Material Success and Happiness Through Yoga Principles

by Swami Kriyananda
(J. Donald Walters)

Copyright © 2005 Hansa Trust
All rights reserved.

 Lesson Three
Knowledge, Inspiration, and Energy
The Principles
For those who want to follow well-worn paths, familiarity with what has been done before is important. This is the path of tradition, which to a great extent means a path of imitation. To follow this path, one needs knowledge, but doesn’t particularly need inspiration or energy. For success in any tradition, one needs the necessary education taught by people competent to instruct others in the basic “rules of the game.”
I remember the organist at the church where my mother’s funeral was held. The purpose of the ceremony was to comfort the bereaved and to send blessings to the departed. The organist’s job was simply to play a piece of music for the event. What I asked her to play was a composition of my own. She was graceless enough to tell me that she wouldn’t play it because, as she pointed out firmly, “This melody doesn’t end on the tonic note.” In fact she was right according to the “rules of the game.” Had she played the piece first, however, and listened with her heart, she would have seen that, in this case, she was wrong.
In musical tradition, a melody must end on the tonic, which is the first note of the scale. There is a good reason for this tradition: If a piece doesn’t end on that note, the listener will wonder, “What statement is being made here?” Had that lady really listened to the piece, however, instead of merely looking at it printed out on a music sheet, she would have understood that the mood of this particular melody was not to make a statement, but to ask a question.
I should conclude that little story by saying that I did persuade her to play this music since it was my own mother’s death we were commemorating. Though she relented at last, it was grudgingly!
The difficulty with following any set of rules too rigidly is that one rarely if ever asks the simple question, “Why?” In Nazi Germany, many basically good people accepted Hitler’s hate-filled slogans; they even repeated them fervently, themselves. Such is the power of mass suggestion. People were not willing to oppose what was popular. Had they withdrawn into themselves even a little bit, and separated their understanding from the mass hypnosis around them, many would have been horrified at what they were endorsing. People tend to view discrimination as less important than acceptance by their contemporaries.
Tradition represents “the done thing”: the endorsement of long usage. Such endorsement is proffered unquestioningly. People who go that route often reject new ideas, even in anger, simply because “That just isn’t done.” The danger of this policy is that it gains an obsessive momentum of its own. It urges people not to question generally approved premises, nor ever to think for themselves.
Years ago, I served on the board of directors—and was also the vice president—of a large corporation. The president once said to me, “Our focus must be on centralizing the work.”
“I agree,” I answered. “Centralized authority is, in many cases, a necessity. It seems to me, however, that there is a need also for decentralization. People who live and work far from the center of things won’t feel encouraged to serve intelligently if they aren’t listened to. Besides, their understanding of the local scene may be clearer, sometimes, than anything that can be achieved at a distance. To be unresponsive to those needs might have a discouraging effect.”
The president replied peremptorily: “The Board feels differently. Don’t you think you should go along with the Board?” The fact that I, too, was on the Board, and was also the vice president, didn’t seem to count. She wanted rubber stamp approval from all of us. For this style of leadership, a board of directors is hardly necessary. It is one of the best ways to corporate paralysis.
Another Board member, much senior to me, told me after I’d been “elected” (in rubber stamp fashion) to high position, “In a corporation, no one has a right even to think except the members of the board of directors.” The way of tradition, of society, of the world and its leaders, and of people to whom success means glorious mediocrity, the rule—though rarely expressed so blatantly—is, “Don’t think at all.” Fortunately for me, that “Board” came to realize something I didn’t, which was that I simply didn’t “belong.”
Years ago, an interesting experiment was performed in psychology classes at various American universities. Two lines were drawn on a blackboard, the upper one being slightly longer than the lower one. Students were then separated into groups of five. In advance of the experiment itself, four members of each group were instructed to say that the lower line was the longer.
