How can one lead
a successful & progressive life?

Every human being desires a successful and progressive life. Almost everyone tries for this to the best of one’sabilities, but not everyone attains the desired success. The surest route to success is the enhancement of human virtues. Therefore, in order to enrich one’s life, it is necessary that thesevirtues are actually adopted in practice. It is true that by reading books of wisdom and by listening to good preachers one gets a new direction in life, but the real benefit of this wisdom is attained only when one imbibes it in his day-to-day living. In the absence of action, thoughts alone have no great relevance. To refine our lives we have to pay sincere attention to our conduct. Listening to discourses and studying good books gives us inspiration to refine our ways, but just acquiring this as information does not help till it is actually put into practice. Without practice, our state will be the same as that of a donkey carrying a load of gold. The donkey cannot make any good use of what it is carrying, neither can it buy anything good to eat nor does the gold enhances its prestige in the society. The precious gold remains just a heavy burden and a source of pain till it stays on its back.

The knowledge that is acquired through books and discourses cannot be of any great benefit. Of whatever knowledge we have acquired, if we can put even a small part of itinto practice, our life can get transformed. On the other hand, if we keep filling our storehouse of knowledge, but our conduct remains low-grade, we shall not be benefitted. Swami Vivekanand once said – “To transform our life there is no need to memorize all the scriptures. Even one great thought, if adopted in practice, can transform our life.’

Human life is invaluable. Though we are born with limited time and resources, if we utilize them properly our life can become meaningful. What to make of our lives is completely in our hands. It is surely possible to transform our disorganized life of today to an organized, progressive life of tomorrow. There is no need to be ashamed, or feel sad and unhappy over the past mistakes. True repentance means to never repeat those mistakes. If we dislike the errors of our past, and are hopeful of our future then it is necessary to start living an organized life today itself. That auspicious time is here, today, and this moment itself when by deploying our acquired knowledge to practice we can attain eminence in our lives.

To gain entry on the path to an eminent life we should begin to cultivate good qualities right away. Humility, courtesy, smiling demeanour, softness in speech, empathy, love and affection for others: these virtues are worth adopting and practicing. By adopting these we uplift the quality of our lives and at the same time we cast a positive influence on others too. These seem difficult to adopt in the beginning but with continuous practice all this becomesquite effortless.

It is not necessary that like great men, the feelings of love and empathy for the whole mankind gets evoked in a beginner’s heart right at the beginning; and if we believe that only when our hearts get filled with pious love for all, we shall express it, then we are wrong.This is like some one saying,”I shall enter water only when I have learnt swimming.”How can one learn swimming without practice? Swimming can be learnt only by entering the water and practicing to swim. This is true in the context of good qualities too. Until we start practicing them and bringing them into our daily routine, we shall remain far away from them. The true benefit of knowledge is attained only by putting it into practice. By developing the habit of displaying good qualities, there is no harm done to anyone; rather, benefit is caused to all. By presenting ourselves as one with good qualities, good thoughts and good actions, we will be greatly benefited. We must take inspiration from the tiny lamp which has only asmall initial capital in the form of oil, but that does not cause it any resentment. Till the time it glows it spreads its light with its head held high, and helps all present nearby to do their work under it.

We must reflect on ourselves with a firm decisive mind in this way: we have many good qualities in us, and we are enhancing them further day-by-day. It is a well known fact that whichever object we contemplate upon again and again begins to get attracted to us on its own. We must disregard our weaknesses and encourage our positive traits. We may have many flaws and weaknesses; the only way to rid ourselves of them is to putthe might of all our goodness and virtues against them. For example, if we are beginning to get angry over something, we shouldpractice to put that out of the mind and think of something that gives happiness, and we should practice to speak gently at that moment. We will see that quickly the anger will get under control. If someone tells us not to think of a particular object during meditation, our attention willdefinitelyget diverted towards the object. What we normally do not think of, if we try to prohibit ourselves from thinking about, it would inevitably draw us. This is exactly true about our weaknesses too. If we try to suppress them, they would spring back with double the strength. So an easy way to gain control over our weaknesses is to begin adopting good qualities and virtues.

