Material Success and Happiness Through Yoga Principles

by Swami Kriyananda
(J. Donald Walters)

Copyright © 2005 Hansa Trust
All rights reserved.

Contents
Introduction
	1.	Dharma as the Key to Success
	2.	How to Magnetize Money
	3.	Knowledge, Inspiration, and Energy
	4.	The Importance of Right Attitude
	5.	What Is It, to Be Practical?
	6.	First Things First
	7.	Balancing Work and Meditation
	8.	Immediate versus Long-Range Goals
	9.	The Importance of Human Values
	10.	How to Be a Good Leader
	11.	Practicality in Investments
	12.	What Kind of Compromises?
	13.	Keep Your Feet on the Ground
	14.	Working with Others
	15.	Effectiveness as an Employer
	16.	Being a Successful Employee
	17.	The Importance of a Harmonious Environment
	18.	Secrets of Effective Advertising
	19.	Talk Less, Do More
	20.	Joy in Business
	21.	The Stages of Human Evolution
	22.	The Dignity of Labor
	23.	God’s Place in the Business World
	24.	What Should Your Business Be?
	25.	Creating Opportunities
	26.	The Right Use of Ego

Introduction
The three main philosophies of India were developed thousands of years ago. They are known as Sankhya, Yoga, and Vedanta. Sankhya explains why one should reject as delusive everything he perceives through the senses, and why he should seek a higher, non-material reality. Yoga, the second in the series, is the supreme science, for it enables one to experience truth for himself. And Vedanta explains, insofar as human reason can grasp it, the nature of that Truth.
These philosophies are best taught sequentially. People should understand, first, their need to banish delusion from their consciousness in comprehending that delusion is the source of all life’s pain, uncertainty, and suffering. When they recognize their need to live by higher principles, they develop the willingness to undergo the discipline necessary for attaining a higher understanding. Yoga, for that reason, comes second in the series.
Beyond Yoga practice there lies the wisdom of Vedanta. One may ask why wisdom needs to be explained if it can be realized personally. The answer is that Vedanta shows where all true spiritual practices lead, lest people be tempted to stray off the trail to the top of the mountain by reaffirming their egos and developing, for example, the eight siddhis or spiritual powers. The true purpose of yoga is to bring one to the highest state of Self-realization. The Vedanta teachings help to keep one’s aspirations directed toward that goal.
There is a story my Guru enjoyed telling about a great yogi named Baba Gorakhnath, whose life span was three hundred years. In that long time, Baba Gorakhnath developed all the yogic siddhis. When it was time for him at last to leave his body, he wanted to find someone highly advanced enough to receive those powers.
Gazing through the spiritual eye (the seat of spiritual vision, located just behind the forehead at a point midway between the eyebrows) he saw a young man seated by the river Ganges in deep meditation. Here, he realized, was a fit person to receive his siddhis. He materialized before the young yogi and announced, “I am Baba Gorakhnath.” If he, with his high renown, expected a gasp of amazement from the young man, he was disappointed. The younger one only looked at him with an expression of calm inquiry.
The old yogi continued, “I have seen that the time has come for me to leave my body. Over many years of spiritual practice I have perfected the eight yogic siddhis. Today I am here to confer them upon you, for I have seen in meditation that you are worthy of them.”
Baba Gorakhnath, holding in his hand eight pellets of mud, continued: “I have infused these pellets with my yogic powers. Meditate holding them in your right hand, and their powers will be infused into you.”
The young yogi took them in his right hand, looked at them for a moment, then asked, “Are these mine to do with as I choose?”
“Of course!” the other replied. “I have given them to you. They are yours.”
Thereupon, the young man flung all eight pellets into the river.
“What have you done!” cried the other in horror. “It took me three hundred years to develop those powers. You have thrown away my life work!”
The young yogi gazed at him with still eyes and answered, “In delusion yet, Baba Gorakhnath?”
His words vibrated with divine realization. The ancient yogi was suddenly wakened from his lifelong fascination with powers.
“How can I thank you?” he cried. “I can do so only by leaving my body in a state of perfect freedom!” He sat down on the sand forthwith, entered into deep meditation, and left his body, a fully liberated soul.
The traditional scripture of yoga is Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, or aphorisms. Those sutras begin with a word that has probably puzzled many students over the years: “Now [we come to] the study of Yoga.” Why did he insert that seemingly unnecessary word, now, in that aphorism? The answer is that, if one would comprehend the need for spiritual attainment, he must first understand the message of Sankhya which explains the nature of delusion. Armed with that understanding, one is ready to pursue in earnest the science of yoga.
Yoga gives the “how to” of the spiritual path. Since this is an inward journey, the main emphasis of yoga is on withdrawing one’s consciousness from the body and centering it in the spine. Yoga practice enables one to raise his consciousness to the highest level of Self-realization.
Many obstacles confront one as he makes this inward journey. The first obstacle is the fact that human understanding is limited to the information it receives from the senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Man’s understanding is limited, next, by reason’s fumbling attempts to process that information.
From birth onward, the human being sees the world, as revealed to him through the senses, as the only reality. Even before birth, one’s energy flows outward from his inmost center to create the embryo. At birth, on entering this world, his energy must immediately be engaged outwardly to sustain his body by breathing, eating, and keeping his muscles activated.
Growing children relate ever more, and more specifically, to the world around them. This need to do so takes precedence over every other consideration, including the soul’s call within to remember the eternal, ever-blissful reality.