When all five were assembled for the test, the first four were asked, “Which of those lines is the longer?” and they responded dutifully, “The lower one.” In an astonishing eighty percent of the groups, the fifth member, when asked that question, gave the same verdict: “The lower one is the longer.” What emerged from that experiment was the discovery that most people, even among the educated, support more or less any opinion that is held by the majority. Rarely will they champion a different idea unless they feel confident that there exists somewhere another, and generally larger, body of opinion. They dare not say what they can see with their own eyes to be true!
A story is told, perhaps apocryphally, of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who (as you probably know) was for some years the president of the United States of America. The story is that one time, in his younger days, he attended a cocktail party. There, he moved among the guests, saying to each person he encountered, “I just killed my mother.”
No one really heard or listened to him. (Few do, on those occasions.) The responses he got were interesting. “Really!” said one. “How wonderful. You must tell me about it some time.” Another one cried, “How interesting! I wish I could say I’d done as much!” Another remarked with enthusiasm, “Well, I must say it’s high time someone did something about it!”
What I am saying here is that most people treat whatever they know as though it were information programmed on a computer. What many people gain from education is, essentially, only that: information. They learn the “rules of the game,” and any success they achieve in life comes largely from repeating what they’ve been taught. Success of this sort demands only the intelligent use of knowledge. For the sort of success, however, which serves real needs and brings satisfaction to oneself, one must enhance that knowledge with energy, which, if used intelligently, gives rise to inspiration.
I am writing these lessons for that small twenty percent who think for themselves. Such were the people who in that psychology experiment might have answered: “But that’s absurd! Can’t you see that the upper line is the longer?” Lacking the courage to think for oneself, one cannot achieve that kind of success which provides true satisfaction. To the student of this course I say, Don’t go along with the “norm” to the extent that you’ll never dare to stand up for what you really believe.
Success, to be really meaningful, means more than a stable income: It means inner happiness and satisfaction. There is nothing so ultimately dissatisfying as the lackluster quality of mediocrity. Yet mediocrity is all one will achieve if what he learns in school is not combined with inspiration and energy.
We live today in a fact-finding age. Everyone’s assumption seems to be that if there are enough facts at one’s disposal, he will be—ta da!—a success in life.
I remember an architect student of mine in Patiala, Punjab, an exceptionally gifted man and the acting chief architect for the city. What I saw of his buildings were, in my opinion, more suitable to the more “rounded” consciousness of ancient India than the harshly angled, modern city of nearby Chandigarh. (This was in 1959. Perhaps things have changed in Chandigarh since then, though I don’t imagine the public buildings have changed very much.) The public buildings I’d seen in Chandigarh were designed by the famous French architect Le Corbusier. I couldn’t help feeling that my Patiala friend deserved appointment as Patiala’s chief architect, a position he was holding only in trust, so to speak, until someone with better credentials could be found.
To me, it seems pure nonsense to consider a mere diploma to be the only qualification when a person has already demonstrated full competence and also the inspiration and energy for getting a job done well. This man’s single shortcoming was that he didn’t have that diploma.
Those who are best at whatever they do rely on their own inner strength and discrimination. The success that is achieved by complete reliance on the “wisdom” of others, or on the information gathered, sifted, and passed on as the ultimate word of authority, produces a color no more interesting than gray. There have been countless people in the past whose reputation in the present is owed largely to the patina of antiquity.
As an employer, use your own judgment of situations and people. In that way, you’ll develop your own intuition and, as a result, your own creativity. As an employee, support your employer energetically, above all by tuning in intuitively, as much as possible, to what he is trying to accomplish. Try to develop your own knowledge in that field. In a later lesson I will discuss at some length the roles played by employers and employees.
The real keys to success are three in number: knowledge, intuition, and energy. Many highly educated people, lacking the other two qualities, plod along more or less mindlessly. Their labor is soulless. Whether they earn a good living, or work at low-paying jobs, they will never succeed in developing their own higher potential.
There is a saying in the Bible: “With all thy ‘getting,’ get understanding.” Intellectual knowledge is important, yes, but if it is not accompanied by understanding, it will no more show him the road to success than a dictionary can give him solutions to life’s problems.
