“Happiness doesn’t depend upon who you are or what you have; it depends solely on what you think.” ~Dale Carnegie

One of my favorite bloggers is Leo Babauta over at Zen Habits. In spite of or maybe because of not doing blah blah and not having lots of stuff, he says he’s very happy.

“Much happier than seven years ago when I ate fried foods and sweets all time time and felt unhealthy and overweight, when I watched television and was out of shape, when I shopped a lot and was in debt, when I worked a job that paid fairly well and had no time for myself or my loved ones.

“How have I accomplished this? With small tricks. The truth is, you don’t need a lot to live well — you just need the right mindset.”

I’ve followed Leo and his honest and frank blogging for many years, so I know that he speaks the truth from his own experience. He gives eight tricks for living well on little. Here is number 4, one of my challenges:

A Simple Trick To Be Happy

“Be happy with what you have and where you are. Too often we want to be somewhere else, doing something else, with other people than whoever we’re with right now, getting things other than what we already have. But where we are is great! Who we’re with (including just ourselves) is already perfect. What we have is enough. What we’re doing already is amazing.”

What About You?

What simple tricks do you do to make yourself happy? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below.

Friendship is the universal spiritual attraction which unites souls in the bond of divine love, manifesting itself in two or more individuals. If you open the door to the magnetic power of friendship, a soul or souls of like vibrations will be attracted to you. Friendship is a manifestation of God’s love for you, expressed through your friends, who constitute the richest possessions a human being can have.

You attract those who are like you. That is the law of vibration. Friendship is eternal. If you can form a friendship through which God is awakened in you, that is the greatest of all friendships.

True friendship lies in seeking soul progress together. Friendship must never have a material end in view, or an object to be gained. Friendship is an ever-increasing consciousness of equality and the blending of souls without any physical relation.

The building of wisdom and spiritual and intuitive understanding by mutual effort alone can bind two souls by the laws of everlasting, universal divine love, which has its foundation in service on the spiritual and intuitional planes and is unconditional and everlasting.

Friendship is the purest of all love. In the love of parents for their children there is compulsion; in filial love there is compulsion; in the love of lovers there is compulsion; but in true friendship there is no compulsion. Usefulness is love. If you want the love of friends or the world, you must be useful to them. Why do we all love Jesus? Because He was useful to us as no one else ever was.

Be Friend to Enemies

You must be a friend even to your enemy, because if you become an enemy to your enemy you will increase his wrath and make him an even greater enemy. Hatred travels through the ether. Every person who tries to injure others, first injures himself. You cannot hate others without first poisoning yourself. To hate anyone is against your own interest.

Remember, God is in your enemy just as much as in your friend. When you recognize God in those who love you and in those who hate you, when you see the all-pervading love of God, then you will realize His omnipresence.

If someone is broadcasting hatred, if you are tuned to that hatred, you will get it; but if you are tuned to love, no matter how many hateful vibrations are sent, you will not get them. You must cultivate love in your heart, for it is the magnetism that draws souls to you and it is the dagger that kills hatred.

In pure friendship you will find God. If you would be a true friend, you must recognize the soul. When you consider yourself as a soul, then you can be a perfect friend. If you fail to be friendly, you disregard the divine law of self-expansion by which alone your soul can grow into Spirit. By being true to yourself and a true friend to others, you gain the friendship of God.

Through perfected divine friendship, mutually seeking spiritual perfection, you will find the one Great Friend. Friendship is God’s trumpet call, bidding the soul destroy the walls which separate it from all other souls and from Him.

from Inner Culture, March 1940

For daily friendship meditations and other quotes by Yogananda on peace and harmony, visit YoganandaHarmony.com.

I just watched all of Susan’s videos on YouTube about her battle with polio and her husband’s chemotherapy. Here’s the video of this great, courageous, and beautiful soul reading Mother Teresa’s poem.

Do It Anyway by Mother Teresa

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and true enemies;
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.

“Do you wish to know if a kingdom is well governed, if the morals of its inhabitants are good or bad? Look to the music that is current there.” ~ Confucius

Two dear friends, Bhagavati and Ramesha, just launched their new website, Music and Consciousness. In addition to being classically trained professional musicians, they are both gifted teachers and deeply into the transforming power of music.

Bhagavati and Ramesha say this about their music and work:

“More than just a recreational activity, listening to music can be a transformative and healing experience that can help you change the way you relate to everyday life and challenges. Our purpose is to help people to better understand the effect music has on our physical, mental and spiritual well-being, and the importance of making musical choices that support our health and happiness.”

Check out their site: www.musicandconsciousness.com.

Paramhansa Yogananda said that this beautiful poem was given to him by St. Francis of Assisi in a vision.

From the depths of slumber,
As I ascend the spiral stairways of wakefulness,
I will whisper:
God! God! God!

Thou art the food, and when I break my fast
Of nightly separation from Thee,
I will taste Thee, and mentally say,
God! God! God!