The easiest way to make others yours is through truthful admiration or genuine praise. Everyone likes appreciation, whether he is a child or an adult, rich or poor, known to us or a stranger. Anyone can be won over through admiration. For this we need to first understand and recognize others’ talents and good qualities. We must learn the art of recognizing and appreciating the qualities of others. Everyone has some good qualities; there is no individual who has no good qualities at all. However bad a person may be, even he would have some good qualities. The real need is to identify and express them. We should never be miserly in praising others; whenever we find good qualities in someone we should appreciate them openly. And we don’t need to go too far to practice this art. We can start right from our homes. We should not hesitate in admiring the good qualities of our brothers, sisters, sons and daughters. If someone has earned success, however small that may be, we should not miss the opportunity to congratulate him. We must lavishly praise qualities of our spouses, specially their devoted service to the family, their hard work and their sacrifices. This appreciation will get reflected back to us as more affection and respect. The medium of expressing our appreciation towards our elders is to be grateful. For whatever help and support we receive from our elders we must express our gratefulness towards them. If some one has shown us some favour or has helped us, then we can repay some of the favour then and there itself through simple words of gratefulness like ‘I am thankful to you’, ‘I am indebted to you’ etc. All this may seem like an ordinary matter, but in our own experience we shall realize that a strong belief in appreciating others has not only spiritual benefits, but also many more practical benefits. This is an unfailing method to get rich, to attain affection of others, to become a leader and to win over strangers and even enemies. In the words of PanditShriram Sharma Acharyaji, this could be also stated as – ‘Listen to others’ advice and pay respect’.

Every human being desires that others should love him, respect him, and he should become a source of inspiration to others. Rather than spending our energy in useless pursuits, it is necessary that we cultivate virtues, so that our personality gets more and more refined and we begin to rightfully deserve others’ affection. This is the true and the only solution to all our problems and the simplest way to attain success in our lives.

that is a separator

Munshi Premchand rose to fame as a prominent novelist during the British rule in India. He was seeking to invoke patriotism among the Indian masses through his writings. In those days, it had always been the British Government’s strategy to try to lure Indian intelligentsia into becoming the supporters of the British Raj by offering them lucrative jobs, positions, titles, etc. The government feared that Premchand’s work might incite a spirit of revolt among the Indians. Sir Malcolm Hailey, the then Governor of Uttar Pradesh, devised a trick to win Munshi Premchand’s favour. In those days, the title of ‘Rai Saheb’ was regarded as the most acclaimed honour the government would ever give to anybody. A British Officer delivered this award along with a huge sum of money to Premchand’s house and conveyed a message that it was a reward from the Honourable Governor who had been deeply impressed by Premchand’s work. His wife was happy that it would help ease their financial difficulties. However, Premchand was grief-stricken. He understood the trick of Governor and politely returned the money and the award to him.

Swami Ramtirtha landed on the coast of America. By the time he disembarked from the ship, his pocket was practically empty. He was a complete stranger in the country, with no acquaintance or helper there. On the ship, an American had become a chat-mate of Swamiji on matters spiritual. While getting down, he asked as a matter of courtesy: “Where would you stay? Please give me the address of your host. If time permits, I will try to contact you”. Swamiji put his affectionate hand on the latter’s shoulder and replied: “I have only one friend in America, and that is you”. The man was dumb-founded. He was greatly impressed by the radiant personality of Swamiji, full of self-confidence and amiable mien. He took Swamiji to his home, and for the whole duration of the latter’s stay in America, played a perfect host attending to his comforts and requirements. Such great souls alone are able to win the confidence of the masses and provide inspiring leadership to them.

“Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one’s weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.” - Mahatma Gandhi

“Face the brutes.” That is a lesson for all life—face the terrible, face it boldly. Like the monkeys, the hardships of life fall back when we cease to flee before them. - Vivekananda

Ego is the only requirement to destroy any relationship. Be a bigger person; skip the “E”, and let it “go”. - Unknown

To smile without condition,
To walk without intention,
To give without reason, and
To care without expectation,
Are the beauties of any Relation!
That’s the start of a righteous life.

If a drop of water falls in a Lake, its identity is lost.
If it falls on Lotus leaf, it shines like a Pearl.
Drop is the same; but the company matters.