Material Success and Happiness Through Yoga Principles

by Swami Kriyananda
(J. Donald Walters)

Copyright © 2005 Hansa Trust
All rights reserved.
Lesson Twenty-Two
Dharma versus Adharma:
Truth versus Untruth
The Principles
I have once before told the story of when I was with my Guru at his retreat in Twenty-Nine Palms, California. and he came out of doors to work alongside a small group of us who were shoveling sand in the hot sun. At one point I noticed him panting slightly from the exertion.
“It’s hot work!” I exclaimed sympathetically.
A little sternly he replied, “It is good work!”
I understood his meaning at once. He was emphasizing the dignity of labor, whether physical, mental, or spiritual. Work, he implied, is ennobling, and becomes doubly so when it is given to God. As Swami Sri Yukteswar had said to him as a boy, “So long as you breathe the free air of earth, you are under obligation to render grateful service.” The particular way of serving opens up for each person according to the energy he puts out, which is dictated by his own nature, and is the product of his own karma, or past actions, and of the attitudes he brought to bear on them. His nature may be primarily spiritual, mental, or physical.
The businessman’s self-assumed duty in the great scheme of things is not only to earn money, but to learn the deeper, spiritual purpose of all labor, which is self-expansion through service to others.
Those who see the present life as their entire reality are blind. In the third passage of my book Conversations with Yogananda, the master says, “[Man] is not important for his body, ego, or personality. His constant affirmation of ego-consciousness is the source of all his problems.”
In China, scholars, intellectuals, and aristocrats considered it a mark of high breeding to let their fingernails grow to such a length that they couldn’t do ordinary physical activity. IN other countries, too, aristocrats have sometimes looked down on manual labor and gainful employment of any kind, considering it beneath their station. This world—to paraphrase Swami Sri Yukteswar—is inconveniently arranged for this exquisite attitude.
The Fiji Islands offer perhaps the closest thing on earth to a stress-free existence: no poisonous snakes or insects, no dangerous animals, no pollution. The inhabitants might have survived comfortably on the fruits and vegetables that grow abundantly, without help, in that perfect climate. The seasons are equable. Nature shines on one and all. Life, for the islanders, should have been ideal. But they found it too easy. What could they do for excitement? Their solution was to make war on one another. And what to do with all those dead bodies? What to do with them . . . what to do? Why, of course, eat them! According at least to the missionaries (who, perhaps, were seeking more support from the home church) the Fiji islanders were cannibals. It may of course be that the natives restricted their non-vegetarian diet to missionaries!
At any rate, the human condition demands that everyone put out some kind of energy. Not to do so causes one to sink into tamas. The more energetic one is, the sooner he can rise spiritually.
Energy is something I have emphasized repeatedly in these lessons. In studying, you may have formed the impression from the saying I’ve quoted often, yata dharma, tata jaya—“where adherence to truth exists, there is victory”—that business or any other kind of success follows automatically from being truthful, fair-minded, kind, and from entertaining all the attitudes that lead upward, spiritually. It is time I explained that the victory I mean is above all dharma itself. We might even change that saying to read, “Where there is dharma (adherence to truth), bliss itself becomes one’s definition of success.” What I am saying is that even if one fails outwardly, by clinging to dharma he achieves the only victory worth having. As Krishna states in the Bhagavad Gita, “It is better to fail doing one’s own duty than to succeed, doing someone else’s.”
I hope you don’t feel that I have lured you down a false trail: promising material success, then suddenly whipping off the mask and saying, “Actually, yoga principles define success itself as very different from anything you imagined!” What I’m really saying is that there are varying degrees of success. If you are a grocer, a baker, or a dry goods merchant, and want only a stress-free existence with a moderate income and a moderate flow of customers, then everything I have written so far will come to you if you follow the principles stated so far. Maya (delusion) will resist you, of course, but the way to win out over its opposing force is to adhere to truth and honesty.
There is, however, another and less beautiful—or at least more difficult-to-accept—side to this picture. Normal resistance from maya can be like the bushes on a hillside, past which one can thread his way to the top. But what about other people’s deliberate adharma: their untruthfulness, their desire to injure, their determination even to destroy you? The unfortunate truth is, the more energy you put out to achieve a high and noble success, the more maya will use other people to put forth an opposite energy.
One would think, on reading about Paramhansa Yogananda’s amazingly successful career in America, that he more or less slid down an easy slope to victory by simply loving everyone, and by his joyful, positive attitude of service to all. The truth, however, must be told: He faced constant, determined opposition. A very small example is one time when two gunmen were sent to Mt. Washington Estates to murder him. They waited for him at the basement elevator door, where he was scheduled to emerge. God warned him in time, however, and he changed his plans.