Many very successful people have had very little formal education. They achieved success for two reasons: They were hard workers, and they were inwardly inspired.
What made them hard workers was their strong energy. What inspired them inwardly was that very energy. Ants too are hard workers, after all, but can do only what Nature has “programmed” them to do. Human drudges, too, may be hard workers, but, almost by definition, they are not likely to be inspired. They will probably remain drudges all their lives.
Consider Thomas Edison’s prescription for genius: “Genius is one percent inspiration, and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” That oft-quoted statement was not the whole story, however. That one percent is the real essence of genius; it is the most important part of that equation.
The human body, we learn, consists mainly of water. If you were to dismiss as “insignificant,” however, the part that isn’t water, you’d have nothing left but a puddle. What Edison meant by perspiration, of course, was not sitting out in the sun, steaming: Put more accurately, he meant “hard work.” That one percent inspiration is what raises the commonplace to the level of genius. What Edison demonstrated in his own life was inspiration, attracted and magnetized by high energy.
Many really successful people in this world were actually earmarked by teachers in their schools as future failures. Edison’s first teacher sent him home from school with the message that it wasn’t possible to teach him. Albert Einstein’s professors predicted that he’d be a failure at anything he tried his hand at. Ramanujan, the famous Indian mathematician (I’ll mention him again later in this lesson), flunked out of college because of his single-minded absorption in mathematics. History gives us countless similar examples: people who seemed, in their youth, to be complete duffers, but who were eventually recognized as great geniuses.
Genius and exceptional ability of any kind never move along well-worn tracks. I am not teaching you how to be a genius, but I do urge you not to trudge along deeply rutted tracks, either. If you want to be really successful in any field, never let your first question be, “What has been done already in this field?” Ask, rather, “What are the greatest present needs in this field?” Outstanding people live not in the past, but in the present tense. Intellectual knowledge is based on past discoveries. Because such knowledge inclines people to look backward in time, it doesn’t often invite present inspiration. Passive dependence on knowledge is both limited and self-limiting.
Exceptional individuals know very well from experience that most people consider it “normal” to walk on well-paved roads. They must have the courage to trust inner clarity. Indeed, the divine Spirit in man can create everything anew, never repeating itself twice.
Consider our thumbprints: In each of us they are unique. Again, consider the snowflakes that fall each year in countless billions: Every one of them is, in some minute way, different from all the others. Every moment of our lives, similarly, is unique. Were we to live for hundreds of years, all those moments would continue to be unique.
It is important to understand that there is a subtle connection between the countless outward manifestations of consciousness. Every person, though like every thumbprint uniquely himself, is also an expression of that general phenomenon: man. The diverse-seeming snowflakes, similarly, are all manifestations of one thing only: water. No one can succeed notably in life without this understanding. The reason is that, his attention being wholly outward, he will see no uniting principles, nor will he be conscious that the solution to any one problem may be, in some special way, the solution to many other problems. Notable success demands an inward gaze. It comes not by drawing on other people’s insights and discoveries, but by raising up from within oneself insights that are uniquely one’s own.
Originality is wrongly taken to mean thinking or doing something that has never been thought of or done before. The meaning of that word original, however, is to act from one’s point of origin in himself. Think how many times, in every country and in all centuries, lovers have spoken to each other the simple words, “I love you.” The words never become trite, so long as the feeling behind them is deep and sincere. Any statement, similarly, that is expressed with a full heart, is worth more than a library crammed with intellectual knowledge. To understand your own motivations is to understand the motivations of others. It is within that one must look for insights that are forever new, and, at the same time, forever true. Outstanding success comes from working with our own understanding, and not by repeating the thoughts and actions of others. It comes, moreover, from sensing our link with others’ needs, desires, and aspirations.
When I was in college, I enrolled in a course on ancient Greek. At that time in my life I was rapidly becoming disillusioned with formal education, which, I realized, emphasized knowledge at the expense of inspiration and high energy. Throughout the second semester of that course, in fact, I rarely came to class, and even more rarely completed an assignment.
