Material Success and Happiness Through Yoga Principles

by Swami Kriyananda
(J. Donald Walters)

Copyright © 2005 Hansa Trust
All rights reserved.
Lesson Thirteen
Keep Your Feet on the Ground
The Principles
In the last lesson I quoted some advice my Guru once gave me: “Be practical in your idealism.” Those words were in fact a reprimand, though he couched them, as usual, tactfully. He had recently finished writing his commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, and in May of 1950 he told me he expected the book to be out before Christmas in December of that year.
Later in the day I was asked to take Laurie Pratt’s mail over to her. Laurie was the Master’s chief editor, and at this time was editing his new book. She lived in a small house not far from the Master’s retreat. When I saw her, I happily mentioned his words to her. “Why,” she protested, “I couldn’t possibly get the book out so soon!”
Later that day, I again saw the Master and told him her response, my thought being that he might want to adjust his expectations accordingly. His reply surprised me. “Delays! Always delays!” His tone of voice held an eloquence beyond his words. After a pause, he added, “I will write to her. You take the letter over to her.”
I hadn’t realized how anxious he was to get the book out that year. Decades later, I saw that he’d known that if the book failed to come out that year, it wouldn’t come out during his lifetime. I think, in fact, that his main concern was that in that case it might be over-edited—always a danger when editors labor too long on a book. As things turned out, fifty years passed before that book finally saw the light of day.
At that time I knew only that Laurie’s reply distressed him. It had been my mistake, I felt, to report her words to him. As I handed her the letter, I remarked apologetically, “I’m sorry. It’s my fault.”
Later I learned that he hadn’t even touched on this subject in his letter! Perhaps he wrote only to encourage her, by reiterating how important it was that she get the book finished and keep focused on her editing work. Laurie, of course, the moment she heard my callow apology, understood what the letter really intended, and that he was displeased with her. She too, of course, was distressed, especially so because in Master’s letter he must have expressed himself very supportively. Thus I became, quite innocently, the cause of friction between them.
Reflecting on that episode over the many years since it happened, I have wondered whether more might not have been involved than I realized, after the scolding he gave me subsequently. I had evidently blundered insensitively into a situation where care was needed. Any karma I incurred by that rash act was paid off in great pain for me, years later, when disharmony shattered my friendship with Laurie. She it was who drove me out of the work for reasons that only projected her displeasure with me, and were not related to any objective reality. Perhaps Master was distressed because he foresaw that future, and realized it was now inevitable. (Who can fathom the subtle understanding of a master?)
It was after that episode of the letter that Master said to me, “You must be practical in your idealism.” He said it with so much force that I might have taken it as a hint, had I been more aware, that there would be karmic consequences for myself. Today, fifty-four years later, I realize that the reason he scolded me was also, as he had already said to me, because he wanted me to serve others as a teacher and spiritual guide. It was important that I learn to be more sensitively aware of people’s deeper realities. “Do what works,” I remarked earlier. This advice means also to be conscious of the possible consequences of one’s actions.
There was much I still needed to learn, and my Guru did his best to help me in the process. Evidently, one thing I needed was to learn more tact. For though I was young and inexperienced at the time, I was certainly old enough to be aware of what I was doing. My Guru was saying to me sternly, “Grow up!”
It often amazed me to observe how subtle his insight was into human nature. What is particularly interesting in this thirteenth lesson is the need to “tune in” sensitively to subtle realities. Keeping oneself grounded means much more than the advice one so often hears, “Don’t live with your head in the clouds.” Indeed, some people need to be more aware of clouds than of the land’s contours. An airplane pilot’s first concern, for example, must be less with the ground than with the air. In this age of growing energy-awareness, material success often depends more on non-material realities than on earthly ones.
A farmer who earns his livelihood by growing vegetables may scoff if he sees someone sifting the soil for minerals. A bird, listening for the call of its mate, may not even notice beautiful music if it is played by a string quartet. If, to you, keeping your feet on the ground means only to remain focused on what is familiar, you may succeed in earning a living, or in supporting a family, but your success will never be outstanding.
