A Place of Healing

Meet Sandy, a passage meditator who lives in Arvada, Colorado. Sandy shares how her practice of passage meditation supported her through the medical crisis of a family member.

About a year and a half ago I became acquainted with and quickly immersed myself in a nonprofit setting that I previously had little knowledge or awareness of. The circumstances were unfortunate and certainly unsought – my adult niece had been struck by a car and suffered serious brain trauma among other injuries. After weeks in intensive care and several delicate surgeries, she transferred to what we learned was one of the top ten rehabilitation hospitals in the country just 45 minutes from our house.

For the next 14 weeks I spent nearly every day there in an amazing environment of expert, thorough, and loving care. By “loving” I don’t necessarily mean in the sentimental sense, although I am convinced that staff grew to love many of their patients almost as family. What I observed on a minute-to-minute, hourly and daily basis was love in action; a demonstration by behavior of the deep healing power of taking time, giving one-pointed attention, detaching from ego, attachments and aversions, and truly putting others first.

I have relied over and over again on the spiritual tools of the eight-point program. While for a time I didn’t have the energy to devote to learning new passages, I chose carefully from the many I have memorized over the years to fit the challenges of the day. Many passages from Thomas a Kempis and The Bhagavad Gita, Teresa of Avila’s Let Nothing Upset You, and Swami Ramdas’ Unshakable Faith were especially helpful. Needless to say I found countless opportunities to use my mantram, particularly when my niece was in pain or very frustrated during therapy and I could feel an empathetic rise in my own anxiety. Early in my life I had considered, but decided against, a career in health care, thinking I was too squeamish for the demands. Little did I know that time spent in training the senses would contribute so much to helping me become a happily willing and – I hope – conscientious caregiver.

As you can imagine, the hospital was a scene of much serious struggle – patients enduring pain, some near total physical and cognitive debilitation, fear, frustration, and anxiety about their present state as well as their unknown future outcome. To be sure, all the injuries were unique and people experience lesser or greater degrees of recovery depending on many individual factors. But what I was privileged to witness was not simply a template of what an outstanding rehab hospital should be. It struck me even more as a slice of what the world can be as we keep doing our small part in creating the spiritual revolution Sri Easwaran talks about, a blueprint for how we can conduct ourselves in life, wherever we are. In essence, the atmosphere and staff relationship to their patients seemed to be a living embodiment of practicing the 8 point program. It truly felt like “home,” a constant reinforcement of my own spiritual practice, and a resource I drew upon after my niece was discharged and came to live with us to continue her recovery.

To be alert to non-verbal communication, to patiently move through activities of daily living that now took much longer, to identify and focus on the very few priorities of each day, especially in the early weeks and months, there was a need to maintain a very slowed-down pace, staying in the moment with one-pointed attention. I’ve continued to learn how simple (not easy) and hard (but possible) it is to tune out the little voice of self-will that wants to take me anywhere but where I am. And I now have definitely experienced both extremes of Easwaran’s red-pencil exercise, from “I can’t eliminate anything from this list!” to “have I eliminated any essentials?” (The red-pencil exercise involves writing a list of all the activities you feel bound to do, and then taking a red pencil and crossing out anything which isn't necessary or beneficial.)

This is just some of what I observed at the hospital, was inspired by, and worked to absorb and use:

People who really look you in the eyes when talking or listening to you;

People who slowly and gently help you change your body position or location to be more comfortable or functional when you cannot do it yourself;

People who speak slowly, listen carefully, and wait sufficiently for you to form a response;

People who are slowed down enough to see and interpret body language when verbal communication is difficult or impossible;

People who do whatever is necessary, slowly and focused equally on the stimulating and the tedious, and tend caringly to the most intimate of bodily and emotional needs;

People who, while expertly assisting with physical recovery, regard you as more than your imperfect body and strive to connect with what lies deeper;

People who can focus on just you and your needs amidst a gym full of therapy tables, people, wheelchairs and equipment, each their own little island of concentrated work and service;

People who take the time to smile, to laugh, to let you know there is nothing too small, too distasteful, or too unusual to help you with if they possibly can;

People who can see when you need a break to rest or a quiet caring ear to just listen;

People who help you recognize and celebrate reaching milestones large and small;

People who believe to their bones in the possibility and strength of the human spirit.

