Material Success and Happiness Through Yoga Principles

by Swami Kriyananda
(J. Donald Walters)

Copyright © 2005 Hansa Trust
All rights reserved.
Lesson Twenty
Joy in Business
The Principles
What is the goal of life? We are not in human bodies by accident, as biologists today insist. They explain evolution in terms of its mere variety. Evolution, however, is a process of reaching out toward ever-greater consciousness. The goal of life is the realization that everything is, in its inmost reality, Satchidananda: ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new Bliss!
Ego-consciousness takes us outward from that reality. It causes us to seek happiness in things rather than in the Self. Maya (delusion) causes us to seek the bliss of our true nature outwardly, as I said, through the senses. Our very bodies might be compared to the little jets on the burner of a gas stove, which, when lit, seem individual, though all of them are expressions of the single supply of gas coming into the burner. We project ourselves outward through the senses, and identify reality itself with the countless objects around us, each one of which seems a separate reality like our own little “gas jet.” We hope for happiness through them, but in fact only project our own nature onto them. All they can do for us is reflect back to us our expectations of them. If they make us happy it is because we project happy expectation onto them. And if they make us sad, it is because we project onto them an inner sadness.
“Conditions,” Paramhansa Yogananda used to remark, “are always neutral. They seem happy or sad according to the happy or sad attitudes of the mind.” In reaching out eagerly toward what we think will be a happy experience, we are disappointed, as the stream of our happiness becomes wasted in desert sands. Indeed, people who think to find in mere things reinforcement of their own happiness will watch it crumble to dust in their hands, and recoil in disappointment. They do this repeatedly, always with the same result. In time, they begin to develop an expectation of disappointment. The smile of confident expectation on a baby’s face sometimes grows sour with disillusionment long before old age sets in. Those who expect too much from things, or from other people, end up bitter and disappointed at last. One sometimes sees these attitudes even in children—perhaps as a bitter reflection carried over from a past life. For people’s predispositions are carried over from before. One sometimes sees a certain sadness in babies even from birth—an indication of what sort of life they had on earth last time, or in the astral world between physical births.
Other children, on the other hand, more disposed to be happy in themselves, smile more often than they cry. Some children, as I said, are born with a negative bias whereas others from the outset have a happy disposition. The predispositions they display speak loudly of a heavy or light karma, brought with them from the past.
An observation I have often made in life, though somehow it always surprises me, is the grim line that tends to form around people’s mouths whenever they talk about making money. I noticed it first in my own father’s face. He was a good, kind, honest, and truthful man, but whenever he spoke about money or about having a sense of responsibility toward it, that line would appear on his face. With that manifestation came a certain hardness into his voice, as if this particular subject were too grimly serious ever to be joked about.
Notice the atmosphere in banks: those temples of modern industry. Doesn’t it seem almost church-like? Observe the hushed, almost reverent atmosphere. I’ve fantasized about approaching the counter of that modern priest, the cashier, with a propitiating check. If he is pleased, he may deign to honor it and give me prasad, or holy offering, in the form of paper bills that I can take home with me, fingering them devoutly as if the gods themselves had favored me with a token of their grace.
There is also that inner sanctum into which a favored few are ushered for consultation with one of the high priests—the bank manager or loan officer.
Of course I’m having fun—and, please believe me, not really at anybody’s expense. It’s the phenomenon that intrigues me, not the individuals who engage in the phenomenon.
Why is money itself treated so grimly—almost with awe? Money has no feature that, in itself, is particularly attractive. If you see a picture of Rama, Krishna, Jesus, or the Virgin Mary you see someone whose image, because of what it represents—goodness, kindness, compassion, wisdom, and divine joy—causes you to feel an inner upliftment. Money has no such attributes. One merely hopes, in the use of it, to buy things he thinks he needs or wants. When you visualize those objects of desire—a beautiful dress perhaps, a handsome suit, succulent fruit, a piece of jewelry, a car—you may smile in anticipation. In fact, there is pleasure of a sort—even some upliftment—in the anticipation of those purchases. But with money?
When we contemplate the means to satisfaction, the money itself, what actual happiness is there? Shouldn’t we find as much pleasure in earning it as we hope for in spending it?
Money itself isn’t what awakens people’s fantasies, except for the sense of power it may give them. It conveys no immediate delight by its color, symmetry, grace of form, or texture. Once one has submitted the faces and configurations on a bill to superficial study, designed as they are mostly to prevent forgery, one more or less gets the picture and ignores the bill itself. The charm of it, such as it is, revolves entirely around the images one projects upon it: the home, the dress, the food.
