimental, but nothing they had tried before made the positive impact that meditation did. I was really impressed and started learning about the eight points in a casual way from her. I tried out some tips from her based on the eight points, like studying without listening to music at the same time. I began to discover how incredibly effective and helpful the eight points were in my own life. The she invited me to a one-day retreat during my summer vacation, which I was eager to do, even though it involved waking up really early on a Saturday morning! At the retreat, I tried meditating for the first time and discovered how out of control my mind was. Eek!

I went home from the retreat knowing that I would definitely start meditating one day, but in the meantime I would use the mantram. I set off for a month of traveling around Scandinavia, and used the mantram a lot – when I got into a difficult situation (missed the last bus), when I was bored (six hours on a train), when things didn’t work out the way I planned (a friend's last-minute change), and when something amazing happened (a new adventure!)

Following that summer, I moved to Germany as an exchange student. Everything was new and there was so much to figure out. The mantram helped, but I knew it was time to start meditating. I needed an anchor to keep me steady amidst the emotional highs and lows, and to help make make good decisions with so many amazing opportunities on offer. When I had quiet time to reflect, I was also very aware of needing answers to deep, important questions about the direction my life should go in. I could see two paths ahead of me (though I couldn't put words to describe them) – and I was searching for understanding, direction, and courage to make wise choices to lead me to the right path.

I asked my mom to send me her copy of Easwaran’s book Passage Meditation, and started reading it every night as soon as it arrived. It felt like Easwaran knew exactly what I was going through, and he put into words what I had never consciously realized, but somehow knew at a deep level.

Saskia learned about meditation from her mom who shared it with her dad as well. Today all three of them practice passage meditation! 

After reading the first chapter, I started meditating. To set up a meditation spot, I simply put a cushion on the floor in a corner of my room, and used another as a back support against the wall. For the first few days, 30 minutes seemed like forever, but I stuck with it. I could see the benefits that very first day.

Although Easwaran recommends meditating at the same time every morning, it just didn’t fit the typical student lifestyle I was leading. I decided to meditate every day as soon as I woke up, but not worry about what time that would be – 7 am or 1 pm! I made changes gradually, and eventually (after several years), began to meditate at the same time every day.

The results? Astonishing. I no longer felt on a roller coaster of ups and downs – I was more steady, kind, and happy. I knew the direction I wanted my life to go in. It was the best year of my life.

I then moved back to my original college town. There was intense academic pressure, so my schedule became more routine, and meditation times became more regular. I lived with five other people, which was wonderful and challenging at the same time.

Easwaran says to put meditation first, and everything else will follow. In a shared household, I needed to figure out how to do that in a practical way. I told my housemates that I meditated every morning and would keep my door shut during that time. They were very respectful, and never disturbed me in the mornings until my door was open, and I usually woke up before them so the house was quiet (otherwise, I used earplugs.) Then I discovered a tiny prayer room in the student union on campus which was always empty. Whenever possible, I would sneak in there to have my second meditation, usually at about 4 or 5 pm. I was SO grateful for that little room, and over time I discovered that just walking past that building made me feel calmer because it was so associated with meditation. Most campuses have a chapel or prayer room, so it’s a great thing to look out for.

Saskia found lots of creative places to meditate on her university campus (pictured left). Her favorite was the chaplaincy (middle) and it's small prayer room (right) which was nearly always empty!

Away from campus, I would plan the night before how and when I would have my morning meditation. I became really creative. I meditated in cars (stationary!), churches, empty rooms, airplanes, trains. I always carried some “meditation essentials” in my backpack: a pair of earplugs, a notebook with a few passages, and a few pictures of saints and holy images.

I was so grateful for passage meditation, which enabled me to make the most of my last year at university. The year was full of stress about exams and grades, opportunities of grad school and jobs, and precious final months with friends and housemates who felt like family. We were leaving everything that was familiar, and preparing for whatever the future held. I don't know what I would have done without meditation!

Meditating in college and as a young adult can be tricky. Sometimes it feels like you’re constantly swimming upstream, and it can be lonely. However, with a little creativity and effort, it becomes a great adventure, and the best companion to have with you during graduation and beyond.

Practicing Passage Meditation Within A Faith Tradition

Meet Carlos, a YA in the San Francisco Bay Area. As a practicing Catholic, Carlos shares how passage meditation complements and supports his faith, and enables him to move closer to his parents who have a different perspective about practicing their religion.

My name is Carlos and I live in Concord, California, near San Francisco. I practice passage meditation and I also happen to go to church. I was baptized and confirmed into the Catholic faith. My parents raised my brothers and me on Bible stories, rosary prayers, and weekly attendance at mass. Upon graduating from college, I still found myself clinging to the Lord for security, direction, and guidance. At the same time, my brother introduced me to Eknath Easwaran and his method of passage meditation. At first I was merely drawn to Easwaran’s voice and his presence. In time, I started meditating. Meditation deepened my faith by helping me to live it in daily life.