The yoga science helps people to probe beneath familiar realities. It makes them more conscious of their breathing, for instance. It helps them also to deepen their awareness of subtle realities of the body such as energy and consciousness. Material success through yoga principles means, among other things, probing beneath the ordinary to subtler levels of insight.
One purpose I have had in writing this lesson, then, is to probe beneath the commonplace. In past centuries, when people thought of matter as immutable, keeping one’s feet on the ground meant no more than learning to accept reality as we see it. In business, that advice meant not to sit dreaming up airy schemes for money-making when the means of doing so were already well-known and obvious. Nowadays, people, recognizing their need to be practical, are aware that realism includes an awareness that seemingly “airy nothings” may contain important realities.
People are increasingly aware that energy is the very basis of matter. Thus, the reality of energy demands consideration in the merchandising world also—indeed, in almost anything that one does. A customer is more likely to buy, for example, if his energy is stimulated. Lively music is often played in stores and malls because of this realization. In time, I hope this dawning awareness will someday be lifted to higher levels, for I cannot but suspect that many customers find the present-day blaring, restless music more of an irritant than a stimulus. Such restless music is, I believe, more likely to bounce people out the door. At least, that is how many people I know react to it! To stimulate people’s energy without jarring on their nerves seems to me far more sensible, for it will encourage customers to linger—fondly, perhaps—over items that attract them, and to decide more carefully what they will buy. Often, people who linger longer buy more. Music, in other words, that is universally pleasing, instead of tearing at the nerves with jagged rhythms and anguished harmonies, is more likely to result in satisfied customers who will leave the shop smiling.
In the malls of Gurgaon, south of New Delhi, music is sometimes played that is melodic and soothing to listen to. The fact that better music is now being played with greater frequency makes me think that a few shopkeepers, at least, are beginning to appreciate the logic of what I have suggested here. In other words, it “works” to play music over loudspeakers in the stores, but it works better if the music isn’t so loud and invasive that it distracts people from their shopping. Americans, at least, will appreciate it if I say that Coney Island makes different demands of one than a bookstore.
As recently as a century ago, shops kept their merchandise out of reach behind counters, where the customers couldn’t touch it and, perhaps, slip it into their pockets or purses. Even today, many pharmacies in Italy wrap purchases carefully by hand, instead of simply placing them in a bag. In America, where these things were first studied carefully to find what works best, it was learned long ago that wrapping purchases took an unnecessarily long time, and made the customer more impatient than grateful. (After all, when they get home they’ll only strip off that wrapping paper anyway!)
The American supermarket concept, which was new when I moved there as a boy, must have met initial resistance, representing as it did a radical departure from traditional merchandising. I can imagine the scenes in board rooms across America where directors, accustomed to seeing products kept safely out of reach of the customers, expressed concern at this revolutionary concept. Some “gray beards” must have objected, “If the customers are allowed to touch a few things before they select them, they may also appropriate some of them surreptitiously!” One visualizes them wrangling back and forth in board rooms, and imagines the protest, “Just think how much of our merchandise will be stolen!”
“Well,” must have been the reply, “there may be losses, but think of the huge increase in sales!” That, partly, is what I mean by urging businessmen to think in terms of energy, even more than of the specific items they are selling. This idea was tested until merchants across the country were finally convinced that it was a clever way of stimulating customers to buy things that they hadn’t even thought they wanted.
Most people, on entering a shop, have specific needs in mind. The modern shopkeeper tries to interest them enough in what they see around them to get them to pause a little, gaze, and then (perhaps) buy more. At the same time it is better, surely, that they not be stimulated to the point of restlessness, for a restless person is likely to pass on hurriedly from one item to another, and will seldom give any item enough attention to think seriously about buying it. People mustn’t be encouraged to resemble those persons in a poem I wrote when I first moved to America at the age of thirteen. The poem describes my early impressions: “They never more than glance at things, / for fear of missing one.”
The people in India are rapidly moving to embrace these concepts as well as other features of modern merchandising such as a multitude of attractive displays. The shopkeeper wants to invite people’s interest. What he sells, therefore, should not be packaged in such a way as merely to inform customers of a product’s nature. Bright, pleasing, and colorful containers, and an attractive arrangement of merchandise also, are factors that definitely enhance sales. Everyone knows that what really matters is only the contents of a package; still, if you are given a choice between a book with an unattractive cover and one that is colorful and well designed, even though the contents are the same, won’t you buy the attractive one? And while nobody thinks of eating the cereal box, if the cereal is pleasingly packaged customers are more likely to buy it.