I can’t remember who it was that said – and I paraphrase – that life is a hospital and we are all here to heal and recover. Some disability is visible, some not so much; at our best, we also reach out to help others in their own journey of healing. I have been given the gifts of unexpectedly encountering an entire island of the eight points in action in the world as well as a strong, determined and inspiring niece (who is back to walking, driving, and working part-time!) who has brought so much joy and love into our lives.

Sandy's meditation corner.

Over these many months I have had countless opportunities to recognize my own challenges, to stretch my capacities in practicing the eight points, and to absorb more thoroughly the deep wisdom contained in my meditation passages.  I think of the words from Thomas a Kempis’ Lord That Giveth Strength: “For I am at hand, to repair all, not only entirely, but also abundantly and in most plentiful measure.” And from The Wonderful Effects of Divine Love: “Love is a great thing, yea, a great and thorough good; by itself it makes everything that is heavy, light; and it bears evenly all that is uneven. For it carries a burden which is no burden, and makes everything that is bitter, sweet and tasteful.” I reflect on this time with much love and gratitude for my niece and the people in my life, near and far, for my teacher, and for this amazing spiritual practice we share.

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Easwaran: The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living

This week we’re sharing an excerpt from Easwaran’s series The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living. In this three volume set Easwaran goes through the Bhagavad Gita verse by verse sharing his commentary and insights into how this ancient text can provide practical wisdom for daily spiritual living. This excerpt is from the second volume, Like a Thousand Suns, and features Easwaran describing the stages of meditation.

Chapter 7, Verse 1
Sri Krishna: With your mind intent on Me, Arjuna, discipline yourself with the practice of yoga. Depend on Me completely. Listen, and I will dispel all your doubts; you will come to know Me fully and be united with Me.

We are dropping into the middle of a long conversation between Arjuna, a prince in ancient India, and Sri Krishna, Arjuna’s charioteer and spiritual teacher, who represents the Lord, present in the hearts of us all. This is not an external conversation; it is very much internal. Arjuna is every man and every woman, and in the Bhagavad Gita we have slipped into his heart to listen in on a dialogue between two levels of our own consciousness. The voice we recognize belongs to the surface level of awareness – intelligent and well-intentioned, but full of doubts about the meaning of life and how we ought to live. The other voice, so full of wisdom, is the voice of our real Self, the Lord of Love, whether we call him Sri Krishna or the Christ, Allah or the Buddha or the Divine Mother.

As long as we are living for ourselves, dwelling on our own separate needs and problems, we cannot help identifying with our apparent self. It is very much like wearing a mask too long, so long that we think we are the mask and forget who we really are. But through the practice of meditation and its allied disciplines, all of us can learn to take off this mask and discover beneath it our real Self, called the Atman in Sanskrit, who is the source of all love, all security, all wisdom, and all joy.

In 1960, when I first began teaching meditation in the United States, these ideas were still very new. In those days, if you told someone you were interested in meditation, you had to be prepared to face a certain amount of laughter. Later, when I offered a credit course on meditation on the University of California campus in Berkeley – probably the first course of its kind to be offered by an American university – it drew about six hundred people and thirteen dogs. Now meditation is in the air, and I think the idea must be familiar to everyone in this country. Yet I think there is still no more maligned word in any language than the word yoga, with which Sri Krishna opens this chapter. Yoga is not exercises or physical postures; it is not a religion; it is not art or archery or music or dance. It is a body of dynamic disciplines which can be practiced by anyone, from any religious tradition or from no tradition at all, to enable us to remove this mask of separateness and learn to identify ourselves completely with our real Self.

Every spiritual tradition has its own formulation of these disciplines, but though they may differ in name and detail – the Sermon on the Mount, the Noble Eightfold Path, the Eight Limbs of Yoga – there is no difference between them when it comes to the actual practice and their effect on daily living. In my own life, I have found a set of eight steps to be tremendously effective in leading the spiritual life in the modern world. I have listed these steps in the Introduction, and everything I say is with an eye to how they can be applied.

The heart of this program is meditation, which Patanjali, a great spiritual teacher in ancient India, divides conveniently into three stages: dharana, dhyana, and samadhi. Patanjali’s exposition is so precise and so free from dogma that I don’t think it can ever be improved on in these qualities. But it is written in a kind of lecture note style, in the expectation that other teachers will elaborate on these notes in their own way on the basis of their experience. So instead of quoting Patanjali, let me tell you from my own experience what these three stages in meditation amount to in their impact on daily living.

