Material Success and Happiness Through Yoga Principles

by Swami Kriyananda
(J. Donald Walters)

Copyright © 2005 Hansa Trust
All rights reserved.

Lesson Seven
Balancing Work and Meditation
The Principles
For every person whose love of meditation is so deep he cannot easily squeeze in the time for a little work, there are thousands with quite the opposite problem. “How,” they ask, “can I find the time for even a little meditation, when I have all this work to do?” People who meditate long and deeply haven’t the same need for these lessons as those whose work is a priority. Both groups, however, in the context of their own priorities, have a need to balance outward activity and meditation, or—if they are unusually active—at least to balance their work with calm reflection.
Physical activity helps to keep one “grounded.” Without it, a person tends to become lazy and absent-minded. Mental activity is important for people also who are physically active: it keeps them from slipping into subconsciousness whenever they have nothing outward to do. The common expression nowadays, “couch potato,” is as good a description as any of the person who is so mentally lazy that he spends all his free time sitting passively in front of the television screen.
There are, as I’ve said, two directions of development open to man: upward, or downward. Life below the human level is propelled upward automatically by Nature. Once it reaches the human level, free will enters the picture at least to some extent with ego-consciousness. The ego can hasten the evolutionary process toward divine enlightenment, but it can also delay it. Because lower life forms have only rudimentary self-awareness, even dogs and horses lack free will. Man’s ego makes it possible for him to cooperate with the process if he so chooses, by aspiring toward the heights. Unfortunately, he usually chooses to pause at the human level, like a mountain climber after reaching a plateau, who may choose to rest a little before climbing higher. Man’s ego can inspire him to continue upward with a will; usually, however, he opts for a long rest. Indeed, he fairly wallows in it—that is to say, in the desires the ego generates. The process of ongoing evolution is deferred indefinitely, as the ego weaves around itself a cocoon of millions of filaments of desire. Thus, the soul can take much longer to escape to higher-than-human stages of development than it took to reach the human level in the first place. Reasoning is rudimentary in the lower animals, which never even question how satisfied they are with their lot. Their sense of individuality is weak; thus, even when they suffer they are much less aware than we are that they themselves are suffering. Man, on the contrary, is not only aware of his individuality, but revels in it, and suffers also in consequence. His suffering is in equal proportion to any happiness he experiences, for such is the law of duality, which keeps him bouncing up and down with his emotions: happy one day, sad the next; overjoyed one day, miserable the next. Because he is able to experience happiness personally, he hopes that he will find complete happiness, someday. Bliss, or perfect joy is, indeed, his true destiny. It takes many incarnations, unfortunately, for him to develop the discrimination to recognize, in his suffering, the prods Nature gives him toward eventual escape from the prison of ego-consciousness.
A woman in Israel once told a friend of mine, “I’ve been reading about reincarnation, and guess what,” she exulted enthusiastically: “We get to come back!”
The deeper-than-conscious memory of repeated disappointments and disillusionments—the “anguishing monotony,” as my Guru called it, of bondage to this little “I”—is what sets us firmly on the path to soul-freedom at last.
In the shastras (the ancient scriptures of India) it is said that it takes five to eight million incarnations for the soul to evolve up to the human level. What a climb, merely to become a human being! Few people are aware of their great good fortune. They use their more developed intelligence to justify their delusions. Most people, having finally achieved the blessing of self-consciousness, take a long rest before resuming the climb to liberation. Their clearer awareness gives them a first-ever opportunity for hastening the process of upward evolution. Few take advantage of the blessing; instead, they wander for aeons in delusion, mesmerized by the limited, and self-limiting, rewards available to ego-consciousness.
Such is the power of Maya, known in some religions as Satan—Satanic delusion, in other words. Maya (Satan) is a relentless, conscious force, and by no means merely subjective. It works from within man’s consciousness, and not only from without, through the principle of duality. Satan creates a balance to everything that is God-reminding and beautiful, by manifesting some other thing that is evil, goodness-obscuring, and ugly. Maya is the creative, outwardly projecting aspect of infinite consciousness, which brings all things into manifestation. That force is conscious, as I said, and tries to perpetuate everything in a state of manifestation. Satan works unceasingly, deliberately also to prevent ego-conscious beings from aspiring to a higher, more universal state of awareness.
Maya suggests to our minds, “Come on, old fellow (or old girl), things aren’t so bad as they seem! Give them another try!” My Guru said, “I used to think that Satan was only a delusion in the mind, but now that I have found God I join my testimony to that of all who went before me: Satan is a reality. It is a conscious force, and works deliberately to keep mankind bound to the ever-turning wheel of delusion.” That wheel takes one constantly up and down, alternating fulfillment with disappointment, and success with failure. The secret of a truly successful life is to be centered in the Self, not reacting outwardly with ego-incited emotions. Only to the extent that one is inwardly centered is his success assured permanence.
The true goal of life is to realize our identity with the source of life: Satchidananda. This definition of God, given to mankind by Adi (the first) Swami Shankaracharya, is the best, because truest, ever expressed. My Guru translated it for modern times from his state of oneness with God, as “ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new bliss.”