So many factors are involved in salesmanship nowadays! Those factors are so well known by now that I’m sure I need only mention the fact that these things, too, belong with the advice, “Keep your feet on the ground.” The simple reason is that they work.
In past centuries, that advice didn’t include being energetically creative. Rather, what it suggested was a dull, colorless, and plodding outlook on life. Matter, in those days, was thought to be solid and substantial, and not awhirl with atoms and virtually flowing in rivers of energy.
As a writer, I’ve found that sound, rhythm, and verbal “coloring” are as important as the merchandising ideas I’ve recommended. Nowadays, a writer using a computer can let his ideas flow out onto a page as freely as a brook. I myself used to write laboriously with a pen. The sheer laboriousness of the process, of getting my thoughts onto a page, of thinking them through carefully in advance so as not to have too much rewriting to do afterward, and of being forced to watch helplessly as good ideas flew out the window before I could capture them and put them to good use, forced on me a painful deliberation. The invention of typewriters was a step upward from the days when people could only use quill pens, then fountain pens and pencils. Nothing, however, could compare to the laptop. Before typewriters, sentences tended to be longer than normal speech or than thought. Consequently, people tended to speak ponderously also.
Meanwhile, much more is involved in good writing than sound sentence structure. In this age of energy, especially, writers would be wise to pay more attention to the vibrations of their writing.
When an idea is expressed not only simply and clearly, but attractively, readers will give it more attention. I’ve found that “keeping my feet on the ground” as a writer means visualizing the reader as someone seated across the desk from me. The more real I can make that image in my mind—even to the point of imagining us actually conversing together—the more interesting my writing can become. One problem with writing is that, because writers express only what is in their heads, they may feel out of touch with their readers’ actual realities and labor their points endlessly. That is what deaf or senile people often do who aren’t really trying to communicate, but are only rolling out tedious monologues, like rugs.
I usually go over a piece of writing many times—sometimes thirty or even fifty times before I am satisfied not only that I have said what I wanted, but also communicated my ideas. Much of that labor is simply a matter of getting the rhythms right. For by its rhythms a sentence can either enliven or deaden a reader’s interest. There was a time when I used to read out loud what I had written. Nowadays I no longer feel that need, but the sounds and word sequences remain very important to me, even though I read them silently.
A change in one part of a sentence often requires a compensating change elsewhere—perhaps for no other reason than to maintain the rhythm. It is important also to vary that rhythm, so as to hold the reader’s interest. The easiest way of doing that is to change the rhythm unexpectedly. Writers should avoid long sequences of graceful cadences, which lull readers to sleep with their rhythmic monotony.
“But,” one may object, “what has writing to do with material success?” Surely it has a great deal to do with it—at least, for those who write for a living! It is vitally important also when writing advertising copy, and for choosing the right wording for a box of merchandise. It is even important in signs announcing a place or a product, which must be brief and succinct even at a cost to good grammar.
“Winston tastes good like a cigarette should” is a famous example of what I mean here. “As a cigarette . . .” would be better grammar, but it would not be nearly so forceful. “Good” rhymes aptly with “should.” The copy is altogether perfect for what it was designed to do.
An example of deplorable writing, on the other hand, appeared years ago on a sign in a shop in Lugano, Switzerland, located on the elegant via Nassa. I could hardly believe my eyes when I first saw it posted: “The customer is advised that the objects in this shop are for sale. Please don’t handle them unnecessarily. If you see something that interests you, don’t touch it, but ask one of our salespeople about it. Please, moreover, don’t bother them with idle questions. They are not here to gossip.” I’ve paraphrased, but I’m exaggerating very little. The actual sign may have been even ruder. (I was pleased, a year or two later, to see that this offensive announcement had been removed.)
Speaking personally, I’m grateful for the fact that I don’t have to write books or music for a living. My books and compositions help to keep afloat the organizations I have founded, but I am under no pressure to write for profit. Thus, when a project holds no personal interest for me, I’ve been free to reject it and concentrate on writing mostly what I actually wanted to do. I’ve also been free to devote time to learning how best to express the “music” of my heart. The result has “paid off,” evidently, since over three million of my books and recordings have been sold so far.