We have entered, without realizing it, into a house of mirrors. Everything we see and experience in the world is only a reflection of our own awareness. We see, first, only what we are capable of seeing. We understand only what we are capable of understanding. Happiness, which everyone craves, is reflected back to us, only, from the surrounding world: we project it outwardly from our center. If we lack inner joy, we will find not a hint of it outside. Melodies of a lost happiness pluck on our heartstrings, but sound faint and far away until we recognize that their source is ever inside ourselves.
It is only in our egos that we experience happiness or sadness. What is the ego—ahankara is the Sanskrit word—anyway? It is not our true self. Paramhansa Yogananda defined ego as the soul identified with the body. Man reaches out to the world through his senses, trying ever to grasp the joy which he intuits to be his birthright. Ego-consciousness is a delusion. It imprisons joy instead of letting it flow out toward infinity. Man’s every thought and gesture affirms his own separate individuality to be his reality. He fails to realize how cramped his self-identity becomes, in consequence. Aspirations that arise from ego-consciousness seize possession of his mind. “I am this body,” he affirms. “I am a man. I am a woman.” And so it goes on.
As the child grows, it develops in the awareness of its surroundings. If, when the person grows to adulthood, he clings to self-involvement, the adult may remain immature. A child’s self-preoccupation is natural—even necessary. It is its way of getting a firm purchase on outer realities, even as a person learning to walk on a tightrope must be exaggeratedly aware of his every movement. In an adult, however, excessive self-preoccupation betrays childishness. In exaggerated cases, indeed, such self-preoccupation may even lead to madness. The awareness of the super-egotist is expansive only insofar as it reaches out to take what he can for himself. He wants more and more wealth, more and more power, more and more self-importance, indifferent to the needs and interests of others.
Thus, we see that there are two outward directions in which the ego can grow: toward mature acceptance of objective realities; or toward a desire for possession and dominion over others.
Expanding sympathy helps the ego to be aware of its subtle identity with other people and with the universe. One’s own happiness, in consequence, expands exponentially. If, on the other hand, the ego grows more self-centered, this “expansion” of self-consciousness becomes suffocating. Any happiness one experiences shrinks, in time, to virtual nonexistence. Selfish people imagine that the more they possess, the happier they will be. This is a delusion: What they accomplish is quite the opposite, for they squeeze their ever-dwindling happiness in a tightening grip that becomes even physically painful at last, owing to the tension that they build up in themselves.
When the ego’s sympathy for others expands, and it grows in appreciation for the world around it, it relaxes from exaggerated consciousness of its body, and expands effortlessly into ever-clearer awareness of the indwelling soul. Ego—the soul, as I said earlier, identified with the body—discovers its identity, in this case, with the Infinite Spirit. One sees one’s self no longer as the little self (with a small s), but as identified with the infinite Self (written with a large S.)
There is another way that self-awareness can grow: not by outward expansion, but by withdrawing the energy altogether from outward consciousness. One realizes, thus, that the essence of life is unitive. All things, so distinct in appearance from one another, are then realized to be expressions of the one, changeless reality.
It is possible to grow spiritually in both ways: by sympathetic expansion into a sense of one’s relationship with the world; and, alternatively, by withdrawing inwardly and realizing all reality as a manifestation in consciousness of the one, infinite Self. Both directions are necessary for those who want to practice yoga most effectively. The hermit-yogi, seeking only to withdraw from outwardness, may find himself not expanding at all, but diminishing, rather, in his self-involvement.
Those who are highly enough realized to be in breathless samadhi for indefinite periods at a time no longer need to balance their inward union with God by outward service. For those who are not so highly realized, however, it is important to serve outwardly as well as inwardly—the inward service being a self-offering of their whole existence into the ocean of divine love. One’s life should be balanced, inwardly and outwardly. If he withdraws too unilaterally from the world, he may find himself excluding God in creation from his sympathies. Yet the world, too, is a manifestation of God and, therefore, of His love. God’s presence is everywhere. To despise creation is self-limiting. The yogi should behold all things as part of the one, infinite Self. Even evil people are struggling, albeit ignorantly at present, to find happiness, which they will realize at last is their own, true nature.
Everything one does has a certain potential, however slight, for danger. People have died from slipping in their bathtubs! The danger on the path of meditation is that the yogi may become absorbed, not in his true Self, but in his little ego. Such a person becomes ego-centered instead of God-centered. This is why devotion to God as a separate Reality from oneself is advised even in the Vedanta teachings. An “I-Thou” relationship helps one to avoid the trap, yawning wide for the unwary, of identifying their egos with the Infinite Self. Adi Swami Shankaracharya himself, the supreme advaitin or non-dualist, wrote poems expressing adoration to the Divine Mother.
A serious problem for those who seek fulfillment only in their little egos, rejecting completely their true identify with the Infinite Self in which ego-consciousness disappears, is that they lose touch with true principles. Such a person inclines to take more and more whatever he can from others, forgetting that he shares with all beings the same, universal reality.
Most people, in fact, are not aware that a non-material reality exists. The world calls to them in silvery, siren tones: “Come! Make your own pleasure your entire reality!” When suffering comes to them—as it must in this world of duality—they have no notion of where to turn for help—unless it be some “professional” who is powerless to bring them the true solace they need. They’ve lost conscious contact with their inner homeland of joy and freedom. They feel themselves swept along, therefore, like pebbles down a raging stream, tumbled helplessly about by events over which they have no control. Young people may imagine sometimes that they’ll be able to manipulate the outer events in their lives. As they grow older, however, they find themselves involved, instead, in a dog-eat-dog fight for survival.