When I was recording my daily television series in India, I had to imagine my audience through the camera lens. I ignored the lens altogether, and actually visualized the people with whom I was speaking. They were, to my mind, guests in my living room where the recording was being done. Often there were people in the room also, listening, but I myself talked only to the camera lens, and to the imaginary audience behind it. The lens was not my reality: the people I imagined behind it were my reality.
Is it like that with money? I don’t think so. I would never have fingered the camera lens as lovingly as people finger money! There is in most people’s minds a strange, but very real-seeming, delusion attached to money. It isn’t the specific things they hope to buy with it. It is the fact that those bank notes can be used to buy so many different things! Money assumes an importance for them beyond all hope of fulfillment. It actually is in itself, to their minds, a reality—the more a fetish for them for the very reason that they can give it no clear definition. It is only a lens, so to speak—carrying their hopes beyond it, to a fairyland of (hopefully) realizable dreams.
And yet, the dreams are not, in most people’s minds, a part of that reality. They go grimly to work; perhaps laugh a little over some event at work, then return to the thought of the money they are earning.
The nature of desire is the anticipation of happiness in the fulfillment in getting what one wants. If that fulfillment is allied to visions of a skiing outing, a trip to some tropical paradise, or—as I said—a beautiful dress or other article of clothing, there is pleasure in the anticipation. There is no such smile in the heart as one thinks of money, merely. Dollar or rupee bills aren’t beautiful or attractive in themselves. The best one can do with them, until he uses them, is bank them or hide them out of sight. Thus, no notable happiness is contained in money itself. In fact, money is doubly a delusion: Mostly absent in the first place is the happiness of visualizing specific fulfillments through it; and, in the second place, the promise of almost infinite fulfillment by possessing it waves images at one of potential happiness which he sees dimly through alluring mists that seem all the more distant for their very vagueness.
Meanwhile, earning money is not, in itself, a source of happiness. Those grim lines around the mouth are a universal phenomenon. The corners of the mouth turn downward, and the lips compress firmly as the mind affirms, “I’m doing the sensible, the absolutely right and morally proper thing.”
In my view, morality should be not a grim obligation, whether social or religious. Since the true goal of life is satchidananda (bliss), that truly is moral which increases true happiness. When a person steals from others, he breaks a law of his own nature, the fundamental urge of which is self-expansion. We attract suffering when we defy that natural law. By stealing, we become self-contractive. By hating others, we narrow our capacity for sympathy inward, upon ourselves. By vengeance, we altogether exclude sympathy from our hearts. Every moral value can be judged in these simple terms: self-expansive vs. self-contractive. Ultimately, the high commandments of religion are simply expressions of these principles. I don’t say of every religion, for some people believe in a vengeful, jealous, and angry God—the very opposite of any true saint’s experience of Him. Such religion, however, is false. True religion, whatever its images (whether Krishna, Jesus, Mary, Kali, etc.), propound the expansion from ego-centeredness and petty self-absorption into a universal reality.
Ultimately, God is more even than love: He is bliss. Love is an expression of inner bliss, reaching out from personalized bliss to omnipresent bliss. In bliss there is utter fulfillment—absolute oneness—completion.
Now then, how is bliss to be attained? With grim, joy-withering attitudes? Isn’t there something utterly absurd in that concept? A friend of mine told me a story of a man who went to a restaurant, ordered the food, then was furious over the plate he was served. “I know the owner of this establishment. I know”—well, whom? the president of the country, the Pope, the head of the FBI? Anyone! Whatever his amazing influence, the waiters rushed fearfully to the kitchen and urged the cook to make the best meal he could think of. The meal was at last brought to the fuming customer with profuse apologies. At this point the man turned up his nose and cried, “Take it away: I’d rather be furious!”
How can a disgruntled attitude bear fruit in gruntlement? (Yes, that’s an invented word, but when writing one wants to have a little fun with words!) It can’t, obviously! People work grimly all their lives, thinking to find ease and happiness at least when they retire. How many men I’ve known who, two years after their retirement, were either senile or dead!
Don’t look to the future for happiness. Happiness exists in the present. My Guru once said, “Most people seek happiness in the future, or create a false cloud of nostalgia for the past. When you can be happy now, then you have God!”
In his book, God Is for Everyone, Yogananda points out, however, that even the happiness people dream of is, finally, only an illusion. Bliss is the reality we all seek.