What keeps people tied to the wheel of rebirth is their own energy-flow, which impels them outward even before they are born. Any glimpse they get of inner joy is projected outward onto the world, where they see dimly reflected through the senses the bliss-nature of the Self, like reflections of sunlight on slivers of broken glass. What makes those reflections attractive to us is our happy anticipation of happiness through them, when in fact each scintillating light is merely a projection onto the world around us of our inner joy.
The higher purpose of these lessons is to help you see that material success itself is only a steppingstone to perfection. From a yogic point of view, every kind of success is a good thing, for the qualities that bring material success bring also divine enlightenment. Qualities that produce material failure, on the other hand, produce also spiritual failure.
This course is important for another, more immediate, reason also. To “cut corners” ethically, with a view to increasing one’s income, is a sure way to destroy one’s very happiness. Apart from the obvious need for keeping body and soul together, the real reason people work or do anything is their desire for happiness.
Maya works “super-efficiently” through the restless mind! When our thoughts lack a clear focus, they are incapable of exercising discrimination. We should not blame Satan for every mistake we make! We ourselves invite maya’s power into our lives to begin with, by our openness to it. When Satan sees self-aware human beings trying to escape his net, he works urgently to prevent them. He can exert no force, however, except through our receptivity to him. People who have attained communion with God find it relatively easy to slough off Satanic temptation, for they are no longer securely locked in the prison of ego. Those, on the other hand, who are unable to meet life’s trials with a sense of inner freedom suffer in consequence. Even during the severest tests that worldly people experience, however, joy runs like a river just beneath the surface of their consciousness. For no one can completely deny his soul-nature. If such people turned within, they would find joy on deeper layers of consciousness than the ego. Divine joy is their unchanging reality.
Ego—to change the metaphor—is the engine that pulls a trainload of desires, filled with passengers eagerly anticipating their journey’s end and a shopping spree of pleasures and delights. What keeps stoking the engine’s boiler with coal is the power of habit.
Habits, both good and bad, influence people more than they realize. A man may claim, “I’m free to do just what I please!” He doesn’t see, in the very fact of being more “pleased” by one thing than another, proof already that he is not free at all. Habit conditions his mind to pleasures and displeasures. Habit is his slave master.
Habits can also help us, if they encourage us to rise toward truer understanding. Born in human form, however, as all of us are, we find that habit sides more often with our energy’s natural predisposition to flow outward through the senses.
The way habit works is explained, allegorically, in the Mahabharata, which is really the story of the soul’s long journey through maya to final liberation. My Guru explained that Dronacharya, preceptor of the youthful Kurus and Pandavas, represents the power of habit. The army representing soul qualities in that great epic is symbolized by the Pandavas. The army on the side of delusion is symbolized by their cousins, the Kurus. In any struggle between the two “armies”—light and dark tendencies in ourselves—Drona (Habit) sides with the worldly ones. Spiritual development is determined somewhat by habit also, but as one advances spiritually his progress becomes increasingly an act of free will. Thus, the closer we approach to spiritual transcendence, the less we are influenced by habit, and the more by the faculty of discrimination born of soul-consciousness. The more we are centered in the superconscious, therefore, the less we are conditioned by habit’s mere mechanisms. Superconsciousness has nothing to do with such mechanisms. It is forever fresh, spontaneous, and creative.
Thus, the power of habit does not participate actively on the side of goodness. The best that a good habit can do is help to open one’s consciousness to the descent of superconsciousness into it. Habit helps that process by not resisting it. It is the superconscious which actively guides the sincere devotee’s life. Good habits, therefore, such as daily meditation, remembrance of God, and inwardly chanting His name, are beneficial primarily for the fact that they invite the superconscious to take part in our struggles. It is the superconscious that actively opposes, and eventually dissolves, our worldly tendencies. It is superconsciousness that banishes maya. Our good habits can only help by setting our feet on the upward path. Superconsciousness accomplishes the actual transformation.
Thus, Dronacharya’s help in the Mahabharata, when it comes, is by default. Drona dies on the battlefield, after he is tricked into believing that his son, Ashwatthama, has been killed. At this news, Drona loses further interest in the war, and allows himself to be slain.
Paramhansa Yogananda explained the hidden meaning of this subtle teaching. Ashwatthama represents latent—that is, subconscious—desires. When we have uprooted every desire, even those of which we are not consciously aware, habit (until that point a strong influence in our lives) “gives up” the fight, and ceases to stand in the way of our progress toward enlightenment.
Although Drona sides with the Kurus, he is also the guru of the Pandavas. Habits in other words can—as we’ve seen—be good as well as bad. In the struggle between our higher and lower natures, we need good habits to begin with; habits can uplift as well as degrade us. In the inner war of Kurukshetra, however, bad habits, arising from the subconscious, tend to assert themselves in such a way as to oppose our aspirations. The reason for this self-assertiveness on their part is that they have been our constant companions for ages—indeed, for countless incarnations. Like burrs in a sheep’s fleece, they are almost knitted into our thinking process.