“How can I be honest,” they ask themselves, “with so many people doing their utmost to take advantage of me? How can I live by high principles, and still make an adequate living? How can I, on my wages, put my son through college so that he, in turn, can help to support our family? How can I be scrupulously truthful, when I know there are many who would eagerly use the very truths I tell to do me harm?”
A shopkeeper may sell a product in the knowledge that it is unreliable or even defective. Perhaps he hopes that his customer won’t be too disappointed. Indeed, he may not really care one way or the other, justifying his misdeeds by reasoning, “Well, a person has to live, doesn’t he?” In the struggle to keep his head above water as he swims with the stream, his motto becomes, “Me first.” Like the rat in that children’s fable, “Charlotte’s Web,” his criterion in every circumstance is, “What’s in it for me?”
The pebbles in a stream become gradually rounded by rubbing against one another. Wisdom too, shines more and more clearly as the little pebble of the ego gets smoothed by the constant rubbing together of success and failure, joy and disappointment, gain and loss. The maturing ego comes in time to understand the ancient Sanskrit saying, “Yata dharma, tata jaya: Where there is right action, there is victory.” Unrighteous behavior brings only failure, disappointment, and grim karmic retribution in the end.
The Sankhya philosophy analyzes and exposes the errors of delusion. Vedanta teaches the eternal nature of reality, yet states that philosophy alone cannot bestow the certainty that is born of experience. Only yoga teaches the way out of delusion: how to walk firmly, without stumbling, in the raging waters of maya, in full command of one’s life and inwardly singing with joy.
Yoga principles applied to the field of action will be the primary focus of these lessons. Lofty teachings need to be externalized in daily life, and not taken inside only, in meditation. This need for balance is important especially in modern life. The purpose of this course, then, is to bridge the gap between two realities—the inner and the outer.
For material success and happiness to be more assured and lasting, it must be paired with high principles. The science of yoga proves these principles to be dynamically valid. In these lessons you will learn how to direct your activities from your inner center, and to control your whole life from that center. In a word, as you practice these lessons you will find yourself becoming a cause, and no longer a passive effect. You will cease being a pebble tumbled helplessly down the stream of life by circumstances.
The yoga teachings offer principles and practices, not pious maxims. They show convincingly why everyone should practice them. And they offer practical guidelines to a better, more fulfilled life, both outwardly and inwardly.
Such was the message which my great Guru, Paramhansa Yogananda, brought to the world. The yoga he taught was twofold: the path to inner enlightenment, and important secrets, also, for achieving outer success.
It is my hope—indeed, my fond expectation—that these lessons will help you to be successful in every aspect of your life.

Lesson One
Dharma as the Key to Success
The Principles
Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri, my Paramguru, was quoted in Paramhansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi as making the statement, “So long as you breathe the free air of earth, you are under obligation to render grateful service.”
Sri Yukteswar himself, under other circumstances, might have asked, “Who is serving whom?” The “air of earth” is simply there; it comes with living on this planet. Where then—he might have asked rhetorically also—is the need for gratitude? The fact is, everything in the universe is consciously manifested, and with love. Nothing in it is irrational, though sometimes it seems so to human intelligence. To man there seems no reason for disease, for example, or for a baby being born blind, or for someone to fail financially who is capable and intelligent—or, for that matter, for someone else to achieve outstanding success who seems not to have done anything to earn it. One naturally asks, Why be grateful without reason?
The answer is twofold: First, as we shall see, there is indeed cause in the sense that there is a consciousness which receives our gratitude and responds to it; and, second, because to express gratitude is self-ennobling.
Sri Yukteswar said also that karmic law, though it functions to a great extent automatically, is also guided by a universal intelligence, and love, and can also be intelligently manipulated or diverted. Hence the concept of divine grace—kripa, in Sanskrit—is common to most religions. Kripa can be won above all by divine devotion and love.
Finally, we should be grateful for life itself. Gratitude, in this case, transcends reason; after all—one might say—we exist: why be grateful for the fact? Gratitude, properly understood, has no reason: It is simply an aspect of the pure joy of our existence—so much a part of it that one can hardly be distinguished from the other.
Success in life depends on how faithfully we follow the principles of karmic law. The primary purpose of karma is to instruct people, by punishment and reward, and also in a general way to lead all life, in the way of upward evolution. There is no animus or favoritism in the functioning of karma. Whatever happens in life, and even in lifeless-seeming matter, is a response to energy projected. Karma is simply, in this sense, the working of Newton’s law: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
The difficulty modern man has is with accepting, for animate creatures, laws that seem to him to apply only to mechanisms. Modern science has biased people in favor of viewing the whole universe as inanimate and unconscious. Modern biology, for example, has strengthened this bias by making evolution itself out to be an accident, and by demonstrating that inert matter reacts to stimuli in essentially the same way as nerves do. In approaching this proven fact with a materialistic bias, one naturally concludes that nothing, really, is either conscious or alive.
The weakness of this conclusion lies in its absurdity: the obvious self-contradiction that it takes consciousness to arrive at that conclusion, and, furthermore, that it takes living beings to be interested in this point in the first place!
