Strengthen
Your Will to Succeed
By Swami Kriyananda, from The
Art and Science of Raja Yoga
The greatest
mistake people make is to belittle their own power to change themselves.
My guru taught us that the greatest of all sins is to call oneself
a sinner, for it identifies one with sin, or error. So hypnotized,
one becomes the helpless slave of delusion. No matter how often
one fails, he should keep on trying to improve, remembering what
Yoganandaji also said: "A saint is a sinner who never gave
up." The very season of failure, he further taught us, is the
best season for sowing the seeds of success, if we direct the energy
awakened by our remorse, not toward self-abuse, but toward reinforcing
our determination to do better next time. As with my experience
in trying at first unsuccessfully to give up smoking [when a young
man], every time I went back to the habit I did so, not with a consciousness
of failure, but with the thought, "Well, I haven't yet won,
but maybe next time I will." In this way I strengthened my
will ultimately to succeed, instead of allowing every failure to
reinforce my self-hypnosis of weakness.
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