Affirmation · “The Subconscious Says Yes”
The Twenty Spiritual Instructions
To organise the whole day around a fixed, repeatable set of disciplines and resolves so that practice becomes automatic and character is reshaped by daily habit.
Build the day around a fixed spine: rise at 4 a.m.; asana, pranayama, japa and meditation in a dedicated room facing east/north; daily scripture study; truthful, sweet, sparing speech; ahimsa; a period of silence; charity by your means; nightly self-analysis in the spiritual diary; and the first and last thought of the day on God, surrendering to Him. Resolve it each morning; check it each night; grow it gradually.
What it is
Sivananda’s Twenty Important Spiritual Instructions is his condensed rule-of-life: twenty fixed daily disciplines that together structure the aspirant’s whole day, from the 4 a.m. rising to the last God-thought before sleep.
It belongs here in affirmation autosuggestion not because it is a single affirmation, but because its operative mechanism is resolve and repetition — a standing set of daily resolutions that, repeated without exception, re-pattern character.
Sivananda frames it as a sankalpa (resolve) discipline: “Never get out of bed without making a resolve,” and “You must not give leniency to the mind.” It is the umbrella regimen under which his japa, concentration, meditation and diary all sit.
The Method
The twenty instructions, faithful to Sivananda (abridged to his sense):
- Brahmamuhurta — rise at 4 a.m., “extremely favourable for meditation on God.”
- Asana — sit in Padma/Siddha/Sukha for japa and meditation (half an hour, building to three), facing east/north; light exercise and pranayama.
- Japa — repeat a mantra (Om, Om Namah Sivaya.) 108 to 21,600 times daily by inclination.
- Dietetic discipline — sattvic food, moderation; give up a favourite food periodically.
- Meditation room — keep a separate room, used only for sadhana.
- Charity — give regularly, by your means.
- Svadhyaya — study scripture (Gita, Upanishads, Bible, Koran.) daily, half an hour.
- Brahmacharya — preserve the vital force carefully.
- Prayer slokas — memorise and recite elevating verses before japa/meditation.
- Satsanga — keep good company; abandon bad company, smoking, meat, alcohol.
- Fast on Ekadasi — fast or live on milk and fruit on Ekadasi days.
- Japa mala — keep a rosary on you (neck/pocket/under the pillow).
- Mouna — observe silence a couple of hours daily.
- Speak the truth — speak little, sweetly, truthfully.
- Reduce wants — plain living, high thinking; contentment.
- Never hurt anybody — ahimsa; conquer anger by love and forgiveness.
- Self-reliance — do not over-depend on servants/others.
- Self-analysis — review the day’s mistakes before bed; keep the spiritual diary.
- Fulfil your duties — remember death; never neglect duty; keep pure conduct.
- Think of God on waking and sleeping — “Surrender yourself completely to God.” How to run it: treat the list as a standing rule. Each morning resolve to keep it (the Resolve Form); each night check it in the diary. Don’t attempt all twenty perfectly from day one — keep the non-negotiable spine (rise early, japa, meditation, study, diary, the last God-thought) and grow the rest.
Source & Lineage
Swami Sivananda Saraswati, Twenty Important Spiritual Instructions, one of the Divine Life Society’s most circulated texts. → (sivananda swami). He calls it “the essence of all spiritual Sadhanas.”
Common refinements
All-or-nothing launch — trying to install twenty disciplines at once usually collapses; anchor the spine first, add gradually.
- Rigidity / scrupulosity — “give the mind no leniency” can curdle into harsh perfectionism; keep resolve firm but kind.
- Importing the asceticism uncritically — fasting, strict diet and brahmacharya are a renunciate’s frame; lay aspirants adapt sensibly, not literally.
- Resolve without review — the morning resolve only works coupled to the nightly diary; close the loop.
- Treating it as a checklist of merit — the aim is transformation of character and God-remembrance, not a score.