Well, one might say, God came to his rescue, so where’s the stress involved? Most of his stress was not physical, but mental and spiritual. Still, he had to face hate-filled opposition through lawsuits, constant calumny, and dishonesty. One time his closest co-worker betrayed him, absconding with almost all of the money the Master had been sending back from his lecture tours and classes around the country. The man then tried to sue him. One might ask, “Didn’t Yogananda, being a master, recognize that danger and do something in advance to prevent it?” Yes, he’d known about it. It came out years later that he’d predicted many years earlier to a boyhood friend that this person would someday betray him. To him, life was a movie. He accepted its ups and downs as the features of this world, where he’d been sent by God to guide people out of maya, not to make their delusions more comfortable for them.
My Guru achieved stunning success in his life, but the way was never easy for him. The important lesson his life teaches is that he never cut moral corners in striving for success, and never compromised in his absolute, unswerving adherence to right action. Disciples like me don’t want to frighten people from embracing spiritual principles by emphasizing the difficulties even a true guru faces in life. I admit frankly that I don’t emphasize them. It is natural for us to do what we can to stress the joys, not the difficulties. The higher one aspires, however, the more maya itself intervenes to prevent one from changing the ways of this world.
Don’t be afraid. A boxer, my Guru used to say, doesn’t become strong by fighting children. He must spar with strong men, who might even knock him down. The plain truth is, though the tests do become greater as one advances spiritually, one also develops the inner strength to conquer them. All his consciousness is of joy, not of suffering and sorrow.
The popular image in Christianity is of Jesus suffering for mankind. In a shop in Greece I saw a painting of the crèche scene showing the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus. “Why on earth,” I exclaimed in dismay to the shopkeeper, “is Mary depicted as miserable?!”
“That,” he explained, “is because she knows her child will someday be crucified on the cross.” What a gloomy picture to keep in one’s home! The Jewish historian Josephus wrote much later of Jesus Christ that he was “a man never known to smile.” What utter nonsense! Can you imagine anyone attracting thousands by weeping for their sins? People seek others who may be able to give them what they all want: joy! Jesus knew God, which is to say, he knew perfect bliss. It was bliss that everyone hoped for through him, not his pain.
I’m a very small example of the truths I teach in my Guru’s name—at least, I try to be an example. Yet even I have experienced some of the joy behind difficulties, not their horrors. Many years ago, shortly after founding the first Ananda community, I was discussing with a new friend the hardships so many people face in life. At one point I said to her, “You know, it’s strange, but I don’t seem to have had any such problems!”
“No problems!” she exclaimed, flinging a hand to her forehead. She then reminded me of what I’d had to face in just the short year she had known me: a serious attempt by the trustees of our land to foreclose on us; the opposition of new members within the community; gossip and mockery from others; the destruction of our new temple by fire; opposition and calumny from my fellow disciples; numerous other financial tests; a constant barrage of criticism for anything I did. After listening to this litany I replied, “Well, yes, I suppose you’re right. I just hadn’t put my mind there.” I promptly dismissed the memories again from my mind.
The lesson I want to emphasize in my Guru’s life is not that he was spared tests and difficulties, but that he always faced them with honor, charity, truthfulness, and the highest spiritual consciousness. Moreover, however much people tried to hurt him he always forgave them. Indeed, one time, in his role of Guru, he scolded someone for something that person had done. The disciple at last, “But will you forgive me, Sir?” Our Guru replied in astonishment, “Why, what else can I do?”
Another popular image of Jesus Christ is expressed in the hymn, “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild.” What a travesty of a true master! One who has achieved oneness with God is powerful. Yogananda responded dharmically to everything, but that doesn’t mean he ever responded weakly. His was a force to be reckoned with! The important thing is, he never wished harm to anyone. Still, he was very firm, when the circumstances called for strength over sweetness.
One time at Mt. Washington he was sitting on his bed upstairs when, as he put it later, “God showed me that a certain young man was coming up the stairs to punish me physically. The voice told me, ‘Defend yourself for the sake of this work.’ That young man wanted to spread the word that he’d shown this ‘charlatan’ a thing or two.” When the man reached the threshold of Yogananda’s room, the Master opened his eyes.
“I know why you’ve come,” he said. “And I want you to know, first, that I’m physically very strong. It would be easy for me to beat you in bodily battle. I will not use physical force, however. Nevertheless, I warn you: Don’t cross that threshold.”
“Go on, prophet!” sneered the other. “What can you do?” Crossing the threshold with a stride, he immediately fell to the floor crying, “I’m on fire! I’m on fire!”
Leaping up, he rushed down the stairs and ran out of doors, where he rolled over and over on the lawn outside, trying to ease the burning on the cool grass. The Master came down and touched him lightly, healing him.
“Don’t come near me!” shouted the man fearfully. He wouldn’t even enter the building again, but asked his sister, who was living there, to bring him his belongings, whereupon he left immediately.