It is easier, however, for people to believe that the law of karma works on a human level than that it works on inanimate objects. It is not difficult to see the possible justice of a baby being born blind—especially if, along with the law of karma, we accept its companion principle, the law of reincarnation. It is more difficult to see karma working in apparently automatic matters, such as the fall of a shooting star. Yet Newton’s laws of motion point to cause and effect working also on apparently “inanimate” objects.
Newton was a religious-minded man. He was hampered in giving voice to that fact because his beliefs contradicted many of the dogmas both of formal religion and of science, which already had begun to manifest signs of the bigotry until then encountered primarily in religion. (It wasn’t religion itself, of course, nor politics, nor science, nor any other system of belief that engendered bigotry and dogmatism: It was, simply, human nature!) Any spiritual overtones in Newton’s “equal and opposite force” theory would have been totally excluded by the scientists of his day, as they would have been “on principle” by the religionists.
The real problem with religion, from a scientific viewpoint, has been its anthropomorphism: giving the Infinite Lord the human form of Lord Krishna, for example, or equating Him to His “son,” Jesus Christ—none of which is compatible with modern findings that the universe contains countless billions of galaxies, each of them composed of many billions of stars. Newton himself did not doubt the existence of a divine consciousness in the universe. Nor did the ancient teachings of India, of which Vedanta is, in this case, a prime example. Newton was obliged by the dogmas of modern science to exclude God from his reckoning. Otherwise, everything he taught would simply have excluded him from both groups: scientific, and religious.
His findings fitted into the scientific system of discovery by investigation, which automatically excluded the religious system of beliefs that were based entirely on scripture-based dogmas. Therefore, he could make his discoveries blend in with only one of these groups; obviously, his natural milieu was that of the physicists of his day.
When it comes to a sophisticated understanding of such cosmic matters, the ancient wise men, or rishis, of India were far more knowledgeable than modern science. This truth is observable in the fact that modern science is moving closer and closer to that same ancient knowledge, which for centuries was rejected in the West as both irreligious and unscientific.
J.H.F. Umbgrove, the geologist, in his scientific work, Symphony of the Earth, wrote, “Nobody can foresee whether these modern speculations [on the problems of life and matter] will ever be susceptible to condensation into a social or religious system. Remarkably enough, however, they remind one of certain aspects of the Brahmanese Upanishads.”
The concern of modern science has always been with proofs, based on investigation and experimentation. On this level, it is easy enough to prove that Newton’s laws work: They are valid. They also express, on a material level, many aspects of the law of karma. It is more difficult to see Newton’s laws at work in those aspects of karmic law that apply to human beings and to other forms of conscious life. Is it possible that a law of recompense deals with human activities? On a level both of Newton’s laws and of man’s own sense of justice, karmic law is surely worth more than a few idle moments of casual contemplation. Modern science has a long distance to travel before it will even consider the merits of karmic law as applied to human life. Yet the experience of wise men in India for thousands of years, and a close view of human history as we know it from careful investigation, surely provide enough factual evidence to make anyone who aspires to material success consider very seriously whether dharmic, or righteous, action on the one hand, and adharmic, or unrighteous, action on the other, affect present-day success or failure. For there are many observable facts that cannot be airily dismissed on dogmatic grounds.
I add to those facts my own Guru’s wisdom, which I soon recognized was profound, though much of it contradicted my own thoroughly Westernized education. I do not offer what he, and what many other great yogis, declared as proof of my thesis. I offer it as impressive additional support for a law that I propose to present in evidential terms.
America’s material success is an example of the karmic law working in man’s favor. Many people believe that America’s success has been due entirely to her material efficiency. Efficiency is important, no doubt. It is also, in its own way, a divine principle, for we see it displayed, for example, in the very process of evolution, which sifts that which works from that which doesn’t work. (Hence, Darwin’s “law of natural selection.”) America’s success is due also, far more than most of her citizens themselves realize, to two mental attitudes: faith in God, and a generous spirit.
A South American friend of mine pointed this fact out to me years ago. “Your country was started,” he said, “by the Pilgrim Fathers, who came to your shores in a quest for spiritual freedom. Spain’s motivation in invading Latin America, by contrast, was men’s desire for gold. Your country has prospered from the beginning, but our countries have suffered for centuries from chaos and poverty.”
During the 1960s, when America and Russia were competing to be the first to put a man on the moon, someone proposed an amusing suggestion. “What America should do,” was the claim, “is spend enough money to put a dog on the moon and keep it alive there long enough for Americans to become aware of the poor creature’s plight. They’ll be so concerned for that animal’s survival, they’ll raise the money to bring it back to Earth again.”
Karmic law is fair in the way it works. It is neither positive nor negative; in a sense, it is indifferent in the way it responds to human action by punishment and reward. There is an important indication, however, that its seeming indifference is only outward. Karmic law is, in fact, an expression of divine love. Thus, karma serves the true purpose of encouraging all beings—especially humans—to evolve spiritually.
Consider, as examples of the working of karma, the relative destinies of England and India. Marco Polo, who lived in the thirteenth century, traveled from his home in Venice, Italy, to China. On his return journey he passed through India, which he described in his book of travels as “the richest country in the world.” Isn’t it strange that England, soon after her mercantile adventurers arrived in India, became a great and powerful nation? India, during that same time period, sank to relative poverty. Does it seem superstition merely, to see in this see-sawing of destinies a cause-and-effect relationship? England’s centuries of absorbing wealth from other nations, and of returning to them hardly a tithe of the benefits she reaped from them, has surely been the karmic cause, at last, of her undoing. From the beginning of World War II, Paramhansa Yogananda said, “You will see, the karmic reason for this war is the abolition of the colonial system.” As early as 1915, or thereabouts, he had already predicted, “India will be liberated in my lifetime, by peaceful means.”
