Material Success and Happiness Through Yoga Principles

by Swami Kriyananda
(J. Donald Walters)

Copyright © 2005 Hansa Trust
All rights reserved.
Lesson Twenty-Four
What Should Your Line of Work Be?
The Principles
Think of a world where everyone wanted to be a streetcar conductor. The variety of jobs available on this Earth, and the number of people capable of handling them, is inconceivably large. An astrologer I knew in America told me she had once studied the horoscope of a young man who had come to her for advice on what line of work he should follow. She saw indications in his chart that pointed toward his becoming an undertaker. Years later she said to me, “I was hesitant to tell him so, but because all the aspects pointed that way I finally told him what I saw. To my relief he exclaimed, ‘That is exactly what I’ve been feeling! What I hoped you’d give me was corroboration!’”
When the soul first manifests itself outwardly on the material plane, it enters upon a vast number of possibilities. Long before reaching the human level, it passes through countless lower forms. It can amuse one to look at human beings and try to imagine what lower forms they might have inhabited previously. Some of them may have a certain resemblance to rabbits. Others have a decidedly equine appearance. Many of them look intriguingly like erstwhile dogs or cats. The variety is endless, and can give one much amusement, in a friendly spirit, while sitting in a park, a restaurant, or a hotel lobby.
Even after the soul reaches the human level, its evolution is by no means near finality; indeed, it may be said to have hardly begun. Man, of all the animals, has the free will to cooperate with the process of natural evolution, or to counteract it by creating endless desires that cluster around the ego. Many lifetimes are needed for the ego, which is first manifested strongly at the human level, to develop sufficient refinement to “graduate” to higher levels of existence. Through all one’s lower manifestations, and for countless lifetimes as a human being, one follows innumerable trails as he threads his way to the soul’s final destination: oneness with God. All of us develop certain tendencies over these incarnations, the sum total of which make us each, with our own special tastes and distastes, different from anyone else on earth.
I remember a picnic outing at the Downs School in England. The outing was close to a river. One of the boys decided to have fun by throwing mud at the others. Soon everyone was gleefully throwing mud—everyone but me, that is to say. I was horrified by this pastime. So much did I abhor it that a few of the boys, noticing my aversion, focused with particular delight on plastering mud on me. I suppose they were determined to make me a “good sport.” I was so covered over that it was months before I was able to get the last mud clot out of my ears.
I see now, from a yogic viewpoint, that my aversion was wrong. A yogi in search of inner freedom must overcome all likes and dislikes, all desires and aversions.
Years later I enrolled in a course on auto mechanics. Again, I recoiled from getting my hands greasy from the machinery. After one or two attempts, I stood around a car engine with other students, listening politely as the teacher explained to us how a car works. Automobiles, to me, are sill magic conveyances. One propitiates them by turning on the ignition. If the engine is pleased, it will hum with satisfaction, at which point one is free to engage the clutch and drive off, commending his soul to the automobile devas.
“What comes of itself,” my Guru used to say, “let it come.” Perhaps, nowadays, I would simply not respond if people tried to involve me in a mud fight. Indifference would have been, even in my childhood days, a better defense.
What remains with me from that somewhat faded, but never attractive memory is the reinforcement it gave my self-knowledge that the realities I would deal with in life were more in the direction of trying to understand life than toward getting a grip on mechanics.
I relate these stories in order to suggest that you, too, have a nature of your own to contend with. Try to find work that is compatible with that nature.
Many years ago, when I lived at the SRF headquarters, the president of the organization informed me that our printer wanted me to help him in the print shop. This was very different work from what our Guru had told me to do: namely, lecturing, writing, and editing. I said as much to her, as tactfully as I could without seeming to offer a correction. Hintingly I replied, “I don’t think that is what I am meant to do.”
“Why not?” she demanded, exasperated at what she perceived as my unwillingness. Obedience was fundamental to our way of life—a fact which has led me to question the very merits of monastic obedience, if to someone who is only one’s superior but not one’s guru. The point which that episode began to raise in my mind was: obedience to whom? One’s guru is one thing, but a monastic superior, something very different. This dilemma was to become crucial for me in years to come. I knew what my Guru had given me as my duty in this life. He was no longer in the body now, however. My superior wanted to take me in a very different direction. I explained truthfully, “Any machinery I work with is certain to break down in a matter of days!”