Though God is Infinite Consciousness, in the cosmic dream He assumes the variegated appearance of His creation. Thus, although the rocks are unmoving, and apparently unaware, they are yet manifestations of His consciousness.
The same thing happens to us when we dream. We may dream the existence of rocks, which will seem completely lacking in consciousness. It is our awareness, however, that sustains them in that rock-like appearance. In some particularly bizarre dream, one of those “unconscious” rocks might stand up suddenly and do a lively dance!
As the lowest manifestations of God’s consciousness bestir themselves gradually to wakefulness, the energy latent within them reaches upward to express lower life forms, doing so through trees, plants, and flowers; through microbes, amebas, paramecia and other motile creatures; through animals that are conscious enough to crawl gropingly on the sand; and through insects that fly about feeding on leaves and sipping nectar from flowers. Evolution is influenced by Nature herself to move upward. Diversity, though the focus of the biologist’s interest, is not really what defines upward evolution. Nor does the mere “struggle for survival” tell us enough. Once consciousness itself is recognized as self-existent and not dependent for its existence on mere physical mechanisms, it becomes self-evident that evolution, rightly understood, is an upward progression from seeming unconsciousness to ever-clearer expressions of absolute consciousness.
Habit, in mankind, is a potent force. Subconscious drives keep us tied to a lower, non-discriminating perception of things. As human beings, however, being more conscious than the lower animals, we have the ability to develop tendencies far outside the fixed patterns of instinctual behavior. These become habits, which arise out of our relative freedom, but which, often, are detrimental to our further evolution. As a person’s consciousness rises in the morning from sleep to wakefulness, so evolution is a process of rising from the sleep of delusion to perfect Soul-awareness.
Biologists have no criterion to go by of what constitutes evolution except the multiplicity of forms they know. Consequently, they have no basis for claiming that evolution is directional. As a psychologist, sold on their theories, once asked rhetorically, “Has man evolved more by producing a brain than the elephant has by producing a trunk?” (This, surely, is material suitable for another book of Alice’s adventures in wonderland!) Once it is realized, however, that consciousness is not produced by mere mechanisms, it is easy to recognize that evolution is no accident, as biologists claim, but a process of ever self-refining awareness. It is consciousness which produces mechanisms, as it was consciousness which produced matter itself through the medium of energy. A brain can only facilitate the manifestation of consciousness: It could never produce consciousness.
With life’s upward evolution, instinctual impulses become more clearly defined until reason gives man the ability to suppress his natural instincts and develop patterns of behavior not always beneficial to his well-being—indeed, not always reasonable, even!
Man brings certain animal impulses over with him from lower levels of manifestation. These tendencies linger subconsciously, overlaid by more recently acquired human traits. Thus, the mind is burdened with “baggage,” which weighs man’s consciousness down and keeps him from rising in consciousness.
Most people do not labor creatively. Their work is automatic and uninspired. Such people’s activities are directed mostly by what others have done before them. This is not the way to achieve notable success!
To achieve even material success through yoga principles, one must bring the higher aspects of awareness into play: intuition and superconscious inspiration. The ordinary laborer would be unlikely to benefit from these lessons, at least by reading them. Contact with others, however, who have studied them and have found them helpful can prove life-changing for him also. People who are farther down the ladder of human evolution can be helped by associating with love and respect with those who are higher up the ladder. Those higher up, on the other hand, can benefit if they help those of lower understanding. Once the student of these lessons develops true insight and becomes centered in himself and in high principles, his influence can filter down to others at every level of society. Such people can be uplifted only by the company they keep. One might explain to them the importance of including other people’s happiness in their own, but experience itself, in the end, is their best teacher.
Even those whose intelligence is somewhat developed must be made to see that truthfulness and honesty are essential both for true personal fulfillment and for success.
It takes a certain amount of refinement to appreciate deeply the importance of dharmic living. These lessons are being written primarily for people of discrimination. I hope to persuade people in all walks of life, eventually, by clear exposition, that the path to material success is ultimately no different from the path to the highest spiritual triumph. You, who are studying these lessons, can exert a powerful influence on others, if only by a kind of osmosis, or magnetic influence. Even the common laborer can be transformed by silently addressing his soul, for in everyone the divine consciousness hides, underneath his mental darkness and delusions.
Material success through yoga principles may, to many people, seem a lost cause. How, they will ask, can a person live by high principles, considering how many people there are in this world who don’t miss a chance to cheat others in the name of a personal advantage? Is it possible—they ask in effect—to be dharmic when dealing with pirates?
Well, why not? Ultimately, only dharma, not adharma, has power. “Ultimately” is the operative word here. What does it matter if we lose one or two battles so long as we win the war? Human beings are offspring of the same, one God—projections of His consciousness. All of them, therefore, have the germ of divinity within them. Most of them respond, moreover, to a higher spirit, when love and joy are projected toward them calmly.
