We have an exciting new strategic plan in the BMCM to share with you, which focuses on developing a deeper understanding of Easwaran’s teachings.
Let’s start with some context. The BMCM has a multi-tiered strategic planning process anchored in our 100-year vision:
Eknath Easwaran is a living force, changing lives to build a better world.
BMCM 100-Year Vision
To ensure that this 100-year vision becomes a reality,
we break each decade into three-year strategic plans. If you’re interested, you
can see previous plans and read more about our strategic
planning process at the BMCM.
This year, we’re launching an ambitious strategic plan
developed by the Board of Trustees with the support of Christine Easwaran, to
anchor the organization as it moves into the future.
Unite a worldwide community of Eknath Easwaran’s students in developing a deep understanding of his teaching to
Read on to learn more about what we hope to accomplish, and how you can contribute to this lofty project.
Our previous strategic plans have had concrete actionable initiatives, such as the creation of the Easwaran Digital Library, or the Young Adult Outreach team.
This three-year plan is more abstract and open-ended, unlike anything we’ve done before. It’s a thrilling undertaking, key to building a strong foundation for the future, and an opportunity to join together in a new way.
Our worldwide community already has such depth of commitment and understanding. This new initiative invites us all to go deeper in our practice – and to create the resources we need to carry the depth of Easwaran’s teachings forward for future generations, in a way that is authentic and true to his spirit.
The vision statement has three components, each equally important to the success of this new plan.
“Put your meditation first and everything else second; you will find, for one thing, that it enriches everything else.”
By deepening our understanding, we can’t help but build enthusiasm for our practice. Passage meditation is at the core of all of Easwaran’s teachings – in fact, “deepen your meditation” was often his answer to any question his students would ask (along with “repeat your mantram”)!
Building enthusiasm for our own practice ensures that we each have the strength, energy, and endurance for the long haul.
“Remind yourself every day that meditation is not for your benefit alone; it is for the benefit of the whole world.”
Easwaran encourages us through our meditation to access our inner resources of patience, kindness, compassion, and love. These qualities don’t just benefit us personally – they also prepare us to be of service to the world and those around us.
“My grandmother, who was my spiritual teacher, always used the tamarind tree to illustrate the power of ordinary people. The tamarind is a big tree, with very small, thin leaves. On a hot day, the people of my old state of Kerala like to sleep in its shade. The leaves are so numerous and are packed so close together that they protect us from the tropical sun just as if they were one large canopy.”
“‘Little Lamp, you don’t have to look for big people,’ Granny would tell me. ‘Look for little people like yourself, then band together and work together in harmony.’ So don’t be intimidated by position or power or wealth. If little people like you and me work together, we can do a great deal to transform the world.”
“Whatever our place in life, each of us has a contribution to make that can be made by no one else.”
Each of us can help the BMCM to carry on Easwaran’s work. Whether through volunteering or working directly with the BMCM, or through living out the eight points in our own context, we all play a key role in helping Easwaran continue to be a “living force” in the community.
Here at the BMCM, we’re looking closely at how we can help friends around the world who are interested in contributing to the work of our organization. Over the past years we’ve successfully experimented with internships, work fellowships, and distance employees, and we’ll be looking at new ways of working with volunteers and potential staff in years to come.
Carrying Easwaran’s work forward will take the unique contribution of each of us.
Wherever we are in the world, wherever we are on our path, this initiative asks for all of us to contribute to this effort by taking our own practice deeper.
“Just as there was a cultural renaissance in the West several centuries ago, the world needs a spiritual renaissance today. It can be brought about only by little people like us: every man, every woman, every child, changing their personality from selfish to selfless, from human to divine.”
We see this part of the new strategic plan as a clarion call to Easwaran’s students around the world.
By living out his teachings through our own individual practice, we ensure that Easwaran continues to be a “living force” in the world. By deepening and strengthening our own practice, we can find more opportunities for bringing these teachings to life, and living them out more fully in our own contexts.
Would you like to join us in this adventure? Deepening our understanding of Easwaran will look different for each of us, so we encourage you to find the best way that works for you.
The BMCM offers many resources that might support your efforts. Deepening your own understanding may lead you to expand the resources you use, or to cut back and put more attention on a specific area. Be creative, experiment, and don’t hesitate to pick and choose what will best suit your own needs!
We would love to hear from you! Please use the comments below and share your thoughts on this new strategic initiative and how you plan to deepen your own understanding of Easwaran’s teachings. We’ll keep you updated from our BMCM side as our new projects get underway!
Just as Easwaran taught us with the story of the tamarind tree, we too can work together, band together, and gradually transform the world.