Before he assigned me those duties, however, I had cheerfully mixed cement and done other self-dirtying jobs, because I saw them as a way of serving God. In God’s work, all work is noble and uplifting. This did not mean, however, that I ever became skillful at such jobs. When I was helping to build India Center, which stands on the same grounds as our church in Hollywood, I clearly (and not happily) remember my almost hopeless inadequacy as a carpenter. I would hammer a nail, missing it altogether nine times out of ten, then finally hit the nail only to see it bending at a ninety-degree angle as it stuck out from the board. After we finished the job, I remarked enthusiastically to our foreman, “I sure learned a lot on this job, Andy!” Andy stared at me a moment unbelievingly, then had the tact not to say anything!
My point here is that most people have only certain skills, if any, and are simply not adapted to other kinds of work. Sometimes, they are not even adaptable. It is good to have skills, but it is quite unnecessary to be skilled at everything.
There is an assertion to which I’ve occasionally been exposed in my life: namely, that if there is something you’re not good at—assuming of course that you have enough intelligence for the job—you should try to become good at it in order to “perfect” your personality. The motivation behind this advice is that perfection of the human personality is a goal toward which every idealistic person should aspire. Not a few times in my life I’ve encountered people who insisted that one must strive to become good at anything one considers difficult. One lady I knew determined, when she was in her late sixties, to become a millionaire. Her justification was the belief that, in order to become perfect spiritually, one must achieve material perfection. Her attempt to become wealthy—apart from the fact that she failed at it—became her greatest obstacle on the spiritual path!
I am writing this lesson partly to address that thought. Perfection lies not in what one does, but in what one IS, in consciousness. It is a foolish waste of energy to try to bring to perfection one’s human personality. Energy devoted to one achievement is so much energy withheld from other achievements. This I found out years ago, when in desperation I realized that I needed a guru.
Mahatma Gandhi was a great national leader, but his focus on that essential role is said to have prevented him from being a good father. One reason for Ananda Sangha’s success is that I was determined from the start that I was not going to try to create a perfect community. Improving on the possible has proved more effective than trying to impose ideals that were impossible, even for idealists. An article in a communities magazine in the early 1970s took me to task for my compromise with idealism. Every community they praised for its high ideals, however, failed within a year, whereas Ananda has developed far beyond those very ideals by simple realism concerning human nature.
The ancient Greek philosopher Longinus, in his famous essay “On the Sublime,” declared that excessive effort to achieve perfection in a work of art is itself an imperfection. The arms of Krishna at Jagannath Temple in Puri are truncated deliberately in order to show the futility of attempting to capture the Infinite in a material form. The best man can do when carving a statue is only to hint at the divine truths one desires to express.
The work you do, considered in light of the goals of yoga, should be that which can help you to grow, spiritually. What should that work be? It depends on your nature. What is right for one person would be wrong for another. One’s attitudes are more important than any specific thing one does. The attitudes one should develop are above all those which lead to superconsciousness.
What is the difference between superconscious and conscious awareness? The superconscious mind sees things as a unity. The conscious, rational mind on the other hand analyzes things to see how they can be distinguished from one another. The conscious mind, because of the analytical quality of the intellect, tends toward problem-consciousness. The superconscious mind, on the other hand, because it is unitive, is solution-oriented. The way to approach the question of what work is right for you is to expect solutions. Don’t wrestle with the problems that the question itself may pose for you.
Again and again in my life I have found that answers came to me when I brushed aside any doubt in my mind that muttered, “You’ve got a problem!”
Here is a truth to ponder: Where there’s a problem, there has to be a solution.
Another essential attitude is willingness. To reject any suggested solution means, self-evidently, to deny what may have to be done. One must be ready for anything. Had I accepted that mud-slinging “game” in England, accepting others’ reality as their own even though it was not mine, I would have instantly perceived the solution: to remain centered in myself; to accept the excitement around me neutrally, as a simple fact. Probably, in that case, they’d have left me alone. No one would have felt I was being judgmental.
Another attitude, important to the selection and pursuit of the right course in life, is calmness. Some work is by its very nature agitating to the heart and the mind. Consider the madness on the floor of a commodities exchange. There, people shout and scream agitatedly, waving paper notes desperately to attract attention. To participate in such a swirl of desperate emotions makes it impossible to have mental clarity. Greed, competition, anger at being thwarted, fear of losing out on what looks like a golden opportunity: these and similar emotions can only undermine any true success one might achieve. One becomes a successful money-making machine, perhaps, but one loses all chance of happiness in this life. As Sri Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, “To the peaceless person, how is happiness possible?” There is much in the process of money-making that creates nervousness. Avoid such work as you would the plague.