In 1950 I asked my Guru, “What is England’s destiny?”
“England is finished!” he replied firmly. When I tried to get him to qualify that statement, he only repeated, “Finished!” England’s good karma, dating possibly to ancient times, gave her the global success she achieved for some centuries. That good karma, however, seems now exhausted in the sense that—comparing her to a clock—she seems to be running down, her energy dwindling, and her very self-confidence, as evidenced in numerous novels that have been written in that country since World War II, ebbing.
Meanwhile, what about India? Have her recent centuries of poverty been karmic also? Yes, of course they have! What other reason could there be? Both success and failure are ruled by karmic law. India’s downward course in recent centuries was due also, I believe, to the natural disintegrating influences of time. India had to experience the disruption through which all ancient civilizations passed. India alone however, out of all of them, has survived. The tallest mountains are eventually reduced by time to the level of lowland plains, and the low plains are raised up, again by time, to mountain heights.
Karma rules not only over human beings, but over stars, planets, and every living species. That karma which rules whole nations is known as mass karma. That which rules individual destiny is known as personal karma. Other kinds of karma there are: group karma, for example, which rules the destinies of less evolved creatures, and even, as I mentioned, those of seemingly inanimate objects. Consciousness it is, ultimately, that rules everything. It would be wise, then, in the pursuit of one’s material ambitions, to accept that a cause-effect principle really does determine the consequences of how you treat others, and of how conscientiously you adhere, in your life, to truth and honesty.
A very positive example of group karma is evident in India’s millennial history. Her devotion to spiritual truth has greatly strengthened her, karmically. India today is once again rising. Someday, my Guru said, India will join hands with America; the two countries, together, will lead the world on the path to material and spiritual prosperity.
The Law of Karma demands that whatever benefits one receives be, in some way, returned. One of those ways is by what Swami Sri Yukteswar counseled: “by rendering grateful service.” Whatever goodness a person, or a nation, offers to others will bring expansion of consciousness in return: an expansion of sympathy, understanding and success. When one helps others to achieve prosperity, he attracts greater prosperity to himself. When he helps others to grow in understanding, he finds understanding deepening in himself. When one helps others to grow spiritually, that action brings him closer, himself, to spiritual enlightenment. The law works infallibly. Thus, in comparable measure, to harm others attracts similar harm to oneself.
One can offset a negative karma by generating an equal and opposite karma which thereby either deflects that negative energy or absorbs and nullifies it. Thus, if people for some reason turn against you and try to cause you harm, you can deflect or nullify their action by treating them kindly, instead of seeking revenge on them. A deflected karma may rebound on them, or, if you give it to God, it may serve you, yourself, as a tapasya (austerity, or penance), giving you great spiritual strength. Both to deflect and nullify that karma, the most important thing is not to let it affect your ego. This is done most completely by attaining the state of jivan mukta, which is the state in which no ego-consciousness remains to be affected. The karma generated by trying to harm you may, in that case, be simply dissolved in cosmic consciousness—even as a pebble, if dropped into the ocean, causes waves that expand indefinitely, but if dropped into a little pond of ego-consciousness, may create ripples that visibly expand until they reach the bank, then return, still visible, going back and forth until they subside altogether. If the people who tried to harm you did so with personal animus, they will attract that harm back to themselves, but if, on your side, you offer their animus to God, and return no negative energy of personal animus back to them, the consequence to them will be determined by how much their egos were engaged in their initial action.
I received dramatic corroboration of these various types of karma many years ago. Certain people tried, with a fury I’d had no notion they even felt, to destroy me by false accusations. Reflecting on the counsel of my paramguru Sri Yukteswar to “render grateful service,” it seemed to me that the only way to preserve my own integrity was to respond with gratitude—if not to them, then to life for helping me to grow spiritually no matter how they treated me. I made up my mind, indeed, to respond not only with gratitude, but with love. Was there some lesson I myself needed to learn? I knew of none, since it was my Guru himself who had given me the instructions they were controverting. Nevertheless, there had to be some benefit accruing to me from what must otherwise have been an unmitigated tragedy.
Strange to relate, over the years since then their anger toward me has increased. It has been as though my very forgiveness were, in their eyes, an insult revealing a major defect in my character. For myself, firm adherence to my Paramguru’s and my Guru’s teaching has brought me peace of mind, and a steady increase of inner joy. Moreover, I’ve been able to accomplish all that my Guru told me to do—activities which they’d done their best to block.
I have written many books in compliance with his personal instructions to me: eighty of them in all, so far. I have composed over 400 pieces of music, which he didn’t commission specifically, though they helped advance his main instructions, which were to inspire people, and draw them to the spiritual path and to his teachings. I have also created seven spiritual communities, first in America and then in Europe—an activity that deeply interested him. Indeed, he pleaded repeatedly in public that people found such communities. (When, in response to his oft-repeated plea, I vowed I would do my utmost to fulfill that wish, he said to me, “You have a great work to do, Walter.” (Walter was his “pet” name for me.) My present hope is to create similar communities in India.
