An Introduction:
In the course of our daily activities, we all have to deal with peaks and valleys in our confidence and self-esteem.
There are things we want to improve in our lives — ways we seek to better express our best selves. But then we may encounter false impressions from the outside world about what perfection is or should look like — physically, mentally, or spiritually — or about where we need to look to find appreciation or meaning.
As we face life’s challenges, or even our own spiritual goals, it is possible to acquire a mistaken feeling of not “measuring up.”
But Paramahansa Yogananda would remind us: “Even while striving to improve yourself, learn to stand alone, secure in your own virtues and self-worth.”
The ability to do this, great ones have told us for millennia, really comes from only one place — within, from our higher Self. That is, look for support and guidance and love from a Divinity that is not apart from us, but the very nature of our being.
“You are a spark of an Eternal Flame,” Paramahansaji lets us know. “You can hide the spark, but you can never destroy it.”
Doesn’t just hearing that lift you up? Would you like to absorb more encouraging wisdom for striding through life with real self-confidence?
From the talks and writings of Paramahansa Yogananda:
Behind the light in every little bulb is a great dynamic current; beneath every little wave is the vast ocean, which has become the many waves. So it is with human beings.
Do not in any way minimize the power of the little wave that has been battered by the big waves. Somebody needs to say to it, “Little wave, what’s the matter with you? Don’t you see that the whole ocean is behind you? You are a bulge of the great ocean.” Don’t look to your little body; look within.
What you are is much greater than anything or anyone else you have ever yearned for. God is manifest in you in a way that He is not manifest in any other human being. Your face is unlike anyone else’s, your soul is unlike anyone else’s, you are sufficient unto yourself; for within your soul lies the greatest treasure of all — God.
By realizing God within you, develop a divine, humble self-confidence founded on the conquering of your mortal weaknesses and upon real growing achievements — holding the consciousness that all your attainments come from the power you have borrowed from God. In this way you will be free from all inferiority and superiority complexes.
[An affirmation to practise]: “I have buried dead disappointments in the cemeteries of yesterday. Today I will plough the garden of life with my new creative efforts. Therein I will sow seeds of wisdom, health, prosperity, and happiness. I will water them with self-confidence and faith, and will wait for the Divine to give me the rightful harvest.”
Continue on the YSS Blog, where you can read “How Yogis Contact the Source of Self-Esteem” — an excerpt from the article “Maintaining Our Divine Connection While Living in the Material World” by Swami Chidananda Giri, president and spiritual head of Yogoda Satsanga Society of India/Self-Realization Fellowship, to be published in the upcoming 2023 Yogoda Satsanga magazine.
