A PATH OF RIGHT LIVING FOR PEACE OF MIND

Swami Sivananda
(Translated from Tamil)

Saying from ‘The Gita’

Humiliation, displeasures, failures, periodical situations that brings one to a stand

still, treachery, loss of an undertaking, conspiracies, opposition, treason by relatives and
friends, loss of love – such are these of human life that happen routinely. It is the one who
withstands the struggles such as these with inner strength and confidence, is alone who
shine victorious.

- Bhagavan Sri Krishna

A PATH OF RIGHT LIVING FOR PEACE OF MIND

Swami Sivananda

The measure of God is that…

The many times prayers performed, the number of times mantras repeated through
japa, the many times arati shown, the number of times the bell rung, holy scriptures read
– through such as these do not the Divine’s measure substantiate man’s works. The
quality of your thoughts arising from your mind, depending upon what kind of words you
use with your kith and kin, depending upon how you engage in each and every work with
all of whoever God has given you to spend your life with – through these do the Divine
measure man and so will I say with conviction.

Do you need peace of mind?

Good health and economical security are essential for inner peace is a known fact
to all. Yet, even with these available many still struggle for peace. Do you think you
belong to this category? If you say yes to this, continue reading.

Since your struggles are predominantly self-created, they could also be avoided.
We will see the how of it – do you often interfere in others’ matter? They may be wrong.
But, why would you be distracted about it? Do not talk low of others or anything. God
has not given you the authority to judge others. Each one behaves according to one’s own
wish. It is because the God who works in them alone initiated them to do as such. To
safeguard your peace, focusing upon your own work alone is enough and such is an ideal
rule.

Work – it is a meditation in itself

 Focus upon your work. One who gives importance for peaceful heart should
follow up as such above all. Nothing in this world requires your attention. There is a God
to pay attention for everything. In truth, He is who takes care of you too. Such is this
truth to not be forgotten.

Lowly talking?
I repeat saying that you do your own work. Do not speak low of anybody or
anything. Speaking lowly is equivalent to chiding. Whatever happens it happens by the
will of God. Nothing happens without the blessing of God. If anything did happen, it
could be good or bad in your perception. It is meant that it is given permission by God as
such. If you criticize that, it means you are critical of God’s wish, God’s great wisdom
and God’s judges. Avoid doing it. Peace will reach you.

Is it our personal wish that moves the world?

God sees things in totality. Man sees things in part. Man separates himself from
past and future and views events only through present time. However God knows what
has happened in the past and what has to happen. That is why God sees oneness. Man
perceives discrimination. When God sees wholeness of justice, man does not at the same
moment. Put yourself in the stature of God and look. Realize you yourself are God.
Realize that the whole universe is your creation and everything happens according to
your wish. You will realize that immediately an immense peace and ability pours within
you.

When others scold us…

You say that others scold you unreasonably and impose suffering upon you. Even
if it is true, do not sweat over it. Handle the situation with patience. You will recognize
that peace is a powerful weapon when handling difficult situations. If someone scolds
you, close your eyes and forbear it with patience. Then let them think the way they want
to. Let them speak what they wish to.

This world is full of fools. You be a wise one.

Be meek amidst everyone. Be humble in any situation. Give up thinking such as I

am superior or I am inferior, and practicing to see only God in everyone and everything is
this possible. God desires as such. So be it. If another agonizes you, stay quiet. Do not
bewilder. If you accept blame, you will expand in your humility and clarity. That is a
penance in itself. You will grow higher spiritually.

Enmity – fire that burns those who fuel it

Do not hold any feelings of enmity in your heart toward those who chide or
distress you. If you do so, it is far worse than a frank expression of anger. It is a mental
form of cancer. Do not encourage enmity. Forget and forgive. Such is not just a
proverbial goal. It is the only path for safeguarding your peace. Encouraging enmity
internally means producing evil within oneself. You will lose sleep. You are poisoning
your blood. Your blood pressure and heart rate will increase. You were blamed,
humiliated at a period in the past. It was a happening that concluded in the past. It is spilt
milk. Why do you expand on that shame or blame of the past by thinking it over again
and again? Why do you punch and punch to injure again the healing wounds of enmity
and hatred? Is this not foolishness? It is inappropriate to waste time and life in such
hardly significant matters. Give up this bad habit. Focusing heartily on one work that you
like, is the best thing to do.