Every day for me now begins with meditation first thing in the morning. I meditate for 30 minutes on an inspirational passage. Often I meditate on the Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi, or another passage from the Christian tradition. The passages Easwaran recommends for meditation can be found in his book God Makes the Rivers to Flow and online here.

I remind myself of the ideals I have meditated on in the morning by practicing “repetition of the mantram” throughout the day. This discipline is one of the points in Easwaran’s eight-point program of passage meditation (you can see an explanation of the eight points here.) The mantram I chose is the name of Jesus. I repeat His holy name, silently in my mind, whenever I have a spare moment, whenever I can remember.  When I repeat the mantram, I call on Jesus continually. It helps me clear my mind of worry, and rely more and more on Jesus’ strength in any circumstance. I can bear with difficult times and get through them by repeating the mantram. 

In practice, when do I start repeating the mantram? It may be when I have just have turned off the light at night. I may have just woken up in the morning. I may be sitting in the bathroom. I may be walking or jogging. I may be in my car, taking a moment to pause before turning on the ignition. I may be waiting at a stoplight, waiting in line at the grocery, walking through a hallway, or walking past someone. When I get to work, I may have just seen the sticky on my computer monitor with “M” written on it. The more I practice repeating the mantram, the easier it becomes. However, I try not to repeat my mantram whenever I’m doing something that requires my full concentration (such as while driving or cutting apples).

Easwaran had already passed away by the time I first "met" him, so I heard him through a recorded audio talk. I now meet him daily through his recorded teachings, such as in his audio commentary on The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis. I may listen to these before sleeping at night, or when I find a spare (or planned) moment during the day to hear his calming words.  I meet Easwaran as well when I observe his manner and his attitude when he teaches from his videotaped talks. I also feel that I meet him when I practice daily the point “spiritual reading.” I happen to read short segments at a time, from any of his books on meditation, which I’ve collected over time. I also read passages and gain inspiration from the works of such figures as Mother Teresa and Thérèse of Lisieux.

Here we see Carlos' meditation corner along with his books for spiritual reading and a stereo for listening to Easwaran's audio commentary. 

One point which I’ve shied away from when I started my practice was “spiritual fellowship.” At first I was reluctant to meet with other passage meditators. However, gradually Easwaran has now become more alive for me, not only through his recorded teachings, but through the dedication of friends who also practice passage meditation.  We meet regularly for spiritual fellowship (called “satsang” in Sanskrit). Satsang can take the form of in-person gatherings or even through virtual meetings in the BMCM’s online Young Adult eSatsang, where I can read messages from fellow young adult meditators around the globe, who share their questions, struggles, and triumphs in meditation. In fellowship, or satsang, we support each other in our practice as we get together to read his books, watch his videos, and meditate on inspirational passages. We can also share a meal, go on a hike, enjoy a beach walk, or participate in any recreation which benefits our practice. We can also attend retreats offered by the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation, the organization which Easwaran founded. At these retreats, I join with experienced meditators in finding renewed focus and fervor in bringing our strengthened practice back home.

Though initially reluctant to meet with other passage meditators, Carlos is now an active member of the YA community. At a recent YA outing in the San Francisco Bay Area Carlos enjoyed the trails and some impromptu frisbee!

Meditation has helped me with a particular challenge I’ve had since taking it up: relating my practice to my parents, who are in the Catholic faith, and do not practice passage meditation. I had a small success in using the eight points during a lunch with them this past Easter. It was Easter Sunday, and I had just attended the Easter service – without my parents. They had already gone to an earlier Easter service, and we  planned on having lunch together when I was done. This is the beauty of living a life trying to practice meditation and the allied disciplines. Life is not perfect, but you try to make it as perfect as you can. This Easter, then, took on a whole new significance. For me, it is like participating in Jesus’ life after death; even life amidst death. Even though there may be a kind of “death,” or a tension, between my parents and me, we try to be together on those fronts in which we can be together. For me, “life” here meant finding the time to be together regardless of our differences on how we live our faith. Being together with them on Easter was my first small success.

My second small success, most visibly, was that we all came to a sense of relief. For my parents, my mom in particular, it was the relief that I was not going astray on a wrong, misguided path. For me, it was the relief of experiencing my parents’ relief. Less visibly, I was happy (with the help daily meditation has given me) to be able to look past my anger and my thoughts of confusion – and focus instead on understanding my parents’ point of view, and on finding words to use which we could both understand and share.

