STUDY GUIDE FOR

study guide for
Using the Mantram to Transform Anger

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 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 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 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 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 tape, in coordination with readings from Easwaran’s books, is available for use by Blue Mountain Center Satsangs, and other interested individuals. Please see the Videos section of our Web site, under Video of the Month. A full listing of our Satsang groups is also 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

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

The Thousand Names

Introduction

This videotape contains excerpts from five talks delivered by Sri Eknath Easwaran during the period from November 1978 to August 1979. They are drawn mostly from a series he gave on the Thousand Names, an Indian devotional text which lists one thousand names for God. Over the course of several years he commented on every one of those names, revealing their practical implications for daily living.

He returned often to the theme of repeating a mantram, or name of God, silently in the mind throughout the day as a way to keep the mind peaceful and secure, even during difficult periods. In this tape we have selected several excerpts which deal with anger and the mantram – specifically, how to transform anger into the healing power of love.

The first collection of excerpts, entitled The Thousand Names of God, starts by identifying the cause of much anger: inflated self-will. It goes on to offer various means to rise above angry behavior, all of which draw upon the spiritual power released by meditation and the use of the mantram. It ends with a brief commentary on one of the names for the Divine Mother, the feminine aspect of God often worshiped in India.

^{Outline of
the Talk}

Sri Easwaran begins by reminding us that, in recounting these thousand names, we are not addressing somebody separate from us. “We are naming our real Self, the Atman.”

The first name, Amani, literally means “one who lacks pride.” Easwaran translates it more fully as, “He who removes the pride of self-will, the pride of egoism, that is often responsible for personal conflicts.” Though they seem to be quite complex and involved, most personal conflicts are caused simply by inflated self-will. This provides a clue to resolving conflict. When we reduce self-will, we reduce conflict and agitation.

In this process, “the repetition of the name of the Lord, called japam in Sanskrit, can be of untold value.” Using the mantram to ward off selfish thoughts, to prevent conflicts, and to deepen relationships resembles archery. “Fix the arrow [of the mantram] on the bow, and hit the selfish thought.” This is a skill everybody can acquire through long practice.

The next name, Jitamanyu, signifies the conquest of anger. “If you have conquered anger,” says Easwaran, “you have discovered love... Anger is what prevents love from flowing to all.” This name refers not only to volcanic anger but also to “those little, petty, insidious forms of expression like resentment, jealousy, hostility, and malice, to which most human beings are unfortunately subject.”

Anger breeds loneliness by making us avoid people who disagree with us. Seeking the company of others, even when we may not feel up to it, helps us to “rub off our own angles and corners.” It therefore helps to transform our social environment: “When two people are angry against each other, it involves us all. Similarly, two people being kind towards each other involves us all.”

Another way to deal with anger is to cultivate a sense of detachment when others are provoking us. Jokingly, he suggests that we view such situations as God (whom Easwaran refers to as Krishna) “trying to test how much patience I have learned.” Once we develop this attitude, we find ourselves surrounded by opportunities for growth, for learning patience.

The next name is Chaturashra, or “square.” Easwaran offers a surprising perspective on this name, focusing on the idea of fairness. The advice to “Be fair and square,” he says, should really mean to accept suffering ourselves rather than retaliate. Instead of indulging our anger, we should try firmly but compassionately to help the other person get over their insensitivity or hostility.

From this perspective, when a person treats us badly, that person is off-balance and stumbling. Rather than retaliate, which will make them sure to fall down, we should remember that they are not at their best. This attitude, more than any other, will enable us to “become patient beyond being upset.”

The final excerpt is from a talk on a hymn to the Divine Mother by Shankara, the great Indian mystic. Shankara addresses her as Vijnanadipankari, which Easwaran translates as “She who lights the lamp of wisdom.” This brings to his mind the evening scene in his native state of Kerala, when the woman of the family would light a traditional brass lamp. Her pose at that time, delicately protecting the flame from the evening breeze, can inspire us to protect the flame of patience and spiritual wisdom against the gusts of negative emotions that are likely to blow around us.

In conclusion, Easwaran narrates the story of Narada and the lamp as an indication of the compassion with which God looks upon our struggles to maintain patience and a loving attitude through the trials and tribulations of daily life.

Practical Exercise

In our exercises for this tape, we will concentrate on the central challenge in the discipline of the mantram: finding ways to repeat it more often and more deeply.

Here, we will focus on using the mantram at the time of falling asleep. During the next week or two, make a special effort to use the mantram a little extra before going
to sleep at night. Before you get into bed, you might experiment with writing the mantram for a few minutes, or listening to a recording of it being sung, or just sitting quietly repeating it with full concentration. Then, try as usual to keep repeating it as you fall asleep. Try also to
remember it first thing upon awakening in the morning.

