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Don't be bound by set rules, as there are exceptions to every rule. Perhaps you say, "If this or that happens, I shall be very contented." Don't wait. Snatch the highest prize of happiness that is within your reach now, for the will-o'-the-wisp of hoping for happiness, and thereby postponing it, leads you through many sloughs of disappointment.
There is plenty of dirt to remove from your own mental home. Do not indulge in evil talk about the mental dirt in the lives of other people, but get busy and free your own life from weaknesses. Silently heal yourself of the desire to criticize, and when free from condemnation and gossip yourself, teach others to be better by your sympathetic heart and good example.
In order to be kind, it is not necessary to agree about everything. If you disagree, always remain calm and courteous. It is human weakness to get angry and scold, but it is divine strength to hold the reins of your temper and speech. No matter what provokes you, behave yourself. By calm silence, or by genuine kind words, show that your kindness is more powerful than the other person's ugliness. Before the mellow light of your forgiveness, all the gathered hatred of your enemies will melt away.
Be king of yourself, and let the soldiers of goodness and good habits rule the kingdom of your mind. Then happiness will reign within you forever.
The only worthwhile accomplishments are not those we achieve outwardly, but the victories we win over ourselves. Let us create inner dwellings of beautiful qualities, erecting them in valleys of humbleness where gather the rains of God's mercy and of other people's good wishes for us.
Reading is the best indoor intellectual sport. It keeps your mind busy and your intellect exercised. One or two hours' daily reading will give any person a liberal education in ten years, if he chooses worthwhile books. Don't waste time and injure your mental faculties by reading purposeless or trashy books. Not to cultivate a genuine interest in books is to miss the heritage of the ages.
If you want to be happy, learn to live alone and to plunge into introspection about every experience-good books, problems, religion, philosophy, and inner happiness. Contented, self-chosen, habitual seclusion is the price of real happiness. When you are forced into a crowd of talkers, retire within the cell of your deep thoughts and enjoy the peace of your inner fountain of silence.
Dwell always in the Self. Come down a little bit when you have to, to eat, or talk, or to do your work; then withdraw into the Self again.
Be calmly active, and actively calm. That is the way of the yogi.
Most so-called "happiness" is nothing but suffering in disguise. You may enjoy eating a huge meal, but you are also likely to have unpleasant after-effects, such as acute indigestion or stomachache. The greatest way to create happiness for yourself is not to allow sense lures or bad habits to control you, but to be a stern ruler of your habits and appetites. Just as you cannot satisfy your own hunger by feeding another person, so you cannot find happiness in satisfying the over-demands of your senses.
