13 Finding Immortality Within

Video 13 Finding Immortality Within How to Use This Course These videos are part of an ongoing monthly series in the teachings of Eknath Easwaran. The talks on this video, like all of Easwaran’s talks, are rich and deep in content. They shed light on many aspects of life, but their true value emerges as we try to apply their teachings in our daily lives. The Guide is meant to be used in conjunction with a daily practice of Easwaran’s eight-point program, based on passage meditation. We do not recommend following the practical exercises if you are not practicing this program according to the instructions given in Easwaran’s book Passage Meditation. The practical exercises are suggestions for you to explore as they seem appropriate in your life. If you are already familiar with Easwaran’s books, you will have seen some of these exercises before. But we suggest that you take this opportunity to really put them into practice, and discover their great power to deepen your spiritual life. Try them in moderation, exercising your common sense and not taking them to extreme lengths. Easwaran, like Mahatma Gandhi and many other mystics, always emphasized the importance of the middle path. Before or after watching each talk, we suggest that you read through the notes (especially the Outline of the Talk, which will help you assimilate the overall structure), and the practical exercise. Then, after watching the talk, try to put the exercise into action in your life. A week or so later, you may find it interesting to watch the talk again, with the experience of the exercise fresh in your mind. You may want to note the results in a journal. Practical Exercises Linked to Videos You Are That The talks on this video have been selected from a series on the Chandogya Upanishad, given by Eknath Easwaran in October and November, 1990. His theme is the discovery of the immortal, infinite element in human nature, which is hidden by conditioning but can be revealed through the practice of spiritual disciplines. The first talk, “You Are That,” draws its title from the spiritual teaching which a young man named Shvetaketu receives from his father: “There is nothing that does not come from God. Of everything he is the inmost self. He is the truth. He is the Self supreme. You are that, Shvetaketu, you are that.” In Easwaran’s presentation, this dialogue between father and son offers an ideal to which all parents can aspire – to become so firmly established in the spiritual life that they can attract their children to it, and give them practical instruction based on personal experience. In our study of this talk, we will try to awaken in ourselves an understanding and longing for the unity of life which is illustrated so vividly in this episode. Outline of the Talk Easwaran introduces the Upanishads as the cradle of ancient Indian civilization. Though India (and the world) has strayed from this spiritual direction many times in its history, when millions of people deeply long for a restoration of direction, certain rare individuals get inspired to realize the unity of life and become instruments in God’s hands to bring people back so that they can again keep their eyes on the goal of life. Next, Easwaran begins reading his translation of the Chandogya Upanishad, Chapter Six. The father tells his son, “Nobody in our family is a stranger to the spiritual life.” This gives the secret of India’s ancient civilization – spiritual ideals were more important than material possessions, and a family wasn’t complete until at least one member took to the spiritual life. Such people are a gift to society, because they act as stabilizing influences when waves of agitation and turmoil sweep over the country. To illustrate, Easwaran describes his visit to a local redwood grove, where the evening silence recalls the silence of a mind that has found rest in the Self. Around the huge trees, smaller trees were growing, just as young banana “calves” grow up around a mature banana tree. Similarly, when parents meditate regularly and sincerely, their children and grandchildren will follow their lead to become beneficial influences in the world. In the next scene, the young man returns from his studies, but is surprised to discover that he has not acquired the spiritual knowledge his father asks about: “Did you ask your teacher for that spiritual wisdom which enables you to hear the unheard, think the unthought, and know the unknown?” The father, Uddalaka, then begins his teaching, using a series of illustrations to impart the awareness that all life has at its core a single immortal Self. Clay vessels differ in form, but not in substance. Gold ornaments differ in form but not in substance. So all people and living things differ outwardly, but are one inwardly. Uddalaka then recounts an allegory of the spiritual journey: As a man from Gandhara, blindfolded, led away and left in a lonely place, turns to the east and west and north and south and shouts, ‘I am left here and cannot see!’ until one removes his blindfold and says, ‘There lies Gandhara; follow that path,’ and thus informed, able to see for himself, the man inquires from village to village and reaches his homeland at last – just so, my son, one who finds an illumined teacher attains to spiritual wisdom in the Self. Easwaran comments on this story line by line, offering it as a kind yet penetrating diagnosis of our civilization’s ills, as well as a remedy which can restore society to health. Practical Exercise This talk emphasizes the importance of becoming aware of the unity underlying our separate existence. In our exercise, we will try to increase that awareness through the practice known in the Christian tradition as lectio divina (“sacred reading”) – the slow, attentive, contemplative perusal of sacred words for the purpose of drinking in the meaning and applying it to our particular needs. In Easwaran’s collection, God Makes the Rivers to Flow, find the passage “You Are That,” from the Chandogya Upanishad. Sit down in a quiet place where you can concentrate fully. Read the passage slowly. Close your eyes and reflect on what you have read. Are there any words or phrases that seem especially significant to you? Read the passage through again. You may proceed a stanza at a time, or even line by line. If you wish, you might jot down a few notes about how the words, if they take root in your deepest consciousness, might transform your relationships with others. You may want to start using this passage for meditation as well. Conclude with 30 minutes of meditation. Further Reading Introduction from The Upanishads. Suggested Passage for Meditation You Are That, The Chandogya Upanishad The City of Brahman In this talk Easwaran continues his exploration of the infinite, immortal core of human nature, as it is described in the Chandogya Upanishad. In “The City of Brahman,” the Upanishad portrays our divine core as a small dwelling in a city which we can enter and dwell in through a long process of spiritual growth. This talk is extraordinary for its vivid account of the process of self-discovery. It is also one of Easwaran’s most eloquent statements of a familiar theme in his teachings: the urgent need to find immortality before death claims our body. At the time he gave this talk, Easwaran was nearly eighty years old, and his confident, deeply secure tone bears witness that in the depths of consciousness there is a “little house” which old age and death cannot enter. Outline of the Talk Easwaran begins with a simile to explain how the world forgets its unity and falls into separateness, exploitation, and warfare. Just as he mistook his reflection in a restaurant window for reality, we are misled by the entrancing variety of life to believe that we are individual creatures in a world of separate fragments. As we wake up to the true nature of life, we see that these fragments are just partial reflections of one divine Self. We feel compassion and understanding for those still subject to this misunderstanding and help them overcome it. Next, he reads his translation of “The City of Brahman,” Chapter Eight of the Chandogya Upanishad, and comments on the passage word by word, referring to the Sanskrit text. Throughout the talk, Easwaran uses illustrations from the external world to shed light on the invisible internal world described in the Upanishad: Our urge for travel can only be satisfied when we discover “the vast world within”; the attraction we feel for vast landscapes like the American prairie is meant to draw us toward a vast inner world which is not limited by self-will and separateness, in which there is infinite room for spiritual growth; and the desires we feel for sense experiences and possessions can find complete fulfillment only in meeting the Self within, who occupies this small house in the City of God. In the original Sanskrit, this portion of the Upanishad is a dialogue between a teacher and his students. Easwaran now dramatizes that dialogue through a series of questions and answers: Is every desire fulfilled there? Yes, because all desires have become unified. What happens when the body gets old? Old age cannot enter this city. What happens when the body dies? Death cannot enter this city. The person who lives in that city cannot be touched by any change or affliction that may overtake the body. Then, Easwaran touches on the continuing evolution of the soul from lifetime to lifetime, according to the theory of reincarnation.

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