Living Wisely Living Well | With Asha Nayaswami
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Learn to cooperate with others, even if their interests are different from your own. Never surrender a principle, however, no matter what the consequences to yourself. Your guiding light all your life should be, not egoic self-interest, but God’s will. Were you even to be burned at the stake for your loyalty to the truth as you understand it, remember this: Truth alone, in the end, will free you forever from all suffering. Support the show https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami (https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami)
Good manners are innate. They are born of respect, dignity, and kindness. Customs vary from country to country and from place to place. For those who travel widely, it is impossible to keep abreast of every convention one encounters. Much more important than trivia like table manners are attitudes that ennoble the spirit. Support the show https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami (https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami)
What makes a man noble is not land, money, or social position, but character. Be true to your word, generous in giving, kind when faced by any wrong, and courteous to all (even to the lowliest beggar). Always defer to the truth. A truly noble man is one whose character is ever firmly upright. Support the show https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami (https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami)
Don’t be a social or any other sort of climber, outwardly. I have observed that game played even in the ashrams of saints. Absorb whatever virtues attract you in others, but never try to impress anybody. Move through life like a large ocean liner: serenely passing through heavy seas. Be whole in yourself. If you see some quality in others that attracts you, invite it aboard as a passenger. Divine illumination will finally carry you beyond all human qualities. Seek only those traits which will assist you in your quest for inner freedom. Support the show https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami (https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami)
The desire for equality with others is a delusion; we are equal only in the fact that we are all children of God. Life, otherwise, is like a ladder. The lower animals are helped upward in their evolution by association with human beings. Relatively unaware people are helped upward by serving those who are more highly evolved. The caste system in India originally recognized these realities: It wasn’t hereditary, and was never intended to be suppressive. It simply indicated the right direction for humanity to develop—from body-bound (kayastha) to freedom from ego-bondage. “One moment in the company of a saint,” it has been said, “will be your raft over the ocean of delusion.” The company of persons more highly evolved than oneself can be uplifting. In the case of the devotee who seeks God, saints are the best company. And best of all is it to be guided by a true guru. Support the show https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami (https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami)
If people treat you condescendingly, don’t react. Be polite toward them, but reserved. Let them see that, whatever their opinion of you, they have your respect and good will, but not your deference. Never court anyone’s good opinion. Defer to wisdom, but pay no attention to ignorance. Support the show https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami (https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami)
View challenges as stimulants to your spiritual ascent. Twice when I was a child, bullies much larger and stronger than I attacked and beat me. Both times I won against them by refusing to admit defeat. Afterward, they avoided me. Never surrender your will to anyone. If you can maintain your integrity, others may accuse you of betrayal, but it is to yourself you must remain true. Let people say about you what they will: Be strong in yourself. If you can preserve your will unbroken, you will always, in the end, come out victorious. Support the show https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami (https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami)
True politeness is not a mask. It is a reflection of the innate dignity of the soul. It enables a person to see in everybody, everywhere, the presence of God. Respect all men as your brothers and sisters in the great family of our one common Father/Mother. Support the show https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami (https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami)
There is a simple key to happiness: Resolve to be happy! Depend not on outer things for what you want in life. Earthly happiness is like a rainbow: radiant with bright colors, but evanescent, for it consists only of raindrops—which, in human life, are the droplets of earthly sorrow! When you learn to welcome the rain as gladly as you smile at a rainbow—the one bringing cleansing to the heart; the other reminding you of God’s inner joy—you will be happy always. Support the show https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami (https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami)
If a mood oppresses you, offer it into a wider perception of reality. Moods are like waves: no matter how tall a wave, the ocean level never changes. Live at that point, inwardly, where nothing can affect you. Support the show https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami (https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami)
You have within yourself the power to overcome all adversity. Even were you to be enslaved, or thrown into a dungeon without hope of release, no one can possess or incarcerate your mind. If you cannot conquer a difficulty outwardly, rise above it inwardly: Seek freedom in your heart. No one can ever deny you that freedom. Were utter failure to crash upon you like a giant wave, know that God’s law is ever benign and just. Place yourself in His hands, and everything must turn out eventually for the best. Support the show https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami (https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami)
When troubles beset you, seek both their cause and their solution in yourself. Karmic law rules supreme everywhere. Your actions of the past represented movement in opposite directions from an unchanging center in yourself. That movement always returns, with equal force, in the opposite direction. Though hindered by what my Guru called “the thwarting crosscurrents of ego,” the law must always, sooner or later, be fulfilled. Those myriad back-and-forth movements seldom proceed in a straight line; instead, they create eddies that draw into themselves the debris of countless desires and involvements. Don’t upset yourself with life’s complexity, but seek the divine simplicity of oneness with God’s joy. To do otherwise is to court endless troubles. Support the show https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami (https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami)
How shall you define God? Think of Him (or Her) as the highest potential you can imagine for yourself. God is all that, and much more. As the Indian scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, states, He is, in all things, their supreme manifestation: Perfect Power, Wisdom, Love, Joy, Peace, Fulfillment, Satisfaction, Beauty, and Contentment. Support the show https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami (https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami)
Concentrate on the details of what you do. At the same time, refer those details constantly, not only to your overall purpose, but to a higher end. Keep the will tuned to life’s true goal: This is one of the secrets of genius, which comes from the superconscious and is inspired by God. Whatever you do, offer your efforts up to Him for higher guidance. Support the show https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami (https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami)