Joy and calm enthusiasm, then, are states of mind to be sought in any work one accepts. Don’t look upon employment as a means merely to make money. If you do so, no matter how much you earn, the money itself will buy you only suffering in the end. Seek work, rather, that—at least according to your present understanding—promises happiness.
An important attitude is ahimsa: harmlessness. Seek never to harm anyone. Be conscious rather of how the work you do might affect others. The more you can put yourself in their shoes, the more rapid will your spiritual progress be. Seeing one’s work as a service to others will also bring blessings to yourself.
Do not work under anyone who asks you to be untruthful. One who is strictly truthful finds the divine law itself directing him into activities that are aligned with dharma. If, on the other hand, you seek an excuse in the fact that you are only obeying someone else’s request, when he tells you to be adharmic, yours, too, will be the sin.
I noticed when I first lived in India in 1958 that many people I met, still under the influence of Mahatma Gandhi’s utter truthfulness, were often deliberately rude to others in the thought that to do so was to be sincere. Truthfulness, however, should always be combined with kindness and consideration for others. Another person’s understanding of what is true may be different from your own, after all. Respect others, even if you don’t see eye-to-eye with them.
My Guru pointed out that there is a difference between truth and fact. It may be a fact that someone you know is in the hospital and direly ill. To tell him he looks terrible, however, may make him worse! Since well-being is an aspect of soul-consciousness, you will be speaking the truth if you can find a valid reason for telling him he “looks good.”
Do not allow the company of others where you work to lower your principles. Seek work, indeed, where the people themselves are, as far as you know, honorable.
Seek work that will, if possible, give you a sense that you are serving others. Serviceful work is expansive. Anything that takes you toward greater expansion will help you as well as others. (We’ll go further into this aspect of work in the last lesson.) Most activities take people in circles, as regards any progress they make. Since self-interest might be described as their only actual religion, everything they do will revolve about their egos. It is like passing from room to room in the same building without ever going out the front door. Seek to become skillful at whatever work you want to do. What is skill, however, if it only encourages pride?
Motives are more important than deeds. There is a well-known saying, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” My guru often quoted those words; he meant that one should never make good intentions an excuse for passivity. To do so is rather like saying, “I’m a sinner”: a statement usually meant to sound humble, but often made as an excuse to go right on sinning! Have good intentions, but also put out the energy to fulfill those intentions by right action.
A good motive sometimes begets wrong deeds. When Yogananda was a young man, the ideal of freedom from foreign rule was beginning to fire Indians’ imagination. Yogananda had a dynamic, even fiery, personality. One could easily visualize him as a great warrior of the past. Certain young men in Calcutta approached him one day and asked him to lead them in a revolution against the English.
“India,” the young yogi replied, “will be freed in my lifetime, by peaceful means.” Those youths still insisted on revolution, whereupon the Master told their spokesman, “You lead it.”
An armaments shipment was stopped outside Calcutta, and those men were caught. Their leader was executed.
“Why, Sir,” I asked my Guru, “did you advise him to lead the revolution, since you knew it wouldn’t work and that he would fail?”
“It was his karma,” was the reply. According to my understanding, it was the young man’s persistence that had invited that response from Yogananda. The young men hadn’t come asking for advice. They were already determined to go the way of violence.
I should add that death, to a spiritual master, is not something to be avoided at all cost. What seems to worldly people an extreme punishment, owing to their body-attachment, is really only a kind of migration.
I remember my Guru telling me another somewhat similar story. “A woman disciple of Swami Shankara’s,” he said, “was eaten up mentally by doubts. One day she said to him [speaking, I presume, of her own desire for salvation], ‘But—what if I die?’
“‘All right,’ was his response, ‘then die!’ The woman fell over immediately, dead.”
Death itself is not the tragedy it may seem. It is something all of us have experienced many, many times in the past. Sometimes death comes to teach us an important lesson. In that woman’s case, the lesson was that anything one fears, especially if that fear is expressed in the presence of an enlightened master (before whom a person’s thoughts gain added power), will attract the very things one fears.
