By Swami Nirmalananda

A whole new year! What a great gift you get to give to yourself!

There is nothing more precious than time, and you’ve got a whole new year starting up. You get to decide what to do with it.  And remember, not choosing is a choice.

If your life is perfect as it is, you can choose to keep on keepin’ on. If your body is perfect, and you appreciate the fine condition of your mind and emotions, then do what you did last year.

If you want some improvements, then you must choose to do something differently. I recommend you resolve to — be happy!

Why? Because you like you better when you are happy. Simply resolve to do what makes you happy.  But there is a catch in it. As Krishna warns in the Bhagavadgita, pursuing pleasure makes you happy in the beginning, but it leads to pain in the end.

If eating makes you happy, more food won’t make you happier. The side effects of more food will make you physically uncomfortable, resulting in unhappiness.

If getting others to change would make you happy, working on them changing won’t make you happier. And it won’t make them happier either.

If lazy makes you happy, more laziness won’t work. Neither will more busy-ness. Spinning your wheels gets you nowhere. Even spinning your mental wheels gets you nowhere.

Sometimes the GPS offers me side roads to avoid road congestion. I could drive an extra 6 miles, with lots of confusing turns on tiny roads, so I could arrive at the same time. No, thank you.  I know how to sit quietly and be responsive to the cars around me.

There’s the key! I know how to sit quietly. This is the key that opens the door to happiness.

I know how to listen in a conversation. I know how to watch the birds in the bird feeder without moving, so I don’t scare them away. I revel in watching a sunrise or sunset, especially when the colors splay across the sky for an hour or more.  And if someone speaks to me, I can respond without losing my delight.

Centered, grounded, established within, while being responsive to others. This is yoga’s promise, that you will live in the inner fluidity of pure awareness, the awareness of your own Beingness.

I know how to lay in bed at night, basking in the stillness and the dark, even hoping I won’t fall asleep.  I prefer consciousness to unconsciousness. The bliss is more tangible.

I have cultivated my ability to abide in stillness, which makes me able to abide in my own Self even when I am active. It’s the Self that matters, not the stillness nor the activity. It is the experience of your own Self that makes you happiest of all.

Relying on outer things to trigger happiness works sometimes. When it works, it’s because it triggered Self to arise within. Can you trigger Self to arise within anytime that you want? Yoga says yes.

Then the only question that remains is – when would you want Self to NOT be arising within? When would you choose to be unhappy? Too many people make this choice too much of the time. This year, make a better choice. Do more yoga.