The young man had resented his sister’s discipleship to this “Hindu prophet.” (The sister, Durga Mata, went on to become one of the Guru’s foremost disciples.)
Opposition of all kinds, including lawsuits, defamation, and other attacks are of course, recognized features of worldly existence. The strange thing is that goodness should attract such opposition, and that common persecution should be intensified so far beyond the norm. Many people—criminals usually, of course—were crucified before Jesus Christ, but the fact that he himself was so treated for doing only good in the world seems extraordinary. Yet it is an example of something that happens constantly. The stronger the light, the stronger also the contrasting darkness.
If you want to avoid attracting opposition, the easiest way is simply to do nothing. Success of any kind will attract animosity to varying degrees, its intensity depending on the amount of good one does. Some people will hate you because they themselves are failures in life. Even mediocre success on your part may attract a few envious grumbles. I don’t think you’d be taking this course, however, if all you wanted was the pale satisfaction of a mediocre success. The steepest slope may lead you most quickly to the top, but that climb will, at the same time, be more demanding.
Past karma is also a major factor, of course, in any opposition confronting you. The spiritual hero wants to pay off that karma as soon as possible. Even a liberated master like Paramhansa Yogananda, however, who had no karma of his own left to work out, meets opposition for the good he does in the world. Opposing him is the maya itself. The world flounders in a mire of desires, selfishness, and inertia. A master’s struggle is to lift people out of that mud of worldliness.
One who is content to follow well-worn trails won’t need to blaze new ones on his own. Such a life will be relatively easy. Let us say one has an ordinary business—perhaps like the one I mentioned earlier: plumbing. Or let us take home building, or stock investing, or banking, or starting a secretarial firm. Even in such work, all that I’ve taught in these lessons will prove helpful. Especially if one adds the burden of novelty, however, he will encounter more resistance. In every walk of life one encounters difficulties, naturally, but everything I’ve written so far will help you to conquer them. Moreover, yes, you must face, pay off, or cancel out whatever karmas are blocking your present efforts. Most people’s reaction even to life’s perfectly normal problems is to lament, “Why me?” If the success you dream of is more outstanding, or even heroic, the burdens you will have to shoulder will not be your own, only, but the opposition of delusion’s inertia itself.
No matter what opposition or even outright persecution you encounter, never let it cause you to be negative. The ultimate reason for being kind and forgiving to all may be described, in a sense, as selfish! For you will be happier when you can direct your heart’s energy upward to the brain, and not let it sink down in the spine to the darker consciousness of anger, resentment, or vengefulness. When you can return love for hatred, calm acceptance for anger, and kindness for persecution, you yourself will find happiness.
When I was still a relatively young man—thirty-six years old—my fellow disciples became furious with me over my “independent” nature. I was serving my Guru as he himself had told me to do. Seeing me as a threat, however, they dismissed me from his organization (this was long after he’d left this world) with a harshness I could hardly believe, hurling imprecations and telling me I wasn’t fit even to call myself a disciple for I had failed to support them in the directions they themselves wanted to take his work. Well, that story is well known, in consequence of the publicity they generated and of their efforts to destroy me through the law courts. The treatment was unjust, as has been amply proved by my continued service to my Guru both before and since then.
Thank God, I wasn’t even tempted to turn against them. Since my dismissal I’ve stated that my rationale for remaining loyal and loving toward them was that I felt happier loving than I would have been by hating them or seeking vengeance against them. In truth, however, I needed no such rationale: I simply wasn’t tempted to respond with negatively. I’ve offered that rationale rather in the hope of helping others, in similar circumstances, to respond positively.
The most important decision all of us must face in life is, always, how to react in the highest way, from a standpoint of our own spiritual growth.
Years ago, when I was an eleven-year-old schoolboy in England, one of the boys there once addressed me, as an American, with contempt. “You dirty foreigner!” he sneered. Such a comment, I decided, could mean only that he didn’t think I’d had a bath recently. With that thought, then, and not with the intention of insulting him, I replied pleasantly, “Well, in that case maybe you’re a dirty Englishman.”
Furious with me at this imagined insult (though certainly he’d invited one), he leapt for my throat. I was stronger than he, fortunately, and simply wrestled him to the floor on his back, holding him there while I waited for him to stop trying impotently to strike me. He lay there spitting up at me, but couldn’t reach me; probably his spittle only wet his own face! Still, I waited for him to calm down. When finally he did so, reluctantly, I let him get up. This was one occasion when the gym, where fights were supposed to be conducted, was a distant reality: We were both in the sick rooms.
Why take people’s deliberate insults personally? If they are valid, the best reaction is to accept them gratefully, as any constructive criticism should be. Try, at least in private, to correct yourself. But why get angry? You’ll be the greater loser if you do.
