Living Wisely Living Well | With Asha Nayaswami

Avoid negative thinking. Remember, whatever you project outward to the world will return to you. A boomerang effect is inevitable.

Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami)

Never lend money unless you can feel, in your heart, that you are giving the money away. This practice will spare you much pain. For as Shakespeare (through Polonius) said, “Loan oft loseth both itself and friend.” Tell God that you place the money in His hands. He will see to it that you don’t lack in consequence. Be sensible, however, in your lending. Try to ensure that the help you give goes to someone whose need is real. Reflect on those movie actors who carelessly gave away large amounts of the money they were earning, but who years later died in penury.

Respect everyone, even if some people strike you as a bit daft. Remember, God dwells in all beings, and can express His wisdom in countless ways—sometimes quite surprisingly. I myself have found that, when I listened open-mindedly to someone whom I thought a little foolish, it was that person, specifically, whom God chose to tell me something I needed to hear.

Keep in your heart a constant, flowing conversation with God. Address Him in the second person as “You,” not as “He” or “She,” nor even in the nowadays-stilted form, “Thou.” Share with Him or Her—your Cosmic Friend—every thought, every feeling of your heart.

Your body is a temple more truly than any edifice built by hands. Enter therein daily. Move in solemn procession up the aisle of the spine to God’s high altar in the forehead (the seat of superconscious ecstasy). Worship God at that altar in the spiritual eye.

Mental attitudes are often reflected in bodily positions. Do you lean habitually forward, as if to grasp at events before they happen? Do you lean backward, as if to distance yourself from others or from some unpleasantness? Do you tend to lean sideways, as if to find a strategy for getting around some obstacle? Keep your bodily and mental posture upright, relaxed, and serene. You’ll find it relatively easy, then, to cope with any difficulties that confront you.

Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/ashanayaswami)

Give people the time they need to express themselves clearly. The rhythms of thought vary, but sincere self-expression requires careful, and sometimes prolonged, deliberation.

If someone impugns you or your honor (in the sense of attacking your “good name” or reputation) ignore him. If that isn’t possible, seek a graceful, even a humorous way out—like the American in France who once met a Frenchman’s challenge to a duel by selecting, for weapons, “apple pie at ten paces.” After all, what is that false “honor” but an affirmation of ego: the root cause of all suffering?! Suffice it if you, following your own conscience, act honorably. People’s unflattering opinions of you are not your problem, but theirs.

Think of time as a radiation outward from your own center. Past and future move not only directionally like a river: they also revolve around their center in the changeless NOW.

Develop a sense of community with others. No one in this world stands alone, though in many ways the opposite seems true, since we come into this life alone and must leave it again at death, quite alone. Yet we come into a welcoming family, and should so live our lives that others weep when we leave this world. Everything we do in our solitary-seeming comings and goings depends, to a great extent, on others. Expand your sense of community to include an ever-larger number of people, until you see everyone on earth as belonging to your own family, in God.