As the time approached for the final exam, our eminent professor, Dr. Post, began coaching us for it carefully. Even then, I seldom appeared in the classroom, and when I did, and was asked to translate a passage from the original Greek, the results were embarrassing. I would recognize a few simple words like “adelphos” (meaning brother), and “philos” (meaning love)—this being no great feat for me, considering that Philadelphia, the “city of brotherly love,” was the nearest big city to us. After a few more pathetic attempts, the professor began remarking, “There are certain students in this class who might as well not bother to come for this exam.” (The others would glance in my direction, and chuckle surreptitiously.)
For some inexplicable reason, I had every intention of passing the exam. As I was to state years later in my autobiography, The Path, “I can’t imagine anyone in his right mind endorsing these roseate expectations.”
One week before the exam, never doubting that I would pass, but admitting finally to myself that I’d better begin to apply myself in earnest to this subject, I picked up my book on Greek grammar, glanced at it listlessly, then put it down with a combination of rebelliousness and disgust. “Tomorrow,” I assured myself, “tomorrow I will study twice as long.”
“Tomorrow,” however, found me as little interested as on the previous day. The third day was the same; also the fourth. Suddenly, the final evening loomed over me like a menacing cloud. I realized with horror that I had done no studying that entire week! Desperate now, I asked myself what I must do. In The Path I wrote, “Necessity is said to be the mother of invention. Fortunately for me, my present extremity displayed the right, maternal instinct. Out of the blue an inspiration appeared.”
In fact, I had stumbled onto an important truth. After all, the Greeks are no different, really, from you and me. We all have the same needs and basic interests, the same patterns of ups and downs in life, the same desire for happiness. The only thing that separates us from one another, really, is that we express ourselves differently. Suddenly it occurred to me that Greek speech patterns cannot be wholly foreign to my own! In whatever way they spoke, they had to be expressing essentially the same thoughts and feelings as you and I.
“I’m a Greek!” I told myself firmly. All of a sudden my mind fell naturally into new—in fact, into Greek!—ways of thinking. No longer did I encounter inwardly any resistance to the idea of expressing my thoughts in Greek. It was as if I had discovered an underlying bond that linked me and the Greek people together. Their way of thinking became my way. Thus, I eliminated one of the great problems that people face when trying to absorb new and alien information. With intense concentration I went through my book of Greek grammar, absorbing it like a sponge.
This story has another aspect, equally interesting—and equally important. We’d been studying the New Testament of the Bible in the original Greek. The next morning I saw that there was enough time for me to read one chapter of the New Testament in English. “If I put out positive energy,” I told myself, “this may be the very chapter we are called upon to translate.”
It was! As things turned out, the exam that year was exceptionally difficult. Only two students passed it. By honoring an important principle, I was one of them!
Dr. Post commented to me later, “It just shows the importance of studying.” I didn’t have the courage to explain to him just how I’d studied! I hadn’t allowed myself to think, as an American, “Of what use will Greek be to me? What does it really matter if I pass this exam?” I approached learning Greek with the thought that I was Greek; I connected my consciousness to that universal consciousness in man of which Greek is simply an expression.
In this way I have, to varying degrees of fluency, learned nine languages in my life. In later years, while living in Italy, I learned Italian simply because so few of the people I met knew English. One day, after I had in fact become fairly fluent in Italian, I and a small group of American friends were in a shop in Florence. The shopkeeper asked me in Italian, “Where are you all from? I know you’re Italian, but what about your friends?” One day, again, in the city of Bastia, a shopkeeper, on hearing me speak English with my friends, exclaimed to me, “Why, you speak good English!”
One might call an aptitude for languages a special skill, but where do we get our skills? They are natural gifts only to the extent that we probably attuned our minds to them at some time in the past. People are usually born with some understanding they developed in the past. Not to boast, therefore, but simply to illustrate a valuable truth, let me share one or two more examples with you.
Forty years ago the inspiration came to me to express the yoga philosophy in song. My thought was that the melodies might remain in people’s minds, and the words would, as a result, become fixed there more firmly. From this inspiration I ended up writing many songs, to which I have given the generic name, “Philosophy in Song.”