Never complain, no matter what you have to endure. Misfortune lies in your perception of things, not in things themselves. Should you suddenly lose all your wealth—perhaps in a stock market crash—the time may have come in God’s plan for you to experience poverty. One positive lesson to be learned from every loss is calm detachment. Another is to become more whole in yourself. Success and failure, equally, are part of life’s flow. So too are all the pairs of opposites: wealth and poverty, fame and ignominy, gain and loss of every kind. Accept them with a smile, for only in God can one rise permanently above duality. Meanwhile, whatever your lot in life, accept it with good cheer. Remember, all this is a show—a cosmic dream; a drama. To your deeper Self, life here on earth has no reality. Support the show https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami (https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami)
In life’s race, compete only against yourself. Sooner or later, no matter how skilled you are, there will always be someone better. Every record will be broken; every “best” will be bettered. In the battle between good and evil, seek victory over your ego. Be calmer today than heretofore. Be kinder, more forgiving, more accepting, less judgmental. Whatever your faults or virtues, give increasing energy to that which, in the end, will bring you bliss. Support the show https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami (https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami)
Truth cannot be learned: it must be recognized. If you want to guide others to the truth, state your thoughts simply; get people to respect them rather than you for having stated them. Speak the truth in such a way as to bring it back to people’s remembrance. The sage Patanjali defined enlightenment as smriti: memory. Support the show https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami (https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami)
Pay little heed to people’s opinions—even to your own! Truth is not a matter of opinion: Truth simply is. Support the show https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami (https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami)
Make a special effort, today, to break out of some self-enclosure—whether of selfishness, or timidity, or personal preoccupation. The growth toward maturity is a matter of escaping from one’s ego-prison. Expand your awareness to include the needs of others. Then expand your feelings, by sympathizing with those needs. Next, expand your self-identity by helping people to fulfill their needs. Finally, release yourself from self-identity altogether by telling yourself, “It is not I who help anyone: I am only a channel for God’s grace.” The feeling will come to you at last: “He alone is acting through me; He alone is the Doer.” Support the show https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami (https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami)
See yourself, when you help others, as a gardener watering his plants. Whether the plants be bushes, grass, or flowers, all of them need water. And human beings, whether haughty or humble, harsh or gentle, ignorant or learned, provocative or submissive, dryly brittle or richly humorous: all of them need nourishment. If you nourish them with the nectar of kindness, they will thrive. Support the show https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami (https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami)
View your problems dispassionately, as if from a mountain peak. Perspective is lost in the valley of personal involvement. How tiny life’s problems are, compared to your spiritual reality! If you allow them to loom large, they may overwhelm you. But if you view them dispassionately, you will see them merely as little specks on the vast panorama of life. Support the show https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami (https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami)
Be modest—be even self-effacing. But don’t belittle yourself. Self-deprecation, too, brings a focus on the ego. There should be neither superiority nor inferiority complex. Concentrate on the what of things, not on the who. Support the show https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami (https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami)
Be always, as my Guru put it, “even-minded and cheerful.” Watch a cork bobbing ceaselessly about on the surface of a lake: up and down, up and down, never straying in any particular direction, always keeping to one place. Don’t be like that cork, bouncing with the ripples of emotion. You’ll never get anywhere if you constantly react to what happens around you. Don’t imitate: initiate! Move serenely through life, like a great ocean liner, centered in the Self within. Support the show https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami (https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami)
Speak from a center of inner silence. Mere chatter is anesthetizing. A man in Calcutta once asked a younger man, “My boy, are you married?” “What do you mean, Am I married? I’m married to your own daughter!” “Oh, I know, I know. I just wanted to talk, and couldn’t think of anything else to say.” Wouldn’t the older man have done better to remain silent? When you speak from the heart of silence, everything you say will have meaning. Support the show https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami (https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami)
Be thoughtful when communicating with others. Absent-mindedness induces vagueness, which produces chronic failure. Mean what you say, and say it with focused attention. Thus, you will develop the power to succeed at everything you attempt. Support the show https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami (https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami)
Devote less time than heretofore to being entertained—by watching television, for instance, or by listening to recorded music. Commit yourself to doing things yourself. Don’t work from ego, but offer yourself as a clear channel for the Divine Creator. Passivity is to creativity what floating on water is to swimming. And channeling God’s grace is to egoic creativity what swimming with the current is to struggling against it. Support the show https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami (https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami)
Look at, or imagine, a river flowing constantly. Then visualize your thoughts flowing similarly—not rippling restlessly; not drifting sluggishly; not frozen in fixed opinions like an ice sheet in wintertime. Adapt yourself to circumstances. The more centered you are in your Self, the easier you will find it to change as the needs arise. Affirm silently: “I adapt like flowing water to new situations and ideas.” Support the show https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami (https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami)
Think of the setbacks, failures, and disappointments you’ve had in life. Toss them mentally into the air like flower petals, and watch them float away on the wind, diminishing in size until they disappear altogether. Affirm then, joyously, “In my heart, I am forever free!” Support the show https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami (https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami)
Whatever you seek to accomplish, approach it with enthusiasm. Once you’ve finished it, however, release it into the infinite. If you keep dwelling on past accomplishments, you won’t be able to concentrate freely on new ones. I myself find it difficult, sometimes, to remember the names of songs I have written, though I love them all. They’re done now, and belong in the past. I have new, fresh images to carve, paint, or otherwise convey. Support the show https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami (https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami)
Give credit to others for anything you and they have accomplished together. Indeed, give more credit to them than you claim for yourself. I remember my father commenting wryly on the foreword written to a book by the writer’s subordinate: “I recommend this book, which was written at my direction and under my constant supervision.” What had that old fogey gained, except a few chuckles of derision? If a team helps you, presumably it is because you’ve needed their help. And if you did need it, thank them by giving them even more credit, perhaps, than they deserve. Support the show https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami (https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami)