All the profit from my books and recordings has gone toward building those communities, where at present some one thousand people live together in great peace and harmony.
In recent years, those friends (as I sincerely view them) who tried to engineer my undoing have made greater efforts than ever to complete their efforts by legal action. At a time when our Ananda communities were in great need of funds with which to combat these efforts, we somehow managed not only to survive, but to flourish.
In response to their more recent efforts, I wrote and published a little book called Do It NOW!, which offers spiritual and practical sayings for every day of the year. Though our monetary needs were urgent, I felt inspired all the same to get this book read by as many people as possible. Therefore I decided to give it away free, and invested my own money for the printing of 5,000 copies, which were distributed free.
Was it wise of me—and, in light of the subject of these lessons, was it practical—to be generous when our needs were so desperate? Some people might well consider my deed irresponsible. However, I knew I could reach 5,000 people directly—people who knew and appreciated what Ananda was doing. Therefore, I myself don’t call it at all impractical! Indeed, I can add that something did work for us, for Ananda Sangha emerged from that struggle stronger than ever. People appreciated that gift of the book, and Ananda Sangha, over the years, has become widely respected.
It is always good to be generous. Yet—to answer the question I posed in the last paragraph—one must be practical. That is to say, one should do what works, and one should also be generous within his means. What I want to say above all, then, is, Keep a generous attitude even if you haven’t the means to be generous in other, more material ways.
I have sought steadfastly over the years to put into practice my Guru’s and my Paramguru’s advice to “render grateful service.” Life has shown me that generosity works much better than the modern advice to “be competitive!” Indeed, I’ve come to prefer another word: “comparative.” Yes, one should be practical; when pricing an item, for example, that you as a merchant may want to sell, take into account the cost of similar products on the market, the location of your shop, the prosperity (or lack thereof) of your customers, and other mundane considerations. Pricing, in this case, must be comparative. To price items competitively, however, suggests to mind a will to beat down the opposition. Why do that? He never truly flourishes who tries to harm others.
Sometimes I reflect on the karma created not by trying to harm others, only, but also by trying to get as much as possible out of them for nothing. There are people, as we know, who beg for a living. Such people try to get something for nothing. This is the unspoken desire of many if not of most people. Whether one is literally a beggar or not, anyone who tries to get something for nothing is also, in a sense, a beggar. To try to get something for nothing is bad karma. Naturally, it is unfortunate for anyone to be poor, but poverty is also a consequence of bad karma, and generates, in turn, more bad karma. It is important to try to change that downward spiral. One way of stopping it is to show compassion actively toward those who are less fortunate than oneself.
In India, many people believe that spiritual teaching is an exception to this rule. Such teaching, they insist, should always be given freely. This belief is a misunderstanding of karmic Law. To insist on one’s right to receive anything without offering anything in return depletes one, karmically. What should be free is the willingness to help others through spiritual teaching, without the desire for recompense. If one receives such teaching freely, he should at least have an attitude, and better still offer some expression, of appreciation.
Forty-five years ago in East Patelnagar, a district of New Delhi and at least at that time a wealthy neighborhood, I gave a Kriya Yoga initiation. One of the envelopes offered as “dakshina” revealed its contents, afterward, to be only one naya paisa. Apart from the insult implied by such a minuscule donation, I couldn’t help wondering whether that person had received any blessing from God. I myself felt I had sinned by allowing anyone to cheapen the great blessing of that initiation. My error, which needs to be included in this story, was not first to have tested that person’s sincerity. Afterward, of course, I had no way of knowing who that person was, and could only pray that God would forgive him and give him blessings anyway.
The “quid pro quo” attitude that is commonly attributed to merchants demeans, in a sense, both the one who gives and the one who receives. I have often, in order to affirm my own integrity, given teachings to people who told me they could not afford to pay for them. Generally, I have found out later that they could easily have afforded the cost. Though I have never stopped this practice, it has been for my own conscience. I suspect it was only I who gained, in such cases.
To give freely is to practice nishkam karma: “action without desire for the fruits of one’s action.” Such was the teaching of Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita. To demand that one be given spiritual teachings, however, as one’s right, and to give nothing in return, is a karmic mistake. Nothing should ever be accepted without giving something in return. It is not wrong even to charge money for spiritual lessons, provided the fees are reasonable, and go to help a good cause.
My Guru charged for the lessons he gave. He charged only a reasonable amount, and used the money toward building his spiritual work in America. Moreover, he always took into account a person’s ability to pay. When they told him they could pay nothing, he charged nothing.
I also have followed his practice. Over many years, however, I have observed that those who gave nothing also received nothing of real value to them.
In the case of merchants, of course, they are obviously, and quite properly, working for a profit. Their attitude, however—as I shall discuss in later lessons—should be one of service to others as well as seeking personal gain. Business itself should, in addition to being for profit, serve the additional purpose of returning gratitude to the universe for, as Sri Yukteswar put it, “the free air of earth.”
I remember a time, when I was eighteen years of age, deciding I would like to learn the art of singing. Many had urged me to take up singing as a career. Thinking at least to “test the waters,” I went to a singing teacher of high repute. She was an old lady who, years earlier, had been a well-known singer of classical music. I was impressed when she declared firmly in advance, “The lessons will be five dollars each. It isn’t that I need the money: I don’t. It is you who need to pay it.”