Let me tell you a little story:
Many years ago—in May, 1955, to be exact—I was visiting the east coast of America. I received an invitation from my parents while I was there. They were living in the south of France, where they hoped I would visit them; they offered to pay for my airplane ticket. I accepted gladly. In due course of time, at Idlewild Airport (since then renamed, John F. Kennedy Airport), I was standing in line in front of the check-in counter. The man in front of me, when he reached the counter, was informed that he would have to pay an extra fee for his overweight baggage. Furiously he pulled out every “stop” in his organ, shouting, “I’ve never faced this problem before! I’ve been patronizing this airline for many years! I’ll never fly with you again!” Nothing worked. Finally he cried, “I demand to see the manager!” The supervisor came out, spoke to him as politely as possible, but explained that he wasn’t in a position to change his company’s policies. The passenger, fuming in rage, finally paid the required fee.
I, standing next in line, was a little anxious. My own luggage was in fact more bulky than his, and must surely have weighed considerably more. My parents hadn’t offered to pay such extra expenses. My monastic allowance was $20 a month—hardly a maharajah’s income! I wasn’t even dressed in monastic garb, and couldn’t hope for leniency on those grounds, therefore.
I decided simply to offer the problem to Divine Mother. Approaching the counter, I visualized Her as present in the man behind it—the same man as before—inspiring him. I smiled into his eyes, thinking of him, as I naturally do, as my friend in God. He returned my smile, then turned to my bags and said, “Well, what have we here?” Their weight was, in fact, over the limit. Without comment he handed me my baggage tags and boarding pass, and I was free to move on!
When one’s aim in life is to serve others, and when one doesn’t think of what he can get for himself, what happens, I think, is that he radiates a protective aura which shields him from usual, “business is business” attitudes. This sort of thing has happened in my life again and again. To emphasize my point, let me relate another—to me deeply inspiring—story:
I’ll introduce it by saying that whenever I finish a major literary work I like to celebrate with Divine Mother, whose inspiration, along with my Guru’s, I always invoke while writing. I may celebrate by going out for a good dinner at a prominent restaurant, or I may take a vacation with a few friends. In any case, the celebration remains inward, primarily.
Thus it was that, many years ago, I completed one of my most important projects, a course of lessons on Raja Yoga. I was feeling that something special in the way of celebration was called for. The labor had been long and arduous. I went to the seaside town of Carmel, California—a favorite of mine. This was especially, however, a vacation with the Divine Mother.
I hadn’t much money, as most of what I’d earned had gone toward the development of Ananda Village. On reaching Carmel, I learned to my dismay that there seemed to be no rooms available. (I hadn’t taken into account that this was high summer, and Carmel was a popular tourist attraction.)
What should I do? Other “touristy” towns nearby didn’t attract me, and I didn’t want to go to nearby Salinas, a farming community. This celebration had to be “right”!
The central information service that the town provided told me of one room that, they said, was available, in a central location. I went hopefully to that hotel. Alas, the cost of the room was considerably more than I’d expected to pay.
“Divine Mother,” I prayed silently, “what shall I do?” Feeling inner reassurance from Her, I told myself, “I’ve come three hundred miles here to celebrate with You. Surely You’ll see to it that I have enough money to get home again!”
With that thought, I took out the money from my wallet for this room, and offered it to the man at the registration desk.
“No, don’t pay me.” he said.
“I’d rather pay in advance,” I explained. I didn’t state, further, that I was concerned I might not have the money to pay for my room the next morning.
“I don’t want you to pay me at all!” was his answer.
“But—I don’t understand. Why not?” I was nonplussed.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “I just like you.”
Thus, Divine Mother let me know that She, too, was celebrating with me! Later, at dinner, the owner of the restaurant I’d selected came to my table and asked if he might sit down. Of course I said, “Please do.”
“I heard you lecture last year,” he announced, “at the University of Davis.” We chatted a while. Later, he wouldn’t let me pay for my meal.
Whenever I think of that weekend, my eyes brim with tears. How sweet is Divine Mother’s love! To underscore the extraordinary nature of this experience, I should add that at no other time, in a life of extensive travel, can I recall a hotel desk clerk who, not knowing me and, to me, quite unknown, let me stay the night free of charge.
The point here is that people, and even animals, respond in kind to the energy we send toward them. Even people who make a practice of cheating others may not cheat you. And even if they try to do so, they may feel a sort of protective aura around you, and not want to penetrate it. Alternatively, you may find yourself simply steered away from them, and guided to others who are more on your “wavelength.” Your magnetism will normally attract the right people, and the right circumstances.
The attitude you radiate should be of sincere, impersonal friendship for all in God. Never think of yourself as exerting power over others. Once you’ve developed magnetism, you can use it also to gain power over others. If you misuse your power in that way, you yourself will be the loser in the end.
I remember one day at Twenty-Nine Palms, California. I was driving home, and had reached the outskirts of town when I saw an old man walking in the same direction. I stopped and offered him a ride.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“There’s a Mental Physics convention in the next town,” he replied. “I’m headed there.” Mental Physics was an organization that, as far as I knew, taught people how to influence people and events in their lives by mental force.
Soon we reached the grounds of the convention center; it wasn’t a great distance. “Where,” I asked, “would you like to get out?”
