Monthly Lessons Archive 1998

WHAT TO DO ABOUT PAIN AND HEARTACHE
     If you and your pain are the same thing, what can you do about it? You can do this. You can consciously refuse to do anything at all to relieve it. Don't phone your girlfriend to talk about it or be bitter because that man left you for another woman. What you can also do is understand that the slightest move towards removing the pain will keep it going. If you consciously refuse to do anything about the pain, that will increase the intensity. This intense watching is what increases the separation so that there is born in you something new that is not a part of emotional heartache. This is the beginning of God, Truth, operating on the darkness inside of you. The light shining on the pain does the one thing that puts it away, which is to show you its actual nature. What it consists of is unseen movements passing through you that you in your non-evolvement say “I” to.

GET EMOTIONAL IN A RIGHT WAY
     When tormenting thoughts invade you, I want you to scream with right emotion, “NO MORE TORMENT! NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT! 100%!!!”
     You get fierce in a new way — not in hostility.

DOING THE RIGHT THING
     When you make the decision that you are going towards what is right, what is true, stop right there. You have made the decision to be true in preference to people liking you; in preference to wanting things from the world. So far the resolution is pure. You have said you are going to choose what is right — you don’t know what is right and you don’t have to. If you refuse to do anything to carry out your resolution to go along the right path, you’ve begun to separate yourself from the savior in yourself. Don’t do what you consider the right and moral thing to do. Then the idea will come into your mind that it is the right thing to do — not because you’ve convinced yourself, but because you’ve let yourself go.

NEGATIVITIES ARE POISON
     Someone makes a gloomy remark and you think you have to take it and react to it. The only reason they give you the poison is because you accept it. They have no choice but to want you to be as they are. They know all the gimmicks and tricks to keep you reaching out and accepting it. When conversing with others, I want you to know what that other person said to you. I want you to notice his spirit, see if he makes some small negative remark. See if the negativity consists of a certain facial expression, a certain manner, even the way he carries himself.  When you see how your weariness and discouragement are caused by accepting the poison, this will give you the strength to refuse it.

INSTANT RECOVERY
     You ladies are instructed not to break down and giggle foolishly when in a crisis, like spilling the coffee, for example. You are to remain poised. You know it happened but you have to not let anyone looking at you, their attitude towards you, nor anything inside you take away your poise.
     Walk through this world and don’t look left or right. I don’t care who it is. You walk forward and no one will be able to stop you.
     Remember the lesson, “Instant Recovery.” Don’t you dare let anyone intimidate you.

DO SOMETHING FOR TRUTH
     Every spiritual step must be accompanied by the willingness and the appearance of feeling foolish. There is no escape from the prison of your old acquired self without a deliberate, consistent willingness to appear foolish before yourself and other people. The willingness to appear foolish causes great, beautiful destruction. The only question that is left is this, “How fast can I go? How ingenious can I be in inventing ways to be foolish before you and myself?” You know that the reason we want to appear wise before others is because we want the picture of ourselves presented to them. We are doing the exact opposite of everything we used to do.

DON’T BE DRAGGED DOWN
      When someone speaks to you about something, you don’t have to be dragged into it. Just leave it alone. Practice being in this life and not permitting your weakness to let another drag you off.
     You can develop yourself to the point where you can hear every bit of bad news that has ever existed since the founding of civilization on earth, all the bad news that is presently on earth, and all the prophesied bad news, and be unaffected by it.

DO ONE THING AT A TIME
     Do one thing at a time and know you are doing it. A tremendous secret of right action is to do one thing at a time and to know that you are doing it. When you do that, there cannot be any resentment of doing an unwanted task, such as the dishes, for example. You do it because it has to be done.

NON-INTERFERENCE
     Let anything that happens to you happen and just sit there and watch it. Don’t interfere with it. Don’t do anything about it. Don’t try to correct it. Don’t try to ease the pain, the tension, the anxiety. Just sit there and take it. Let the outer situation do anything it wants to you until you see that it is not doing it at all but that you are. That’s why you have to remain right where you are until you see that you are doing it; not that man, not that woman, not that society — I am doing it all by myself. I am attributing power out there because I am  falsely attributing power to my negative self which doesn’t exist.

