study guide for

Saint Thérèse: Finding the Divine Core of Romance

How to Use This Course

This video is part of an ongoing monthly series in the teachings of Sri Eknath Easwaran. The talks on this tape, 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 Sri 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 Sri Easwaran’s book Meditation, which can be found on our Web site,  www.nilgiri.org. A brief list of those points can be found at the back of this Guide.

The Practical Exercises are suggestions for you to explore as they seem appropriate in your life. If you are already familiar with Sri 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. Sri Easwaran always emphasized the importance of the middle path.

Before or after watching each talk, we suggest that you read through the notes 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.

A week-by-week curriculum for studying this video, in coordination with readings from Sri Easwaran’s books, is available for use by Blue Mountain Center Satsangs, and other interested individuals. If you would like to receive this curriculum via email, just let us know and we will gladly send it to you. A full listing of our Satsang groups is available on our Web site. For more information about this series, other publications of Sri Easwaran and Nilgiri Press, and a schedule of retreats based on the Eight Point Program, please contact

Blue Mountain Center of Meditation
Post Office Box 256
Tomales, CA 94971
800 475 2369
www.nilgiri.org

A Living Force of Love

Introduction

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (1872–1898) was called by Pope Pius X “the greatest saint of modern times.” As Sri Easwaran points out in this talk from December 22, 1979, her appeal extends far beyond the walls of her convent, and even of her Catholic faith. Thérèse was a nun in the enclosed Carmelite order in the late nineteenth ­century in France, but her life and teachings were so pure and universally appealing that she can also be seen as part of the five-thousand-year-old tradition of the “Perennial Philosophy,” which states that ordinary people can become aware of God even in their everyday activities. Thérèse called this her “little way.” About it, Sri Easwaran says, “If you are a doctor or an engineer or a printer or a librarian or a cook or a gardener, that can never be an impediment to the spiritual life.”

What then is the main impediment? According to Thérèse, it is “too many desires.” Through meditation, repetition of the mantram, and the other steps on the Eight Point Program, says Easwaran, “It is possible to withdraw attention from those desires.” In this video Sri Easwaran presents several keys to the gradual process of withdrawing our attention from ourselves and placing it onto others, which means, ultimately, placing it on God:

_* Learn to be happy in the happiness of others.

_* Turn your attention away from your own comforts, conveniences, pleasure, and profit, towards the needs of ­others.

_* Go inwards to retrieve vast treasures of patience, goodwill, endurance, and love.

_* Reverse the tendency to lose heart when the going gets tough: “Give when it hurts. If it hurts more, give more!” says Sri Easwaran. 

About this process Saint Thérèse says, “Never miss an opportunity.  For if you only knew the value Jesus sets on even the tiniest act of self-denial, you would grasp at every opportunity like a miser going after treasure.”

When asked “What do you do in order to think of God always?” she replied: “It is not difficult.  We naturally think of someone we love.”  To love God, Sri Easwaran explains, means to love everyone. It is a gradual process, which takes many decades, but brings benefits at every step: “The more loving you become, the more joyful your life becomes, not only for yourself, but for everybody else.”

Outline of the Talk

_* Sri Easwaran begins by reminding us that we do not have to be a member of a monastic order, as Thérèse was, in order to follow her path. What matters is that we draw our attention away from self-willed desires.

_* As a further illustration of this, he reads a Christmas greeting written by Einstein: 

Dear Children, It gives me great pleasure to picture you children joined together in joyful festivities in the radiance of Christmas lights. Think also of the teachings of Him, whose birth you celebrate by these festivities. Those teachings are so simple, and yet, in almost two thousand years, they’ve failed to prevail among men. Learn to be happy through the happiness and joy of your fellows, and not through the dreary conflict of man against man. If you can find room within yourselves for this natural feeling, your every burden in life will be light or, at least, bearable, and you’ll find your way in patience, and without fear, and will spread joy everywhere.

_* He comments on Thérèse’s passionate love of God, the joy she found in suffering for God’s sake, and her emphasis on searching for all possible opportunities to reduce her self-will cheerfully.

_* He tells a story of how she bore patiently with another nun who was splashing her while washing clothes.

_* He tells the “allu chapati” story as an illustration of how completely the mind can be trained to think of others’ needs before our own.

_* He ends by reminding us that true love means putting the other person’s needs first, and that we should strive for this in our relations with all people; this is what will bring us true happiness.

Practical Exercise

As an exercise in directing attention to the needs of ­others, dedicate one day this week to being “quick to help others.” As you go through your daily routine, look for the many little ways you can help others, even if (especially if!) you don’t enjoy the job at hand. Notice if this exercise has any effect on your meditation.

Further Reading

“The Supreme Ambition”  in Climbing the Blue Mountain.

Passages for Meditation

“The Real Lovers of God”  and  “The Wonderful Effects of Divine Love”  in God Makes the Rivers to Flow.

Love at Its Highest

Introduction

Sri Easwaran said in the first of these two talks on Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, “I can never get over the wonder of it, that in order to learn to love, in order to know the divine core of romance, we have to go to a beautiful young nun.” He goes on in this talk from December 23, 1979, to show how Thérèse’s message echoes the core message of the world’s great mystics.