I was in a court room some years ago. Some people—incited by my fellow disciples—were doing their best to harm and, if possible, to destroy me. Their lawyer did everything he could in the courtroom to make me angry. In response, I simply didn’t respond! Inwardly I prayed, “Divine Mother, everything I’ve done can be taken away from me, but no one can rob me of my one real treasure: my love for Thee.”
Well, we survived, and are thriving now more than ever. But it is something to remember: Everyone must be ready for attacks of some kind in life. And calm forgiveness has this one compensation, apart from the fact that it preserves your own peace of mind: Forgiveness without personal motive completely infuriates those who have defined themselves as your enemies.
Maybe my own reactions in such matters “run in the family.” As my father liked to put it humorously, “You’ve come by it honestly.” I remember us boys going to a circus with him in Grand Haven, Michigan, when I was nine years old and we were visiting America. My father bought the entry tickets to the circus, and we went inside. There, however, the man in charge told him he’d have to pay extra for the privilege of sitting down. This, clearly, was chicanery. My father calmly refused to pay more. We therefore stood through the entire performance. I remember the manager shouting at him furiously, “I hope you die!” My father didn’t answer. We were the only ones present who would not submit to this sharp practice; everyone else paid extra for a seat.
Try always to react appropriately in every circumstance. As my Guru used to say, “Don’t be a doormat.” This means you may sometimes have to be stern. Strange to relate, I can recall only twice in Ananda’s history when I had to demand that someone behave as he should. I prefer to be gentle, but no one can push me away from my purpose—a fact which has awakened enmity throughout my life in certain people, who, generally, want you to agree with them. The less you give in to their insistence, the angrier, often, they become. In both of the cases when I’ve had to demand obedience at Ananda, those people did their best later on to avenge themselves on me. I would not, in retrospect, have behave any differently.
On one of those occasions (I’ll describe only this one, here) a young man in our community had got a young woman pregnant. The woman herself was a “charity” case—not a member, and a little slow-witted, whom her mother had sent to us as a child, paying her tuition. After the girl finished high school (I’m not sure she graduated), I felt a certain responsibility for her, hesitating to send her out into the world to seek a job.
The young man insisted, after he’d broken the news of her pregnancy to me, that what he wanted to do now was to enter our monastery. I firmly ordered him, instead, to marry the girl. He did so, then left Ananda, thoroughly “disillusioned” with me. Since then, he has done his best to turn people against me. The popular expression comes to mind regarding him, “Get a life!”
Maya has many ways of opposing positive energy. One way is not to offer harsh opposition, but simply to dilute it. I gave the example of that sincere minister-disciple of my Guru who couldn’t match Yogananda’s high energy in demanding of his audiences, “How is everybody? . . . How feels everybody?” (To which the answer in both cases was the shouted reply: “AWAKE AND READY!”) The minister to whom I refer told me one Sunday before the service, “I do things a little differently here.” At the start of the service he said quietly, “I trust everyone here is awake and ready?” A prayer followed, and then the service was “up and running.”
I am, as you’ve read already in these lessons, a composer of some sincerity, whatever my merit. Whether my music will “live” must await the unwinding scroll of destiny. Still, what I’ve written is definitely a new kind of music: not classical, not popular, not folk or ethnic or regional, and not “modern” in any sense of the word. It is simply itself. I’ve never pushed it, and though I myself enjoy it and consider it good, I haven’t put the kind of energy into it that attracts opposition. Indeed, there’s nothing about it to oppose. The only danger to its eventual popularity is public indifference. So far, this music has made its impact more or less without effort. It has, perhaps uniquely out of everything I’ve done, attracted no hostility that I’m aware of. All I’ve had to combat with regard to it is occasional attempts to dilute it.
If your work is new and different, and if the energy you put into it is in no way forceful, you may attract no hostility, but people may very well try to “translate” it into terms with which they feel comfortable, as that minister-doctor-disciple did with our Guru’s “Awake and Ready!” Don’t be upset. Dilution normally happens to everything new, especially if it takes a step upward in consciousness. Simply return the focus calmly to your original intentions. I’ve had to do that repeatedly with my music, quietly reiterating to people the rhythm, melodic patterns, chords, and lyrics I wanted when I found them inclined to change things. Sometimes, though not often, I’ve approved a new idea. Don’t be dogmatic: Listen to the voice of reason. State reasons, if you can verbalize them, for wanting things the way they are. It has taken me many years, but, in most things anyway, I’ve managed in the end to win out by calm persistence. I wouldn’t have won if I’d allowed myself to become upset. The temperamental artist of legend only upsets people; he never wins them.
When people get upset or angry, or when they experience pain and suffering, it is only because they want something different from what life has given them. The most important point I want to make in this lesson is, learn to accept what is. It is only from that preliminary recognition that you can improve anything.