THE PURPOSE OF LIFE
     The purpose of life is to find out what is real. The purpose of life is to free myself. The purpose of life is to understand all these false desires and wishes to protect, to cling, to what you call your life.
     To find out the purpose of life requires a certain kind of responsibility on your part, and that responsibility is to do more than other people. To stay all alone. Others, unless surrounded by like-minded people, unless they are flattered, don’t know who they are. How long will you endure not going along with the crowd and say, “This is not for me.”
     For instance, try not defending yourself some time. The next time someone says something that is insulting, why not just sit back and be quiet so that you can understand your nature.
     Whenever you are threatened psychologically, silently say, “Do your worst.”

DEFEAT DEFENSIVENESS
     How ruthless can you be with yourself? How can you refuse the little cat naps the devil has prepared for you? Example — take defending yourself, even if the accusation is true. Why are we so quick to explain, “Here’s why I did that.” Why don’t you be quiet so you can see this false part of you wanting to defend yourself, and give no explanation at all. You are tied to people with your own defenses.

STOP SELF-REFERENCE
     The next time you want to tell somebody about your car, your house, your plumbing, etc., STOP and don’t do it. Be conscious of how others talk incessantly to you about THEIR interests.

REAL CORRECTION
     Pay attention to the mistake, not the correction. You made the mistake in the first place because the correction was unknown to you. If you knew what was correct you would not have made the mistake. Correction reveals itself by seeing that you and your mistake are the same. This forces you to abandon a correction gleefully announced by the mistaken self. Any correction offered by the mistaken self will be a cruel deception which guarantees the repetition of the original mistake. A mistake is always followed by an excited and talkative demon whose aim is to keep you in misery by supplying lying correction. Real correction arrives by turning these facts into personal perception.

STAY OUT OF IT
     You get involved a hundred times a day in vagrant unnecessary thought, one of which is the false belief that you must be involved in other people’s problems. It can be a small difficulty such as not having enough money or a large difficulty such as a serious illness. When someone comes up to you with his problems you automatically go into the “right” reaction, which could be sympathy, advice, making a decision, and so on. You will see that you really resent doing this. The next time it happens just watch the other person and say to yourself “What has that to do with me? Why are you crying on my shoulder?” This reaction is very unacceptable to your false self and can be an authentic new experience for you because you are breaking out of the rut of your old habits. Never do anything to keep your image of being nice in place.

IN SPITE OF
     You can’t as yet stop the evil imps in you that despise Truth and decency, but you can work in spite of them. This is the entire secret of recovering your taste for Truth. Spiritual growth cannot just happen, it needs a very, very special effort of going against life. You can work in spite of your own laziness. You can work in spite of your own hatred. You can work in spite of that person who might be displeased with you. In spite of is magic.

INSTANT INSIGHT
     “What your usual mind cannot comprehend can be understood instantly and fully by your spiritual nature. This is why so much emphasis is placed on becoming passive to ordinary thoughts. This mental passivity permits your spiritual nature to become active with its instant insight which then becomes your own instant insight.”

WHO IS THE YOU WHO CANNOT UNDERSTAND TRUTH?
     Mr. Howard asked that you write down the following and stressed its importance. He said if you could track it way back you would see wonders that you have never seen before.
     “Who is the you who cannot understand truth?”
     When you have any kind of difficulty of any degree at all, why don’t you try to NOT solve it. Just let it go. It will keep coming back. Why don’t you give up the compulsive need to have an opinion about the problem. Track it back and find out who is frantic over solving the problem. The frantic self wants its answer. You say to yourself, “If only that person who is obstructing what I want will get out of my way” — I think that will solve the problem. What if I don’t create the problem in the first place by creating who I am. There is not a thing you can do about solving the problem. All you can do is cease to be the problem creator, which means the absence of me. Then there is a totally different kind of self.
     The you is nothing but impulses, opinions and ideas. If you can see that the who consists of that, and that is the problem (the problem creator in the first place), then the whole question disappears.

BECOME INCONSPICUOUS
     Try some day to not attract attention to yourself. Try to remain inconspicuous. See how many times and ways you can do it. See how others attract attention to themselves.