My guest, hardly bothering to reply, pointed sternly in the direction of the main hall. I had already tuned in to his thinking: it was that, by mental force, he had made me stop and give him that ride! Happily I went along with his fantasy. As we entered the convention grounds, he ordered me with a curt gesture to drive to the main building. On reaching it, he ordered me to stop. I smiled as I thought of him proudly telling everyone how, by mental power, he had forced me to obey his will. What a testimonial he had now! To me, it was all good fun. Why should I oppose his ego game with another one of my own? I drove off with a happy smile, wishing him joy in his little “triumph.”
I should make it clear at this point, however, that the magnetism I hope you will develop, and project into the world around you, will be one of divine friendship for all, not of power over others. Yes, you can develop a magnetism of power if you like—I’ve even hinted at ways to do so—but ask yourself this simple question: Where is the bliss in it? Power will merely increase your bondage to ego. It will implant more bars in the prison of your ego-consciousness. Where, then, will be the gain?
One great benefit of meditation is that it helps one to become self-motivated. Thus one becomes—as I’ve said before—a cause in life, not an effect. No matter how people respond to you, you will preserve your inner peace. You may not even be aware that the attitudes of people around you are on a different “wavelength” from your own.
Several years ago I flew to Las Vegas, where I’d been invited to address a booksellers’ convention. A friend of Ananda Sangha’s lived in the city, and met me at the airport, drove me to my hotel, and, the next day, drove me back again to the airport. On the way to the airport he exclaimed in distress, “I didn’t at all like that reception clerk’s attitude toward you at the hotel!”
“Really?” I answered. “I didn’t notice anything.”
“She was intolerably rude!”
“Was she? Well, I’m sorry for her.” Her attitude, as far as I was concerned, had been her own problem. I hadn’t invited it by any attitude of my own, and wasn’t even aware that she had an “attitude.”
One of the benefits of living dharmically is that people usually treat you with kindness. If they don’t, their behavior doesn’t bother you.
I suggested earlier that dharmic behavior may seem a lost cause to many people, considering how many of them ignore it and even insist that spiritual values and material success have nothing in common. The opposite is true, however. Material success infallibly comes to those who know how to live calmly at their center. It would take a very strong “failure karma” to counteract the success vibration that is emanated by inner contentment.
People may still object that there is no hope in trying to improve society, or to bring about a substantial change in the business world. Is it not, in the last analysis (they ask), even selfish to concentrate on finding inner peace, oneself? They are mistaken. One who possesses inner peace naturally wants to help others to have it also. Moreover, he is not powerless to bring them such solace.
Inner peace and happiness are quite the opposite of selfishness. They emanate an influence which brings peace also to all who are capable of receiving it themselves. One symptom of extreme negativity is that it actually equates misery with virtue. As Jean Paul Sartre, the French nihilist, (absurdly) wrote, “In this world that bleeds, all joy is obscene.” What utter nonsense! Joy is contagious! So also is inner peace. As others respond to it positively, so they, in turn, have an uplifting effect on others. Thus, the ripples of positive, joyful influence spread outward into the world.
We may not be able to change the world, but we can certainly exert a beneficial impact on our own surroundings. The more God’s grace, particularly, flows through us, the farther that influence spreads outward. As is stated in a poster that I have made of a rainbow in Hawaii, “Remember, whatever peace you bring on earth must begin on that piece of earth where you yourself live.”
As higher, superconscious influences are activated in us, they percolate downward into the conscious mind, and create a powerful influence on those we meet, even on those with whom we have only casual dealings—and even on those who seem to resent or resist it!
Of the three aspects of mind—the subconscious, conscious, and superconscious—true success requires inspiration from the third: superconsciousness. Meditation is very important, therefore, to achieving the highest success, whether spiritual or material. Meditation brings well-being on every level of consciousness. Above all, what it brings is happiness.
Meditation is the way to perfect, conscious rest. Sleep is less refreshing, for it takes one down into subconsciousness. The rest we receive in subconsciousness is, therefore, passive: It is not dynamic.
All true scriptures teach the importance of living a balanced life—physically, mentally, and spiritually. Therefore, they say, we should eat right, keep the body fit by right exercise, and clear the mind by utter self-honesty, sincerity, and kindness to all, as well as by daily meditation. This teaching is essential for true well-being. As my Guru once put it in a letter to me: “Keep exercised and body fit for God-realization.”
It is a mistake, then, to separate meditation from the effort to achieve material success. Rather, meditation is the most direct route to success of all kinds. I’ve mentioned before how Rajarsi Janakananda, Paramhansa Yogananda’s most highly advanced disciple, devoted his morning hours to meditation. He was the chairman of several boards of directors, and had more responsibilities than most business people. I don’t suggest you follow his example as to how you pass your mornings: That, for most people, would not be feasible! Everyone, however, can include at least a little meditation in his daily routine; it is a question of priorities. Think of it as a kind of hygiene—spiritual in this case, not physical! After all, you devote time daily to brushing your teeth, to bathing or showering, to shaving (perhaps), and to brushing your hair. You take time every morning to decide which clothes you want to wear that day. These activities are so natural, you hardly give them a thought. Why not add to them, then, a short “check-in” with your higher Self?
