The Path to Detachment

This week’s post is from Sheryl in Davis, California, who describes her ability to overcome a "family samskara” (an ingrained habit or tendency) using her practice of the eight points.

The 8PP (eight-point program) has changed my life. I have spent a lot of years working on what I now call a “family samskara”, and this path has opened up the most positive and transformative way to do so.

At a very early age, I was drawn to a relationship with the Lord of Love, although it was a confused relationship in that I thought I could direct the Lord to do what I thought would be best for myself and those around me. Through many difficult situations and the loss of the family through the diseases of alcoholism and mental illness, I’ve been on a very long quest for a positive path that would heal grief and the past. I've also yearned for a deep connection with the Lord of Love, finally realizing that I would need to surrender to life as it happens. 

In June, 2011, the 8PP came into my life. There were difficult challenges surrounding me, and the 8PP appeared at a time when I was desperate to find “something else” to help with the fear, confusion, anger, attachment, and grief that was happening around me and in my mind. I had spent years in 12-step programs where I heard a lot about detachment…from others, from the things they did, the way the lived, what they said and thought. I soon began to understand that Sri Easwaran had a very different slant on detachment, and that he was talking about detachment from my own stuff, the opinions, likes, dislikes, and judgments going on in my mind. This was revolutionary thinking coming from where I’d been!! 

The more I read, meditated, studied and listened, the more I began to get small glimpses of the freedom found from this level and understanding of detachment from those I love, from anyone around me. I’d grown up thinking it was my responsibility to “save others” and the only way to do that was to know all I could about their situation and “help” them with it. This did not work all those years ago, but it was the only thing I knew. Until…the 8PP!!

Sheryl on at Dillon Beach during a mantram walk at a weekend retreat.

The family samskara I’ve identified has certainly been an on-going challenge throughout my life. It has manifested with the mind putting attention on the likes and dislikes around relationships, to focus on the ‘right’ way things ’should’ be. With the help of passages such as “Give Up Anger” from the Dhammapada, I’ve learned that “no sorrow will ever befall those who never try to possess people and things as their own.” From the Sutta Nipata, “Discourse on Good Will’ I’ve learned to pray that “all creatures may be filled with joy and peace,” and to allow my love to grow boundlessly for all others, all creatures. In Lao Tzu’s passage, “The Best” I’ve learned that I want to be like water, benefiting all and not competing with anyone or anything. I’ve used the “Recommended Passages for Specific Uses” in the back of God Makes the Rivers to Flow to choose passages that are transforming old ideas from the mind into the person I want to become. That person is the most loving, healthily detached, giving, grateful wife, mother, grandmother, friend, satsang, community and world member I can be. 

St. Francis among the lilies in Sheryl’s backyard.

Now I have the resources I need to continue to grow in this manner. In The Constant Companion, I love the description of detachment found on page 241, “Virata, Free From Craving”, and a quote from Epictetus: “…to behave in life as you would behave at a banquet. When something is being passed around, as it comes to you, stretch out your hand and take a portion of it gently. When it passes on, do not try to hold on to it; when it has not yet come to you, do not reach out for it with your desire, but wait until it presents itself. So act toward children, toward spouse, toward office, toward wealth." I have added “toward grandchildren” to this list!! 

Sheryl and her husband Bob in West Seattle. 

The 8PP continues to open my eyes and change the thoughts in the mind about life, love and others! I believe I’m able to see and be so grateful for the gifts around me because of a more solid, loving and detached manner of “knowing”. My husband, Bob, and I attended his first Introductory Weekend Retreat this year because he wanted to learn more about passage meditation; what a gift! We have many opportunities to give and grow in the two communities in which we live. I know that the “family samskara” is still lurking around, and that the mind is still “upsettable”. I also know more about, believe in and live the 8 point program each day to the best of my ability, and with the mantram, meditation, slowing down with one-pointed attention, constantly training the senses, putting others first in a healthy, detached manner, continual reading of spiritual materials, and engaging in incredible opportunities for satsang, this samskara is beginning to pack its bags!! 

Sheryl and Bob after Bob's first mantram walk at Dillon Beach in February 2016.