What people want first, as they set foot on the ladder of upward human evolution, is pleasure. Pleasure is outward, experienced through the senses. In this world of duality, everything reveled in outwardly is tied to its opposite, as a tall wave is accompanied inevitably by a deep trough. Every pleasure is followed by displeasure, or by pain, even as the “pleasure” of drunkenness is replaced by a hangover. Gradually as people develop greater refinement and spiritual sensitivity, their desire for pleasure becomes a desire for happiness.
Happiness is less directly allied to material things. One can be happy, inwardly, without any obvious reason. Many people cannot understand a happiness that has no external justification. If you ask them, “Are you happy?” they may think, “Well, I’m not ill; I’m not destitute; I’m not aware that I have any enemies; there seems to be nothing wrong in my life. So, yeah, I guess I’m happy.”
Still, people seek outward happiness, and imagine they’ve found it when they attain the desired outward condition: not pleasures, but at least peace. As Krishna states in the Bhagavad Gita, “To the peaceless, how is happiness possible?” Yet peace itself, if not accompanied by an uplifted state of consciousness, causes people finally to ask, “What’s wrong with me?” They’re happy, so they suppose, but—well, they’re just bored!
True happiness can be attained only with a happy attitude. Benvenuto Cellini, a silver worker and sculptor in Renaissance Italy, was employed by the Pope to make a number of ornaments for the Vatican. After a time Cellini demanded payment before he’d begin a new commission. The pope, who held the reins of power, insisted that the commission be executed. When Cellini continued to refuse, the pope finally had him thrown into a dungeon. Cellini later described his experience there. Let me paraphrase what he wrote in his autobiography.
“The cell was small, dank, and rat infested. It had a damp mattress that never dried. I was cold and hungry, and had no food except stale bread and water. The cell had one high window that gave enough light for me to read about one hour a day. My reading matter was the Bible. When I was no longer able to read, I prayed.
“After some time, such a deep joy welled up within me that, when the Holy Father finally released me, I said to myself, ‘If one wants to know true joy let him arrange to be thrown into a dungeon’”—and he described all the conditions he’d experienced in that dark place.
True happiness is a road to inner joy. And joy wells up from the inner Self. Neither happiness nor joy, however, can be found by merely waiting for it passively. Still less can it be found by waiting with a dour attitude. And least of all can it be found by grim-mouthed determination to accumulate, accumulate, accumulate all the money he possibly can.
Why not work joyfully? There was a man—I’ve written about him elsewhere in these lessons—living in a village in New England. His habit was to snarl at everything and everyone. At work he was dour. At home he was sour. No one liked him. One day, however, he went smiling to work, spent the day at work happily, and returned home with a smile of blessing for everyone. People marveled over this mystery for a week or so. Finally, a committee appointed by the neighborhood paid him a visit.
“Why are you,” they demanded, “the town grouch, suddenly such a ray of sunshine? What’s happened? What’s the matter?”
“Why, nothing’s the matter!” he replied. “I just kept waiting for something to make me happy until, finally, I decided nothing was going to do that for me, so I just made up my mind to be happy!”
One beautiful thing about a happy outlook is that it tends to be contagious. Whether you are the boss in a firm or an employee, you can affect and possibly change the atmosphere of the place where you work by simply refusing to allow anything to affect your good cheer.
Someone once said to me regarding my songs, “You can write happy songs. You’ve never suffered!” I replied, “The very contrary is true. It’s because I’ve suffered, and have triumphed over the suffering, that I’ve earned the right to write happy music.”
Don’t depend on anything outward to make you happy! Be happy inside as a deliberate choice—as a deliberate act of will.
In the Bhagavad Gita Sri Krishna teaches something I’ve quoted again and again in these lessons: “Act without desire for the fruits of action.” A principle of life that few people realize is that when a person develops non-covetousness, he attracts effortlessly to himself everything he needs. As Patanjali wrote, “all jewels are drawn to one.”
The secret of wealth is to be wealthy, within! Wealth is not money: It is inner completeness and fulfillment. One can be wealthy with very little money, and destitute though he possess millions.
Don’t work like a craven! Be contented with what life gives you, then work because work is honorable, whereas sloth is dishonorable. Work with joy. Give back to the world some of the riches it pours out on you, when it does so. In terms of yoga principles, you must give, if you would receive. Give energy to the world, and it will give back energy in return.
Money itself is energy. Never think of it as a thing, merely. When you put out the right energy, you will find yourself sustained by the very universe in return. BE RICH, in yourself. Share that wealth with others. This is how to find riches and success pouring out on you from all sides, like showers of gold.

