The YA Phone Satsang

One of Easwaran’s eight points is satsang, or spiritual fellowship. Spending time with other meditators, and especially other YAs, can give a boost of enthusiasm and inspiration to go deeper in our practice.

Bay Area YA Satsang event

There are over 90 in-person satsangs worldwide, including dedicated YA satsangs in Berkeley, California, and Tucson, Arizona. Most YAs live too far away from their nearest satsang to attend regularly though, so the free YA eSatsang is a great option.

Every few months, the YA eSatsang team hosts a YA phone satsang for YAs around the world to discuss an Easwaran reading together. These calls are open for all young adults (late teens, 20s, and 30s) who practice passage meditation regularly. Although many of us have not met in person, we feel greatly supported and inspired by each other, and we warmly welcome people taking part for the first time.

This week we hear from two YAs, Adam from Alameda, California, and Drew from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Adam and Drew share their experiences of participating in the YA phone satsang.

Adam:

The YA phone satsangs have been an awesome boost for me. Each time I'm amazed to rediscover this community of supportive, enthusiastic young adults all wanting to go deeper in their practice and to help the world. Hearing the other YAs' voices (and also seeing their faces via the optional photo share) makes it so personal for me. I feel connected to something much larger than myself, and supported by the strength and acceptance of the group -- particularly when I've hit a rough patch in my own practice.

Drew:

For much of the time I've been doing passage meditation I haven't had an in-person satsang to attend, and the YA phone satsangs have been a wonderful resource.  To be able to connect and converse with others doing the same spiritual practice, from all over the world no less, is absolutely wonderful. It's great to be able to talk with other folks of a similar age going through similar life issues in the context of passage meditation.  I always come away with a sense of connection, community, and a renewed enthusiasm for my practice

We would love for you to join us in the next YA phone satsang on Saturday, September 20 at 12–1:15 pm PDT (Pacific Time), when we will discuss a reading from the Spring 2014 Blue Mountain Journal on slowing down. The phone satsang is open to all young adults (late teens, 20s, and 30s) who practice passage meditation regularly. This is free of charge and no preparation is needed. To register, write to YAsatsang@easwaran.org. Feel free to contact the YA satsang team at that address if you have questions about the phone satsang, or would like to join the group so you find out about future calls. 

If you're not a regular passage meditator, we recommend the free introductory one-hour webinar coming up on October 4th.

We'd also love to hear from you about your satsang experiences! Share your thoughts in the comments below:

• How has satsang helped your practice?
• Where do you find satsang?

A Passage for September

One of our favorite passages, and not just because it's short and sweet, is "Just Because You Are My God" by Saint Ignatius of Loyola. The YA Blog Team was refreshing some of its favorite passages over the weekend and was inspired to re-visit the background of them, starting with the passage by Saint Ignatius.

In the book God Makes the Rivers to Flow , there is a section with background notes about each of the inspirational passages which gives context and history about the author or text. (Many passages are also available free online and the notes are at the bottom of the page.) These are the background notes about "Just Because You Are My God":

Ignatius Loyola (1491–1556), founder of the Society of Jesus (known commonly as Jesuits) of the Roman Catholic Church, began life as a courtier and soldier during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, concerned chiefly with his career and the pleasures of a well-placed young man. After being wounded by a cannonball during a battle with the French in 1521, he spent a wrenchingly painful convalescence in his ancestral castle at Loyola. To pass the time he requested his favorite reading, the romances of chivalry, which were the pulp fiction of the times. None being found anywhere in the castle, he was brought narratives of the life of Christ and the lives of the saints, which, over the long months of his recovery, gradually gave new shape to his dreams of glory as he immersed himself in stories of self-effacing heroism and love for God. Completely transformed, he turned his martial spirit and tremendous capacity for suffering to a spiritual quest which continues to influence the world. His renowned Spiritual Exercises, widely followed today, capture the methodology of an inner convalescence in which he struggled to discern the divine will and to live it out no matter the cost.

In Easwaran's type of meditation, our focus is on the words of the passage during meditation itself. However, outside of meditation we can learn about the background which contextualizes the language and gives new perspective on the words. Just from reading the short history of this passage, it suddenly became alive! We could imagine Saint Ignatius enthralled by the stories of the saints and were surprised at how this made our own spiritual reading more meaningful. 

As we've been using this well-loved passage in our meditation, we've been amazed at how fresh this passage has become. We'd love to hear your thoughts on this passage! Share your thoughts in the comments below:

• How do you refresh your passages?
• Is there anything in this passage, or it's history, that you find particularly interesting?

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Just Because You Are My God – Saint Ignatius of Loyola

Oh, my God, I want to love you not that I might gain eternal heaven nor escape eternal hell but, Lord, to love you just because you are my God.

Grant me to give to you and not to count the cost, to fight for you and not to mind the wounds, to labor and to ask for no reward except the knowledge that I serve my God.

My First Weeklong Retreat

Meet Gary, a YA from Santa Cruz, CA. Since his post last year, Gary participated in the Cohort Program, consisting of video workshops over six months and ending with a weeklong retreat in July. Here Gary shares his experiences at his first weeklong retreat and how it impacted his practice.

After my first or second retreat I remember having reservations about the weeklong, a whole week! It seemed like a marathon, could I stay focused and practice with the intensity of a weekend for a whole week? Would I buckle and want to get out of there?! At some point before the YA cohort program, after experiencing the positive effects of the YA weekends, and from what I've heard from other retreatants and my satsang coordinator, the weeklong seemed like the next natural step, and boy was it ever!

Going into the weeklong retreat in July, because it was the "finale" of this year’s YA cohort program, I thought (for some reason) it was a YA weeklong retreat. I've never been opposed to attending an all ages retreat, I just started with the YAs and have happened to stick with those thus far. To my surprise when I entered the St. Francis room (a little late I might add), I saw a lot of different aged people, and it immediately dawned on me that this was not a YA retreat. Would I be able to connect with the older passage meditators as much as I was able to with the YAs? I don't know if this was a sudden juggling of likes and dislikes, but I instantly took the perspective of looking forward to sharing with passage meditators of all ages.

What stands out to me the most as what I think is a benefit for YAs to attend an all ages retreat, and a weeklong for that matter, is the depth of experience you get from the older retreatants. This especially includes spending more time with the residents at and around the ashram, which there is much more opportunity for during the weeklong. It’s been a hard thing for me to rap my head around, but I believe I felt as close as I ever had to Easwaran during the weeklong. A lot of these folks were around the man, some of them a lot, and are living embodiments of his practice. Even the ones that weren’t, their many years of practice reflect Easwaran. We actually discussed not having your spiritual teacher in the body and how he still is a living force that influences all of our lives. It seems that this has come up as an important way for me to experience and learn from him, by being with people who practice his program, and in the case of the weeklong, especially with individuals who have been for many years.

The weekends also have, but the weeklong gave me what I feel like was a more lasting sense of purpose with my practice, security with who I am and belief in Easwaran's teachings, a total affirmation of the eight points.

I can't recommend these retreats enough. More than any of the other eight points, spiritual fellowship, specifically the retreats, has proven for me (to this point) the most positively transformative point of the practice.  If you've benefited from a YA weekend retreat and believe in Easwaran's teachings, the weeklong retreat may be waiting to be the most positively uplifting week of your life, as it was for me.

Gary (back row, 2nd from left) with Christine Easwaran and the other YA Cohorts.