The Application
Because the obstacles one faces in life can be multifarious, let me list a few of them only, and suggest certain basic attitudes that may help you to sail past them.
1. Intolerance: People have their own views on how things ought to be or how they should be done. Don’t allow yourself to be swayed by opinions, even your own. Mostly, people allow themselves to be ruled by habit. There is a common saying in America: “They laughed at Fulton.” Robert Fulton was the inventor of the steel ship. His detractors laughed because, as they pointed out, metals sink in water. They will float, however, if the amount of water displaced is heavier than the metals used. Fulton calmly proceeded to construct his hollow hulled vessel. When the ship actually floated, all criticism ceased.
2. Anger: Anger, as the Indian scriptures point out, is created by thwarted desires. You will encounter anger when you don’t do as others want. They have no right, however, to want anything of you. Be your own master. A spiritual master is one who has, simply, mastered himself. Such a one has no desire to control others. He desires nothing of others but their own true fulfillment. Those who follow him do so simply because they know he is pointing out the way to their own spiritual freedom. If you encounter others’ anger, react calmly and you’ll never need to fear them.
Once, when I was thirteen and weighed only 106 pounds, a classmate of mine who was fifteen and weighed 230 pounds became furious with me. Why? Perhaps because of the English accent I had then. Perhaps because I didn’t “kow-tow” to him. He attacked me one day in my room. There was no way for me to defend myself. I simply lay on the bed with my arms over my head, while he pummeled me, working himself up to such a fury that, after a few minutes, he cried panting, “I’m going to throw you out the window!” The window was behind the building, three stories above the ground. At last he’d worked out his anger, and left me in not very good shape.
A friend of mine asked me later, “Why didn’t you shout for help. We’d all have come at once.”
“Because,” I said, “I wasn’t afraid.” I never deferred afterward to this bully. As for him, his force had been spent as far as I was concerned. There was nothing more for him to do. From then on, he left me strictly alone. Others, in fact, also threatened retribution if he didn’t.
Defend yourself when you can. If you cannot, accept what happens, and don’t let yourself be upset by it. After all, this sort of thing happens anyway in this world. Be inwardly non-attached.
Still, if you can defend yourself you must do so—calmly, not with anger, but always with inner firmness.
When SRF sued me, hoping to get the court’s approval of their monopoly over our Guru’s name, image, likeness, and words, critics asked me, “Why do you fight back?” A ridiculous question! To have remained silent would have meant ceasing the work to which I’d dedicated my life. I had to fight back.
Never, however, did I try to harm them. It would have been normal, I suppose, for someone in my position to accuse them, as they accused me; to abuse them as they abused me; to mount a press campaign against them, as they had done against me. The legal firm they chose was the third largest in the world. I could afford no such expertise. I didn’t want it anyway. I chose a lawyer who was dharmic. To make a long story short, though it took us twelve years and over ten million dollars, Ananda Sangha won on virtually every issue. In consequence, we are much stronger than before, whereas I do not think the same can be said of them.
Stick, therefore, to your principles. If you must contest angry opposition, do so calmly and with never failing good will.
3. Lies: It is not easy to bear it when people tell lies against you. I wrote many years ago to those who had been doing so, “Every time you tell a lie against me, remember, the truth has to come out eventually. Your lies will only make me stronger, whereas they will weaken you.” I was ignored, but my words proved true.
Never tell a lie against anyone. A lie is a conscious untruth. It is, of course, always possible to tell an untruth without realizing it. The best solution is never to speak unkindly of anyone. Wish everyone well.
Sri Krishna made it clear to Arjuna that it was dharmically right to fight injustice. The way of ahimsa, or harmlessness, is not by any means to submit to injustice. Even if you haven’t the power to defend yourself effectively, in your mind you should constantly resist aggression. As a boy, I found on more occasions than one that bullies left me strictly alone once they saw I would never give in to them, mentally.
4. Sneers, disdain, and disrespect: Because I’ve always been something of an outsider, even in my own country, I’ve had to learn to put up with attitudes like these. What do people’s opinions of you really matter? Most people are wrong most of the time! (That, in fact, is the weakness of democracy.) Be strong in your own truths. To do so, without becoming bigoted, keep your mind always in a state of reason. Listen to what people say. Accept their reasons if you consider them right. The solution is always to be inwardly non-attached, and even indifferent, to the constantly fluctuating waves on the ocean of life.
5. Unkindness, malice, or hatred: Ask yourself simply, “When am I happier? When hating—or when loving?” For your own peace of mind, then, be kind to everyone. Even if they are determined to harm you, respond with kindness, for the simple reason that this is how to be happy.
Many years ago, there was someone at Ananda Village whom I’d allowed to get by without paying the usual monthly maintenance fees. After twelve years, someone whom I’d made the Village manager decided it was time to ask this member to shoulder this responsibility like everyone else. He gave the non-payer a simple choice: Either accept your responsibility to the community, or else leave Ananda. The recalcitrant member not only chose to leave, but came to me before doing so to vent his spleen on me. He spent at least an hour telling me everything I’d done and was still doing wrong in my life. Evidently, I’d done nothing right, and was bound to fail at everything I tried. I heard him out without comment. It seemed useless to defend myself. I simply thanked him and wished him well. Since then, he has made himself one of my most vocal enemies.
My calmness in the face of his diatribe inspired me, afterward, to compose what I have always considered one of my best songs. Here are the lyrics:
I Live Without Fear
Though green summer fade,
And winter draw near,
My Lord, in Your presence
I live without fear.
Through tempest, through snows,
Through turbulent tide,
The touch of Your hand
Is my strength, and my guide.
I ask for no riches
That death can destroy:
I crave only Thee,
Your love, and your joy!
The dancers will pass,
The singing must end:
I welcome the darkness
With You for my Friend.