I didn’t know music composition when I began. I think I must have had inner help. That, however, is my point. Understanding comes to us, more than we ourselves realize, from states of consciousness with which our egos are only vaguely in touch. By now I’ve written over 400 pieces of music. Recordings of some of them have been played on international airlines, in restaurants, and in other public places. Some of the music has won prizes. To my happy surprise, even Indians, raised as they’ve been in a very different cultural milieu from the Western, have expressed delight on listening to this music.
Several years ago, a group of about fifty singers came from America to Italy to perform an oratorio of mine. They sang in six cities; wherever they went, they received standing ovations. In the town of Assisi, an old man came up to me after the concert with tears in his eyes. In French he said to me, “I don’t know any Italian or English, but I have to say that, as I listened to this music, I felt that I was understanding every word!”
I should add an important fact: There are rules in music. I had to learn them by experience, since I didn’t know them. I had to discover them by sheer hard work (which, as in Edison’s case, meant concentrated energy). As a matter of fact, my unfamiliarity with the rules may have been my good fortune, for I wasn’t able to fall back on facile solutions that I knew would work musically, but that in other ways might be inappropriate to what I was trying to convey. I had to look for the one, right solution to any problem I faced at the moment.
I’ve told these stories in order to make it clear that I know, from my own experience, what I’m talking about. Knowledge is only part of the triad necessary to true achievement. I shall attempt, later on, to apply these insights to the subject of earning money.
Many years ago, I decided to study astrology. The decision was inspired by something I’d read in one or two books on yoga, which claimed that certain aspects of yoga can be understood only with the additional knowledge of astrology. Intrigued, I decided to explore the merits of this statement.
I didn’t go into the subject deeply, for this wasn’t a serious interest of mine. After a year, however, I felt the inner guidance to write a book on astrology. I named it, Your Sun Sign as a Spiritual Guide. A well-known astrologer in Hollywood, to whom movie stars often went for consultation, commented on this book to a friend of mine: “It’s the best book I’ve ever read on astrology. If Kriyananda hadn’t written it, it would have had to be written. I might even have tried writing it myself!”
No, I am not an astrologer. Two or three times, in fact, as I was working on that book the thought came to me, “I’ve bitten off more than I can chew!” I prayed for guidance. Each time, suddenly, I understood. Years later I discovered in books on ancient wisdom that what I’d written was taught in ancient times.
What I want to emphasize here is that any knowledge we require can be ours, if we seek it not only through rational channels, but from our own superconscious. Everything you want is inside you. I don’t mean to say, therefore, “Don’t study.” Intellectual knowledge can be made meaningful, however, if you attune yourself inwardly with what you are studying.
The way to do that, as I wrote in the last lesson, is to send energy toward anything that you are doing. Energy, projected with a strong and focused will, can attract everything one wants—including money, success, inspiration, and even specific knowledge. You are part of the great web of life. Attunement in every field is more important than intellectual study.
Again, to achieve that attunement, direct your energy with will power toward the goals to which you aspire.
Successful people—far more so even than most of them realize—depend on intuitive insight. This gift is latent in everyone; it enables us to know what decision to make, what to say, even the what, where, and when of it. One never hears people who possess this insight say, “Well, in situations like this I’ve found that such and such a solution worked best.” Men and women of developed insight look at every situation as unique in itself. With that attitude they ask themselves, “What is trying to happen here?” This kind of knowing is impersonal. Those who have achieved it do not identify themselves with whatever role they play. All they want is the truth in every situation, and in any particular moment. They realize completely that this insight may bear little or no relationship to anything that has ever been done before.
As the American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” What does it matter if you yourself are inconsistent, sometimes? You will be consistent on a deeper level, for what you express will be your own, deeper Self. Outwardly, this Self may express itself in endlessly different ways, as the snowflakes do.
The Application
In attuning yourself to any subject, focus your gaze and attention in the forehead at a point midway between the eyebrows. Behind this point, in the frontal lobe of the brain, is centered your own latent superconsciousness.
