The Importance of Commemoration and Spiritual Happiness

Extract

From page 1

So remember, even on your own birthday, this same advice applies to you. You can give it Power by action, not only on this mental and physical realm, but on the Higher Realms as well, by your correct thought and action at that particular time. In fact, it is written that one’s whole life may be changed by decisions made at such a time. This applies to you, not to someone else, because you should not force others to make decisions in this way. But you can change your whole life by decisions made on that particular day, if those decisions are, of course, adhered to.

You might believe that you can make decisions on any day. Yes, you can, but your decisions on your birthday could be far more powerful than decisions made at any other time of the year, because this is an axis of a time wheel around which you rotate. It is a time which holds, for you, a great Mystic quality; a time which is particularly good for you.

On this day you should take some time for contemplative practices for, so say the great Upanishads, “The Prana rises nicely,” or in other words, auspiciously. The Prana (Universal Life Force) inside the body is balanced at this time. If you practise deep breathing exercises upon your birthday, especially if you reserve the hour of your birth for the practice of Prana-Yama, you will find that you can do them much easier, so much more effectively and you can, at that time, step quite easily from the physical and mental worlds, into the Higher Realms. You are on the verge, whether you know it or not, of a nice Mystic experience. (Read Your Higher Self Through Yoga, by the same author).

From pages 6-7

You have heard many vague references to happiness coming from within. Well, we know that it must, but you have to plant it within. Strangely enough, you will not be able to plant it within while you enclose yourself in a tight little box of selfishness. You can only plant Spiritual Happiness within yourself by giving of yourself—by opening yourself up to the great Forces, so that they may flow through you. If you do not do this, it is like putting a plant in a small pot, taking it up to your sanctuary and leaving it there. What will happen? It will die, unless you tend it!

No words of mine or anyone else’s can watch over the plant of Spiritual Happiness within yourself—within your souls or hearts. We might give you the seed of it—that is all we can do though. When you have planted it there, you must really want to tend it yourselves.

Go into a group which is run by someone really dedicated. You can feel the wonderful vibrations of this dedication. Go into another group which is led by someone who is not dedicated and yet, who might know even more about Metaphysics than the dedicated person; you will feel something missing.

No matter what type of magician you are, you cannot get from life anything more than you have put into it. You might think this is obvious, that you have heard this a thousand times. This is the thousand and first time then, because it is the secret, the only possible way, I am afraid, for you to gain Spiritual Happiness.
There are some people who have magical Powers strong enough to alter the weather. Even with magic as great as this, they can only get back what they put out. Spiritual Happiness is like a tiny seed planted in the heart of you. It must be watered by your Service to others. In other words, you must walk to the well, let down the bucket and draw up the water before you can get the water to water it. It is strange—try as you might, you will not find it but in this way. If everyone was tomorrow to say, “Well, now look—I have a certain job to do. I do not like parts of it, but I have to do those parts. So I may as well make it as easy as possible on myself by doing them properly, by becoming such a master of these particular jobs, which I do not like to do, that I am no longer worried by them—no longer affected by them. I will do them correctly and they are easy to do.” Then they would start to be happy.