Thus, my non-resistance help to inspire something worth more to me than any defense would have done.
No matter what contretemps you suffer, you can gain from them if you keep your energy determinedly uplifted.
6. Threats to destroy you: Make no self-defined success your absolute goal. Who knows what karmic law will impose upon you, or what God will ordain for you? Sainte Thérèse de Lisieux, a French nun, expressed complete willingness even to be sent to Hell after death. “I would even like it!” she exclaimed. “For then I could show that it is possible to love God no matter what the outer circumstances.”
I read a story years ago about a man who was an inspiration to one much younger than himself for his calmness and wisdom. The younger one once asked him his secret. For his reply, the other showed him a small, very fragile sea shell.
“This is my secret,” he said. He then explained:
“I used to be very wealthy. then I lost everything in the stock market crash of 1929. I decided the only solution was to commit suicide. I packed my family off on a vacation, then rented a small cabin by the ocean. My plan was to walk out into the water until the waves took me.
“I began walking out, but my plan was thwarted repeatedly by strong waves that beat me back to shore. The last time I fell, beaten down by a wave, I saw this little shell swirling close to me. It was completely unbroken. I picked it up. How, I asked myself, was it possible for this fragile thing to go churning safely through the waves when I myself was thrown back by them every time I tried to go forward? The answer was obvious: The sea shell hadn’t resisted the flow! Might this, I reflected, be a lesson pertinent to my own case? Perhaps I’d been resisting the waves of my own destiny!
“I decided from then on that I would live, and that I’d go with the waves instead of resisting them. You see me now: successful again in business, but even more than that, happy and at peace.”

