A Passage for January

Happy new year! Here at YA Blog HQ we are so looking forward to all that 2015 is going to offer – from web programs to YA retreats – and we're looking forward to another year of sharing stories from our YA community.

In the spirit of the new year, we've been thinking about small experiments we can do to help strengthen our meditation practice. Examples might be taking a mantram walk twice a week, or not snoozing the alarm before meditation, or memorizing one line of a passage a day. These are all great experiments. We can simply try them, modify them as needed, and see the results!

A regular experiment among the YA Blog Team is to play around with passage rotation. For example, for a while we might meditate on the same sequence of passages, and then change it up by meditating on a set of passages all by the same mystic, and then choose passages that all focus on the mantram. This month we wanted to share Gandhi's passage "The Path." We think this passage sums up this idea of trial and error along the spiritual path and is perfect inspiration for the new year!

We'd love to hear from you! What experiments are you going to try in 2015?

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The Path – Mahatma Gandhi

I know the path: it is strait and narrow.
It is like the edge of a sword.
I rejoice to walk on it.
I weep when I slip.
God's word is:
"He who strives never perishes."
I have implicit faith in that promise.
Though, therefore, from my weakness I fail a thousand times,
I shall not lose faith.

2015 Two-Part Introductory Webinar Series

Every year on the YA eSatsang – our online email fellowship group – YAs from around the world share a holiday message reflecting on the past year. Here at YA Blog HQ, we're looking back on a wonderful year full of YA hijinks, and now we're eager to start 2015.

One of the highlights of 2014 was the new online programs offered by the BMCM via introductory webinars (read more here). It was a thrilling endeavor bringing instruction in Easwaran's method of meditation to hundreds of people around the world. 

New for 2015, the BMCM will be expanding its online offerings to a two-part introductory webinar series. We hope you'll save the dates and join us, and spread the word!

Webinar 1: Learn to Meditate – This webinar will describe passage meditation, its benefits, and how and why it works. 

Webinar 2: Make the Most of Your Meditation – This webinar will explain how the other seven points in Easwaran's program can help keep your mind calm, kind, and focused throughout the day.

If you joined us for a webinar in 2014, you'll be familiar with the material from Webinar 1, but we're experimenting with content, presentation style, and technology as a result of your helpful suggestions. Check it out and see what we've come up with! Webinar 2 is a completely new webinar and sure to be a great experience for new and long-time meditators.

Both webinars will include video clips of Easwaran teaching, live Q&A with our trained presenters, and information about follow-up resources.

The webinars are part of our ongoing plan to develop online programs for our worldwide audience and so we're offering this webinar series twice in 2015 with each series at a different time to accommodate different timezones.

You can learn more at www.easwaran.org/webinar, and we encourage you to share the flyer below with anyone who might be interested. Start 2015 with a calmer mind! 

Easwaran On Finding Harmony With Others – And Harmony Within Oneself

We start the spiritual life wherever we are, not running away from society, but right in the midst of life.   –Eknath Easwaran

We’ve been talking a lot among the YA Blog Team about the idea of harmony with others. Our days are full of interactions with friends, coworkers, neighbors, family, and strangers, and often we find some of these interactions difficult to navigate. In fact, sometimes managing all these relationships can be overwhelming! This week we’d like to share an audio talk from Easwaran where he speaks about living in harmony with others, and oneself.

In the midst of personal struggles, it can seem as if our spiritual practice might be easier if we could somehow take off and leave those challenges behind, but Easwaran always viewed the landscape of personal relationships as the perfect place to practice the spiritual life.

To meditate and live the spiritual life we needn't drop everything and undertake an ascent of the Himalayas or Mount Athos or Cold Mountain. There are some who like to imagine themselves as pilgrims moving among the deer on high forest paths, simply-clad, sipping only pure headwaters, breathing only ethereal mountain air.

Now it may sound unglamorous, but you can actually do better right where you are. Your situation may lack the grandeur of those austere and solitary peaks, but it could be a very fertile valley yielding marvelous fruit. We need people if we are to grow, and all our problems with them, properly seen, are opportunities for growth. Can you practice patience with a deer? Can you learn to forgive a redwood? But trying to live in harmony with those around you right now will bring out enormous inner toughness.

In the talk this week, Easwaran shares practical tips and wonderful anecdotes about finding harmony with others, and with ourselves.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about the talk in the comments below:

• What strategy about personal relationships stood out to you?
• Was there any other aspect of the talk that struck you?