In the first stage of meditation, called dharana, we make an astonishing experiential discovery: we are not the body. It is not an intellectual discovery, it is an experiential discovery, and the first time we hear this statement it doesn’t make sense at all. If this body is not us, what is it? This is the question I was always asked after my talks, and I have developed all sorts of ways to convey what this experience of dharana means.

For one, this body of mine is very much like a jacket. I have a brown jacket with a Nehru collar, made in India, which has served me very well; I take good care of it, and I expect it to last me at least another five years. In just the same way, this body of mine is another brown jacket, made in South India and impeccably tailored to my requirements by a master tailor, whose label is right inside. This jacket has to last me much longer than the other, so I am very careful with it; I give it the right amounts of nutritious food and exercise and keep it clean inside as well as out. But just like my Nehru jacket, this body-jacket will someday become too worn to serve me well, and having made this discovery that I am not my body, when death comes I will be able to set it aside too, with no more tears than I would shed when I give my Nehru jacket to the Salvation Army.

In this discovery that you are not your body, you discover simultaneously that others are not their bodies either. The consequences of this are far-reaching. For one, you no longer see people as white or black, yellow or red or brown; you see people just like yourself wearing different-colored jackets. The whole question of race or skin color becomes absurd: black is beautiful, white is beautiful, and of course brown is beautiful too.

Secondly, when you no longer identify others with their bodies, you will be able to see them as people instead. It lifts an immense burden from your relationships with the opposite sex. No matter what the media try to tell us, I don’t think anything is more certain to disrupt a relationship than treating the other person as a physical object. On the physical level, all of us are separate, and it is the very nature of physical attraction to change with the passage of time. On the other hand, nothing is more certain to deepen a relationship than concern for the other person’s real welfare, which we can see clearly only when we cease identifying people with the body-jackets they wear.

Another way I sometimes look at my body is as a compact little car, built for service. It doesn’t guzzle a lot of gas; I can park it anywhere; nobody notices it at all. But it is the car; I have to be the driver. I don’t let it pick me up in the middle of the night and take me off to some casino; it has to go where I choose to drive it. As St. Francis put it, speaking of his body, “This is Brother Ass. I will wash him, I will feed him, but I am going to ride on him; he is not going to ride on me.”

The practical implication is that in this stage of meditation, we gain some measure of control over problems at the physical level. Many of our problems have a physical component, even if their roots are in the mind, and in dharana we learn to have some say in things that used to be compulsive. Overeating, for example, is not really a physical problem; it can be solved only in the mind. But if you have a problem with overeating, it is a tremendous help to be able to tell your hand what to do. I have friends with this problem who sometimes come to me and confess, “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.” I can understand this kind of craving easily, but what used to puzzle me was, even if we want something terribly, why should we have to put our hand out and put it into our mouth? If we know we shouldn’t eat it, we should be able to sit on our hands and that would be the end of the matter. But when I mentioned this to my friends they would just reply, “I couldn’t help myself. Some unseen power took over my hand and put the whole lemon meringue pie into it.” This kind of eating is compulsive, which means there is very little enjoyment in it. But in dharana, as we begin not to identify with the body, our whole perspective on eating changes; we begin to have some say in what we put into our mouths.

The second stage of meditation is called dhyana, from which the Japanese get their word for meditation, zen. In this stage we make an even more astonishing experiential discovery: we are not the mind either. When I used to say this in my classes on meditation on the Berkeley campus, there would be groans from the back of the lecture hall. “First he says I’m not my body; now he tells me I’m not my mind.” And they would ask, “Then what is the mind?” My answer is that just as the body is the external instrument we use in life, the mind is the internal instrument. If the human body is like the body of a car, the mind is very much like the engine. It is capable of tremendous power, but most of us spend so much time on the appearance of the body of the car that we don’t get around to opening up the hood to see if the engine is still there. It is there, but in order to get it running properly, it is essential not to think that we are a part of it. And once we get this perspective in dhyana, we can lie down on our backs on our little meditation trolleys, just as mechanics in garages do, get under the mind, and say, “Oh, yes, that old resentment; there’s a little screw over there that’s too tight.” Then we make the necessary adjustments and the problem is gone.

In other words, emotional problems like depression and insecurity are only mechanical difficulties with our engine, the mind, which means that every one of them can be solved. The implications of this are tremendous. Most of us go through life thinking that we can never be different from what we are. We may like it, more often we may dislike it, but we cannot get rid of the liabilities with which we have been born or which we have acquired in growing up. As long as we think that we are the body and the mind, this is true. But just as in the first stage of meditation we see that it is possible to change any physical habit, in the second stage of meditation we gain the capacity to change any emotional habit, to transform insecurity into security, rigidity into flexibility, hostility into compassion, hatred into love.