What keeps people from meditating a little every day? It is habit, primarily. They succumb to the tendency, born of habit, to rush about restlessly, repeating actions unnecessarily that, if they’d done them just once with concentration, would not have needed to be repeated. “The soul,” my Guru said, “loves to meditate.” What, apart from habitual restlessness, can hold at bay the thought of sitting still, for brief periods at least, and meditating? People who practice meditation regularly find in it a supreme attraction. Restlessness however, both physical and mental, is their obstacle in the beginning, militating against devoting any time to inner stillness and peace. Instead, restless habit reaches out almost hungrily for sense-stimulation, and for what my Guru called “fillers”: picking up a magazine whenever you have a free moment, and leafing through it without really seeing anything; or turning on the radio or television without really paying attention to what you hear or see. Submit yourself to a little impartial analysis: You will see that the restless diversions in which you involve yourself—to avoid thinking about inner peace—leave you always with a yawning sense of emptiness inside.
To remove a thorn from the flesh, yogis say, use another thorn to dig it out. Once the imbedded thorn has been removed, both can be thrown away. Good habits, similarly, can be used to uproot bad ones. That is one of the benefits of daily meditation: it uplifts one’s thoughts, and uproots any negative tendencies, empowered by habit. Considered only as a good habit, however, meditation will not, itself, provide superconscious inspiration. What regular meditation accomplishes is that it calms the mind, making it receptive to intuition.
Meditation enables one to become inwardly centered, and less subject to external influences. The less reactive we are to outer stimuli, the more we become masters of ourselves. Our reactions to circumstances are energized by the upward and downward movements of energy in the spine. By controlling those movements, we live less in our emotions, and are guided increasingly by intuitive feeling. People who allow their emotions to sway them become the slaves of circumstance. Pleasure/displeasure, attraction/aversion, excitement/depression: these are the supreme obstacles to wisdom. They create serious errors of judgment in life.
The reactive process is born of the movement of energy in the ida and pingala nadis, or nerve channels, in the spine. The energy in these nadis works together with the breath, and is, indeed, the subtle cause of the physical breath. As energy flows upward through ida nadi, one inhales. As energy flows downward through pingala, one exhales. Breathing is an outward effect of that upward and downward flow of energy in the spine. The body’s physical need for air and oxygen is real, of course, but the rhythmic movement of breathing is caused by the flow of energy in the spine, a process that defines breathing in the astral body.
Whenever you encounter situations to which you react emotionally, pause a moment and consider: Emotions confuse the mind, interfering with clear, unbiased judgment. When an emotion seizes you therefore, try to control it by first controlling the flow of energy in the spine. Relax in the spine. Sit upright; inhale and exhale deeply; try to bring the flow of energy there under the control of your will. Then center the feelings, also, in the spine. Breathe deeply, until your feelings become calm, and you are aware of yourself as a cause, not an effect. That feeling of rising and falling excitement will relax inwardly, and will no longer be governed by agitation.
With daily meditation this inward control will become natural—indeed, it will become almost automatic. Try to live always in the awareness of your spine. (That is why many swamis carry a danda, or staff; it reminds them to live ever at their center, in the spine.) If you don’t want to be swept helplessly down life’s stream, never act only from peripheral awareness. The more balanced you are inwardly, the more likely you will be to make wise judgments regarding every problem and crisis that arises in your life. Inner poise will enable you to listen with an open heart to inner guidance.
With or without formal meditation, a meditative attitude, at least, is essential. When you are centered in yourself, try to uplift the energy in your spine. Whatever you may be doing, when you have a free moment concentrate briefly at the point between the eyebrows.
Why do certain people seem to exude an aura of success? One cannot easily imagine them failing at anything they try. They have the magnetism to attract what they want in life, whether answers to questions, solutions to problems, or opportunities they need for success. One feels a calmness in their presence suggestive of meditation and yoga practice—if not in this life, then in former incarnations. Without some kind of meditation, whether in this life or in some past one, that kind of magnetism is hardly to be found in anyone.
It would be a great aid to you, therefore, in your work and other activities to include meditation daily. If it seems difficult at first, don’t give up: Before long, you’ll find your life becoming increasingly happy.
The Application
To acquire a new habit, apply yourself to developing it with concentration. One day, when I was trying to break a certain habit, my Guru said to me, “Habits can be overcome in a day. They are nothing but concentration of the mind. You are concentrating one way. Concentrate another way, and that undesirable habit will cease to exist!”
Because prolonged concentration is difficult, especially in the beginning, try at first to meditate for relatively short periods.
It would be well sometimes however, in any case, to extend your time of meditation. Impurities never settle to the bottom of a glass of water immediately. Restless thoughts, too, require time to subside in the mind. Vary short periods of meditation, therefore, with longer ones one day a week. The ideal, for daily meditation, is at least fifteen minutes: enough time to give you a taste of inner peace. Gradually, as you develop a taste for meditation, sit longer. Meanwhile, don’t incite your restless thought-population to rebellion! Let the desire to sit longer develop naturally.
The essential thing is that you make an earnest effort during whatever time you do sit, however briefly. Be a little stern with yourself. Don’t let your thoughts wander like sheep without a shepherd. Intense but relaxed mental effort is the key. In time, your thoughts will come “to heel” effortlessly, and the practice of meditation will become increasingly attractive to you.
