Guide to Sadhaks by Sri Swami Sivananda

Divine Life Society Publication

1. Reduce your wants to the utmost minimum.
2. Adapt yourself to circumstances.
3. Never be attached to anything or anybody.
4. Share what you have with others.
5. Be ever ready to serve. Lose no opportunity. Serve with Atma bhava.
6. Entertain akarta (non-doer) and sakshi bhava (feeling that you are a witness).
7. Speak measured and sweet words.
8. Have a burning thirst for God-realization.
9. Renounce all your belongings and surrender yourself unto God.
10. Spiritual path is a sharp-edged razor path. A guru is absolutely necessary.
11. Have great patience and perseverance.
12. Never leave the abhyasa (practice) even for a day.
13. The guru will only guide you. You should yourself tread the path.
14. Life is short. Time of death is uncertain. Apply yourself seriously to yoga sadhana.
15. Maintain daily spiritual diary and record correctly your progress and failures. Stick to resolves.
16. Do not complain that there is no time for sadhana. Reduce sleep and tall talk. Stick to Brahma-muhurta.
17. Let the thought of God (Reality) keep away the thought of the world.
18. Forget the feeling that you are so and so—a male or a female—by vigorous Brahma chintana (constant thinking of Brahman).
19. Never postpone a thing for tomorrow if it is possible for you to do it today.
20. Do not boast or make a show of your abilities. Be simple and humble.
21. Be cheerful always. Give up worries.
22. Be indifferent to things that do not concern you.
23. Fly away from company and discussion.
24. Be alone for a few hours daily.
25. Give up greediness, jealousy and hoarding.
26. Control your emotions by discrimination and vairagya.
27. Maintain equilibrium of mind always.
28. Think twice before you speak and thrice before you act.
29. Give up back-biting, criticizing and fault-finding. Beware of reactions.
30. Find out your own faults and weaknesses. See only good in others. Praise the virtues of others.
31. Forgive and forget the harm done by others. Do good to those who hate you.
32. Shun lust, anger, egoism, moha (infatuation) and lobha (greed), like a venomous cobra.
33. Be prepared to suffer any amount of pain.
34. Have a set of maxims always with you to induce vairagva (dispassion).
35. Treat sensual enjoyment as poison, vomited food, vishta or urine. They cannot give you satisfaction.
36. Preserve your virya (seminal energy) carefully. Sleep always separately.
37. Revere ladies as Mother Divine. Root out the sex idea. Prostrate before all.
38. See God in every face, in everything.
39. Take to sankirtan, satsanga and prayer when the mind is overpowered by lower instincts.
40. Face obstacles coolly and boldly.
41. Care not for criticism when you are in the right path. Yield not to flattery.
42. Respect rogues and scoundrels. Serve them.
43. Admit your faults plainly.
44. Take care of your health. Do not neglect daily asanas and exercises.
45. Be active and nimble always.
46. Develop your heart by giving. Be extraordinarily charitable. Give more than one’s expectations.
47. Desires multiply misery. Develop contentment.
48. Control the senses one by one.
49. Develop Brahmakara vritti by repeated thinking.
50. Have a check over all your thoughts. Keep them pure and sublime.
51. Do not lose temper when anybody insults, taunts or rebukes you. It is a mere play of words and a variety of sounds.
52. Rest your mind in God and live in truth.
53. Be up and doing in the path of perfection.
54. Have a definite aim in your life and proceed cautiously.