During the lunch, my mom recalled reading one of the Blue Mountain quarterly journals. She expressed disagreement with something Easwaran said about God in one of the articles. She was concerned that it was taking me off the path of my faith upbringing. I could have brooded the distraction in my mind, “did he say that?” However I chose to use the point, “one-pointed attention,” to focus just on what my mom was trying to tell me, which was very difficult when my own thoughts were clamoring to be expressed. For at least a few moments, one-pointed attention kept me as clear as possible on what she was trying to say, and prevented me from interrupting her while she spoke.

Yet when she did pause, my one-pointed attention really needed some help. The help came in the form of practicing the point “slowing down.” Though my mind needed to slow down to start giving some one-pointed attention in the first place, my mind needed to slow down even further to allow for time and patience to see what she needed this breathing room for. Make no mistake, slowing down did not mean laying back and slouching.

It meant using the freed-up time for practicing the point “putting others first.” To begin with, I tried to put her first by speaking my thoughts. However, I quickly realized that it wasn’t my thoughts she needed to hear just then. Instead, she needed to see that I understood, or at least was trying to understand her views. We both needed time! I needed the time to put her first by placing myself in her shoes as best I could. She needed time to see that I was listening, trying my best to understand her, and giving her my respect.

I also used the point “training the senses” in this situation.  On one hand, I practiced the training of my palate by choosing the kind and quantity of food that was healthy and sensible for my body. On the other hand, I was training my mind to choose healthy thoughts, thoughts that would vitalize my mind instead of wearing it down. In slowing down and in putting my parents first, thoughts of love, respect, and patience came into view, and thoughts of anger or impatience subsided.

Carlos (right) and his brother, who introduced him to passage meditation, at Half Dome in Yosemite National Park. 

Remarkably, the love, respect, and patience I was able to foster helped me see the love, respect, and patience my parents were already trying to give me. I joined together with them in spiritual fellowship at heart, as I appreciated their efforts to love as just like my own.

Eventually, the conversation boiled down to a difference in opinions, or a difference in expressing the same opinion. It was really difficult to separate myself from my views and my ways of expressing things about my meditation teacher, Easwaran. However, the effort to try to understand my parents as best I could, and to refrain from speaking when I knew it wouldn’t make things better, has really paid off. I can now sit down with them and have a meal without being overly defensive (or at least not as defensive as in the past). My parents can share their views about God, and recommend ways for me to stay true to my faith tradition, without me getting as flustered as I have before. It can be a real challenge, but it’s a chance to deepen my faith and reliance on Jesus’ strength, deepen my meditation, and deepen my relationship with Easwaran as my teacher.

Meditation In Life's Transitions: From YA To Parent

Meet Nancy, a passage meditator living in Seattle, Washington. Nancy shares the story of beginning her practice, participating in the young adult program and then transitioning into a post-YA life focused on infusing her family life with her spiritual ideals.

The first time I encountered Easwaran and his program of meditation was in 1986, when I was a junior at my university. I was trying to figure out what I should do with my life when I graduated. I wanted to do something that would be of service to people, to the world, but I didn't know what it was.

During my summer break I became fascinated with the Religion section in the Undergrad library, reading about aboriginal spirituality, Hinduism, Zen Buddhism, and Christian mysticism. All of this reading, and thinking hard about what I was reading, led me to think I should start meditating, but I had no idea of where to go to learn.

I didn't want to join any particular group or change my religion. I hoped I might be able to find a book on it, so I looked in the B. Dalton bookstore near the campus. I picked up a book titled Meditation, which had a picture of man who looked very kind. I started reading the introduction. In one short chapter the author introduced and led me through the eight points and three profound concepts in the simplest way: "You are not your mind, you are not your body, you are divine." 

"Having discovered that we are not the body, not the mind – both subject to change, to growth and decline – the question remains, “Who am I?” In the third stage, the tremendous climax of meditation, we make the most significant discovery any human being can ever make: we find out who we really are." - Eknath Easwaran

Nancy's original book Meditation (now titled Passage Meditation), which she found in college. Nancy spent many years reading Easwaran's books, which gave her a strong foundation to eventually start her own daily meditation practice.

I was enthralled, and hooked. I was certain I wanted to learn to meditate. Except it took me another 10 years to get there. I started reading the daily thought from Words to Live By each day before I started work, repeating my mantram, and trying to slow down. I kept reading Easwaran's books, Meditation (again), Take Your Time, The Bhagavad Gita, Conquest of Mind, Dialogue with Death, and Climbing the Blue Mountain. Before I knew it, 9 years had passed and I was turning 30.

I was worried about all sorts of world issues – big, giant problems that I had no clue about how to solve. I read Climbing the Blue Mountain again and the message I got from it was, "Don't wait another day! Start now!" and that I should change myself first, that the resources I needed would come from that. So I finally started.