Meditation
Contemplate that last thought, and make it your meditation. Think of life’s circumstances as waves over which you have no direct control. Meditate on the thought of riding them. Don’t fight or resist them. Be a mental surfer, going with the currents of life, but seeking always, as you ride them, to select the best wave, and the best current. You can ride wisely or foolishly, but you can never command the waves to be as you want them to be, or to go where you want them to go. Learn to flow with life, not against it, if you want to win through to freedom.

Affirmation
“I am the master of my fate, 
for I realize my place in the great ocean of life 
and flow willingly with its mighty currents.”

Points to Remember  

1. The businessman’s self-assumed duty is to learn the deeper, spiritual purpose of all labor, which is self-expansion through service to others.
2. “Where there is dharma (adherence to truth), bliss itself becomes one’s definition of success.” 
3. The more energy you put out to achieve a high and noble success, the more maya will use other people to put forth an opposite energy.
4. Though the tests do become greater as one advances spiritually, one also develops the inner strength to conquer them. All his consciousness is of joy, not of suffering and sorrow.
5. Yogananda was not spared tests and difficulties, but he always faced them with honor, charity, truthfulness, and the highest spiritual consciousness. 
6. The stronger the light, the stronger also the contrasting darkness. 
7. No matter what opposition you encounter, never let it cause you to become negative. When you can return love for hatred, calm acceptance for anger, and kindness for persecution, you yourself will find happiness.
8. The most important decision all of us must face in life is how to react in the highest way from a standpoint of our own spiritual growth.
9. Try always to react appropriately in every circumstance. Don’t be a doormat. You may sometimes have to be stern.  
10. When people get upset, it is only because they want something different from what life has given them. Learn to accept what is. 

