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Timeless Wisdom: Passages for Meditation from the World's Saints and Sages

Eknath Easwaran
Nilgiri Press (2008)
ISBN 9781586380274
Reviewed by Randy A. Lakin for RebeccasReads (6/08)

If loved Eknath Easwaran’s book “Passage Meditation” then its companion book, “Timeless Wisdom” is for you.  “Timeless Wisdom” is a collection of passages drawn from some of the world’s greatest spiritual and mystical leaders.  This book is intended to aid you in your meditation by giving your mind something to concentrate on, and hopefully, in time you will incorporate the messages in these passages into your own life.

In Easwaran’s book “Passage Meditation” he covers how many instructors try to teach you how to empty your mind so you can meditate.  Instead of a blank mind, Easwaran’s approach is to use a mantra or mantram.  With this technique he teaches how to use a word, phrase or a few paragraphs that you repeat over and over.  This is where his book “Timeless Wisdom” comes into play.  This method helps to maintain focus and concentration.  If you’re like me when I try to clear my mind, that just makes more room for something else to pop right in there and take its place.  If you have trouble thinking of your own mantra, this book is full of wonderful ones for you to use.  In the Kerala state of southern India is where Easwaran’s village is located.  Growing up it was his grandmother that was his spiritual guide and got him started on his spiritual path.

This book is not just filled with poetry and stories; it contains so much more, if you take the time to look a little deeper.  It does not matter if you are Jewish, Christian, Catholic or a Taoist; have an open mind.  You may pray to God just as others do, just because God goes by a different name it’s still the same God.  One example is about nineteenth-century explorers’ in search of the highest mountain in the world.  If you ask a Tibetan he would say “Chomolungma” is the tallest, to those in Nepal it is “Sagarmatha”; a Westerner looking for “Peak XV” was directed to “Deodungha”.  It turned out they were all talking about “MT. Everest”.  So when you read Passages from The Buddha, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Augustine, Loa Tzu or the 24th Psalm; keep in mind they are all referring to the same thing.  That is what’s so impressive about this book; it gives you the viewpoint of many different cultures.  So, whether read by itself or in conjunction with its companion book “Passage Meditation,” this book is worth having in your library.

  

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