The secret of this transformation is breathtakingly simple: we become what we meditate on. There is a story in ancient India about a sculptor who was so gifted that his statues almost seemed to come to life out of the stone. Once, lost in admiration over his stone elephants, one of his students asked, “How do you do this? These elephants are more real than real elephants are; you can almost hear them trumpeting.” And the sculptor replied, “There’s no secret to it. I just go and get a big block of stone, set it up in my studio, and study it very carefully. Then I take my hammers and chisels and slowly, over a number of years, I chip away everything that is not elephant.”

When I see a person sitting quietly with eyes closed, giving all his attention to the Prayer of St. Francis, I like to think of this great sculptor, studying his big block of stone with such intense concentration that he really can see the elephant coming to life within: the trunk, and the big ears, and those keen, absurdly small eyes. We see only a block of stone, but for the sculptor, the elephant is already right there inside, struggling to be released. This is very much what we do in meditation, only instead of an elephant, it is the Atman who is imprisoned within us. In meditation, each of us is in a life sculpture class in which we are both the sculptor and the rock. Almost four billion big, shapeless rocks – no wonder we are sometimes uncomfortable with ourselves or think the world is ugly. But a mystic like St. Francis might say, “Of course, the rock is shapeless; no one would deny that. But look within, with intense concentration, and you can see the halo and the harp.”

In meditation we give the mind a shining model and study it very carefully every morning and every evening until it is printed on our hearts. Then, throughout the rest of the day, we go along chipping away at everything that is not Self. It takes many years, but in the end, the great mystics of all religions tell us, every bit of anger, fear, and greed can be removed from our consciousness, so that our whole life becomes a flawless work of art. This is the third stage of meditation, called samadhi. Samadhi really is not a stage at all, but a stupendous realization in which all the barriers of separateness fall. Then there are no walls between the conscious and unconscious, no walls between you and others; your consciousness is completely integrated, from the attic to the cellar. When this happens, Patanjali says in one of the grandest understatements in mystical literature, you see yourself as you really are: the Atman, the Self, who dwells in the hearts of us all.

Most of us cannot even glimpse how miraculous this transformation is until we try to achieve it ourselves. Then we shall see why the mystics tell us there is no greater challenge on earth than the challenge of Self-realization. The Compassionate Buddha puts it beautifully in one simple word: patisotagami, “going against the current” – the current of all our conditioning, in how we act, how we speak, and even how we think.

In my village in Kerala state, South India, when the sky was a solid wash of water and the river was swollen from the monsoon rains, we boys liked to jump into the river and swim to the other side, not with the current – anyone could do that – but against it. It wasn’t just that the current was fierce; the river would be full of branches and all sorts of other debris, so that even if you had good, strong arms and a lot of stamina, there was the danger of being drowned. That was the challenge of it. It might take an hour to get across, and there were very few who could reach the other side exactly opposite the point from which they left. Most of us would end up a few hundred yards downstream. But there were one or two – we used to admire them tremendously – who were such strong swimmers that they could make it straight across. It required strong muscles, powerful lungs, a lot of endurance, and – most of all – an indomitable will.

That is just the kind of spirit you need in meditation. When a flood of anger is sweeping over you with monsoon swiftness, that’s no time to let yourself be carried away. As Jesus might say, “Anyone can do that.” Swim against it; that’s what it means to live. You will find your arms almost breaking, your endurance stretched to the limit, but you’ll find there is such satisfaction in the achievement that nothing easier will seem worthy of your effort again. That is why the spiritual life appeals so deeply to the young and adventurous. It is only when you take on this challenge and begin to understand the extent of it, the daring and the courage and the resolute, dauntless spirit it requires, that you can look at St. Teresa of Ávila or Sri Ramakrishna and see that this is someone who has climbed the Himalayas of the spirit, who has stood on Mount Everest and seen the entire cosmos aflame with the glory of God.

Can you see from this what Sri Krishna means when he says in this verse, “Depend on Me completely"? No one in the world is so self-reliant as those who have realized God, just because they have put all their faith in the Lord within. When the mystics talk about God, when they refer to the Lord or the Divine Mother, they are not talking about somebody outside us, floating in space somewhere between Uranus and Neptune; they are talking about the Self, the Atman, who is nearer to us than the body is, dearer to us than our life. In samadhi, when all the barriers between us and the Self fall, there are no more doubts about the meaning of life, no more vacillations, no more sense of inadequacy or insecurity. We become part of an infinite force of love that can never perish, and all the resources of the Lord within flow into our lives to be harnessed for the welfare of the whole.