If you engage with vigor in a work that you like or in a hobby, you will gain
immense peace. You will then gain such satisfaction as through achieving one thing and
performing one thing. Think about the proverb that man cannot just live on food alone.
If you think that peaceful heart is important than money, you would voluntarily take up a
work that that pays less and provides peace rather than a work that pays more but that
you like to do little.

Do man require fame?

Do not wish for fame and pride of the world. For, they are the primary reason for
the lack of mental and physical peace. Why is it that you wish for others to show respect
for you? Such others are predominantly foolish people. Keep in mind that Mahatmas who
achieved great victory in this world did not expect others to accept them, nor to be
socially respected.

Why should we sweat for respect from others? Instead of such expectations,
develop the desire for blessings from God and the well wishes of great people of wisdom.
Such doings are worthy and worth the effort.
 How valuable is public opinion?
Do not give much importance for public opinion. By and large the opinions of the
public are fault. Give importance for those such as codes of conduct, ethics, maxims of
the holy texts and, opinions of thinkers and wise men. You will never fall from life.

Our destiny is our own

Jealousy often destroys the peace of mind. Do you feel jealous toward someone?
Jealousy is a disease. It is wrong to imagine on your own that one Mr.K impaired your
opportunity for a promotion at your office or one Mr.K.K. injured in your business by
means of competition. Think it over: none can create or destroy your life’s progress. Your
living and your life are created through your past deeds. One’s good or bad does not
come from others’ deeds! If you are destined to make progress, not even the world
gathered together can stop that. On the contrary if it is not so, even then a whole world
cannot help. Each man is ruled by his destiny. Even if it appears that living is dependent
on another, each one’s life is uniquely different from another’s. Keep this in mind.
Understand the notion clearly. Never feel jealous toward others nor blame others for your
distress.

We have to adapt to situations:

You may dislike one of your situations that destruct your peace. Instead of
changing the situation, change yourself to better than who you are now. If you do this,
you will see that the situation that you had viewed for years as bad will surprisingly
change for better. As you become more and more purer yourself, situations too will
improve more and more in unison. You may ask the how of it. Try it. Friend, you will
know it through experiencing it.

The strength of Patience

Whatever happens, bear it with patience. What cannot be healed has to be borne
patiently. Bear it through happiness. Learn to live with those hundreds of discomforts,
nuisances and distress stretching from morning till midnight. Patience, inner strength and
energy will increase in you. You will then change what was bad into good.

Relying upon others even for basic needs is the main reason for one’s loss of
peace. paradeenam pranasangadam (Sanskrit for: Depending on others only begets
suffering). Freedom gives happiness. So try to be self-reliant. Attempt it as much as
possible.

If you attempt it whole-heartedly, you will discover that you can be self-reliant in
various fields. Wash your own clothes. Clean your own room. Cook your own meals.
Type your own letters. It is not that you have to do all these everyday. When you are in a
helpless situation, these modest skills will be of great help to you.

What to do with Responsibilities?

Do not overrule your responsibilities; do not try to escape from it. If you do, you
will not gain peace of mind. And you will add to increasing worries only. For just the
thought of you trying to forgo your responsibilities will eat your mind and also take away
the little peace that was left before in you. So, rather try your best to skillfully fulfill your
responsibilities. However there is one thing to keep in mind here. Each day, do not add to
yourself more and more new responsibilities through your sense of pride that is, ‘I am
doing’. For in everyday language usage, this is what is meant of as, ‘asking for trouble’.
Instead, according to your responsibilities reduce your physical works to lesser degrees.
Develop liking to spending more time in prayer, contemplation and meditation. Only
when there is no mind, total satisfaction is achieved. Mind is a collection of thoughts.
Thoughts are distractions. When doing is reduced to lesser and lesser degree, thoughts too
lessen. To the extent the thoughts are reduced, is the extent to which the peace of mind
increases. It is the emptiness of thought that is the highest state where total peace exists.