Easwaran: Thomas à Kempis Talk 2

In February we shared the first in a series of talks by Eknath Easwaran on Thomas à Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ. This week we’re pleased to share the second talk, which was given in 1970.

In this talk Easwaran comments on the second and third chapters of The Imitation of Christ and continues translating 15th century language into modern concepts that we can apply in our daily lives.

In the second half of the talk Easwaran draws connections between The Imitation and Gandhi and the Bhagavad Gita, highlighting the universal nature of truth.

 We look forward to hearing your thoughts. Please share in the comments below!

The Power of the Mantram

This week we have a post from Myron, a passage meditator living in Northern California. Myron shares how he has come to understand the mantram and meditation as truly powerful aids to overcoming unwanted habits. (Visit our website to read instructions in how to choose and use a mantram.)

Many of us have a family member, sometimes it is the whole family, that cause us serious agitation and all that goes with it—ill will, resentment, hostility, jealousy—and all of that coming from self-will (the desire to have one’s own way). I had been practicing and meditating some time, but this agitation at family gatherings was not going away and was quite frankly, a plague that I wanted to be rid of. Through meditation and practice of the eight point program my awareness of this problem had come into sharper focus; so I really wanted it to disappear.

Myron, volunteering in the garden at BMCM headquarters in Tomales, California.

My early tries at this were not successful. I would use my intellect to tell myself not to be agitated when my family gathered together for holidays; it took me some time to figure out the truth of Easwaran’s words, that a bad self-willed habit (a samskara, he calls it) cannot be controlled very well with the intellect; the intellect just gets steam rolled by the power of the habit. It was a lesson that I had to experience to really believe.

First Turning Point

One evening after the Tuesday night satsang in Petaluma, as we were closing the church, my friend Diana and I were discussing the video talk of Easwaran where he been exhorting us to practice, practice, practice. We both agreed: “we don’t practice enough.” So I set about changing this, and started spending hours with the mantram in the week or so before a family gathering. Standing at the kitchen sink, I would think about being at the gathering and repeat the mantram, 15 minutes here, 15 minutes there, and every time the mind went to thinking about family, throughout the day, more mantram. I also interspersed that with repeating the passage of Jesus that Easwaran liked, three to four verses, “judge not that you be not judged…” Day after day, as I sat down for meditation, I would remind myself of the desire to be rid of this self-willed problem, but nothing overt occurred during meditation, no distractions or insights of any sort ever came up. It was a matter of relying on Easwaran’s assurance that when we meditate, there are effects occurring deep in the unconscious that we are not aware of.

Moving Along to Succeeding

More family gatherings went on, sometimes minor agitation, sometimes major, but I was learning to use lots of mantram repetition the days before, and found that repetition was especially critical in the morning before we gathered—if I wanted to have it with me that day. This was an improvement, but not the thing I really wanted, to be free of this plague of self-will with family forever.

Myron, writing his mantram

A Thanksgiving came; once again family was gathering. That week, that morning, I spent a lot of time with the mantram, and on the drive to the gathering, realized I was early, and stopped at a park, quiet and secluded, and did another half hour of meditation. When I got to the gathering, there were the usual greetings, a half dozen people were there, and nothing much else was happening, so I sat down on a chair and proceeded to take in the scene. Suddenly I heard a loud noise, and looked around quickly to see what that was; it took me a moment to realize it was the mantram going on by itself in my mind, and it was (so it seemed to me) really loud. I knew then that this thing, this self-will I had been fighting for a long while was gone, would be gone.

After Lessons

In the days after that there was no elation, no high emotion; rather, it was what EE calls “a deep sense of wellness to mind and body alike.” I also realized it was incorrect to say it was a victory, which would only feed my ego and let me think “I am the doer.” It was the grace of our teacher that this happened to me, but Easwaran is quick to point out that grace is received only after strenuous effort on our part. In this struggle of mine, against self-will, the power of the mantram had become 51%, just a little more power than the power of the self-willed habit. It is like chopping down a weed patch, the weeds have been beaten, but not pulled up by the roots, meaning they can, with a little forgetfulness by us, regrow, and become a vibrant weed patch once more. That has meant more work, and continuous work with meditation and the mantram to stay there; I never take it for granted I cannot slip back into old resentments at any family gathering. But now I know the power of meditation and the mantram.