Ananda Sangha of Portland--Questions and Answers: Real Prosperity by Paramhansa Yogananda

Weekly Readings
Articles
Online Books & More!
Donate to Ananda

Feature Articles and Excerpts

Questions and Answers: Real Prosperity
by Paramhansa Yogananda
from Inner Culture Magazine, January 1939

Question. What is real prosperity?–H.J.

Answer. You must find the real purpose of life; real prosperity lies in supplying the needs of the mental and spiritual as well as the physical man.

Knowledge of how to become prosperous is always important. Real prosperity comes by increasing the power of your mental efficiency by which you can supply the things you need. There is a great difference between things that you need and things that you want.

Attract Needs at Will

If you know how to withdraw your attention from all objects of distraction and place it upon one object of concentration, then you know how to attract at will what you need. When you find the answers to everything within yourself, then you can say, “I am prosperous.”

Real prosperity means when you have all things at your command–the things that are necessary for your entire existence. But very few people understand in what lies real necessity. Very few people know the real meaning of “needs.” If the need is boiled down to certain definite things, then the need can be easily satisfied.

Find Out True Needs

Money is not a curse. It is the manner in which you use money that is of importance. You take a dollar bill and ask it, “Shall I buy poison with you?” It doesn’t answer, but if you misuse this brainless dollar, it will punish you. When you use it rightly, it gives you happiness. There is no saint, no savant, who does not use money in his work. Whoever eats has to pay for the food, and it is better to be able to buy your food than to have to live on charity. There is a value in all things.

Most people spend their entire mental energy in trying to make money, and some who are successful find out that they die of heart failure when they are about to secure happiness. If you have lots of health and lots of wealth and lots of trouble with everybody and yourself, you have very little. The entire purpose of life becomes futile when you cannot find happiness. When wealth is lost, you have lost a little; when your health is lost, you have lost something; but when your peace of mind is lost, all is lost.