Sri Swami Satchidananda - Golden Moments

Library of Congress Cataloging in

Publication Data

Satchidananda, Swami.

Golden Moments

I. Title.

2012

IBSN 0-978-0-932040-90-9

Copyright 2012

by Satchidananda AshramYogaville, Inc.

All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher or the copyright holder.

Printed in the United States of America.

Integral Yoga Publications

Satchidananda AshramYogaville, Inc.

108 Yogaville Way, Buckingham, VA, USA 23921

www.yogaville.org

Beyond Words

Enlightening Tales

The Golden Present

Bound To Be Free: The Liberating Power of Prison Yoga

The Healthy Vegetarian

Heaven on Earth

Integral Yoga Hatha

Kailash Journal

The Living Gita

To Know Your Self

Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

Titles in this special Peter Max cover art series:

Meditation

The Key to Peace

Overcoming Obstacles

Adversity and Awakening

Satchidananda Sutras

Gems of Wisdom

Pathways to Peace

How to Find Happiness

The Be-Attitudes

Everything Will Come to You

Thou Art That

Golden Moments

Free Yourself

The Guru Within

Sri Swami Satchidananda:

Biography of a Yoga Master

Sri Swami Satchidananda:

Portrait of a Modern Sage

The Masters Touch

Boundless Giving: The Life and Service of

Sri Swami Satchidananda

Living Yoga: The life and teachings of

Swami Satchidananda (DVD)

Many Paths, One Truth: The Interfaith

Message of Swami Satchidananda (DVD)

The Essence of Yoga:

The Path of Integral Yoga with

Swami Satchidananda (DVD)

In the Footsteps of a Master:

The 1970 World Peace Tour with Swami

Satchidananda (DVD)

For a complete listing of books, CDs and DVDs:
www.iydbooks.com

A real friend should be able to help you in becoming a better person. Often we may find it difficult to travel alone. The path is steep. Its always better to have somebody who can help you, who can hold you and see that you dont slip. We should always look for such friends and, once we find them, we should never lose them.

A real friend will not hesitate to point out your mistakes. Those who hesitate are just there to exploit you. Its for their own benefit that theyre keeping their friendship with you. Theyre afraid of losing it. A real friend will think of your benefit, not of his or her own. When will you know if a person is really a friend or not? Only when you are facing some difficulty.

You can build up your strength to the point where you are not influenced by your surroundings; in fact, you can influence the surroundings instead. You can change the environment if you have the strength of mind; but even if your mind isnt that strong, you can still have the strength not to be affected by the environment.

Learning not to be affected is an important step. If you are influenced by a situation, how can you change it? If fifteen people are crying and you go there and join them in the crying, you have simply added one more miserable person; you have not done anything to benefit people. Instead, if you are really strong and can maintain your own equanimity, all the fifteen people will be benefited by your strength.

Lets not deny anybody just because he or she follows a certain path or doesnt follow a certain path. Ultimately, we are all learning. If anyone is interested in knowing what practices you are doing, talk about it; explain how you have benefited, but dont try to persuade another to do the same thing.

That is what is meant by the Biblical saying, Ask and it shall be given. You dont have to go and teach anyone. If someone asks, simply share what you know. If that person wants to do the same thing, fine. If not, if he or she wants to follow another path, thats fine too. With such an attitude you will learn to love everyone, respect everyone and there will be harmony in your life.

You should understand that no pain will come to you unless you do something to deserve it. If we deserve something, whether good or bad, it will come to us. If we dont deserve it, nobody can hurt us. No pain can come to us. Deserving means we have done something wrong and through that pain we have to purge it out.

Pain is a sort of purgation. Even if the whole world comes forward to give you pain, it cannot if you do not deserve it. But, unfortunately, we dont accept it that way. We simply say, Oh, I am all innocent. This guy just came and hurt me. Its wrong thinking. Pain has no interest in coming to you unless you have invited it. Understand the purpose of the suffering, and accept it.

When anything comes to you, first ask yourself, Will I be maintaining my peace by getting this, or will my peace be disturbed? Ask that for everything. People you would like to be with, possessions you would like to acquire. It doesnt matter what you want to do; strike that against the touchstone of peace. Will this rob me of my peace? If the answer is Yes, you must choose peace or the other thing, you should always choose peace. If the answer is, My peace will not be disturbed by it, okay, you can have that and still have your peace. That should be our aim.

You might have the entire world at your feet, but unless you have peace you dont have a worriless life. What is the use of having all these things around you? Care more for your peace than for these. Without that peace, nothing is going to make you happy. If you have peace, even without having anything else, you will be happy.

Thats what you call contentment. Whatever has to come will come. What will not come, will not come. Why should I worry about it? I know some of you might say, Then should I not do anything? You should do something, yes. Dont think that relaxation or peace comes by not doing anything. No. But when you are peaceful and content, youll be put to even greater use.

The best teachers are your own mistakes. You learn even faster by your mistakes. Once I was at a conference with the great modern scientist Buckminster Fuller. He stood up and said, Friends, forget about all the Do this. Dont do that business. Commit as many mistakes as possible, as soon as possible. Youll become great!

Every failure is a stepping stone. Remember, though, that you cant use the same stone for each step. Every step should be on a new stone. That means you shouldnt keep on making the same mistakes. Learn well from each one. The problem with many people is that they commit the same mistake over and over. Even so, they will eventually learn from that mistake and move on. Experience is the best teacher.

We have to correct our vision. Its not only the eye that sees, but the I sees also. Sit in meditation and think, Am I seeing things and people without any prejudice, or do I project my image? We see not just the person, but our own prefixed notions. Its a very natural thing, and its very hard to escape from that. When that happens, you have to question yourself. Why am I seeing that person this way?