Exploring Passage Recordings

 “An inspirational passage turns our thoughts to what is permanent, to those things that put a final end to insecurity. In meditation, the passage becomes imprinted on our consciousness. As we drive it deeper and deeper, the words come to life within us, transforming all our thoughts, feelings, words, and deeds.” –Eknath Easwaran

The inspirational passage is at the heart of Easwaran’s eight-point program of passage meditation. Easwaran’s instructions in meditation are straightforward and he reminds us often that “the secret of meditation is that you become what you meditate on.” These carefully selected passages are our roadmaps to transforming “thoughts, feelings, words, and deeds.” 

During our meditation we repeat the words of the passage silently and slowly in the mind, but there are also times outside meditation when listening to the passages is a wonderful addition to a daily spiritual schedule.

The BMCM offers free access to recordings of Easwaran and his wife Christine reading the passages from his anthologies God Makes the Rivers to Flow and Timeless Wisdom, and you can find these collections in two different locations. Read on to learn about where you can listen to these recordings, and to hear from passage meditators about how they incorporate listening to passages into their spiritual practice.

Where to Find the Passages

All the passage recordings can now be found on the BMCM website at www.bmcm.org/passages and on the Easwaran Digital Library (EDL). The collections of passages are presented slightly differently in each location, and each presentation has its own benefits.

On the BMCM Website

The BMCM website offers all the passage recordings alongside the text of the passage, making it a wonderful resource for anyone working on memorizing or studying a passage. The website is accessible to anyone, and it’s easy to share a link to a passage with others because no account is needed to visit the passages. On the passage landing page, www.bmcm.org/passages, users can filter passages by spiritual tradition or theme.

One of the main benefits to the passages on the BMCM website is that users can download the audio files for their own use offline.

 These audio files are hosted on the web-platform SoundCloud, and the BMCM Programs Team has curated several playlists:

• Passage Recordings: This five-hour playlist contains all the passages from God Makes the Rivers to Flow and Timeless Wisdom.
• Full Setu Playlist: This 90-minute playlist contains passages that address the challenges of getting older or facing a life-threatening illness. It was curated for passage meditators participating in the Setu program, but this playlist is also enjoyed by meditators of any age in any life circumstance.
• Setu Playlist A: This is a 30-minute playlist of passages specifically requested by Setu friends.

On the EDL

In addition to video and audio talks, the EDL now also has a library of the passage recordings. The EDL is a free resource that can be accessed by anyone who creates an account at www.bmcm.org/edl. The passage recordings can be found if you click on the Audio Playlists tab next to the Video Playlists tab at the top of your page.

One benefit of listening to passages on the EDL is that the passages are organized in the same sequence as in God Makes the Rivers to Flow, so users can browse under the same headings as in the anthology itself. The additional passages that were added to the Timeless Wisdom anthology can all be found at the bottom of the list of Rivers passages.

You’ll also find the same curations of passages for building positive qualities or changing negative patterns of thinking that you can see in the back of God Makes the Rivers to Flow.

When listening in the EDL, users have the option to listen to a single passage on repeat, if they are working on memorizing a passage, for instance, or to play through a continuous collection of passages. The EDL will also remember where you were in a passage or playlist, and you can pick up in the same spot when you return.  Inside the audio playlists there is also a search function to help you find a specific passage.

Listening to Passages 

There are many ways in which you can incorporate listening to passages into your practice, so we reached out to our friends for some examples.

“I enjoy listening to multiple passages continuously for 10-15 minutes before going into the bedroom at night. I especially like listening to the Setu playlist. I just let the passages wash over me, and let the words soak in.”

“As a daily meditator who hadn't missed a day for many years, I knew I'd have to absorb myself in the passages in new creative ways once our baby arrived. The first few weeks with our baby were happy chaos with very little sleep, and usually not at night. I no longer knew what meditation "first thing in the morning" meant! I decided to listen to Christine and Sri Easwaran reading the passages from the BMCM website. I still tried to meditate every day, but because I was so tired and my memory was poor, I would first of all listen to a passage to refresh it in my mind, sometimes over and over. Hearing Christine's and Sri Easwaran's soothing voices reminded me not just of the words, but of the peace and stillness that I could still find. “

“When I was a under the weather with a headache, I found it very soothing to close my eyes and listen to a continuous run of passage recordings on the EDL site. I didn’t feel well enough to watch an Easwaran video or to do my usual spiritual reading, but this gave me the same support and inspiration!”

We hope that this gives you some inspiration and encourage you to explore how listening to passages might become a part of your spiritual practice!