Babaji Maharaj, the paramguru of Swami Sri Yukteswar, also instructed Lahiri Mahasaya (Sri Yukteswar’s guru) to charge Rupees five for Kriya Yoga initiation. It was the students themselves who needed to pay, not Lahiri Mahasaya who needed the money. Indeed, the money he received went toward helping the poor.
In my own case, though I wanted to study singing, and didn’t have those five dollars a week to pay for them, I didn’t like asking my father to pay that money. I therefore took a job waiting tables one evening a week at a local restaurant. Thus, I managed to cover the cost of tuition.
In the ancient Gurukul system of India, students paid for the teaching they received in accordance with their ability to pay. The more a person gives generously of himself—to God, to life, to the very universe, and not to individuals only—the more karmic law supports him in return.
Years ago, an interviewer on a television program asked me, “What have you done in ‘practical’ ways to make Ananda successful?” I had been speaking of our spiritual ideals.
With conviction born of long experience I replied: “Faith is practical. As a matter of fact, the basic purpose of the yoga teachings is to make religion itself practical. Even material success is most likely to be assured when one applies spiritual principles to whatever one does. To answer your question then, yes, we have been practical. We’ve created businesses, offered retreats, published books, traveled around the country giving lessons. All these things have helped us materially, as a community, as well as giving help to others. But to return to my first theme this evening, I have also learned by experience that faith, if one exercises it for the benefit of others and not only for himself, is the most practical thing of all.”
The Application
The following four paragraphs are excerpted from my book, Hope for a Better World! They are a commonsense analysis of Adam Smith’s philosophy of free enterprise.
Adam Smith’s general thesis was that every human being is motivated primarily by self-interest. A nation’s prosperity, he said, will soar if it gives people the freedom to improve their own lot. “It is not,” he wrote, “from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity, but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages.” Passages like this caused an outcry among soi-disant champions of morality, though in fact Smith had simply stated an obvious truth. He was comparing self-interest to false morality, which bases generosity and benevolence entirely on self-denial. Smith was right, of course. Morality, as people usually define it, is hypocrisy. No one will really help another if, in doing so, he expects only to become miserable. Self-sacrifice for others should be for the sake of a greater good. If it benefits oneself also—perhaps only in terms of inner satisfaction—it is not a sacrifice, so much, as a joy. Smith erred only, as many self-styled moralists have done, by not humanizing his subject enough. He didn’t focus with sufficient clarity on the people’s actual needs, as human beings.
He gave us specific examples—the butcher, the brewer, the baker—to support his argument. What he didn’t give were human beings. He gave us two-dimensional tradesmen. It might have helped had he given those tradesmen names, personalities, families.
Let us make up for this “sin of omission.” We’ll name the baker, William—surname, Baker. And we’ll assume the presence of another one in town, whom we’ll name Joe—surname, Crumpet. Let us be even more specific. William concentrates only on the advantages accruing to himself while he sells bread, whereas Joe, though fully aware that he is earning a living, has other considerations besides. He greets you with a smile, treats you as a friend, asks after your family, hopes that you’ve enjoyed his products, and perhaps solicits your advice on how to improve them.
Let us now assume—what is probably the case anyway—that William wears a perennially grim expression, that he has poor digestion, and is always bitter about something. Joe, on the other hand, is warm-hearted, healthy, and happy. Isn’t it likely that, quite apart from economic considerations—since their products must surely be priced more or less the same—you’ll shop at Joe’s, and will shun William’s as a bad omen?
These are human, not merely mercantile, considerations. We must remember that even in monetary matters we are usually, in the last analysis, dealing with human beings. If we think only of our cash profits, and pay little or no attention to the service we render others, we may well find our cash inflow becoming reduced to a trickle.
I had an interesting experience on these lines several years ago. I entered a shop in Taormina, Italy. The owner, a woman slightly advanced in age, displayed along with other items a selection of hats. The weather was chilly, and I thought it might be good to get some sort of covering for my head.
“Which of these hats” I asked her, “do your customers like the best?”
“How should I know?” she asked indifferently. “I take their money, and they leave. That’s an end to it as far as I’m concerned.” Even her hat display showed none of the care one might expect of a shopkeeper who wanted her customers to like what they bought. The thought occurred to me, “This poor lady needs help!”
“My goodness!” I exclaimed. “Here you sit all day, thinking only of the cash you take in? How do you expect to be happy? Wouldn’t your life be more enjoyable if you viewed each customer as a potential friend?”
Interestingly, I met this same woman again a year later during a return visit to Taormina. I hadn’t meant to go into her shop, but she was standing outside it as I passed. She saw me, and greeted me effusively. Much to my surprise, she then gave me a big welcoming hug, in the Italian fashion.
The hotel where I and a few friends were staying had given us a bottle of wine as their way of thanking us for returning to them. None of us drank alcohol, but I thought, “Perhaps that lady will appreciate this gift.” I took the bottle to her, and as I handed it to her she actually burst into tears. Then, again in the Italian fashion, she kissed me on both cheeks. Evidently, my words to her the year before had, with God’s grace, affected her profoundly.
What about you, then, no matter whether you earn your living as a shopkeeper or by some other means? The same principles apply; they are universally valid. The more you think in terms of serving others rather than of using them to your own advantage, the more you will find these high principles working for you. Please, try it!
As my Guru often said, “If a thousand businessmen would view their work as a service to others, each would have nine hundred and ninety-nine friends. But if, instead, they all chose to see one another as competitors, each of them would have—at least potentially—nine hundred and ninety-nine enemies.”