During activity, should you feel a need for inner guidance, draw it to you instantly by recalling to mind the peace of meditation. Withdraw—even for an instant—into that inner peace, or even simply into the memory of it. Then concentrate peacefully at the point between the eyebrows. Enlist your heart’s energies, especially, and offer them up to the spiritual eye.
With your mind as focused as you can make it in that brief moment, offer a strong demand for guidance. My Guru described the right way of asking as a “loving demand.” If you demand without the slightest hint of pride, but with a strong will to be given the guidance you need, the magnetism of that demand will attract the guidance you need.
Here are a few important rules to follow for daily meditation:
1. Try to create a place where you do nothing but meditate. This may be a room set aside for the purpose, or even a screened-off portion of your bedroom. As you meditate there regularly, vibrations will build up that will be conducive to deep meditation.
2. Sit facing the east, if possible. If for any reason that direction is inconvenient, north is the next best direction. Subtle currents emanate from these directions that help to raise the energy in the body, and to direct it to the point between the eyebrows.
3. Make it a point to meditate at the same times, if possible, every day. Gradually you’ll develop a habit of actually wanting to meditate, when that hour arrives. (The same thing is true if you eat at the same times every day: you feel hungry when that hour approaches.)
4. The best times to meditate coincide with daily pauses in outer Nature when subtle shifts of energy occur in the earth with changes in the sun’s movement. Dawn, noon, sundown, and midnight, or as near to those times as convenient for you, are normally the best times to meditate.
5. Place a woolen blanket over your asan, or meditation seat. Better still, cover the blanket with a silk cloth. If you can use a traditional yoga asan such as a deer skin or a tiger skin, that is best of all. According to tradition, the animal should have died of natural causes, but the truth is my Guru’s deer skin asan had a small bullet hole in it! Suitable skins are not so easy to obtain. A tiger skin, I should add, is traditionally used only by yogis who are committed to a life of sexual abstinence.
For people who are unaccustomed to sitting on the floor, it is all right to sit on a straight-backed, armless chair. This seat is, admittedly, less desirable than the floor. If, however, you must choose between physical pain and calm concentration on God, a chair is definitely acceptable as a substitute. (Westerners, for instance, may find sitting on the floor difficult, for it may mean concentrating on their aching knees, not on God!) If you enjoy sitting cross-legged, select, if possible, one of the standard yoga positions: siddhasana, vajrasana, padmasana, or ardha-padmasana. Any of these is definitely preferable to the cross-legged “tailor” position, which makes it difficult to sit with a straight spine.
Place the hands palms upward on the thighs at the junction of the abdomen. Draw your shoulder blades slightly together to keep the back straight, and pull the chin gently inward, parallel with the ground.
6. Two rules are important for correct posture: Keep the spine straight, and keep the body always relaxed and motionless. If you prefer sitting on a chair, position yourself slightly forward on the seat, away from the back. This way, it will be easier to keep your spine straight.
7. To relax completely, inhale and exhale deeply two or three times to free the body of any excess toxins. Then inhale again deeply; tense the whole body, and exhale forcibly, relaxing completely. Repeat this last exercise two or three times.
8. Now, hold the body perfectly still. Don’t move a muscle. Concentrate on relaxing more deeply still by mentally checking the body for areas of tension; wherever you find tension, release it as if into space. It may help you to begin deep relaxation by relaxing the body upward, part by part, from the feet to the head.
9. Finally, meditate, concentrating on the breath. Watch it impartially as it flows of its own accord. Don’t try to control it. Enjoy any brief pause between the breaths, especially after each exhalation: feel the freedom of breathlessness. Gradually the pauses between the breaths will become longer by natural degrees.
Don’t worry if the pauses extend themselves for what seems to you an unnaturally long time. Breathlessness is normal for the body that is deeply calm and relaxed. It comes with complete centeredness and rest in the Self. The breathless state can be maintained indefinitely, but it can never be achieved forcefully. Don’t worry if the breath stops of itself, for as soon as one needs to breathe, the body will do so. Even if you tried to stop the breath by forced kumbhaka (breath retention), you would be unable to do so, for you would eventually faint, at which point the breath would begin again automatically. Never force any yoga practice, as some people misguidedly do.
The technique of watching the breath is more effective when it is accompanied by a bij, or “seed,” mantra. The mantra my Guru recommended was “Hong-Sau.” (The “Sau” is pronounced like the carpenter’s saw.) The meaning of Hong-Sau is, “I am He.” In Sanskrit the actual words are, “Aham saha.” As a bij mantra, however, Hong-Sau vibrates with the astral breath, and helps to calm the process of physical breathing. Mentally say “Hong” with the incoming breath, following it all the way in. With “Sau,” uttered mentally, follow the exhalation all the way out.
10. For at least the final third of your meditation period, sit quietly, simply enjoying the inner silence. Try, during this period, to deepen your enjoyment of inner peace. Pray to God mentally, in whatever form you find most appealing, and ask Him/Her: “Come to me! Fill me with Thy bliss!”