Meditation is an exquisite medicine

Follow proper timings for meditation. Meditation calms the mind. It creates
emptiness in the state of the mind. Even if you meditate for one hour the impression that
has been created in the mind through the meditation will sustain for the remaining
twenty-three hours. The mind will not be distracted as before. Increase the period of your
meditation step by step. Because in doing meditation it increases the various talents in
you and gives you the ability to accomplish work in less time.
 Useful work
Be ever engaged in some work that are useful and yields virtue. Do not waste time
hurrying between wondering whether to do this or that. For the useless mental struggle
will lead you to waste days, weeks, months, perhaps even years of doing nothing. Do not
engage in too much of planning. It is God alone who plans. Engage continuously in doing
something that is good. Let there be no pause when engaged in your work of creating
purposefully. Even a few careless seconds in life can take you down. Time is life.
Safeguard your time preciously and spend it in a very useful way.

Even if you rest physically, do not keep your mind void. Engage yourself in japa
(repeating God’s name), mental prayer and reading useful books. All troubles originate in
the mind. Harsh words and bad deeds arise in the mind alone. Hence keep clear this state
of origin. The river that is your life will flow purely, like a stone as transparent and pure.

Failure is not meant to be

Doing deeds begets self-confidence. It is all right if you fail at the outset. You can
set right your drawbacks and at the next time gain victory. Worrying while you lay back
like sitting on a chair does not help accomplish anything. Such an act will turn you into a
person lacking any confidence. Some, even while beginning upon having taken up doing
good task fall in the mental strength and lose confidence. There in obstructions set in. It is
natural for obstructions to arise while attempting to do any good task. Whereas such is
that, it comes upon only in order to test the strength of the person who does the task.

Obstructions come as a trial on the person’s confidence, strength and purity of the
mind. Whenever your determination, to do something increase so do the opposing forces
that increases in its strength. Do not lose heart toward facing it. Do not give in to it.

Trust in God and you to overcome those challenges for without facing trials and
tribulations one cannot succeed, in any field of work. Such it is, like the ridiculousness of
wishing for acquiring a Degree without taking up entrance test.

Facing distresses is Joy

It is not possible to achieve anything if you hesitate to face life’s distresses. For
without it life would not be truly lived, as it would become as a passing of time. Living
truthfully requires that life in lived with goals. Goals to reach and focus of effort are
essential. It is not possible to reach the goals without facing challenges. And when faced
with challenges, do not lose your peace of mind. On the contrary, they should give you
the ability to face the life’s struggles courageously. Accept as such that challenges are
unavoidable bad aspects, which one has to learn to live with as a part of daily life.

Remember, events are predestined!

Do not worry about anything. Learn lessons from your past experiences.
Contemplate often on those lessons. Let those lessons be the signposts for the deeds in
your future. However do not engage bothering about your past. It is wasteful to think
thoughts such as if I had done that, I would have become this, if I had done this... Waste
of time. Waste of energy. For thoughts of worries exhausts energy. It results in nothing
else. The truth is that, it was God’s plan that what happened was meant to have happened
as such. It cannot have happened otherwise. From the movement of a small particle to the
grand operation of the universe and each event of the past, present and future are all
predetermined according to the grace of God that is Omnipotent, Omniscient and
Omnipresent. Events happen according to the way they are destined to happen.
Everything happens according to His calculations. No man can change God’s wish. It is a
universal truth that whatever has to happen will happen. Worrying and bothering only
shows your cowardice and points out at your inability that is, to devastate your peace of
mind for nothing. It is wise to realize that each and every event happens through God’s
grace, and to live in peace within you and with the world.

Selfishness does not beget Peace

Are you completely selfish or do you think of others at the least at certain
moments? Peace is not attainable for a selfish person. On the other hand, if you are
selfless, if you operate without expecting for nothing in return, you will experience peace
instantly. Work without expectation of the outcome gives pure joy. Make others happy
and you will experience joy in their happiness. This is possible to be experienced by
everyone. Serve others as much as you can, in a smaller way or in a greater way. But do
not expect any result or gratitude in return.