I began meditating every day. In 1996 I attended a one-day regional retreat and started attending a local satsang (fellowship group). A woman in our satsang encouraged me to attend a retreat in Tomales because there was a chance I could see Easwaran and hear him speak. So in June of 1997, I went to a weeklong retreat. We stayed and met in Dillon Beach because the retreat house was not finished yet. It was a wonderful retreat and the first time I saw how I could be practicing all eight points throughout the day. It was also wonderful because I saw how Easwaran absolutely lived and embodied everything he was teaching about. He clearly was an authentic spiritual teacher, and his students were sincerely living the program he was teaching.

Nancy (circled here) met Easwaran in 1997 at her first weeklong retreat -- a life-changing experience. 

I eagerly embraced my practice and continued to attend retreats. Then around 2001 something resembling a YA program and eSatsang popped up. I felt a wonderful kinship with the people who were writing in... we all shared this burning desire to grow in our practice, to apply the eight points in our daily life, to figure out what we were doing in our life choices and how we could make these choices in a spiritual way, and to find ways to help our world.

I attended a couple of YA retreats during the summers of 2001 and 2002. They were full of spiritual study, selfless work, meditation, wonderful satsang, and "right" entertainment. The time I spent in these retreats was so motivating and so inspiring. I will always carry them with me in my heart. We were all trying to figure out what our svadharma (personal dharma, life purpose) was...that was a huge topic.

I started to think of my spiritual practice as my real job, and started looking for ways to infuse my practice into all of the other things I did in life – my work, my relationships, everything I did during the day.

Throughout this entire process of discovery (starting in 1988), I was with my boyfriend, then partner, now husband. The entire time I was trying to figure out how to blend my practice into my daily life, and into my life with him. He does not practice this method of meditation, nor has he ever shown any interest in doing so. But he has always supported me in my practice.

Something I was struggling with throughout all of this time was when we would get married, and would we try to have children. I was scared of both. And I was worried about how I would keep my practice going if we had children. My practice helped me to be able to face these questions head on and finally make a choice and commit.

We got married in 2003 and our daughter was born in 2005. And my practice now is not the same as it was before I had a child. But it's still good and growing. One of the changes that has occurred is I'm learning how to consciously live in unity as a family. I feel like I'm taking a lot of higher-level courses on selfless service: "How to become more and more selfless," which is a wonderful antidote to my self-centeredness.

The YA programs helped Nancy figure out her own svadharma (path). Deciding to marry her long-term partner and start a family, Nancy is now sharing her high ideals and spiritual tools with her husband and daughter. 

I stopped participating in the YA eSatsang a few years ago, partially because I thought I was too old, but mostly because I finally felt settled about the direction I've chosen in life, and what my svadharma is. For satsang, I've transitioned from the YA group to the family program. And I continue to participate in our local satsang group.

Participating in the family program has been a wonderful resource for learning ways to infuse our daily life with the spiritual ideals that Easwaran taught and lived. The BMCM family program offers an online class that families across the globe can participate in. We share our experiences of weaving the eight-point program into family life, and learn about resources that we can use to do this. We've also gotten together with other families to share satsang together, and we've even performed skits and plays about St. Francis and St. Clare, and Sri Krishna.

In this new stage of life focused on her family, Nancy has found helpful resources in the BMCM's family programs. Gathering with other passage meditator families, Nancy and her daughter dressed up to put on a play about the life of Sri Krishna.

I keep working on finding ways to include my family in my spiritual practice, but not in a forced way. My biggest desire for my daughter is that she discovers the joy I first discovered, and keep rediscovering in following this spiritual path. She is 7 years old now. She has her own mantram book, and a puja (altar) "shelf" in her bedroom. We have written the mantram together when we were worried about a loved one who was sick, or when she was upset with one of her friends. We sing mantram songs. We attend church together as a family, and my daughter also attends the parish school.

The puja shelf (altar) belonging to Nancy's daughter showing holy pictures and statues from many faith traditions. 

I am finding that our parish affiliation, my daughter's school, the BMCM family program, and my eight-point practice are all providing different angles from which I can find ways to share high spiritual ideals and tools with my husband and daughter.

What I'm learning through family life is, it's all yoga. Everything in my life is part of my spiritual practice. My spiritual practice isn't confined to the period of time I spend meditating, or the bits of time I remember to repeat my mantram throughout the day, or the piece of chocolate I did or didn't eat. It now includes getting up multiple times during the night and not being grumpy about it when my daughter is sick or our elderly dog needs to go out. It means planning healthy meals that we can sit down and enjoy together, and not cramming too many activities into our day so we have time to enjoy each other’s company.

It's a mode of operation throughout the day, a constant striving to find ways to live in harmony with my environment and people around me. I'm learning that it's a way of being that includes learning from my mistakes, and then trying to make the better choice at every next opportunity.

"When we come into life, we come as servants of the Lord. Nobody is unemployed. When we live our lives selflessly, helping in every possible way, which the earth needs from everyone, we are living in the Lord." – Eknath Easwaran