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Living Wisely Living Well, by Asha Nayaswami offers timeless wisdom to enrich your every day. Each episode presents practical ways to improve your life. It is based on the book by Swami Kriyananda, a direct disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda and the founder of Ananda. Asha Nayaswami is one of the spiritual directors of Ananda Palo Alto and a founding member of Ananda worldwide. To learn more about Ananda visit https://www.ananda.org/. If you’re in the Bay Area and are interested in a meditation or yoga class, visit https://www.anandapaloalto.org/ Support Asha's work on Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami
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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.
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.
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.
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 ...
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.
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 a...
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.
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.
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.
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...
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 li...
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
Pay little heed to people’s opinions—even to your own! Truth is not a matter of opinion: Truth simply is.Support the Show.
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.
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.
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.
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