Serve for the sake of service alone.

Whenever opportunity arises, service should be performed at those times.

The following incident happened twenty years back:

It was a big city. It was evening. Darkness was setting in. I had left for a walk in
the evening. There was a quiet place and a lady came by my side and she said: brother, I
am terrified. I realized her situation instantaneously. A rickshaw man had followed her
into that isolated place. Becoming terrified, she did not know where to go and lost her
way home. I encouraged her giving her courage. Within a while, we both searched for the
way to her home. We discovered that her house was just one furlong far from where we
stood.

I accompanied for her to reach her house and left on my way. It was only a small
help that I did. I did not have to lose anything for it. But how fulfilled and happy I was
for that! When I think about it even now, it gives me peace of mind. One can help another
in many ways without any expense or with as little expense. Required: a pure heart only.

There are also many ways to inner peace

One who desires for inner peace in life has to operate wisely in each and every
situation and event. Our ancestors bygone have left recorded clearly for us in many books
about such as what is right, what is wrong, what is possible, what is not possible. They
are eternally true. Given a particular situation – what is the ethic given by the learned?
What do the holy texts say? What does your conscience say? Given such moments, how
did the saints conduct themselves? As such, we can clarify our view in each and every
moment. Experimenting with the soul to discover the right path is quite easy! Going
behind the ways of the mind and mechanically following one’s senses and emotions is
meant to be only falling into the net of illusion.

Let the Path of the Good be our chosen path

preya maargam, shreya maargam. (Sanskrit for : path of the pleasant, path of the
good). Distinguish ever between the path of the pleasant and path of the good.

You have to do this again and again whenever your mind tempts you to follow the
ways of worldly people.

To imitate another is a powerful temptation. Such is that it can enslave even a

thinker. Hence if all of your friends come by driving scooter and yet you do not have the
need for it, do not bother about finding the money required to buy a scooter. If your
neighbors had sent their children to California and Cambridge, yet you do not bother
about how to send off your daughter to America.

Keep away from all kind of temptations. Do not go to places that give rise to
temptations. For then you will have to struggle to avoid the temptation. It would exhaust
your will power unnecessarily. Even if you succeed in withstanding the temptation, it
would leave an impression of desire in you. It is a desire or a wish, that tempts the mind
to distract itself.
 Lesser needs – fulfilled living
Do not wander like a beggar would from having added upon your needs. Instead
reduce upon your needs and thereafter live like a king would. For an instance, it is
needless to go shopping and to look for variety of clothes when the required clothing is
available at home. In the same way, if you can afford you would buy unnecessary goods.
Or even if you cannot afford, you would worry thinking that you are unable to afford
something about you do not possess.

Peace of mind and attachment to objects are contradictory to each other. They do
not go together. So choose the objects that you only need. Reduce your needs as much as
you can, depending upon your general outer purposes. For when your desires and needs
become as less as possible, inner peace becomes more. Possession of objects begets
sorrow. If you think about this truth, it becomes clear. It does not require any explanation.
As such instead of owning a car, use a taxi. It is not below one’s dignity to live in a rented
house than to live in a house of your own. If one contemplates one can understand that
one cannot permanently own even a single ground in this earth. So when one buys a
home it means that one pays off the rent for an entire period as fifty or sixty years.
Realize that without the grace of God one cannot buy even a piece of bread nor can one
sell it off.

Abandon doing unwanted deeds

Most of us suffer not because we lack good thinking or wisdom. On the contrary
we struggle because we do not follow those wisdom in our daily life. If you want inner
peace abandon all of the deeds that your intuition guides that you not do them at all. Yet
in the same way, it is equally important to begin doing the deeds that your intuition
guides you to do. Such is that, it takes you on the right path. If you have come to the good
path, your will then become more and more sacred as the grace of God will begin to
infuse your life. You will gain inner peace and it will enable you to spread that peace
around you.