Meditation
While practicing the following exercise, don’t think of people as individuals, lest their facial expressions distract you from the feelings you are to project. Think, rather, of the energy that you are sending out.
Visualize yourself centered in the heart. Mentally polish your heart like a silver orb, until it shines.
Now, see rays of light reflected off the surface of that orb radiating outward in all directions. Mentally see those rays reaching out and touching the hearts of human beings everywhere. See the light filling each person, and all life forms, with radiance and joy.
Meditate on the divine light shining outward from your heart to all souls, everywhere.
Now, see that light as a reflection coming to you from above, from its true source in God. The light you share is His gift to all, through you.
Affirmation
“I will serve Thee in all, as extensions of my own true Self.”

Points to Remember
1. “So long as you breathe the free air of earth, you are under obligation to render grateful service.”
2. Karmic law, though it functions to a great extent automatically, is also guided by a universal intelligence and love, and can be intelligently manipulated or diverted. Divine grace, or kripa, can be won above all by divine devotion and love.
3. The primary purpose of karma is to instruct people, by punishment and reward, in the way of upward evolution. Dharmic, or righteous, action on the one hand, and adharmic, or unrighteous, action on the other, affect present-day success or failure.
4. America’s example of material success is due, far more than most realize, to two mental attitudes: faith in God, and a generous spirit.
5. Karmic law is fair in the way it works. Karmic law is, in fact, an expression of divine love.
6. The Law of Karma demands that whatever benefits one receives be, in some way, returned. When one helps others to achieve prosperity, he attracts greater prosperity to himself. Thus, in comparable measure, to harm others attracts similar harm to oneself.
7. One can offset a negative karma by generating an equal and opposite karma which thereby either deflects that negative energy or absorbs and nullifies it. The most important thing is not to let the karma affect your ego.
8. It is always good to be generous within your means. Keep a generous attitude even if you haven’t the means to be generous in other, more material ways.
9. In business matters, be “comparative” instead of “competitive.” To be “competitive” suggests trying to beat down the opposition. He never truly flourishes who tries to harm others.
10. Anyone who tries to get something for nothing is, in a sense, a beggar. To try to get something for nothing is bad karma.
11. Spiritual teachings should be offered in a spirit of nishkam karma: “action without desire for the fruits of one’s action.” It is a karmic mistake, however, to receive that teaching without offering something in return. It is not wrong even to charge money for spiritual lessons, provided the fees are reasonable, and go to help a good cause.
12. The more a person gives generously of himself—to God, to life, to the very universe—the more karmic law supports him in return.
13. Faith is practical. Even material success is most likely to be assured when one applies spiritual principles to whatever one does.
14. The more you think in terms of serving others rather than of using them to your own advantage, the more you will find these high principles working for you.

Workbook Ideas
by Joseph Bharat Cornell
Life Responds in Kind
Paramhansa Yogananda appeared in a dream some time ago to a young Brazilian woman named Roberta during a visit she paid to Ananda Village. The Master spoke only one word to Roberta, but it changed her life and countless others. A year later, Roberta invited an Ananda minister to lecture at her university. During his visit, that minister heard many times from Roberta’s graduate faculty advisors and colleagues about how her presence and loving nature had transformed her university department.
What was the one word Yogananda spoke to Roberta? It was . . . “Give!”
Roberta took Paramhansa Yogananda’s advice to heart, and decided to dedicate herself to serving others. The fruits of her giving were many, from the loving atmosphere she created to the profound loyalty she inspired in others. The most important benefit of all, however, was the expanded consciousness and happiness that the act of giving gave to her.
“When one helps others achieve prosperity, he attracts prosperity to himself.”
Action Items:
•	Focus more on giving than receiving.
•	Make the word “Give” your mantra.
•	At the beginning of every day, ask yourself, “How can I help a specific person or situation?” Then act on your inspiration.
•	Throughout the day, ask yourself continually, “How can I contribute uplifting and positive energy to this situation?”
•	Observe how acts of service expand your consciousness and sense of identification with others. Note how people and situations respond to the energy you project.
Offer the Most Value
Focus less on your competition and more on perfecting the usefulness of your service or product. If you do this, your energy will be directed inward and will remain positive and expansive. Your customers, too, will appreciate your thoughtfulness and will reciprocate loyalty to you.
Action Items:
Ask yourself the following questions:
•	How can I make my product and service more useful to others?
•	How can I create the most enjoyable environment and experience for my customers?
•	People will pay for value, but value can mean many things. What can I do to add value beyond the actual benefits of the product or service that I offer?
Ananda’s East West Bookshop customers often visit the store just to be in its uplifting atmosphere. Many customers tell us that the store is, for them, like a place of pilgrimage!
Change Your Karma
The best way to overcome one’s karma is to meet it calmly and pleasantly. In the midst of karmic difficulties, concentrate not on your problem or present situation, which will only strengthen it, but on generating a strong flow of positive energy.
Action Items:
1.	Avoid blaming others, or Life, for what happens to you.
2.	See people or events as merely the instruments of your karma, to teach you.
3.	Accept responsibility for your actions, past and present.
4.	Generate an equal and opposite karma which will deflect any negative energy.
5.	Remember, the more conscious energy you generate, positively, the sooner your bad karma will be nullified.
6.	Ask God to bless your efforts.