You have another center, equally important for the development of intuition. It is in your heart—or, rather, in what yogis call the anahat chakra, which is located in the spine just behind the physical heart. This chakra, or center, is not one of those knobs on the backbone. It lies in the true spinal column, which passes through the center of the body.
Interestingly, the physical heart may also be involved in deep, “heartfelt” intuitions. Medical science has discovered that the heart contains as many nerves as the brain. Obviously, then, the heart is more than a blood-pumping mechanism. It also has a strong connection with the medulla oblongata, where the ahankara, or ego, resides.
To be inspired in any desired subject, form a clear concept, first, of what you want. Focus that concept at the point between the eyebrows; then, mentally and with love (this feeling is important), demand that the inspiration be given to you. “Ask, and you shall receive,” Jesus Christ said. A poet will receive inspiration in the form of words, rhymes, and rhythms; a mathematician, in mathematical terms; a businessman, in terms of sound, profitable ideas.
Ramanujan, a famous Indian mathematician of humble origins, who had had a poor education, attracted the attention and subsequently the friendship of Godfrey Harold Hardy, England’s foremost mathematician. Hardy once visited Ramanujan, who at that time was seriously ill, and was staying in a country house in England. The way I first read the story, Hardy noted the license plate number on the taxi, thinking that Ramanujan, with his fascination for numbers, might ask him for that number. Ramanujan did indeed ask that question. When Hardy told him, Ramanujan exclaimed, “What a wonderful number! It is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways.”
Ramanujan’s intimate knowledge of numbers in general could only have come through an intuitive connection with them. There was nothing in any book that could have supplied that information.
Concentrate, then, at the point between the eyebrows. Next, try to sense in your heart—to “listen” there, as it were—for the response. When it comes, it is in the heart that you will feel it.
Intuition can be developed with practice. In this sense, it is like using a muscle. Don’t be afraid of using it. To seek intuitive guidance doesn’t necessarily mean to enter into seclusion and practice deep meditation. With practice you can call on your own intuition effectively in an instant.
At the same time, don’t presume beyond your actual powers. Test in little ways, first, what you receive. See if your feeling really is valid. See if it works. Then learn, with practice, to distinguish between different kinds of feeling. Learn when a feeling really is right, and when you merely feel it just has to be right because you want it so! An important point, indeed, is to exclude rigidly from this process any personal wishes you might have on the subject.
I have found it helps very much also to form a clear idea, first, of what sort of inspiration you want to receive. Years ago I wrote nine pieces of music, including the lyrics for five of them. Later, I named this suite, “Mediterranean Magic.” The melodies express a wide variety of moods and feelings. They pass, for example, from a gay song about the island of Capri to a rather melancholy melody, for flute, inspired by the ruins of Pompeii, then on to a rollicking “Tarantella” inspired by the gay Neapolitan dance of that name, and, immediately after that, to a song called “Cloisters,” expressing deep longing for God.
The melodies were written to accompany color slides that I’d taken of the area around Naples and Sorrento, Italy. This last melody, “Cloisters,” was written for color slides of a monastery. Monks live no longer there; the melody itself, therefore, needed to pass from the traditional Gregorian mode to a more worldly mood, consonant with the fact that the monastery has become a tourist attraction.
Recently I asked a friend of mine, “How long do you think it took me to write ‘Mediterranean Magic’?”
“I don’t know,” she replied, then hazarded a guess, “A week?”
“It took me an hour,” I told her. I had needed, however, to be utterly focused in each case on both mood and theme.
When composing, I never enter into that mood personally. Only in this way could I pass quickly from one mood to another in that suite. What I do is “play the host” to inspiration, inviting it to express what I ask of it. Once the concept becomes clearly focused in my mind, I hold it up to the point between the eyebrows and ask my superconscious, “Give me a melody that expresses this concept.” Instantly the melody appears, full-blown. I’ve had no need, later, to edit or change. The melody was simply itself.