The Application
To find joy in your work, work with joy! You will receive nothing from the world that you do not first give out to it. This is a law of life.
Every day, therefore, when you begin work, determine first to enjoy everything.
I had a relatively bad accident several months ago: I fell in such a way that several stitches needed to be put in my forehead. The doctor who did the stitching commented, “Everybody says when something like this happens, ‘Why me?’” I replied, “I never say that!” Yes, the blow was painful, and also somewhat messy. Blood was staining a new carpet I’d bought that very day. I said to friends who were helping me, “Let me move over to the floor, so that this new carpet won’t get any more blood on it.” Through the mess and that moderately severe pain we had a good laugh. Why not enjoy one’s self, if one can’t enjoy what is happening? I really wasn’t concerned. If a thing happens, it happens. If it can’t be helped, why lament the circumstance? And why cry out, “Why me?” Things are happening constantly in life. Such is the nature of this world. So why not simply shrug it all off, and get on with the business of living?
Declare at the start of every day, “This day I will enjoy my Self!”
George Bernard Shaw, the British playwright, was sitting one evening on the outskirts of a party. His hostess came to him and asked anxiously, “Aren’t you enjoying yourself?”
With a wry look Shaw commented, “That’s all I am enjoying!”
Shaw had a quick wit. He was also cynical. In this case, however, he was right: That’s all anyone can enjoy: one’s own self.
If inner enjoyment—enjoyment in your inner self—is not easy at first, then practice it consciously, deliberately for one hour—or even for a few minutes—at a time. Let no one “get your goat.” Let your happiness depend on nothing external to yourself: on no one’s attitude toward you, on nothing that happens to you, on no one’s behavior around you.
Gradually, when you have “got the hang” of being joyful for one hour, extend that period to two hours, then gradually extend it to the whole day. There is absolutely no reason for being unhappy, no matter what happens.
This attitude, I grant you, is possible only by practicing the presence of God, inwardly. Try it. You will be surprised how wonderful it can be—not because of some emotion you whip up in your own heart, but because of a consciousness that simply wells up within you when you hold your mind up constantly to Him.
Japa, the repetition of God’s name, or simply calling to Him inwardly, is a supremely satisfying practice. I know this course of lessons is for everyone, whether believer or unbeliever, but try at least holding your heart and mind up to higher potentials in yourself.
A man approached me once after a lecture I’d given in Australia. “I’m an atheist,” he announced. “Can you define what you call God in a way that I can accept?”
I paused briefly, then answered, “Why not think of God as the highest potential you can imagine for your own self?”
“Well!” he replied, surprised at this novel concept, “I can live with that!”
Try it yourself. You are part of a much greater reality than your own little self. Are we all right, so far? Then why not try reaching out to that reality, instead of enclosing yourself tightly in your own thoughts and ideas? Still skeptical? Then look around you and study other people’s lives. Who among them seem happier: those who take an interest in life? or those who live, figuratively speaking, with their eyes on the ground, selfish and self-involved? Again, reversing the equation: Who seem happier: those who show no openness to anyone’s opinions but their own? or those who listen to others, appreciate them, ask questions, and seek ever to know more?
You can have joy at work. Joy attracts joy. Misery attracts only misery. Whatever you want from life, advance toward it in the joyful affirmation of having it already.
Meditation
For much of their lives, people live in dread of this thing or that thing going wrong. Think of a potential difficulty, but not one that is crushing in the common view like the death of someone beloved, or utter failure in business, or the loss of everything you hold dear. I won’t ask you to try mentally to rise above catastrophes, although life will surely ask you, someday, to transcend everything you really dread, if only because that very dread is a magnet which attracts to itself what it fears, just as a joy-filled expectation must be fulfilled, someday.
Concentrate rather then, instead, on some difficulty you think you could handle. Then meditate on facing that difficulty, not with rejection but with an inner joy that can’t be touched or affected by that outer circumstance. Suppose you lose an important client. Or supposing a colleague sues you in the courts, or attacks you in the media. Or suppose your income suddenly slips owing to the loss of some investment.
Mentally look that circumstance in the face, and tell yourself, “I am not that circumstance! Whatever happens, I am complete and joyful in myself.”
The more you practice this attitude of mind, the more you will find it easy and natural. Nothing that can ever happen to you is really you, yourself!

