Learning to Love

Easwaran Inspirations #4

by Eknath Easwaran

How can we build loving, lasting relationships? Not by listening to the media, Easwaran writes, but by learning to love. It’s a skill, one that we all need urgently to acquire - both for our personal happiness and for the welfare of the world. With quiet humor and practical wisdom, this much-respected spiritual author offers insights and advice for readers of all ages and backgrounds. True romance lies not in roses and candlelight, but in developing the patience, selflessness, and strength we need for rich relationships and for making a wiser, more meaningful contribution to life.

This short ebook is compiled from excerpts from a number of books by Eknath Easwaran.

Genres: Spirituality

28 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 30, 2012

About the author

Eknath Easwaran (1910–1999) is the originator of passage meditation and the author of more than 30 books on spiritual living.

Easwaran is a recognized authority on the Indian spiritual classics. His translations of The Bhagavad Gita, The Upanishads, and The Dhammapada are the best-selling editions in the USA, and over 1.5 million copies of his books are in print.

Easwaran was a professor of English literature and well known in India as a writer and speaker before coming to the United States in 1959 on the Fulbright exchange program. In 1961, he founded the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation, based in Tomales, California, which continues his work today through publications and retreats.

His 1968 class on the theory and practice of meditation at UC Berkeley is believed to be the first accredited course on meditation at any Western university. For those who seek him as a personal spiritual guide, Easwaran assured us that he lives on through his eight-point program of passage meditation.

"I am with you always”, he said. “It does not require my physical presence; it requires your open heart."

Please visit bmcm.org for a fuller biography.

Reviews

[Srinivasan Nanduri · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very short and enticing read after the first 3 in the series.

- After my talk I answered questions, and the girl who presided asked, “You’ve used the word love many times. What does love mean to you?” I gave her a straight answer: “When your boyfriend’s welfare means more to you than your own, you are in love.” She turned to the rest of the gathering and said candidly, “Well, I guess none of us has ever been in love.”
- The impression that the popular novels, gossip magazines etc give the impression that love is something that just happens. True love is much harder to come by than that.
- Love begets love
- With practice, everyone can live in endless love. If you do not learn how to love, everywhere you go you are going to suffer
- No matter what the relationship may be, when you look on another person as someone who can give you love, you are really faking love. That is the simplest word for it.
- Refrain from self-centered ways of acting, speaking and even thinking, we are putting others first.
- Man and woman are meant to complete each other but not to compete. Their union should dissolve separate boundaries - what is bad for one can never be good for the other
- Love can be fairly summed up in a single word: patience
- While sex has a beautiful place where loyalty exists, we cannot build a lasting relationship on it
- On the Blue Mountain in South India, Sandalwood trees grow in profusion. Beautiful images of the Lord are carved from the wood of these trees, which has a lustrous texture and such a haunting fragrance that sandalwood paste is used in temple worship. If you take an axe and cut into the sandalwood tree, rich perfume comes forth; the deeper you cut, the more intoxicating the fragrance will be. All of us, Jesus would say, can learn the lesson of forgiveness the sandalwood teaches. The deeper we are wounded, the sweeter should be our response; that is the only way to heal our wound and also to change that person’s heart. If we cannot cultivate this kind of patience, we need not bother to say we love; time will prove otherwise. We should simply use "like"
- The law of liking is: Like me and I will like you; dislike me and I will dislike you.
- Love is not a business contract or a trade agreement; love is a given
- Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way: it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
- The Lord is present in every one of us, and when we love those around us, we are loving him. The Hindu scriptures put it memorably: When a man loves his wife more than himself, He is loving the Lord in her. When a woman loves her husband more than herself, She is loving the Lord in him. When parents love their children more than themselves, They are loving the Lord in them.