No matter where I go, the spotlight of my mind
Will ever keep turning on Thee;
And in the battle din of activity, my silent war-cry will be:
God! God! God!

When boisterous storms of trials shriek,
And when worries howl at me,
I will drown their noises by loudly chanting
God! God! God!

When my mind weaves dreams
With threads of memories,
On that magic cloth will I emboss:
God! God! God!

Every night, in time of deepest sleep,
My peace dreams and calls, Joy! Joy! Joy!
And my joy comes singing evermore:
God! God! God!

In waking, eating, working, dreaming, sleeping,
Serving, meditating, chanting, divinely loving,
My soul will constantly hum, unheard by any:
God! God! God!

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is discord, unity;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is error, truth;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is sadness, joy;
Where there is darkness, light.

O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled, as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen

Attributed to St. Francis of Assisi

Although I have devoted a large part of my life to the study of religion and to discussion with religious leaders of all faiths, I know very well that I cannot but seem presumptuous in writing about Jesus Christ and trying to explain what he means to me. I do so only because my Christian friends have told me, on more than a few occasions, that for the very reason I am not a Christian and that (I shall quote their words exactly) “I do not accept Christ in the bottom of my heart as the only Son of God,” it is impossible for me to understand the profound significance of his teachings, or to know and interpret the greatest source of spiritual strength that man has ever known.

Although this may or may not be true in my case, I have reasons to believe that it is an erroneous point of view. I believe that such an estimate is incompatible with the message that Jesus Christ gave to the world. For, he was certainly the highest example of one who wished to give everything, asking nothing in return, and not caring what creed might happen to be professed by the recipient. I am sure that if he were living here now among men, he would bless the lives of many who perhaps have never even heard his name, if only their lives embodied the virtues of which he was a living example on earth; the virtues of loving one’s neighbour as oneself and of doing good and charitable works among one’s fellowmen.

What, then, does Jesus mean to me? To me, he was one of the greatest teachers humanity has ever had. To his believers, he was God’s only begotten Son.* Could the fact that I do or do not accept this belief make Jesus have any more or less influence in my life? Is all the grandeur of his teaching and of his doctrine to be forbidden to me? I cannot believe so.

To me, it implies a spiritual birth. My interpretation, in other words, is that in Jesus’ own life is the key of his nearness to God; that he expressed, as no other could, the spirit and will of God. It is in this sense that I see him and recognize him as the Son of God.

The Spirit of Jesus

But I do believe that something of this spirit that Jesus exemplified in the highest measure, in its most profound human sense, does exist. I must believe this; if I did not believe it, I should be a sceptic; and to be a sceptic is to live a life that is empty and lacks moral content. Or, what is the same thing, to condemn the entire human race to a negative end.

It is true that there certainly is reason for scepticism when one observes the bloody butchery that European aggressors have unloosed, and when one thinks about the misery and suffering prevalent in every corner of the world, as well as the pestilence and famine that always follow, terribly and inevitably, upon war.

In the face of this, how can one speak seriously of the Divine Spirit incarnate in man? Because these acts of terror and murder offend the conscience of man; because man knows that they represent evil; because in the inner depths of his heart and of his mind, he deplores them. And because, moreover, when he does not go astray, misled by false teachings or corrupted by false leaders, man has within his breast an impulse for good and a compassion that is the spark of Divinity, and which some day, I believe, will burst forth into the full flower that is the hope of all mankind.

Jesus’ Example

An example of this flowering may be found in the figure and in the life of Jesus. I refuse to believe that there now exists or has ever existed a person that has not made use of his example to lessen his sins, even though he may have done so without realizing it. The lives of all have, in some greater or lesser degree, been changed by his presence, his actions, and the words spoken by his divine voice.

I believe that it is impossible to estimate the merits of the various religions of the world, and, moreover, I believe that it is unnecessary and harmful even to attempt it. But each one of them, in my judgment, embodies a common motivating force: the desire to uplift man’s life and give it purpose.

And because the life of Jesus has the significance and the transcendency to which I have alluded, I believe that he belongs not solely to Christianity, but to the entire world; to all races and people, it matters little under what flag, name or doctrine they may work, profess a faith, or worship a God inherited from their ancestors.

— The Modern Review, October 1941, republished on mahatma.org.in/

* The word ‘begotten’ has for Gandhiji a significance that is more profound and possibly nobler than its simple literal meaning.

Here’s a list of a few ideas on the art of creating a joyful life:

1. Balance: Most people are happier with a balance between work and play; the inner and out life; time alone and with others.
2. Sense of Purpose: Happy people generally have a feeling of purpose which give meaning and enthusiasm to their lives.
3. Relationships with Others: Of course there are happy hermits but most people do better with satisfying relationships.
4. Spiritual: Connection to something higher than ourselves.
5. Don’t Worry, Be Happy: the most important of all. A determination, choosing to be happy to matter what happens.
6. Health & Vitality: In spite of #5, it’s just easier to choose happiness when I have more physical energy.
7. Keep a Sense of Humor: Don’t take yourself too seriously.