My First Weeklong Retreat

Meet Gary, a YA from Santa Cruz, CA. Since his post last year, Gary participated in the Cohort Program, consisting of video workshops over six months and ending with a weeklong retreat in July. Here Gary shares his experiences at his first weeklong retreat and how it impacted his practice.

After my first or second retreat I remember having reservations about the weeklong, a whole week! It seemed like a marathon, could I stay focused and practice with the intensity of a weekend for a whole week? Would I buckle and want to get out of there?! At some point before the YA cohort program, after experiencing the positive effects of the YA weekends, and from what I've heard from other retreatants and my satsang coordinator, the weeklong seemed like the next natural step, and boy was it ever!

Going into the weeklong retreat in July, because it was the "finale" of this year’s YA cohort program, I thought (for some reason) it was a YA weeklong retreat. I've never been opposed to attending an all ages retreat, I just started with the YAs and have happened to stick with those thus far. To my surprise when I entered the St. Francis room (a little late I might add), I saw a lot of different aged people, and it immediately dawned on me that this was not a YA retreat. Would I be able to connect with the older passage meditators as much as I was able to with the YAs? I don't know if this was a sudden juggling of likes and dislikes, but I instantly took the perspective of looking forward to sharing with passage meditators of all ages.

What stands out to me the most as what I think is a benefit for YAs to attend an all ages retreat, and a weeklong for that matter, is the depth of experience you get from the older retreatants. This especially includes spending more time with the residents at and around the ashram, which there is much more opportunity for during the weeklong. It’s been a hard thing for me to rap my head around, but I believe I felt as close as I ever had to Easwaran during the weeklong. A lot of these folks were around the man, some of them a lot, and are living embodiments of his practice. Even the ones that weren’t, their many years of practice reflect Easwaran. We actually discussed not having your spiritual teacher in the body and how he still is a living force that influences all of our lives. It seems that this has come up as an important way for me to experience and learn from him, by being with people who practice his program, and in the case of the weeklong, especially with individuals who have been for many years.

The weekends also have, but the weeklong gave me what I feel like was a more lasting sense of purpose with my practice, security with who I am and belief in Easwaran's teachings, a total affirmation of the eight points.

I can't recommend these retreats enough. More than any of the other eight points, spiritual fellowship, specifically the retreats, has proven for me (to this point) the most positively transformative point of the practice.  If you've benefited from a YA weekend retreat and believe in Easwaran's teachings, the weeklong retreat may be waiting to be the most positively uplifting week of your life, as it was for me.

Gary (back row, 2nd from left) with Christine Easwaran and the other YA Cohorts.

Easwaran on Meditation & Right Occupation

Our tech team needs time to prepare Easwaran’s audio talks to be shared on the blog, so we have to choose the talk well in advance of when it’s posted. We asked for this talk three months ago, but as we re-listened to it this past week we were struck by how Easwaran seemed to be speaking about what’s happening right now.

One of the amazing aspects of Easwaran’s teachings is their relevance. Sometimes, as in this talk from the 1980s, there will be a lucky coincidence of references. For instance, we really enjoyed Easwaran’s mentions of the World Cup (the YA Blog Team definitely spent our share of time enthralled by the World Cup last month) and we were sobered by his references to the international conflicts that reflect many current struggles. Above all, we were impressed by the timelessness, and timeliness, of the message.

We often hear stories from our YA friends where they are dealing with a particular concern in their life and they open a book, or listen to a talk, and Easwaran manages to say the exact thing they needed to hear. As we listened this week we were particularly moved by the way he emphasized that when we meditate it’s not just for ourselves.

We are all trustees for this earth, Easwaran says, and for all its inhabitants. When our life becomes rich through giving, not consuming, we become an asset to society wherever we go. Our meditation practice is meant for us to discover the energy, the love, and all the wealth of resources we can give to this world.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this talk, please share them in the comments below! What part of the talk was particularly meaningful to you?

Ready for a Webinar?

Here at the BMCM headquarters in Tomales, California, we've been thinking a lot over the past year about how we can best share Eknath Easwaran's method of meditation with anyone who's interested. One of the new experiments we tried in 2014 was our webinar back in January. If you're a regular blog reader, you may recall we were rather pleased with how it turned out.

We're pleased to announce that we'll be holding a second one-hour webinar in just a few months, on Saturday, October 4, 2014 at 10:00 a.m. EST.

This introductory webinar is free . . . yup. Free! And it doesn't require any preparation or previous knowledge. The program will include a chance to hear stories from other meditators, watch a video from Easwaran, and even chat in your questions.

(If you joined us in January, you'll find that although the content is very similar, the technology is significantly improved, so the overall experience should be higher quality.)

We hope that you, our YA Blog audience, will join us in October, and we hope that you'll share the webinar with any friends or family who might be interested. We've found that this is a great way for people to just get a glimpse of what passage meditation is all about.

If you're already a meditator, invite over some friends and watch together! Bring together a group of long-time meditators and listen to the instructions with fresh ears. Bring together a group of newbies and share stories of how passage meditation has helped you. Or simply join us yourself and experience one of the first BMCM world-wide satsang events!

October 4th happens to be St Francis' feast day, and it'll be an opportunity to participate in a world-wide 5-minute meditation on the Prayer of St Francis.

Visit www.easwaran.org/webinar and register today!