Meditation
While sitting still, visualize a candle flame burning without a flicker in your heart. Imagine darkness around it, and watch the light gradually spread outward in all directions, transforming that darkness into light.
Watch the light, now, filling your body then filling your mind. Body, mind, thoughts, and feelings: Bathe all in that calm light.
Visualize in those light rays, now, a vibration of joy. You are that calm light, that calm feeling, that calm awareness of inner joy. Delight, inwardly and outwardly, in your inner peace.
If you have time for longer practice, visualize the light expanding outward in all directions to infinity.
That light is your own Self. See it blessing your environment, blessing all those nearby, blessing every creature on this earth.
Lo! The very world has become radiantly joyful, the light of your own being!
Affirmation
“I am light, ever calm, ever perfect. 
I am one with Thee!”

Points to Remember
1. Material success is only a steppingstone to perfection. From a yogic point of view, every kind of success is a good thing, for the qualities that bring material success bring also divine enlightenment.
2. The more we are centered in the superconscious, the less we are conditioned by habit. Superconsciousness is forever fresh, spontaneous, and creative.
3. Good habits, such as daily meditation, remembrance of God, and inwardly chanting His name, invite the superconscious to take part in our struggles. It is the superconscious that eventually dissolves our worldly tendencies.
4. When one’s aim in life is to serve others, and when one doesn’t think of what he can get for himself, he radiates a protective aura which shields him from usual, “business is business” attitudes.
5. People respond in kind to the energy we send toward them. Even people who make a practice of cheating others may not cheat you. Your magnetism will normally attract the right people, and the right circumstances.
6. The attitude you radiate should be of sincere, impersonal friendship for all in God. Never think of yourself as exerting power over others.
7. One great benefit of meditation is that it helps one to become self-motivated. One becomes a cause in life, not an effect. Thus, no matter how people respond to you, you will preserve your inner peace.
8. One of the benefits of living dharmically is that people usually treat you with kindness.
9. Material success infallibly comes to those who know how to live calmly at their center. It would take a very strong “failure karma” to counteract the success vibration that is emanated by inner contentment.
10. Joy is contagious! So also is inner peace.
11. True success requires inspiration from the superconsciousness.
12. Meditation is the most direct route to success of all kinds. Everyone can include at least a little meditation in his daily routine. Think of it as a kind of hygiene—spiritual in this case, not physical!
13. Daily meditation uplifts one’s thoughts, and uproots any negative tendencies, empowered by habit. Regular meditation calms the mind, making it receptive to intuition.
14. Meditation enables one to become inwardly centered, and less subject to external influences. The less reactive we are to outer stimuli, the more we become masters of ourselves.
15. When an emotion seizes you, try to control it by first controlling the flow of energy in the spine. Relax in the spine. Sit upright; inhale and exhale deeply; try to bring the flow of energy there under the control of your will. Then center the feelings, also, in the spine. Breathe deeply, until your feelings become calm, and you are aware of yourself as a cause, not an effect.
16. Try to live always in the awareness of your spine. The more balanced you are inwardly, the more likely you will be to make wise judgments. Inner poise will enable you to listen with an open heart to inner guidance.
17. Whatever you may be doing, when you have a free moment concentrate briefly at the point between the eyebrows.
18. Some people have the magnetism to attract what they want in life, whether answers to questions, solutions to problems, or opportunities they need for success. One feels a calmness in their presence suggestive of meditation and yoga practice. Without some kind of meditation, whether in this life or in some past one, that kind of magnetism is hardly to be found in anyone.

Workbook Ideas
by Joseph Bharat Cornell
Meditation’s Many Benefits
Creativity and concentration are crucial to success. Concentration brings all one’s resources to the task at hand, and a creative mind sees fresh and transformative alternatives to traditional solutions. The best way to improve your concentration and intuition is to meditate. While creativity exercises that are popular in business today try to free you from habitual thinking, meditation takes you beyond thought altogether and attunes you directly to the source of inspiration, the superconscious.

Establish a Meditation Practice
Action Item:
1.	If you haven’t yet established a regular meditation practice, do so now. Begin by meditating fifteen minutes morning and evening. If you already have a practice, try to increase its frequency, intensity, and length.
2.	After four weeks, ask yourself if you’ve noticed these changes:
•	I feel more centered and even-minded.
•	I have more energy and need less sleep.
•	I feel more peaceful.
•	Inspiration comes to me more often.
•	I feel more positive and loving.
•	I think more of God.

Change Your Destiny
The more centered you are, the more outer events adjust themselves to your inner control, because centered energy is stronger than dissipated, reactive energy. Meditation is the art of learning to live from one’s center, because it dynamically brings your consciousness into the spine. If you want to control your destiny, relate to life from your center—not your periphery.
Action Item:
Whenever you find yourself reacting emotionally to a situation, use the following exercise to calm and center yourself.
•	Relax in the spine. Sit upright. Inhale and exhale deeply. Try to bring the flow of energy there under the control of your will. Then center the feelings, also, in the spine. Breathe deeply, until your feelings become calm, and you are aware of yourself as a cause, not an effect.