Affirmation
“I am complete in myself. 
Joy is my normal state of mind. 
No blow of outer circumstance can ever touch me!”

Points to Remember
1. The goal of life is the realization that everything is, in its inmost reality, Satchidananda: ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new Bliss! 
2. “Conditions are always neutral. They seem happy or sad according to the happy or sad attitudes of the mind.” 
3. Since the true goal of life is satchidananda (bliss), that truly is moral which increases true happiness. Every moral value can be judged in these simple terms: self-expansive vs. self-contractive. 
4. Ultimately, God is more even than love: He is bliss. In bliss there is utter fulfillment—absolute oneness—completion.
5. Don’t look to the future for happiness. Happiness exists in the present. My Guru once said, “Most people seek happiness in the future, or create a false cloud of nostalgia for the past. When you can be happy now, then you have God!”
6. A happy outlook tends to be contagious. You can affect and possibly change the atmosphere of the place where you work by simply refusing to allow anything to affect your good cheer.
7. Don’t depend on anything outward to make you happy! Be happy inside as a deliberate choice—as a deliberate act of will.
8. The secret of wealth is to be wealthy, within! Wealth is not money: It is inner completeness and fulfillment. One can be wealthy with very little money, and destitute though he possess millions.
9. Be contented with what life gives you, then work because work is honorable. In terms of yoga principles, you must give, if you would receive. 
10. Money itself is energy. Never think of it as a thing, merely. When you put out the right energy, you will find yourself sustained by the very universe in return. 
11. To find joy in your work, work with joy! Declare at the start of every day, “This day I will enjoy my Self!”
12. If inner enjoyment—enjoyment in your inner self—is not easy at first, then practice it consciously, deliberately for one hour—or even for a few minutes—at a time. Gradually extend that period to the whole day. There is absolutely no reason for being unhappy, no matter what happens.
13. This attitude is possible only by practicing the presence of God, inwardly. Try it. You will be surprised how wonderful it can be.
14. You can have joy at work. Joy attracts joy. Whatever you want from life, advance toward it in the joyful affirmation of having it already.

Workbook Ideas
by Joseph Bharat Cornell
Joy All the Time

John Muir, the American naturalist and explorer, never let outward circumstances ruin his day. The following passage beautifully describes Muir’s contentment even during the most challenging times: “I was as wet as if I had been swimming after crossing raging torrents and fighting my way through the Alaskan jungle. In the evening I managed to make a small fire out of wet twigs, got a cup of tea, stripped off my dripping clothing, wrapped myself in a blanket and lay thinking of the gains of the day. I was glad, rich, and almost comfortable.” 
Muir said that he never felt any real discomfort because he was too busy gazing in wonder at the scenery. Focusing on—and attuning to—that which was positive and uplifting allowed him to transcend any “inconveniences.” This was the secret of his strength of mind and constant cheerfulness.
Paramhansa Yogananda said that we take things “too personally.” Stay in the flow of inspiration and joy by keeping your “gaze” fixed on higher realities.

Action Item: 
1.	During your work day, closely observe your thoughts. 
2.	Especially note when you react negatively to a challenging situation.  
3.	Observe how negativity constricts your energy and weakens your enthusiasm.   
4.	Using dynamic will, redirect your attention from the specific situation to a more expansive, impersonal view of the situation. 
5.	For the next twenty minutes concentrate on what brings you true joy. 

Action Item:
Whenever you feel overwhelmed at work, do the following to broaden your perspective:

•	Take a short break. Go outside, if you can, and breathe deeply. 
•	Let your eyes feast on the distant horizon. Consciously expand your aura to include everything you see. 
•	If you find yourself feeling tense about a project or situation, ask yourself, “How will I feel about this in a month?” 

Action Item:
In the Book of Heroic Failures, author Stephen Pile writes of a supervisor who insisted that his bus drivers follow precisely their published schedule—a feat they seldom accomplished. One driver had a “creative” solution for staying on time—he simply skipped his busiest stops. It was his passengers, you see, that made him late!  
Becoming overly preoccupied with your daily routine can cause you to forget your true purpose.
1.	Reflect on why you chose your occupation. What originally inspired you?
2.	Now ask yourself, “How can I be more creative and expressive at work? What tasks or roles increase my enthusiasm and serve my deeper goals?”
3.	Vow to act more from ideals important to you.  
4.	Everyday, attune to the highest your profession offers—to you, and to others. 
5.	If you cannot change a difficult situation, concentrate on serving and giving love to others. This will keep your energy expansive and joyful no matter what challenges you face.