In anything you do, to keep your feet on the ground means to be sensitive also to the subtle realities of your work. Don’t merely “keep your nose to the grindstone.” Take the time out to think about what it is you are doing, and why you are doing it—as well as about how to do your very best in everything that you undertake.
Another important thing to remember is that whatever you do is always, and uniquely, itself. Don’t try to make it a carbon copy of anything else, not even of something you yourself have done. To keep your feet on the ground means, among other things, to live in the present. Even when making plans for the future, project your consciousness into that future time as though it were right now.
Keeping your feet on the ground, then, means much more than placing your feet on the earth itself. Bear in mind, in fact, that even the earth is insubstantial, composed of whirling atoms and, relatively speaking, of as much space as exists between the stars in outer space. Above all, remember that the very ground is energy.
The more aware you become of these seemingly insubstantial realities, the more you will feel mentally free to contemplate further possibilities for your continued success. Remember, in an age of countless inventions, the most profitable ideas often come from contemplating hidden possibilities in what, heretofore, have seemed mundane realities.
Who could have imagined, a mere one hundred years ago, the things that virtually define our civilization today? As late as 1949, a major science magazine in America predicted that, at the rate computers were shrinking in size, they might someday weigh as little as one ton! Laptops today hold more information than computers once did which required whole rooms to house them. The defining feature of our present world is no longer what has been invented—amazing enough as it is—but the realization that there seem to be no limits to the further possibilities of invention.
Keeping your feet on the ground means also, of course, not being absent-minded. Whatever you are doing, be focused on it one-pointedly. Don’t, on the other hand, let anyone tell you that it is impractical to ponder possibilities that lie beyond the known. To keep your mind on the ground means, as I’ve said before, to be solution-oriented, not problem-oriented. In a world where matter itself is known to be a manifestation of energy, people are coming to accept that the ground they walk on hasn’t the solidity it seems to, to their senses: that even the air we breathe is not the “nothing” that Aristotle claimed, for it is substantial enough to carry huge “air ships,” even as the ocean carries huge passenger liners.
People generally, these days, are becoming more and more aware of energy. A flow of electricity generates a magnetic field. Many people are learning also that, as Yogananda taught, will power generates a flow of energy in the body, and solution-consciousness can generate the necessary energy to attract success. Solution-consciousness can attract ideas, inspirations, and solutions. Problem-consciousness, on the other hand, actually attracts the problems one dreads.
I have been trying, through these lessons, to help you to stimulate your subconscious toward success-consciousness, and—more even than that—toward being solution-oriented. The very rhythms of these sentences are intended to help you toward success. How, you ask? By keeping that thought of success vibrant and alive in mind as I write.
India’s great teachers claimed long ago that all things material are composed of vibrations of energy. Those vibrations were, they said, expressed as the contrasting, and therefore self-canceling, movements of dwaita, or duality. A way to understand this fact is to compare duality to the movements of ocean waves. Every rising wave is, as I said earlier, balanced out by a corresponding trough. The overall ocean level remains unaffected by the height of its waves. No storm could alter that level. All creation obeys the principle of duality; everything has its balancing opposite: heat and cold, pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow.
The more you identify yourself with either outward success or with outward failure, the more susceptible you will be to maya’s oppositional fluctuation. The more, however, you concentrate not on things, but on mental attitude, the sooner you will discover that failure can be transformed to success by a steadily positive attitude toward anything that happens—as a steady wind may gradually uncover a house that lies buried under sand. The opposite is true also: success itself can prove to be a kind of failure if one anticipates the worst.
Many years ago I accepted an offer to teach Indian culture to a hundred young Peace Corps volunteers. I really wanted them to have a deep appreciation for the greatness of that culture, so that they might go as cultural ambassadors and not limit their services to teaching matters such as modern farming techniques. After devoting myself for weeks to this effort, I was forced at last to acknowledge defeat. To the students, this India assignment seemed a gay adventure. The highlight of the week, for them, was Saturday evening when they could go out and carouse.
