interview him – and Gandhi was in his seventies at the time. His vigour was unmistakable. His power was untouched until the situation demanded it; then he would take off in no time, from zero to sixty in one minute, as calm as ever behind the wheel. It was all power steering, too. Seeing him gave me a whole new ideal of what it means to operate successfully in the modern world. Even little incidents in Gandhi’s life were a lesson to me. The first few times I had to stand before an audience in college, for example, my limbs would shake and the words would choke in my throat. It encouraged me greatly to learn that, as a law student, Gandhi too had been so acutely shy that he was unable even to read a brief introduction at a dinner party. He not only learned to overcome this shyness but spoke every day for most of his public life, often before some of the biggest and most hostile crowds you can imagine. But he was always relaxed and free from tension. There was no hurry, and he never succumbed to pressure. One amusing instance of this has been preserved in the archives of radio. When Gandhi was in London in 1931 as a guest of the British government, he had become something of a celebrity in the United States, so CBS arranged a special transatlantic broadcast – a daring feat of technology in those days, when connections often failed. Everything was set up hours beforehand, and the radio and government people were wound tight with tension. Most of Gandhi’s entourage was flustered too. A lot was at stake. It was important to them that Gandhi be effective in conveying his message to this large and influential audience. Gandhi himself, however, didn’t have any preparations to make. He had nothing to do with the arrangements; all he was expected to do was move the hearts of several million. Finally a harassed-looking executive came over and said urgently, “Mr. Gandhi, the radio is ready for you. They are waiting in America!” Gandhi sat down in front of the microphone and said, “You want me to speak into this?” Millions of people heard him, because he was already on the air. Everyone laughed as the speakers broadcast his words back into the room. The tension was broken, and Gandhi began to speak – with complete concentration, in no hurry, with total mastery of himself and the situation. An unhurried mind is calm, alert, and ready for anything. My first visit to Gandhi had been prompted by one simple question: how had he done this? How had he managed to remake himself from a timid young law student with no purpose in life to a man so sure of himself that he could lead a nation without
pressure, hurry or fatigue? I found the answer that first evening. Gandhi had learnt to live completely in the moment: whatever he did, he was one hundred percent present. I was still young then; it would be years before I was ready to learn how to apply the insights I gained that night. But gradually I understood that living completely in the present is the secret of an unhurried mind. When the mind is not rushing about in a hurry, it is calm, alert, and ready for anything. And a calm mind sees deeply, which opens the door to tremendous discoveries: rich relationships, excellence in work, a quiet sense of joy. It was a revelation. I can’t say I worked all this out at once. It took the shock of Gandhi’s assassination and my grandmother’s passing to realize that life was racing and I had no time to lose. But once I set my heart on learning this skill, I went about it with a passion. Without dropping anything from my academic career, I turned to meditation and worked out a systematic approach aimed at combining the active, creative, meaningful life I wanted with the mastery of mind I saw in Gandhi and my granny. After a while, others around me became interested in what I was doing and asked to learn. Being a teacher, I made a method of it – an eight-point set of skills based on the practice of meditation. I was putting the final touches on this eightpoint program when I accepted a fellowship from the Fulbright exchange program to come to the United States. That turned out to be the beginning of a new career – not education for degrees, but education for living. Without realising the implications, I was bringing my programme to the pacesetters of the modern world.
Join us every Saturday India Immersion Centre facilitates a weekly spiritual fellowship group following Easwaran’s Eight Point Programme of Meditation in Chennai. E-mail us for more information at easwaranindia@ gmail.com or call Reema Duseja at 9884127304.
Reprinted with permission from “The Goal of Meditation” (Blue Mountain, Spring 2009). Copyright 2009 by the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation, PO Box 256, Tomales, CA 94971, http://www.easwaran.org. Eknath Easwaran (1910–1999) founded the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation in 1961. The Center offers books and retreats based on the eight-point program of passage meditation that Easwaran developed, taught, and practiced. To learn more, visit http://www.easwaran.org
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