One very popular way of practicing this skill of falling asleep in the mantram is to take a “mantram nap.” When you have a little free time some afternoon, lie down for ten to twenty minutes, close your eyes, and keep repeating the mantram. Let your whole body relax. If you fall asleep, that’s fine, but don’t think about that. Simply give all your attention to the mantram, gently bringing it back each time it wanders. It may help to remind yourself as you lie down that you have no other things to do or think about during the coming twenty minutes but the mantram.

Some possible signs of success in this exercise are that the mantram will appear in one of your dreams, or you may wake up repeating the mantram, or you may feel more deeply refreshed than usual in the morning.

Further Reading

The Mantram Handbook, “Harnessing Fear, Anger, and Greed.”

Passage for Meditation

Kabir, “Weaving Your Name” in God Makes the Rivers to Flow.

The Fragrance of Forgiveness

Introduction

In this talk Sri Easwaran again draws upon the Thousand Names of God to illuminate the vital skill of using a mantram to transform consciousness and gain mastery over our character and daily conduct. Here he is focusing especially on the mind’s capacity – which we rarely realize or even suspect – to create vibrantly positive responses to difficult situations.

In the first excerpt, he talks about forgiveness as a kind of plant that can be trained, just as a jasmine vine can be trained, to bring a haunting fragrance into our lives. In the second excerpt, he examines the actual process of the mind, using surprising, humorous illustrations to draw out the dynamics which underlie all our thoughts and actions. By acquainting ourselves with these dynamics through constant practice with the mantram, we gain the capacity to actually choose our thoughts. As he explains, this simple skill is the key to immense energy, wisdom, and rich relationships.

Outline of the Talk

The first name is Kumuda, a kind of water lily that blooms at night when the moon rises. Similarly, as love of the Lord begins to flood our heart, and as we begin to love and respect all, our heart blossoms into full beauty.

The next name, Kundara, refers to jasmine flowers, which women in India use to give their hair a pleasing fragrance. Forgiveness, says Easwaran, is also a fragrance. “When you have the capacity to return good for evil, love for hatred, you carry the perfume of paradise everywhere.” We can train ourselves to become forgiving: “By repeating the mantram, you can train your mind to forgive, to forget, to return good for evil, to return love for hatred, and to bloom, like a loving flower, wherever you want.”

The effort to cultivate forgiveness represents a kind of purification, which leads to the next name, Pavana, meaning “that which purifies,”an ideal description of the mantram.

With continued practice, the mantram can finally become our inseparable friend. Therefore Easwaran urges us to repeat the mantram “on the bus, in the car, while waiting in a queue, while going to sleep... I still can tell you from my personal experience, even after repeating the mantram as often and as long as I could, I still found every year that I could repeat it a little more.”

In the next excerpt Easwaran responds to questions he had been asked earlier that day about repetition of the mantram, (called japam in Sanskrit). He compares the mind to a factory, working overtime to produce rejects. Even while we sleep the mind continues to produce unwanted thoughts in our dreams. The mantram can initiate quality control in this factory, because it gives us an alternative to negative thinking.

However, though we know we have a choice, we often find ourselves incapable of choosing anything but the negative thoughts. Only steady, persistent practice can give us that choice. Easwaran recounts his own struggles to keep the mantram going continuously. The example of his Grandmother, who had achieved ajapajapa (continuous repetition of the mantram, known as unceasing prayer in Western mysticism), gave him faith that it could be done.

Next, Easwaran draws on a scene from a movie he had watched the night before with his students, Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday, to illustrate the unpredictable and sometimes frustrating process of training the mind to repeat the mantram at will.

Finally, he compares the mind to a party, at which negative thoughts like anger, resentment, or worry are gate-crashers. Frequent use of the mantram can gradually transform this raucous gathering into a sublimely harmonious occasion until, as Easwaran says, the few invited guests “will at last turn out to be One.”

Practical Exercise

In this exercise we will practice producing a single, positive thought – the mantram – in response to a situation that would otherwise elicit a negative response. During the coming two weeks, when you find yourself having a negative reaction to some person or situation, take about twenty minutes to write the mantram. Simply write the mantram over and over, concentrating on each repetition. If you like, you can write at the top of the page the name of the person or the situation which is requiring your patience and/or forgiveness.

Think of this as an opportunity to establish a new standard for the type of thoughts generated by the mind. During the time you’re writing, let the mantram be your response to the situation.

After the exercise is over you may find that you need to address the issue in some direct way. Try to draw patience and detachment from this exercise to apply to your words and actions.