How to Meet Specific Obstacles

11. Intolerance: Don’t allow yourself to be swayed by opinions, even your own. 
12. Anger: Anger is created by thwarted desires. You will encounter anger when you don’t do as others want. React calmly, and you’ll never need to fear them. Defend yourself when you can. If you cannot, accept what happens. If you can defend yourself you must do so—calmly, but always with inner firmness and with never failing good will.
13. Lies: Every time someone tells a lie against you, remember, the truth has to come out eventually. Never tell a lie against anyone. Never speak unkindly of anyone.  
14. Sneers, disdain, and disrespect: Be strong in your own truths. Listen to what people say. Accept their reasons if you consider them right. The solution is always to be inwardly non-attached.
15. Unkindness, malice, or hatred: For your own peace of mind, respond with kindness for the simple reason that this is how to be happy. No matter what contretemps you suffer, you can gain from them if you keep your energy determinedly uplifted.
16. Threats to destroy you: Make no self-defined success your absolute goal. Think of life’s circumstances as waves over which you have no direct control. Don’t fight or resist them. Learn to flow with life, not against it, if you want to win through to freedom.

Workbook Ideas
by Joseph Bharat Cornell
See Only Goodness

When facing negativity, Paramhansa Yogananda’s way was if possible to emphasize something positive. One of his disciples, a prominent Indian yogi, motivated by envy, turned against the Master. Later, during a public lecture in Arizona, he angrily denounced Yogananda. Several of Yogananda’s students telephoned the Master that evening in Los Angeles and reported this outrage.  
“Thank you for telling me,” the Master said. “I will take care of the matter.” Thus, he relieved them of any further responsibility in the situation. Next, he telephoned the errant disciple. What he said to him, however, was not at all what anyone expected.
“God bless you,” he said, “for the good that you are doing. I bless you; our gurus bless you.” He said nothing about the episode of the previous evening. 
Maya is a conscious force, which seeks to separate mankind from Spirit. Evil, however, influences us only to the degree we let it. We can lessen its power by training ourselves to see the highest good in every situation. 

Action Item
•	When negativity is directed at you, don’t react in kind. 
•	Never let anger or ill will from others cause you to become negative. 
•	Use challenging situations as opportunities to affirm your belief and commitment to the goodness in others, and in Life itself. 
•	For your own salvation—and for the upliftment of others—express kindness and goodwill always, no matter how difficult the circumstances. 

Action Item
Observe how maya manifests itself in human nature by paying close attention to your interactions with others. Identify the universal causes behind any inharmonious human behavior you experience—whether in yourself or in others. If you remember that  negative behavior is maya, or lower consciousness expressing itself, you will feel more impersonal and compassionate toward others. 
Look for these ways that maya manifests in human nature: 
•	Intolerance: People often have fixed views on how things ought to be. When one is too self-centered, he tries to control the free will and discrimination of others with the attitude: “My reality should be your reality.” Don’t allow yourself to be swayed by opinions, even your own. 
•	Anger:  Anger is created by thwarted desires. You will encounter it when you don’t do as others want. They have no right, however, to control you. Be your own master. If you encounter others’ anger, react calmly, and you’ll never need to fear them. 
•	Lies: People tell lies for two reasons: because they perceive the “truth” as being inconvenient, and because they have a feeling of ill-will toward others. Avoid telling conscious untruths by making it your practice never to speak unkindly of anyone, and to ask yourself the question, “What is true?” Then align your actions to this truth. 

In challenging situations, concentrate more on raising your energy level, and therefore your consciousness.