I think i may be cursed. I find consistent proof of it from major to even mundane instances.
like..life seems to drift along when i don`t engage with it consciously.but when i find something that interests me or i like and when i FOCUS on it..almost every single time..now i almost notice it with prophetic accuracy that..the thing or the event that i`m focused on,gets disrupted or dispersed or interrupted in some form or another!
This consistency is becoming scary.is there a solution?
—Karthik Sundar, India
Dear Karthik,
Thank you for your question. I am sorry to hear that you are experiencing these difficulties. The circumstances of our lives are due to our past karma and to our current mental state. We cannot change our past life karma, but we can improve our success consciousness now. In that effort, I highly suggest that you watch this video and do this affirmation daily.
It will also help you to learn this meditation technique, which will help you to deepen your power of concentration. If you already know the technique, then please use the resources as a review.
Finally, please read the article below. It was written by Paramhansa Yogananda in 1925, soon after he started his teaching in America. The concise thoughts expressed in this article will help you to reflect on your situation with a fresh perspective. Please use his recommendation to focus your mind and your energy for a renewed effort toward success. No effort is ever wasted. That good energy is registered in the ether and will finally prevail for you.
Blessings,
Mary Kretzmann
Ananda Healing Prayer Ministry
Art of Material and Spiritual Success — By Paramhansa Yogananda
Yogoda Course, Lesson 10—Art of Material and Spiritual Success, by Swami Yogananda, 1925
(a) Perform little duties very well. Do you know that you have been using only five or six percent of your attention in your vocation? You ought to us one hundred percent concentration in doing your work henceforth. All good work is God’s work, if you perform it with the Divine Consciousness. Only work done with a purely selfish motive is material. In earning money, always think that you are doing so for your fellow beings, even though you have no family. Destroy the false division between material and spiritual work.
(b) Be in love with your present work, but don’t remain contented forever with what you are doing. You must progress, try to be the very best in your profession. You must express the limitless power of Soul, in anything you take up. Every position in life you hold, will be the stepping stone to a higher one if you strive to climb upward. You must constantly create and produce new success and not become a business automaton.
(c) All work is purifying if done with the right motive. To say you have no job is error. Shake the whole world up to find your work, and don’t give up until you find it.
(d) Try to harmonize the dollar craving with the spiritual craving. Let neither rule the other. Don’t think you are too spiritual to wish for material success. Don’t be so busy about nothing or feeding the flesh that you find no time for meditation, spiritual work of service, etc. One unsuccessful in material life cannot enter Heaven. The Spiritually selfish man, ignoring material life, is punished with loss of mental balance. All material work is service to your fellow beings. Don’t be one sided. Lead a scheduled life and grade your duties. (Duty consists of the work which you do with pleasure and a sense of privilege, and not with the feeling of paying a debt which is due.) Consciousness of spiritual and moral duty should predominantly reign in your mind, above all other duties. Intellectual duty is superior to material duty. Material duty is very important and must be supplemented with social, patriotic and international duties.
(e) If failures invade you repeatedly, don’t get discouraged. They should act as stimulants and not poisons to your material or spiritual growth. The period of failure is the best season for sowing the seeds of success. Weed out the causes of failure and launch with double vigor what you want to accomplish. The bludgeon of circumstances may bleed you but keep your head unbowed. Death in the attempt to success is success; refuse to harbor the consciousness of defeat. Try always once more, no matter how many times you have failed. Persevere one minute more in the race for success when you and all have done their best and can do no more. Fight when you think you can fight no more or when you think that you have fought to your best.
(f) Every new effort after a failure must be well planned and charged with increasing intensity of attention.
(g) Begin from today to try to do one at a time the things you thought impossible for you to do.
(h) Malignant seeds of past Karma (action) can be roasted only by the fire of persistent effort until they are destroyed. Most people give up hope just when the balance of good Karma slowly stoops toward them to give fruit, and thus miss their reward.
(i) If a bad habit bothers you, do two things. Negatively try to avoid it in everything that occasioned it or stimulated it, without concentrating on it in the zeal to avoid it. Then positively try to divert your mind to some good habit, and keep it furiously engaged in culturing it, until it becomes a part of yourself.
(j) Remember, the stages of success consist in the following: (1) Choice of good material or spiritual vocation that suits you. (2) The performance of that work with attention, love and interest. (3) The continued interest and superhuman patience acquired in your work. (4) The thought of Constant Progress while acting patiently must be used to neutralize the results of a mechanical habit. (5) Kingdom of Success. All deserters, all quitters, all unsuccessful, discontented ones are either ignorant of this law or consciously violate it.
(k) Remember that opportunity in life comes by creation and not by chance. It is either created now or was created sometime in the near or distant past, by yourself. If you haven’t opportunity now, create it by your will, which is Divine Will, and it shall come unto you. It never comes of itself or thru good luck.
(l) Say unto yourself, I will do everything myself with my own will, which is a reflection of Divine will in me.
(m) Culture the consciousness, whenever you want anything [sic, missing comma] that the Divine Spirit is your own Father and is the owner of the whole universe along with all its wealth and abundance, and that you, being His beloved child, have the absolute right to possess anything, even as He does. Never beg or pray for anything, but hold the thought that you have everything, and that all you have to do when you want anything is to take it, seize it with infinite, natural confidence as the child of God.
Culture the consciousness of “All Possession.” Don’t be beggars but realize that you are the child of the Emperor of the Universe.
(n) Take a spiritual or material desire and float it in the Cosmic Vibration which you can hear and feel in the course of practicing the fifth lesson. Desire is realized when you are in conscious contact with Cosmic Vibration. But above all, try to have one desire, “To contact God always, in everything” and relate this supreme desire again and again to the cosmic vibration [sic, no caps]. Having Him, you will have everything.
Yogoda Course, Lesson 10—Art of Material and Spiritual Success, by Swami Yogananda, 1925
