Ananda’s founder, Swami Kriyananda, was a man of boundless creativity, insight and wisdom: the author of over 80 books and 400 pieces of music, the founder of intentional communities, a worldwide speaker and skilled manager.
In his book 26 Keys to Living with Higher Awareness, he writes: “People who succeed in life not only have an abundance of energy and enthusiastic awareness but dynamic willpower as well.” He offers 26 keys for increasing awareness and cultivating success. Here are a few:
* Be active, never passive, in response to life’s challenges.
Willing activity will awaken within you the thought that something can be done about every problem you face.
* Be keenly interested in everything.
Don’t wait for things to make you interested. Awareness is not so much a matter of what one is aware of as of what he is aware with. Make interest in things a matter of deliberate, conscious practice. If you tell yourself, “I’ll become interested when I can find something that awakens my interest,” you’ll find yourself becoming progressively bored with everything. Always be open, instead, to new possibilities, new ideas, new points of view.
* Say YES to life!
In everyone, two voices compete. The one is life-affirming; the other, life-negating. Be open to the yes-saying influence. When faced with any new opportunity, ask yourself, “How can I make it a reality?” Shun the tendency of so many people to enumerate all the reasons why a new idea could not possibly work.
* Be solution-oriented.
Solutions to problems don’t come by dwelling on the problems. They come by concentrating on resolving them. To be solution-oriented is to approach problems with faith, almost as if the problems themselves were not wholly real. For every problem contains its own built-in solution. Successful people don’t brood on the obstacles facing them. They commit themselves, instead, to finding ways out of difficulties, and are certain that such ways exist.
* Give your full attention to everything you do.
Live wholeheartedly HERE and NOW. The reality of the past is that it has helped to create the present. The future will be determined by how wisely – or unwisely – you live now. Do your best today, and the results will take care of themselves. Indeed, they will reflect the very best that is in you.
* Don’t be attached to success or failure.
Successful people work primarily for the joy of doing what they feel inspired to do. They are less concerned with returns on their labor. Nonattachment helps a person to live fully in the present tense – to do his best right now.
* Practice affirmation.
The simple statement, for instance, “I live wholeheartedly HERE and NOW!” when repeated several times a day with deep concentration, can help to transform mere intentions into reality by giving them force and definition.
* Meditate regularly.
Meditation raises the consciousness into what many psychologists have described as “superconsciousness.” This state is the polar opposite of subconsciousness. Inspired men and women have derived inspiration to a great extent from this higher-than-conscious level of awareness.
* Make transcendence your “ulterior motive” in everything you do.
Never let yourself stagnate in lesser victories. Keep ever climbing up the mountain toward the highest that is in you. Realize that that highest embraces not merely physical and mental accomplishments, but spiritual ones above all. There is a longing deep within every soul for perfect peace, absolute love, and infinite joy.
Ananda’s founder, Swami Kriyananda, was a man of boundless creativity, insight and wisdom: the author of over 80 books and 400 pieces of music, the founder of intentional communities, a worldwide speaker and skilled manager.