Whatever path you follow in life, and whatever work you do, try always to relate it to a broader reality. Thus, your job may be something quite simple like selling groceries. If so, be conscientious in the selling. Look for the best food available, within your economic capabilities. Make a study of what makes some foods more healthful, or taste better than others. Become knowledgeable, so you can advise your customers on the esoterica of right diet. Know more, if possible, than they themselves know. They will be much more likely to continue shopping with you, and to urge their friends to patronize your store. If job promotion is possible where you work, you will be among the first to be considered for a higher position.
In choosing, or in developing, a work, look for enough variety in it to keep you energetic and interested. Don’t seek a merely comfortable niche. The more energy the work demands of you, and the greater its challenge to you, the more greatly you will benefit from it.
In emphasizing the importance of energy, I want to urge you not to make investments your principal source of income. Investments are, for the investor himself, a dead energy. You pay others to be creative, rather than trying, yourself, to be creative. I’ve known people who became wealthy by making clever investments, but what I’ve observed is that their own energy became increasingly contractive. I urge you to get into work where you can apply energy directly. The money you make will be left behind when you die, but the energy you invest in your work will ensure you an ever-more-shining future.
One question you should face when selecting a line of work concerns also the karmic debts remaining for you to work out. You probably have no idea what they are. That is one reason why it is important to have a wise guru. A guru, however, is a rare find, and a blessing that must be earned. Many people do have at least some intuition as to what may be blocking their further progress.
Another question to ponder must certainly relate to the kind of good karma you specially need—karma that will help you in terms of your happiness, and also your spiritual development. An important consideration would be to divert harmful tendencies into constructive channels which will clear away those blocks. If you feel an impulse, for example, to deprive people of anything, look for ways of giving to them. If you have an urge to compete against them, look for ways of giving them the victory.
I have already suggested a key to understanding the basic nature with which you were born, as opposed to those inclinations which present environment has instilled in you: Look back to your childhood; reflect on your earliest tendencies and see how they might fit into your present realities. These memories will give you clues to the personality traits and skills you developed in other lifetimes—especially the last one—and therefore to what is most likely to bring you success in this life.
I remember when I was first learning to write. I was six years old, and was asked to write the kind of brief paper first graders may reasonably be expected to handle. I showed my parents what I’d written, and they commented that I had over-used the word, “and.” Unquestionably they were right; both of them were, in fact, good writers. The odd thing was my own unvoiced reaction. I still remember my thought: “When it comes to writing, who is there that can teach me?” A ridiculous idea, but the fact that it even came to me suggests that I probably wrote for a living before. In little hints like these we may get an inkling of what we did in the past, and of options open to us in the present.
When I was sixteen, my father offered to buy me a tuxedo—the elegant suit that Western men wear on formal occasions like weddings or first nights at the opera. I replied, “Please don’t bother, Dad. I’ll never wear it. In fact, I’ll never earn enough money even to pay income tax.” My father smiled. He must have thought I was going through some “adolescent phase.” My words were consciously prescient, however. Six years later I became a monk in my Guru’s ashram. My path in this life has never been what most people would call normal, though as far as money-making is concerned I have probably earned millions for the work to which I’ve dedicated my life.
Above all, if you sincerely want to find truth, even while working to earn a living, ask for divine assistance. It isn’t only the saints whose prayers are answered. Of supreme importance is the attitude you hold while praying. Don’t ask God to help you: rather, ask Him what you can do to serve Him. Self-giving prayer is much more effective than a beggarly attitude.
There is a beautiful prose poem by Rabindranath Tagore. I included it in a small book of mine, Money Magnetism. Let me quote it again here for you:
I had gone a-begging from door to door in the village path, when thy golden chariot appeared in the distance like a gorgeous dream and I wondered who was this King of all kings!
My hopes rose high and methought my evil days were at an end, and I stood waiting for alms to be given unasked and for wealth scattered on all sides in the dust.
The chariot stopped where I stood. Thy glance fell on me and thou camest down with a smile. I felt that the luck of my life had come at last. Then of a sudden thou didst hold out thy right hand and say, “What hast thou to give me?”
Ah, what a kingly jest was it to open thy palm to a beggar to beg! I was confused and stood undecided, and then from my wallet I slowly took out the least little grain of corn and gave it to thee.
But how great was my surprise when at the day’s end I emptied my bag on the floor to find a least little grain of gold among the poor heap! I bitterly wept and wished that I had had the heart to give thee my all.