From experiences like these I’ve become deeply convinced that none of the music I have written is my own. I’ve simply asked for it, and refused to allow ego-motivation to intrude by asking, for example, “In what direction do I want this melody to go?” All I’ve asked is, “Is this true to my request?”
Vitally important to the process of seeking intuitive guidance is the need to “listen” in the heart. The answer must feel right. It isn’t enough that it merely “make sense”—musically or in any other way. In fact, for true success in any undertaking it is necessary for the head and the heart to work together.
Thus, when it comes to making money, feel an inner connection between the desires and needs of others, and what you want to do for them. Ask this guidance in any field that interests you. Then try to feel what would work best for you. Ask that the solution be given to you right now. Don’t be afraid if the suddenness of the inspiration startles you. Most true inspiration is startling!
As a simple illustration, at the Metropolitan Mall in Gurgaon, near New Delhi, there is a delightful innovation in the mall concept. Malls originated (as far as I know) in America, but in no American mall have I seen something so obviously needed as a children’s play area! This area is fairly large, located on the ground floor toward the back as one enters. It occupies a well-lit space under a high, translucent ceiling. The first time I saw it I was delighted, thinking, “Why hasn’t this concept been thought of before? It is so clearly needed by both parents and children who come here.” The mall itself is climate controlled—very helpful, both during Delhi’s intensely cold winter and during its almost unbearable summer heat. A friend of mine said to me, “I used go to the mall, in the beginning, just to take my children there. Later on, I began looking at the shops, and now I go also for the shopping, which is excellent!”
Inspirations of this kind are what I’m talking about. I’m not saying, “Become another Mozart or Michelangelo.” I’m not saying, “Become another Thomas Edison.” In your own work, whatever that may be, look within as often as you can for your answers.
Meditation
Visualize a vast web, similar to a spider’s web but without the lethal connotations. See yourself on this web as a single, glistening dewdrop. The drop that is your self is not directly connected to any other drop, though every dewdrop on the web is connected to every other by subtle filaments that suggest the universality of infinite consciousness.
Feel your kinship with all life and all knowledge. Nothing in the universe is alien to you. All truth is yours. All things belong to your own, eternal reality.
Affirmation
“I am one with everything in existence. Truth itself is mine. And I am part of all truth.”

Points to Remember
1. For true success, which serves real needs and brings satisfaction to oneself, one must enhance knowledge with energy, which, if used intelligently, gives rise to inspiration.
2. Don’t go along with the “norm” to the extent that you’ll never dare to stand up for what you really believe.
3. Success, to be really meaningful, means more than a stable income: It means inner happiness and satisfaction.
4. Those who are best at whatever they do rely on their own inner strength and discrimination.
5. As an employer, use your own judgment of situations and people. In that way, you’ll develop your own intuition and, as a result, your own creativity.
6. As an employee, support your employer energetically, above all by tuning in intuitively, as much as possible, to what he is trying to accomplish.
7. The real keys to success are knowledge, intuition, and energy.
8. Intellectual knowledge without understanding cannot lead to success.
9. Many very successful people have had very little formal education. They achieved success because they were hard workers, and they were inwardly inspired.
10. High energy magnetizes inspiration. Inspiration is the essence of genius.
11. If you want to be really successful in any field, ask, “What are the greatest present needs in this field?”
12. Seek to discover the uniting principles among people and situations; see how the solution to any one problem may be the solution to many other problems.
13. It is within that one must look for insights that are forever new, and, at the same time, forever true. Outstanding success comes from working with our own understanding, and from sensing our link with others’ needs, desires, and aspirations.
14. Any knowledge we require can be ours if we seek it not only through rational channels, but from our own superconscious.
15. Intellectual knowledge can be made more meaningful if you attune yourself inwardly with what you are studying.
16. Send energy toward anything that you are doing. Energy, projected with a strong and focused will, can attract everything one wants—including money, success, inspiration, and even specific knowledge.
