The Atma Jyoti Blog

This article by Paramhansa Yogananda was originally published in the East-West Magazine in 1933

Decide now not to live in the pit of despair, broken resolutions, unfulfilled hopes, and impractical dreams, as you probably have done the past year. Remember, whatever your position, it is you who put yourself there. Whatever you made yourself in the distant past, or in the near past, that is what you are now. It is you, who, by the secret, invisible traces of your own past actions, have been controlling the power of your present actions initiated by free choice.

The kind, omnipresent God never punished or rewarded you, for He had already given you the power to punish or reward yourself by the use or misuse of your own reason and will. It is you who transgressed the laws of health, prosperity, or wisdom and punished yourself accordingly with ill-health, poverty, or ignorance.

Cause and effect

It is you, who, through the law of cause and effect which governs your actions, ordered yourself to be punished or rewarded. In the past years you have probably suffered enough and it is time now for you to parole yourself from the prison of your own past undesirable habits. Since you are the judge, no jail of suffering, poverty, or ignorance can hold you if you want to liberate yourself. All you have to do is to speak the words: “Be Thou free,” in order to make the jailer of your wrong convictions obey your command and set you free.

Remember, your freedom of action must be insured. Most people live all through life simply making good resolutions but never accomplishing anything. They are actually sliding down while they dream that they are climbing up. Most people sink in the quicksand of failure the more they struggle for success, and they fall into the pit of despair before they realize what is happening to them. Wake up and learn by the example of others if you have somehow escaped drowning in despondency and are still alive in this New Year, and try to prevent the repetition of your troubles.

Remember that the repetition of a few weak actions produces habits of weakness. Most people allow their self-created habits of weakness or failure to enslave them. Remember that you can save yourself if you have made up your mind to live differently, but remember also that your resolution to fight bad habits must be persistent until success is reached.

Another cause of failure is that you do not weigh your bad habits against the power of your free will required to combat them. Find out through daily introspection whether you are a free man, whether you eat, walk, move, work, and meditate according to the dictates of your will power and wisdom, or whether you are the tool of your bad habits which make you do miserable things in spite of the protestations of your reason and will.

Fighting bad habits

To yield to bad habits is to make them stronger and to make your will power weaker and weaker. Fight your bad habits of anger, fault-finding, jealousy, fear, inertia, over-eating, or whatever your particular weakness is, by not yielding to temptation against your will. When you determine to do something, go through with it if it kills you. This will give your wisdom-guided will more power over your bad habits. Last year’s material failure, spiritual indifference, mental and moral weaknesses, and half-hearted meditations must be put into the discard by using your will to be prosperous, to be spiritual, by exercising self-control and by meditating deeply until you actually contact God.

Remember that the greater your will power, the less will be the enslaving influence of your bad habits. Make up your mind that you are not going to be bound by your past bad habits but that you are going to guide your actions by wisdom-guided free choice. You are going to be a free born citizen in God’s Kingdom of Cosmic Wisdom by conquering all your undesirable habits. To be able to live according to the dictates of your wisdom will give you much more happiness than if you continue to allow yourself to remain bound and limited as in the past. In this New Year, stop the slave-driving of your bad habits and your dreams of wisdom will come true if you become free to act guided only by wisdom.

Most people spend all their lives desiring to do something perfectly, such as playing the piano or painting, but are too lazy and careless to put forth the effort required to reach perfection in the given activity. They go on for years performing inefficiently and excusing themselves by saying: “I had no time to practice or to find a good teacher, and anyway, I am not a genius.” Extraordinary talent is not as necessary as unswerving purpose and unfailing application and effort. If an individual of average intelligence practices on the piano regularly for five hours a day under an expert teacher he can become a proficient performer. In the same way most people fail in attaining their material, mental, and spiritual desires because of the lack of definite purpose and sustained effort.

Poverty consciousness

Do not go on living in an abject poverty-consciousness if you have been going through the depression in that state of mind as millions of others have allowed themselves to do. Do not continue to carry your burden of old mental and moral weaknesses acquired in the past years, but burn them in the fire of resolution and become free. If you have been sick and have been treating yourself indifferently by limited man-made methods, shake up your mind now and heal yourself with the unlimited healing power of God.

Above all, remember that the right method of meditation is the only way to all-round freedom and success. It would be a tiresome long hike by foot from New York to Los Angeles and would take months to accomplish, but by fast airplane it would take only a few hours. Aren’t you tired of prayer-hiking to God through the unexplored, tortuous theological jungle? Why not take the airplane of high meditation and follow the shortest Yoga path to God?

Many people pray ineffectively all their lives with chicken dinners, auto rides, movies, or money-making schemes in the background of their minds, and consequently they do not reach God. They say: “Oh, well, I try to enter the silence but as soon as I sit for ten minutes to concentrate all my thoughts seem to crowd in and keep my attention from marching Godward.”

This is due to the same above-mentioned reason why some people do all things imperfectly because of carelessness, inertia, and lack of sustained purpose. Get a good teacher (a Guru), decide on the best and quickest method of meditation as taught by the great saints and master minds of India, and then meditate deeper and deeper every day, praying to God with a burning heart: “Reveal Thyself.” Continue to do this day after day, month after month, and year after year in good faith and you will find that you have at last realized God Consciousness.

You must consciously contact God, and finding Him first, you will have attained dominion over yourself and over all your limiting conditions.

Further reading:

• Why Weep for the Dead?
• 31 Reflections for August – Collected by Paramhansa Yogananda
• Immortality vs. Death

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