It is required to live through trust, toward others. Be kind to the humble also.
Follow selflessness. Donate money, things or even a smile. Follow dispassion. Develop
devotion. Such are those qualities that one cannot gain within a single day. If you wish
for those qualities to become a natural, inseparable and important part of your life, it has
to be practiced a little after a little everyday.
 Is sowing seeds of misery good?
If you hate another, if you torture another, if you chide your servants, if you
trouble your children, if you treat disrespectfully your wife at home and your subordinate
at office, if you cheat people through business – if you engage in more such actions as
these and at the same time expect peace of mind, it becomes an impossible expectation.
Moreover you become unworthy of attaining any peace. For one who destroys the peace
of mind of another is not worthy of desiring inner peace for one’s own self. So how
would you act from now on?

Genuine spiritual growth alone can bring about inner peace. Spiritual growth is
the path of the internal world. Living spiritually means turning the mind inward so as to
know the secret of relationship between us, and the universe. Internal growth as such is
greatly encouraged by external life. In the same manner, internal growth is disrupted by
the drawbacks in the external life.

It is hence the following external ways of associating (sanskrit, sattvic : divine,

pure in nature) are said to be required – divine food, divine clothing, divinely studies,
divine friendships, divine situations and divine habits. Similarly prayers, pilgrimage,
spiritual gathering, fasts and religious festivals, all these were enforced as our habits. Do
not given up on these powerful tools of external help. Instead follow them vigorously for
quickening your inner growth. False rituals fade away when you have grown well
spiritually – which is as if once the sprouting begins the covering shield would shed it
self off. However, before the sprouting is that not needed too?

Suicide, an act of superstition

When you are completely exhausted mentally and given up hope, turn your
attention toward our holy texts, which are many. Or read the excellent books of the saints.
Or perhaps take a leave of month for undertaking a pilgrimage. Or visit a holy place and
spend a fortnight or stay there for a month. Spend your time in prayer, japa, singing
God’s songs, meditation and long walks. These are the excellent ways, to set right your
scattered mind and body and to bring renewed strength and happiness.

Some miscalculate that through drinking alcohol and other ways of being misled
will enable them to forgo their worries. Such is that is not possible at all. Their choices
are bad medicine that is worse than the sickness itself. Taking pills do not solve problems.
On the contrary it creates in you weakness of the mind, so much that you cannot face the
reality of the situation.
 In the same manner, the act of suicide is an act of extreme foolishness. If you
choose that, you will turn to the state of the devil – a state of greater torture than
remaining in the state of human being.

You can increase your inner peace

Try to continue increasing in your inner peace. Do not hesitate about it while
amidst anything, for it is possible to reach a higher state. It is worse to only abandon the
pursuit of it through hesitation, for at times that will only worsen the present situations.
Increase the quality of your internal life. The state of wealth internally – inner fulfillment
– is the only true abundance. Let your wealth be created internally. Let your children’s
wealth be created in their within. This will certainly bring about the wealth in the external
life. Ideal spiritual teachers say that a man is to be judged through his ‘being’ than
through what he is ‘doing’. Give up all worldly pleasures. In that place develop the desire
for achieving spiritual growth and for growing ascetically. Replace all petty likes and
desires toward this one goal.

If you have set up a proper goal yourself, begin by being true to yourself. Bring
about more and more of the integration between your thought, word and deed.

Do what you say. Abandon all pretences. Wipe out all pretences from your life.
Pretence is the most significant enemy to inner peace.

Spiritual comparison and material comparison

Compare yourself with those who are materially below you and with those who
are spiritually superior to you. In this way you will be fulfilled materially and unfulfilled
spiritually. In such as that is growth and peace contained. On the other hand, if you
instead look to compare yourself with those who spiritually inferior and with those who
are materially superior (which alone many do), they produce dreadful results such as
material dissatisfaction and spiritual pride.

Whose friendship?
Accustom yourself to only one or two friends who are trustworthy. Do not
increase your habit of friendships. Do not become too close to anyone. Getting too close
creates contempt, damage feelings and spoil inner peace.
 Speak only for a reason. Avoid speaking unnecessarily. Measure your speech.
Even words that are pure and directed to good are misunderstood at certain times creating
breakups. Except when asked, do not advice anyone about anything and let us be engaged
in doing our own work.