Failure was a new thing for me. I say this despite the disaster of my dismissal from my Guru’s organization, which at least didn’t close the door on my heart’s dedication to God and Guru. Once I was able to see that apparent defeat in a new light, I realized that I could still follow my Guru’s instructions to me. This time, however, I had to face the simple fact of complete failure, and to look about for other teachers to replace me who had the kind of knowledge these lads wanted: five year plans, and the like.
This self-admitted failure had an interesting sequel, however. Once I’d accepted it as a fact—in other words, once I’d “put my feet firmly on the ground” again—I found, much to my surprise, that several students in the class were eager for what I could give them. First came one, then two; soon twenty young men were coming regularly to my room every evening, eager for discussion.
Thus, by accepting reality as it was—the reality in this case being my failure—my energy became wholly positive, and I attracted success!
Success depends, in other words, to a great extent on one’s willingness to accept reality as it is: as a thing to be faced, if he hasn’t the ability to control it.
The worst thing about “keeping one’s feet on the ground” is that people usually take that advice to mean placing supreme importance on things, while overlooking human needs and human sentiments. They become, consequently, selfish and self-centered. Human considerations are, however, an important part of most realities with which human beings have to deal.
Long ago I worked under someone whose idea of keeping one’s feet on the ground was to squelch any suggestion I made that hadn’t been endorsed by years of experience. More and more frequently, my suggestions were met with exasperation: “It just isn’t practical!” What that meant, I discovered in time, was only, “This idea hasn’t been tried before. We must follow custom and tradition, and not take chances that might turn out to have been foolish!” What was being said, in effect, was, “Keep your feet on the ground.” The problem we faced was that we each had very different ideas as to the meaning of that word, “ground.”
Perhaps what I am introducing here is a revolutionary concept. Nevertheless, I give it as the fruit of experience. If you want to achieve notable success in your life, and don’t want merely to “make a living,” have the courage to break new trails. We live in an age of energy. People cannot afford to be too rigidly matter-conscious. It is amazing, for example, that a whole library of information today can be condensed onto one hard disk in a computer! Times have changed, clearly.
The Application
People often confuse a positive attitude with wishful thinking. They associate negative attitudes, on the other hand, with being realistic. Thus, they incline more to view things negatively than positively. Realism, however, needn’t at all be a wet sponge!
What I have tried to do in this lesson is point out that positive thinking, if it is directed wisely, can become a kind of magnet, actually attracting success. Negative thinking, on the other hand, attracts failure. Since success and failure are both part of the total reality of life, failure itself is no more a demonstration of reality than success is. Failure at anything may, indeed, be turned to success if one will only change his attitude, and therefore his magnetism.
The difference between positive attitudes and wishful thinking is wisdom, born of experience. It is wise to test new concepts so as to make sure they work. To set foot too confidently onto boggy ground would be foolish. When you have reason to doubt the firmness of what you walk on, tread cautiously. Don’t, however, have a prior expectation of unsafety. To do so would be negative thinking.
If your place is to advise people, tell them not to place their feet on the ground unless they know the ground to be safe. Too often, people in the past gave that advice because walking, to them, was the only way to travel. It didn’t mean what the expression means today, when it conveys a suggestion of challenge to new ideas.
If no one had ever tried riding a horse, everyone might still be going by foot. Going back farther in time, cave men might still be trudging about looking for something or someone to clobber. Farmers might still be lumbering about in bullock carts. Railway travelers, proud of their modernity, might still be bouncing along on rails. And automobile associations might greet the suggestion of air travel as a pipe dream. Nowadays, interplanetary travel is still confined to science fiction, but few people anymore would scoff at the thought that it might be possible in the future, at least, to travel to other planets.
Who today would consider it literally wise to say, “Keep your feet on the ground”? The knowledgeable answer to that advice might be, “What ground?” What the advice really means today is, in the modern vernacular: “Get real!”
Modern science is looking more and more like a page out of the Vedanta teachings. To the physicist, nothing is substantial, for nothing is solid: The true substance of matter is energy. And the true substance of energy is the will power and ideas that brought energy into manifestation. The true substance of those ideas, finally, is the vibrant power of divine Consciousness.