The Application
Avoid setting unnecessary and useless precedents in your life. Live creatively in the present. Habit, at work, can be anathema to real success. Flexibility is essential if you want to address new situations appropriately.
A fellow disciple of mine—Dr. Lewis, the first to meet Paramhansa Yogananda in America, in 1920—once told me, “The Master never did anything out of habit.”
I was astonished. “You mean, not even when he was tying his shoelaces?”
“Not even then,” Dr. Lewis responded.
I still find his statement difficult to believe. As the Master himself wrote, “Habits are a convenient mechanism of the mind to prevent one from having to exercise his will for actions that are repeated frequently.” Whether or not “Doctor’s” statement was literally true, however, it still bore remarkable testimony to the freedom of Master’s will—a feature of his life in any case that always seemed to me extraordinary. One could never predict with certainty what he would say or do in any circumstance. Others of my fellow disciples have made such statements as, “Master would never have said that!” when a remark attributed to him concerned not dharma or truth, but something the one negating the statement had never, in years of association with him, heard him say. I was with him fewer years, certainly, than many of them, but I myself heard him make statements that those same people later rejected as impossible. I submit that the error was theirs. They had channeled their memories of him into a narrow riverbed of their own thinking. A master lives his life, however, ever afresh and ever in the present.
When groups of people live or work together, a certain number of rules are necessary for the over-all harmony and efficiency. Rules might be described as “group habits.” They are necessary, but even so, the rules should be kept to a minimum.
When our Guru placed me in charge of the other monks, he told me, “Don’t make too many rules: it destroys the spirit.” There come to my mind images of traditional monasteries where the monks and nuns are bound by such a plethora of rules that it is difficult, if not impossible, for them to develop their own free will, a complete necessity on the spiritual path. I saw, after Paramhansa Yogananda left his body, how eagerly some of my fellow disciples embraced rules as a replacement for his active guidance. I confess that atmosphere became more and more suffocating for me.
If you want to be creative and happy, seek work where sensible innovation is appreciated. If you have inherited a work that was started by someone else, and you want to honor its principles and traditions, try to discriminate between the way things are done and the spirit that first animated them. The surest way to mummify an organization is to bind it to the wheel of “what is done,” rather than being guided creatively in response to new needs and to new realities as they confront one.
To be creative and happy requires that you live more by inspiration, and guided less by institutional habit. My Guru, when he gave me advice on how to lecture, emphasized spontaneity over preparation, and attunement over giving intellectual discourses. Over the years, this advice has resulted in my seldom needing to prepare for a lecture I must give. I have learned to tune into the audience, as well as into divine inspiration, and thereby to give them what they themselves need at the time.
Sometimes, when I have been invited to speak as part of a conference, I’ve been asked to submit a written text of my speech for later publication. I’ve regretfully had to deny every such request. I never form a fixed plan of what I’m going to say. After a lecture, moreover, I simply wipe the slate clean so that, if I have to speak again on the same subject, I will be able to address it creatively, as though for the first time. Often, I haven’t known what I would say until I took my first breath to begin speaking. Sometimes during a talk I’ve surprised myself by announcing, “Now, here’s an important point to bear in mind,” when I hadn’t the slightest notion what that “important point” was! The guidance for what to say next, in fulfillment of that promise, has never yet failed me in all my “career” of public speaking. Always, what I should say next has appeared instantly in my mind. And always it has, indeed, been important in the context of my talk.