Do not argue
Do not engage in arguing. Do not ever engage in reasoning. Do you wish to win
arguments? If so, it will not give you any kind of useful results. It will increase your
pride. It will hurt others. It will destroy friendships.

Let someone else stand for his rights. There are incorrigible big fools and extreme
idiots upon this world who cannot be made to see justice. Do not waste away your time
and energy in their matters. It is only exhaustion that will be left for you and growing of
enmity. Do we need this?

If fooled by expectations…
Do not expect anything. Because expectations creates tension and the sense of
being cheated. For instance, you wait for your postman everyday. Finally however, he
does not bring the letter, which you expected from your friend and your sadness is then
unbounded. What is the purpose of such an anxiety of the mind? When there are no
expectations, there are also no experiences of feeling fooled. According to your destiny of
whether to experience joy or undergo suffering, one has to live through them as such.

None can increase nor decrease the measure either of your happiness or your
miseries.

Knowing this fully well, what is the purpose of spending your time and energy in
worrying? Forget your past. You do not have to think about your future. Live in the
present. Fulfill your responsibilities, using your talent fully well and according to how
they appear to you. There is a God to take care of the results. And we do not have to
worry.
 What is the use of worrying?
“I am not worried about what is happening to me. But I am only worried for
others”, so do some say. People who say this fool themselves for saying so is another
form of ignorance. Do not worry about your son’s foolishness or your daughter eloping
with some man.

Do your best to reduce sorrow in your life in every way. But do not engage in
worrying even a bit. Each individual is ruled by his own past life deeds [let the intellects
of the world say whatever they may contrary to this]. No one can change the destiny of
another. When a person ‘A’ either helps or troubles a person ‘K’, it is God who is the doer
through ‘A’ – it is not ‘A’ who engages in the doing [it is the past life deed of the person
‘K’ to be in a such a situation]. If you understand this for a second, you will not worry
about others or yourself. The act of worrying only exhausts energy and wastes time. One
who worries is one who shows his ignorance about spiritual principles.

Whom to call for help?

No one cares about you – keep this truth well in your mind. Do not expect the
world running to offer you help at every worse situation that you may face. Have faith in
God and continue to engage in your efforts. If you have God’s company, you will achieve
victory even if the whole world opposes. However if you lose God and yet have all of the
help from the world, you will fetch failure alone. Gain the friendship of God. Such it is,
the greatest wealth. If you have gained it, inner peace is yours. So it is then everything is
with you. Fears go afar. Anxiety has been stopped.

See God in everything. Realize the spiritual oneness of all and everything. You are
not different from others in creation. God is the other name for the surprising philosophy
of life within you. Call it either Life, or call it Realization, or call it the state of Being,
this surprising philosophy is filled everywhere and exists always. It has no cause of
action. Be happy. Think, speak and act as if to make the God in you proud. Avoid the
ideals of lowbred man of vulgarity, abusiveness, cheating and selfishness. Realize the
spiritual nature of oneness in all. You will make quick progress spiritually. All of your
desire for inner peace will happen within you.

Prayer is important!
Pray for two minutes every morning when you wake up from bed. You may spend
this time for the One who created you, can you not? “God, however that You may wish to
fulfill your desire for today, may You use me so. Making myself into nothing, I surrender
myself totally in your hands.”

Several years back I heard a song (in the Hindi language) in ‘All India Radio’.
There is a line that has stayed with me ever since. Such it is that everyone can repeat
upon waking up from bed. “Let my life today be an offering of worship for you”. If you
repeat this and remember your prayer deeply throughout the day, you will then think
twice before your engaging in a mistaken act or falling off from your path. At the end of
the day, as you fill in more flowers in your garland [good deeds] of offering so will you
fill for that day more good deeds.

Neither laughter, nor the cry…

Accept every experience that happens in life in the way they come. Do not
complain. Do not be irritated. Do not be worried. You also do not have to be happy. Stay
quiet. Actions and results are always present in daily life.

If you laugh now, you will have to cry later. If you are happy for something
through adverse thinking, it means you are buying trouble. If you wish to create a sand
mount in a ground evenly surfaced, you will have to dig the earth in some other place for
the sand! There is no mount without a hole, no laughter without tears. Hence remain
always in a state of evenness. Be humble always. Avoid vain happiness and loud laughter.
Moreover, humility is better than the happiness that hides worries temporarily.