What all this means is that, in the effort to achieve material success, it would be wise to project energy into everything material that one does. One is even wiser if he takes the concept still further and tries to harmonize energy with ideas and awareness that bring him calmness and inner joy.
I have mentioned bringing more energy into your shop through appropriate colors, sound, symmetry of placement, and variety—all of which can energize your customers’ expectations. The next thing is to stimulate them in a way that is compatible with the sort of things you want them to buy. Don’t consider only energy itself, but also the concepts behind that energy: not just sound, for example, but the right kinds of sound.
What kind of energy does your place of work represent? To specify more clearly, would you, in a shop connected to a planetarium, offer music that is reminiscent of a nightclub? Of course not! And surely, if you think about it at all, you’d play music suggestive of calmness, expansion, and the vastness of space. In a shop by the beach, it would be ridiculous to play sitar music, or a ponderous Beethoven symphony. You’d do far better to play music suggestive of fun, or of the lulling effect of rolling waves. You might even play recordings of waves breaking onto a shore. There are recordings available of natural sounds like waves, light rainfall in the forest (nice to listen to when the weather is hot and dry!), birds singing or wind sighing in the trees.
Often, shop owners leave it to their salespeople to decide what music they like to hear. To do so is sheer folly. Young salespeople, especially, are usually more insistent on what they like than people of more mature years, and like to listen to music that is “in” at the moment even if it is completely unrelated to the customers’ tastes. Devote serious attention yourself, then, to the question of what music is appropriate for your workplace.
There is another important consideration: Try to help raise the energy level also of your employees. Don’t surrender to their unpremeditated choice on such matters as sound and color. For public places, give primary attention to your customers’ tastes, but in an office, especially if it is less frequented by the public, choose music that is conducive to concentrated work.
I remember once asking the waitress in a restaurant to play more soothing music, and not the pounding beat she evidently preferred. She replied dismissively, “I happen to like this kind of music!” as if that settled the matter. I wrote to the owner that, although the waitress should be free to play any music she liked at home, the restaurant, in consequence of that answer, had just lost a customer. The owner was outraged enough to write back saying that he would never permit such a mistake to occur.
In ways that don’t affect your customers adversely, however, do your best to please your employees. Consider also, of course, the fact that tastes vary. Try to choose what will have a more or less universal appeal. Otherwise, young employees may inflict their tastes on others who suffer from their decisions.
In offices in India, too little thought, usually, is given to creating harmony in the workplace. Perhaps customers never come there; I don’t know. Even in the boss’s office, the atmosphere is often drab and uninviting. Considering the fact that others—what to speak of yourself!—must spend a great part of the day there, surely it is not a waste of money to make your office, and those of your employees, simple, neat, and attractive rather than haphazard and chaotic. Almost certainly they will do better work.
“Keep your feet on the ground” not by making everything cloddish, uninspired, and brown, but by making it more alive. Remind yourself that the very ground you walk on is energy. The realities you deal with daily should stimulate you not only to be energetic, but to have the right kind of energy. Thus, you and everyone around you will probably turn out optimum work.
To offer advice on these matters might make a very good profession. Many business places, I suspect, would appreciate suggestions on how they might stimulate people in a way that is compatible with the work they do.
Meditation
Don’t depend wholly in such matters, however, on professional advice. I’ve been surprised at how many supposed “experts” in their fields are mediocre in the work they do. You’d do well to make sure that you are satisfied also personally. After all, everything in your work environment should be compatible with what you want to accomplish. Otherwise, even a very good interior decorator or sound expert might fail to tune in to what is appropriate for you.
I used, before giving lectures, to sit near the lecture hall and meditate on what each particular group of people wanted and needed to hear. Because what I would say had also to be something that inspired me, I would offer both these thoughts up to God and to my own superconscious, and try to feel what to say. This, usually, was all I did to prepare for a lecture. Thus, I learned to be responsive to people’s actual needs, rather than giving them thoughts I had plotted out in advance. Though I’ve given many thousands of lectures in my life, no two of them have ever been quite the same.
In the same way, sit daily for meditation, and try to attune yourself to what you must do, to what you want to give, and to what you think other people want, need, and can receive from you. Realize that these factors will never be exactly the same. Try always, in your mind, to be fresh and expectant. It is good, if your budget allows it, to adapt outward conditions also to your changing needs.