It would be foolhardy for most people to take such a chance. Though it works for me, I don’t suggest that you go at it the same way. I do, however, urge you to try to live more in the moment, and to seek guidance from God or from your higher Self, rather than trying to figure everything out in advance, intellectually. The more you learn to depend on higher guidance, even though taking only little steps at a time, the more you will find intuition flowing. Intuition is an aspect of normal human awareness of which most people are entirely ignorant.
Similarly, when others ask you for advice, and particularly if they are depending on your wisdom, don’t rely on what you’ve said to anyone previously. Your wisdom will thus tend to be both apposite and helpful. Try to tune in to the realities of the person you are counseling. Remember, everyone is, in a way, unique. I’ve said this in these lessons before: Try to reach them at their center from your own inner center.
A famous author in America once told me that she was working on a new book. Then with unaccustomed frankness she added, “Of course, it’s always the same, anyway!” I smiled encouragingly, not wanting to tell her that, with me, it is never the same. As often as I’ve expressed myself in writing or in lecturing, it is always as if for the first time. I grant you that more energy is required this way: It is always easier to rely on what one has said or done before than to seek guidance ever anew, especially in familiar matters. That is the way, however, to mental ossification.
Allow no self-image to build up in your mind. I grant you here, also, that if one has a negative self-image it will help him to substitute for it a positive one. Nevertheless, I’ve found it an even greater help not to hold any image at all. Respond sensitively to each new situation as it arises, as if you’d never faced that situation before. In this way your responses will be always fresh, as well as particularly meaningful.
A corollary to this thought is the following: Don’t be ruled by any image others hold of you. I don’t mean in any way to suggest you outrage their sensibilities by trying to be “original.” Respect others, even for any exaggerated image they hold of you. Be guided, however, by your own conscience from within.
Originality is popularly misunderstood to signify a work that has never been done before. In the name of “originality,” many people try to do what the French call “épater les bourgeois: shock the middle classes.” They try to be so different from everyone else that they become a class to themselves. Some people might even call them mad!
In truth, originality means to come from one’s own inner point of origin. Just think how many millions of people, speaking every language known to man, have said the equivalent of those English words, “I love you.” No sensible person would ever scoff at those words, or call people trite for making that statement, if it is made sincerely. It isn’t what one says or does that spells either triteness or originality. It is the sincerity of one’s expression. Be, in that sense, original: That is to say, be completely true to yourself.
I’ve often thought that unappreciated genius in any field is not so unfortunate as it is often thought to be. The person of genius is free to create as he feels to do, inwardly, if he is not tempted to accede to public demand. If he is truly a person of genius, what will matter to him will be the joy of creating something meaningful, and not the plaudits of any mob.
Another way to apply the principles I’m been describing is to be willing to laugh with good cheer at yourself. Having no self-image to live up to will keep you from becoming a pompous ass! On the plus side of the ledger, you will then find it easier to be original in the true sense, and to be guided by your own understanding.
Ask God to inspire you in what you say or do. Never tell yourself, “I can’t do that,” if what you’d like to do seems to you impossible, particularly if the job is important to you. (I say that because the memory comes to me of a time, nearly sixty years ago, when I said to someone, “I can’t do that.” He replied, almost as if by rote, “There’s no such word as can’t!” I don’t consider it important, however, to be good at everything one does. “All right, then,” I replied: “I won’t!”) If something is important to you, it is no sign of humility to claim inability. Tell yourself, rather, “I certainly couldn’t do it, myself, but God through me can accomplish anything.” Indeed, everything on earth is created by God through instruments—usually, human ones.