17. You are part of the great web of life. Attunement in every field is more important than intellectual study.
18. Men and women of developed insight and intuition look at every situation as unique in itself, asking, “What is trying to happen here?”
19. Intuitive people do not identify themselves with whatever role they play. All they want is the truth in every situation.
20. To be inspired in any desired subject, form a clear concept of what you want. Focus that concept at the point between the eyebrows; then, mentally and with love (this feeling is important), demand that the inspiration be given to you. Next, try to sense in your heart—to “listen” there for the response. When it comes, it is in the heart that you will feel it.
21. Intuition can be developed with practice.
22. Test in little ways what you receive. See if your feeling works. Then learn to distinguish between when a feeling really is right, and when you want it so! Exclude rigidly any personal wishes you might have on the subject.
23. When it comes to making money, feel an inner connection between the desires and needs of others, and what you want to do for them. Ask that the solution be given to you right now.

Workbook Ideas
by Joseph Bharat Cornell
Conscious and Superconscious Inspiration
George Washington Carver, the great American scientist of the early 1900s, was once trying to make sandpaper, but wasn’t successful. That afternoon, Professor Carver fell asleep and dreamed he was in a wagon shop, where a man was working on a wheel. Carver asked the wheelwright if he knew how to make sandpaper. The workman said, “Yes,” then continued to work in silence. Finally Carver enthusiastically told him, “This is how I would do it,” and described the sandpaper-making process he’d been using. “You did all right,” said the workman, “but you need to boil the sand.” Carver woke up and immediately went to his laboratory and boiled the sand. His sandpaper was perfect.
Just as Carver received his answer after generating high energy himself, we draw inspiration from the superconscious when we express our requests with will power and receptivity. The secret of creativity is raising one’s energy in the spine. This lifts our awareness above conscious, everyday thinking, to the superconscious. The following Action Item will help you experience the dramatic difference between conscious and superconscious insight.
Action Items:
Materials needed: pen and paper
1.	Think about something in your life for which you really need an answer. Spend a few moments and see if you can gain greater insight into the situation. Write down any thoughts that come to you.
2.	Now practice the following techniques to interiorize and raise your energy. At the end of this sequence you will hold your request up to the spiritual eye for an answer. Before starting, form a clear idea of what you want. Clarity prevents mental vagueness!
Body Recharging: Stand upright. Inhale slowly, and gradually tense the whole body to the point where it vibrates. Hold the tension for a few moments, and consciously fill the whole body with energy. Then exhale and slowly relax, feeling the energy as it withdraws from the body parts. Repeat 5 times.
Now sit comfortably. . . .
Say a Prayer: Ask for God’s blessings and guidance. Pray for perfect openness to His presence and will.
Repeat a Devotional Affirmation: Command your mind’s attention by saying an affirmation like: “I am Thine, be Thou mine” or “Reveal Thyself, Reveal Thyself.” Say it with deep concentration and feeling; out loud at first, then more quietly.
Measured Breathing: Inhale slowly counting one to eight, hold your breath for the same number of counts, then exhale for the same count. This is one round of “measured breathing.” You may either lengthen or shorten the number of counts according to what is comfortable, but keep the inhalation, retention, and exhalation equal. Do five rounds.
Stimulate Your Spiritual Eye: Inhale slowly and deeply, and feel that your breath is acting as a magnet to draw the energy up to the point between the eyebrows. Concentrate breath and energy at that point to a mental count of 12. Exhale. Then repeat the process, concentrating at the spiritual eye a little longer (25 counts, if you can do so comfortably); focus your entire being at that point. Exhale.
Again inhale, concentrating still longer (40 counts, if this is not too long for comfort).
Forget the breath and body, and think only of focusing your energy and awareness ever more deeply at the Christ center.
Ask for Inspiration: Present the concept of what you want at the point between the eyebrows; mentally and with love demand that inspiration be given to you.
Receive Inspiration: Listen in your heart for the response. When it feels right to do so, record your insights.
3.	Did you experience a difference in the answers in these two approaches: one, thinking over the problem consciously, and the other, attuning to the superconscious?