You may complain, “But that isn’t meditation!” Well, why not? Everything can be spiritualized if it is produced in the right spirit. The greatest thing you can do through your work is help people to tune in to their own highest reality, the divine Self.
Affirmation
“Let everything I do, Lord, 
reflect my attunement with Thee!”

Points to Remember
1. “You must be practical in your idealism.” This advice means also to be conscious of the possible consequences of your actions.
2. In anything you do, be sensitive to the subtle realities of your work. Take time to think about what you are doing, and why you are doing it—as well as about how to do your very best.
3. Live in the present. Even when making plans for the future, project your consciousness into that future time as though it were right now.
4. Remember, the most profitable ideas often come from contemplating hidden possibilities in what, heretofore, have seemed mundane realities.
5. Whatever you are doing, be focused on it one-pointedly. Don’t let anyone tell you that it is impractical to ponder possibilities that lie beyond the known.
6. Will power generates a flow of energy in the body, and solution-consciousness can generate the necessary energy to attract success. Solution-consciousness can attract ideas, inspirations, and solutions.
7. Don’t identify yourself with either outward success or with outward failure. The more you concentrate not on things, but on mental attitude, the sooner you will discover that failure can be transformed to success by a steadily positive attitude toward anything that happens.
8. Success depends to a great extent on one’s willingness to accept reality as it is.
9. If you want to achieve notable success in your life, have the courage to break new trails.
10. Positive thinking, if it is directed wisely, can become a kind of magnet, actually attracting success. Negative thinking, on the other hand, attracts failure.
11. The difference between positive attitudes and wishful thinking is wisdom, born of experience. When you have reason to doubt the firmness of the ground, tread cautiously.
12. Project energy into everything material that you do. Try to harmonize energy with ideas and awareness that bring you calmness and inner joy.
13. Bring more energy into your shop through appropriate colors, sound, symmetry of placement, and variety—in a way that is compatible with the sort of things you want customers to buy.
14. Devote serious attention to the question of what music is appropriate for your workplace.
15. Try to help raise the energy level of your employees. Choose music that is conducive to concentrated work.
16. Make your office, and those of your employees, simple, neat, and attractive rather than haphazard and chaotic. Almost certainly they will do better work.
17. Sit daily for meditation, and try to attune yourself to what you must do, to what you want to give, and to what you think other people want, need, and can receive from you. Try always, in your mind, to be fresh and expectant.

Workbook Ideas
by Joseph Bharat Cornell
Keep Your Feet on the Ground

Be Innovative

In his five revolutionary scientific papers of 1905, Albert Einstein didn’t include one footnote or citation. Einstein’s discoveries were intuitive and therefore fresh. A modern physicist confessed that if Einstein submitted a paper today, it would be thrown away because of his usual lack of references!  

Paramhansa Yogananda said intuition comes from within, thought from without. To make an original contribution in your field of expertise, it is important to understand your subject intuitively. According to Yogananda, man’s senses and reasoning have discovered only “a millionth part of the nature of matter and all things.”   

To develop your intuitive ability, calm reasoning and feeling are essential. Yogananda recommended the following practices for increasing one’s intuition: common sense, daily introspection, depth of thought, continued activity in one direction, and meditation.  

 Action Idea

Select a problem you have been working on. Magnetize a superconscious solution to your problem by doing the following: 

1.	Begin by concentrating at the spiritual eye. Focusing here quiets your emotions. Do this until you feel calm.   
2.	Reflect on and analyze your problem. 
3.	Practice deep thinking. Don’t let your mind hop from one idea to another. 
4.	Make a sustained effort. Putting forth strong, continuous energy is magnetic, and attracts a solution.  
5.	Meditate deeply. During this time, don’t think about your problem. Let your mind and breath become calm. Then ask your Higher Self to guide you.  
6.	If you don’t receive an answer, keep practicing steps one through four for several days. Then meditate again and ask for superconscious insight.     
7.	Use common sense to evaluate your answer. Ask yourself, “Is my guidance in harmony with higher truth?”