Meditation
Reflect on the following lines from Paramhansa Yogananda’s poem “Samadhi”:
Present, past, future, no more for me,
But ever-present, all-flowing I, I, everywhere. . . .
I swallowed, transmuted all
Into a vast ocean of blood of my own one Being!
Meditate on the phenomenon of Time—Time not as a continuum, but as non-existent. Space and time are products merely of consciousness in motion.
The more clearly you can live in the thought of stillness, the more you will find yourself at the center of all creativity.

Affirmation
“I am no free man or free woman merely: 
I am a free soul.”

Points to Remember

1. Try to find work that is compatible with your nature. Most people have only certain skills and are simply not adapted to other kinds of work. 
2. Perfection lies not in what one does, but in what one IS, in consciousness. It is a foolish waste of energy to try to bring to perfection one’s human personality. 
3. The work you do should be that which can help you to grow, spiritually. 
4. One’s attitudes are more important than any specific thing one does. The attitudes one should develop are above all those which lead to superconsciousness.
5. The way to approach the question of what work is right for you is to expect solutions. Where there’s a problem, there has to be a solution.
6. An essential attitude is willingness. To reject any suggested solution means, self-evidently, to deny what may have to be done. One must be ready for anything. 
7. Another attitude, important to the selection and pursuit of the right course in life, is calmness. There is much in the process of money-making that creates nervousness. Avoid such work as you would the plague.
8. Joy and calm enthusiasm are states of mind to be sought in any work one accepts. Seek work that—at least according to your present understanding—promises happiness.
9. Be conscious of how the work you do might affect others. Seek never to harm anyone. 
10. Do not work under anyone who asks you to be untruthful. Do not allow the company of others where you work to lower your principles. Seek work where the people themselves are, as far as you know, honorable.
11. Seek work that will give you a sense that you are serving others. Serviceful work is expansive. Anything that takes you toward greater expansion will help you as well as others. Seek to become skillful at whatever work you want to do. 
12. In choosing, or in developing, a work, look for enough variety in it to keep you energetic and interested. The more energy the work demands of you, and the greater its challenge to you, the more greatly you will benefit from it.
13. What kind of good karma do you especially need? Divert any harmful tendencies in yourself into constructive channels which will clear away your karmic blocks. 
14. Look back to your childhood; reflect on your earliest tendencies and see how they might fit into your present realities. These memories will give you clues to the personality traits and skills you developed in other lifetimes and therefore to what is most likely to bring you success in this life.
15. If you sincerely want to find truth, even while working to earn a living, ask for divine assistance. Don’t ask God to help you: rather, ask Him what you can do to serve Him. 
16. If you want to be creative and happy, seek work where sensible innovation is appreciated. 
17. Try to live more in the moment, and to seek guidance from God or from your higher Self, rather than trying to figure everything out in advance, intellectually. The more you learn to depend on higher guidance, the more you will find intuition flowing.
18. Originality means to come from one’s own inner point of origin. 
19. Be willing to laugh with good cheer at yourself. Having no self-image to live up to will help you to be original in the true sense, and to be guided by your own understanding.
20. Ask God to inspire you in what you say or do. Never tell yourself, “I can’t do that,” but say, rather, “I certainly couldn’t do it, myself, but God through me can accomplish anything.” 

Workbook Ideas
by Joseph Bharat Cornell
Follow Your Dharma

John Muir (1838-1924), America’s most renowned and influential conservationist, is revered today as the “Father of the National Parks.” Muir’s writing and enthusiasm inspired the modern conservation movement, and “all other torches,” it was said, “were lighted from his.”
As a young man, however, Muir was a source of embarrassment to his family. They worried about him spending so much time wandering through the countryside looking at plants. His family wanted him to choose a profession—the more socially acceptable, the better. During this time, John received lots of “helpful” suggestions on what he should do with his life. But John stayed true to his inner calling. Responding to the admonishments from others to follow a more respectable profession, Muir wrote, “I will follow my instincts—be myself for good or ill—and see what will be the upshot.” 
“It is better to fail attempting to follow one's own dharma than to succeed in following the dharma of another,” says the Bhagavad Gita. The more you act in harmony with what your nature calls you to do, the happier you will be. The purpose of life is to learn to direct your life force energetically. Work that brings out the highest within you awakens the enthusiastic support of your whole being. 

Action Item
The time spent at work comprises half your waking hours, so choosing harmonious and enjoyable work is crucial to your well-being. 
Examine your present occupation and how it affects your attitudes and level of energy. Ask yourself the following questions:
•	Am I happy to go to work each day? 
•	Do I perform my tasks with attention and loving interest? 
•	Is the overall quality of my energy positive, willing, and cheerful?
•	Can I be creative? Is there enough variety to keep me interested?
•	Am I providing a meaningful service for others? 

No job will be perfect until we reach perfection ourselves. If you find, however, that your job suppresses your energy and enthusiasm, you should try to find another position in your company, or perhaps even in another profession. If this is impossible, try to find volunteer work or a hobby that allows you to express a more fulfilling part of yourself.   

Action Item 
•	Look back at your childhood. Try to recall your earliest tendencies. What were your interests? What were you drawn to? What did you have a natural flair for?  
•	Analyze your present-day tendencies and interests. 
•	Can you see how your natural tendencies might give you clues for your choice of profession? 

Action Item
Once you have determined the kind of job you want, employ your will power, creative ability, and steadfast patience to materialize your work or service. “Opportunities in life come by creation, not by chance,” said Paramhansa Yogananda.