Learn to accept every event in your life as God’s wish. ‘God! It is your wish alone
that happens to me’. Let this be the responsive act for every life event that happens. Your
true friend is God alone. He alone is our greatest Well-wisher. In order for you to be
created, reformed, purify, to be a good instrument in acting out His wish – for these alone
He gives you the good and bad experiences.

Allow yourself to be transformed through His divine hands. Leave yourself under
His care.

Do we have to fight?
Do not battle. Do not oppose. Leave yourself to be formed through God’s will.
Become a particle in the great winds of destruction. Do not require individual pride. God
exists. Only by realizing that it His will that is functioning, and by realizing that all of the
human effort is operated through God’s will alone, can you become as such.
 Humility is not weakness. On the contrary it is strength. As one grows in
humbleness, inner strength too increases. Because you do not oppose God’s will, your life
too is spent peacefully. There will no problems of any kind. Because there are no personal
wishes or efforts to achieve anything, there cannot also happen failure of any kind.

Just like air rushes to a place of void, so do God’s grace and peace increase in you
where the arrogance of the ego has been removed and hence, your life will change to one
of being greatly victorious. Such it is for sure!

Spiritual fruition is possible!

The fundamental error of those without peace is their imaginary make up that
says, ‘the entire world is created for one’s pleasures. Everything, everyone has to act
according to one’s own wish. The entire world has to comply our plans’. Do not try to
squeeze out joy from this world. It is impossible such that you might as well squeeze out
poison from cobra’s teeth. And if you do, you will meet only failure, deceit, confusion
and suffering. Where else, understand the reality of the world. This world has been
created for your experience, your growth. Through every experience, transform yourself
into an intelligent and a spiritually fructified person. Experience is the proper education.
He who thinks the world has been created for his pleasure is a fool indeed. “anithyam
asoogam lokam asaathvam, dukalaayam (Sanskrit Encyclopedia meaning for : Having
taken birth in this impermanent and sorrowful world…)

Study your holy text, whether it is the Gita or the Bible with devotion. Always
remember its teachings. Live according to it. There is no other way to inner peace other
than this.

Is this world real?

Finally trust that this whole world is false. All saints assuredly say in one
voice that this secular world is only an imaginary world and worldly experiences are
apparent illusions. The saints experienced it themselves and only then did they say that
this world is temporary and that Pure Consciousness alone is permanent. They are not
fools nor are you smart. Even in the midst of your bitter experiences, say to yourself thus,
‘everything is false. I am Pure Consciousness. I myself am God’.
My dear friends,

You have read this small book, have you not! Read this again and again.
Whenever problems arise in your life and disrupts your inner peace, read this patiently
during those times.

Having read it, practice acting according to it as much as possible. Your inner
peace will surely come about.

Pass this to your friends to read it.

If possible you can yourself print this book and distribute it in thousands.

Such it is a great Jnana Yagna.

- Swami Sivananda

(Backcover)
Improving Relationships

For human relations, in family or at workplace to not break-down, in its Brokenness to

not expand:

• Give up such Ego as that, I am superior, I am better.

• Give up engaging in continuous Loose Talks that are, meaningless and mindless
of its own consequences.
• Handle with Diplomacy and Compromise in any matter under any problematic
circumstances.
• Realize, that an innateness of Tolerance is essential at times and during difficult
situations.
• Abandon, Carrying Tales that comes without any investigation about which is
truth and which is not.
• Do not indulge in Over Expectations.
• Give up continuous exchanging of information with each other person whether it
is relevant to them or not.
• Do not believe all of whatever that are heard.
• Do not hold on to your opinions rigidly, practicing Flexibility of it.
• Do not miss, to respect others duly and to use words with courtesy.
• Do not pretend to have no time even to smile and to exchange kind words.
• When problems arise, do not expect the other person to compromise and at the
same time attempt to be the first one to begin dialogue.

(July 21, 2008 Translated from Tamil)