For instance, in the Hindu tradition we learn that the Atman or Divine Self is within each of us. We need not acquire anything new to discover it. All that we have to do is remove the veils that cover the Atman.  Says Thérèse, “Jesus himself will fill your soul with treasures in the same measure that you move your imperfections out of His way.” Notice that she speaks here of experience, ­rather than mere belief.  We can experience the presence of the Divine within.

In practical terms, this means that whatever mistakes we may have committed in the past, whatever problems we may now have in the present, these cannot affect our innate purity. By cultivating this awareness of the divine spark within ourselves and others, we can learn to love others fully, and put them first always. This simple but demanding practice is the path to discovering what Sri Easwaran calls our “original goodness.”

Outline of the Talk

_* Sri Easwaran begins by stating that when we get rid of our self-will, we will uncover the purity and love hidden within us.

_* Our goal should be to love everybody –  the more people we are able to love, the greater our joy will be.

_* Easwaran comments on the extravagance and prodigality of Thérèse’s love, and encourages us, when we feel depressed, to go out and be nice to everybody we can think of – to be a spendthrift in love.

_* He cites an example Thérèse gives of how to reduce one’s self-will:  if you are talking to someone about something that interests you, and they change the subject to something that bores you, try to listen attentively and do not try to bring the conversation back to your own subject.

_* The more we can let go of our self-will, the happier our lives will be.

Practical Exercise

In this talk, Sri Easwaran draws attention to a suggestion that is characteristic of Thérèse’s “little way” and which is an ideal exercise for deepening your practice of the Eight Point Program:

Thérèse used to say that during recreation more than at any other time, we should find opportunities for the practice of virtue: “If you desire to draw great profit from this exercise, go with the idea of entertaining others and not of enjoying yourself.”

This week, “during recreation” (a time you are relaxing with family or friends), go with the idea of contributing to the joy of others, rather than just enjoying yourself. Try to keep hold of that idea throughout the occasion. If you find the activities boring or unpleasant, try to practice what Sri Easwaran often suggested: “Enjoy their enjoyment.”

While this can sometimes be simple, at other times it is more complex, and requires deeper reflection. When a person wants to enjoy something harmful to themselves or others, we do them no favor by encouraging them. In such a case, “entertaining others” might mean making a strong effort to find something beneficial (or at least less harmful) that they might enjoy.

Further reading

Bhagvad Gita for Daily Living, vol. 2, pages 404–415.

A More Ardent Fire, pages 185–204.

Passages for Meditation

“Rig Veda Prayer 1” and “The Lamp of Wisdom”  in God Makes the Rivers to Flow.

Terms & References

Argus-Courier A small local newspaper in a town close to the Blue Mountain Center of Meditaiton.

Atman  “Self”; the innermost soul in every creature, which is divine.

bodhisattva  In the Mahayana Buddhist tradition, a Buddha who vows to go on being reborn in order to help others.

chapati  A flat bread popular in India.

Dillon Beach A beach near the Blue Mountain Center, where Sri Easwaran walked every day.

Einstein, Albert Twentieth-century physicist and thinker.

Emporium A local department store.

“Europeans” A movie based on Henry James’ novel, The Europeans.

Froggy  An affectionate name for the frogs which lived outside Sri Easwaran’s house at the Blue Mountain Center.

Gale’s friend Gale Zimmerman, one of Sri Easwaran’s students and a physical therapist. Her friend was an authority on physical therapy.

Ganesha Name of one of the dogs at the Blue Mountain Center.

Gita The Bhagavad Gita, “The Song of the Lord,” a Hindu scripture which contains the instructions of the Lord to his close devotee.

Hardy, Thomas  (1840–1928) British writer.

Hebbles Name of a dog at the Blue Mountain Center.

jewel in the lotus of the heart A translation of the Buddhist mantram Om mani padme hum.

Kshama The name of a residence at the Blue Mountain Center.

Malayalam The language spoken in Kerala, India, where Sri Easwaran was born and raised.

Michael Michael Nagler, one of Sri Easwaran’s students, had recently completed a book on the study of nonviolence.

Muka The name of a dog at the Blue Mountain Center.

Petaluma A town close to the Blue Mountain Center.

Rama The name of a child who grew up at the Blue Mountain Center.

Ramakrishna Nineteenth-century Bengali mystic. Once, Ramakrishna demonstrated the spiritual perspective on money by taking a coin and a stone and, declaring them equal, threw both into the river Ganges.

Romeo, Juliet, Othello, Desdemona, Orlando Characters in the plays of Shakespeare.

sadhana A body of disciplines or way of life which leads to the ­supreme goal of Self-realization.

satsang  Spiritual fellowship.

Twain, Mark Nineteenth-century American  author. He visited India and remarked that the dhobis, who washed clothes in the stream, tried to break the rocks using their customers’ laundry.

Upanishads Ancient Indian mystical documents found at the end of the four Vedas, the main scriptures of early Hinduism.

Vivekananda Swami Vivekananda.

Woosh Name of a cat who lived at the Blue Mountain Center.