Passage Meditation: A Family Practice

This week we hear from Craig and Margaret, two meditators living in Golden, Colorado. Craig and Margaret share how their own practice of passage meditation has influenced and shaped their family.

A recent photo of Craig and Margaret (both on the right) on trip with their three children.

We began to meditate at the worst – and most opportune – time. We had just moved to a new city, with demanding jobs, two children under age 3 and a third on the way. Like many starting the 8-point program, we couldn’t imagine adding a 30-minute meditation to an already chaotic morning of hustling to feed and clothe toddlers before rushing off to work. But we also knew we needed help, and we longed to do more than just survive these family years. So we tried it. And we soon discovered that this daily half hour investment (along with some effort on the other seven points) paid big dividends: more calmness, more patience, and more kindness, especially to each other.

The Early Years

This is not to say that our meditation practice was flawless, or that our lives were suddenly problem-free. Our kids still tried our patience, throwing tantrums in the grocery store or doctor’s office and finding other ways to “push our buttons,” as Easwaran might say. And our jobs were still demanding, at times requiring us to work late nights or travel out of town. But all of this was somehow more manageable – especially with the mantram as a ready tool – and we began to realize that we had a choice whether to participate in what had seemed the inevitable rat race. Each morning, we refilled our tanks in meditation and then used the other seven points to do our best – even if that just meant using our mantram to avoid saying something we’d later regret – and ended most days with a few pages from one of Easwaran’s books. Sharing our successes and challenges in our local satsang (spiritual fellowship group), organizing a nearby family satsang with a few other families, and occasionally taking turns to attend retreats in Tomales, helped tremendously as well. (This spring we will be attending a weeklong retreat together for the first time.)

Today

Sixteen years later, we are still at it. Two of our children are now in college and the third is in high school. Along the way, the eight-point program has shaped us and our children. While we are definitely works in progress, our children have seen us strive, day in and day out, to stay calm and positive when things aren’t going as planned; to listen to and treat everyone with respect, regardless of whether they do the same; and to make decisions based on our shared values, which sometimes conflict with those of the broader culture. They also have seen us use the eight points to cope with the death of a grandparent and the failing health of another, to maintain equanimity with a challenging boss, to start a new job, and to manage a serious childhood health crisis. And they have seen us start every day, whether workday, weekend, or vacation, with 30 minutes of quiet peace. This peace seems to have created a safe haven from the challenging world that teenagers (and all of us) face today, allowing our children to explore the world with open-hearted optimism and faith in the inherent goodness in all.

Nurturing Deep Relationships

We also have no doubt that the eight-point program has played a big part in the positive, loving relationships we have with each of our children, as well as the fact that they still choose to spend time with us and with each other. In the early years, we made a concerted effort to do things with them. Living in Colorado, this often meant doing outdoor things together: hiking, camping, bicycling, skiing, and even outdoor concerts. We soon learned that everyone was happier if we let the kids set the agenda and the pace. A planned three-mile hike became a quarter-mile exploration of a stream. A day at the ski resort resulted in an hour on the slopes with the rest of the time spent reading a book together in the lodge. Trying to impose our (self) will on our children accomplished nothing other than tears and anger all around. What we didn’t realize at the time, however, is that, by putting them first, we were nurturing deep relationships. Gradually, our kids got stronger and hardier and eventually hiked, rode, and skied faster than we could. But, miraculously, they still wanted to do things with us – now at our slower pace. Today, we still frequently do these activities together, and they sometimes lead us to new pursuits, like rock climbing and country music, that we would have never tried without them.

Returning Home

When our children were young, we were fortunate to visit the Blue Mountain Center and stay at nearby Dillon Beach as a family. At our kids’ request, we finally returned this summer, with a few days at the beach and a family pilgrimage to the ashram. All of us were touched by the experience of returning to that special place. Our children seemed to sense the central role Easwaran’s program has had in our family and their own development and willingly did a short meditation in Shanti, the ashram’s meditation hall. We do not know whether any of our children will follow the eight-point program (though we certainly hope they do), but we do know that they have already benefited from it nearly as much as we have, in what truly has been a family practice.   

The entire Brown family with Christine Easwaran during a recent visit to BMCM headquarters.