Living Wisely Living Well | With Asha Nayaswami

Work at simplifying your view of life. Seek the simple unity beneath life’s endlessly bewildering complexity. Complexity, whether in work or in relationships, only creates more complexity. To be divinely childlike means to discover perfect oneness in God’s bliss.

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How modern do we owe it to ourselves to be? I myself was born in the then-backward, nearly medieval land of Romania. Never have I made a great effort to bring myself into the modern age. Scientific discoveries have swirled around me. New fads have sprung up. New slang has been tossed merrily from person to person. New ways of looking at things have popped up like jacks-in-the-box. I have chosen to keep myself a little apart from it all, accepting only as much of it as would help me. (These pages, for instance, are being written on a computer.) I say: Pass serenely through life’s fairground of excitements, but let nothing touch you that might take you out of yourself. I myself never watch television, unless for some very specific purpose. I don’t care to be either modern or old-fashioned. Time passes, but divine truth remains forever the same. Why not live in timelessness?

The Italians have a saying, “Se non è vero, è ben trovato: If it isn’t true, at least it’s well said.” Don’t, however, be lured too far from your own center by the attractive power of epigrams. Where truth is concerned, laugh if you feel to, but in the end, be serious.

As you wash your body daily, so also, before going to bed in the evening, cleanse your heart of all impure desires and attachments. Free your mind of wrong thoughts, and offer yourself into the clear stream of Divine Bliss.

Think vastness! Think eternity! Don’t be limited to your present realities. See your thoughts as waves on the vast ocean of cosmic awareness.

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If someone ridicules you, laugh with him if you can. But if his ridicule is mere buffoonery, quietly look away and say nothing. And if he mocks your principles, answer him as he deserves: “Mockery comes easily, to the ignorant.” Has someone slighted you? Thank him. Has someone hurt your feelings? Thank him. Every blow to your ego can boost your soul-awareness. On the other hand, if someone tries to destroy your work, protect it, but be thankful for the reminder that everything is maya: delusion. True fulfillment will be yours only when you’ve escaped Satan’s clutches forever.

Love others as extensions of your own Self. See everyone as specializing on behalf of the whole human race in being himself.

A true friend is one with whom you can weep, and not only laugh. Be a true friend to all. Let them feel that you care for them. Weep with them not to increase their sorrow, but to wean them from it altogether. Don’t weep for yourself, however. To be a best friend to all—to yourself as well—strive always to find a way out of darkness into light.

Include the success of others in your efforts to succeed, yourself. Better a stream that makes green a whole valley than an oasis surrounded by vast stretches of sand.

Attachment binds one to things in the way that unripe fruit clings to its branch, even when buffeted by high winds. Be like a ripe fruit, which instantly drops when it is brushed by a mere breeze. At the slightest hint of adversity, remember God, and release your grasp on the tree-branch of delusion.

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