Monthly Lessons Archive 2024

THE WORLD CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT CRISES
     Now, remember a point. And I always bring this in. The world cannot live without collisions, crises. It must create crises. It must create wars. It must create fighting right in the family. It must create religious fighting, social fighting, financial fighting. The world must have fights as foods. Without it, it would have to come back and face that it’s not itself a ruler of the world.
     A man, for example, who has great industrial power, a billionaire, can just simply with one word cause prices to go up or down. Or he can cause a thousand people to move from one state to another country to set up a new plant. With one word! That person has the idea on his level of opposite thoughts that he has power. He has no power at all except to hurt, destroy, and merely rearrange the chaos.
     The question is, do you want to cease being you so that you cease to hurt yourself every minute, and hurt other people whom you meet? That’s the question.
     We study tyrants, human tyrants, and abominable human conditions, we study them in order to complete our understanding of the situation. And once you understand it, here is what’s going to be your battle cry when you really, thoroughly understand it. “I want nothing to do with it for the rest of my life!” There’s no way anyone will be able to drag you back to the insanity of the world.
     Isn’t that a beautiful thought?

YOU CAN WIN OVER ANYTHING
     I order you to stop saying the world is too much for me. Who you really are is too much for the world. Why are you submitting to chains? You can win over any kind of obstacle or blow.

GUILT IS PURE EGOTISM
     You don’t know what you’re doing when you hurt another person. When you hurt another person, you don’t know it because your attention does not want to be on it. For example: you’ve hurt another person with a curt remark. And you see the hurt expression on their face, and you go into guilt, right? which is part of the false self. See, when you go into guilt, that helps you to block off your responsibility for hurting that person.
     You think guilt is supposed to be a humiliating thing, a humbling thing. It is not! Guilt is pure egotism. You feel guilty and then you try to retrieve the situation by saying afterwards, “I’m sorry.” And you’ll do it again because you haven’t changed your position at all. You haven’t uplifted your level.
     From now on, you face the consequences of how, and how often you hurt other people just by being what you are! And if you do that, if you face how you hurt other people, and if you’re real honest about it, it’ll make you want to raise your level, because you see that there is no separation between other injury and self-injury.
     And here’s the law. No human being ever consciously hurts himself. It is impossible. It is only because you’re in the state of psychic sleep that you go out and hurt other people, and get a false pleasure out of it, a false feeling of life out of it, an excitement, a thrillism. Once you understand that for you to injure another person in any way is injury to you, it stops!
     Student: One of first things I heard you say was when you say, “I’m sorry,” you’re buying time, and you’ll do it again.
     VH: Wasn’t that good? You be very suspicious of a sorry, repentant person. They’re just waiting to get you again. I’m telling you, they’re waiting, with smiles.

REAL SALVATION
     Lose confidence in the world to save you. The people you’ve pleaded with for help haven’t helped you. Now see there is no one there to be saved. You don’t have an independent identity to protect.

YOU ARE NOT YOUR THOUGHTS
     For the rest of your life whenever you hear yourself saying, "I have a problem of nervousness, lack of love," or whatever it might be — when you hear yourself talking, don’t believe in your own mental mutterings. Don’t take it as being you.
     This is what is known as the extinction of the ego self, is it not? This means that you no longer believe that you are your thoughts. And you are not your thoughts.
     Oh, this is going to take long hard investigation and work on yourself to cease to believe in yourself, the pseudo self, so here it is in summary. Any fearful thought of any kind – remember now, there are no exceptions – for example, the thought of fearing the future, which everyone has who is lost. “What is going to happen to me tomorrow? Or ten years from now, or twenty years from now?” You catch the thought saying, “What will happen to me tomorrow? Ahh, ahh, I caught you that time.”
     What I, what you, what self are you talking about? There’s only a self as long as I re-create it. Create it and re-create it by believing in it. “I don’t believe that I am that time thought. Thoughts are in time. I don’t believe them. I’m going to stay in Eternity right now by being above the level of thoughts!” Eternity can look down on time and understand it. The higher part of you can look down at thoughts and understand that they are only thoughts that do not represent you at all. They are impostors only.
     The devil’s middle name is perseverance. It is not quite true to say that he never gives up, but he’s so persistent, you’ll have to study him to see how he keeps going on. Because mechanicalness keeps going on until it’s stopped by something Higher than itself. But finally, the devil will see, after many, many years, he’s wasting his time with you. That means that the devil knows he has no chance with God at all.
     In fact – and here is the blasphemy of the devil – the blasphemy of the devil is that he calls himself God and calls the True God a devil. Do you see why there are so many people, there’s absolutely no hope for them at all as long as they persist in this?
     All right, you have seen through the delusion that you are your thoughts. You understand that you are not your thoughts. When you understand that, the very understanding from a higher viewpoint causes them to fade out. And they come with less frequency and with less force because you’re wide awake! You’re the cosmic detective that’s watching for them. This is for you to experience. And you can.

WORK HARD
     The main thing is to work hard. Do not let a day go by without snapping the mind’s mechanicalness and become conscious and aware. The fact that consciousness can replace mechanicalness will be one of your greatest discoveries.

UNDERSTAND YOURSELF AND THE NEWS
     You are distressed by a happening only because you don’t understand it. If you had a clear mind and a clear spirit, it would comprehend the happening instantly, and there could be no distress at all. So, we have to look very closely to determine why hundreds of happenings have power to distress us.
     Listen well [to these lessons] and then you will understand the entire world news that bombards you on radio and TV, and in print. You can understand everything in the news. You can transform your inner nature so marvelously that it is an actual fact that when you turn the news on at five o’clock and it goes on for an hour, you will have your own private running commentary on every event. Now would you agree that you’ve got a lot of work to do to reach that state where you understand everything you see, and you’re not distressed by anything?
     It’s a horror story, a con game to make you think that those events are important. They are not important. They are meaningless. What is important is you. And if you let yourself be fooled any longer, you’re going to delay your discovery of the importance of your personal life.
     I’ll give you a test. How much time during an average day like today do you spend in trying to understand yourself, or why you reacted to that contact with that man? This is a test. Grade yourself. How much effort and energy did you put in the last twenty-four hours in seeing and hearing, and then wanting to know why everything seems to have power to hurt, because it does? Answer that honestly.
     What a terrible world you say you live in! It is a terrible world. You have no business translating the news into personal worry because that’s exactly what it’s intended to do. And you fall for it.
     How much time did you spend in trying to understand the single most important thing in your life, which is your life itself? Or did you fall for the social treachery of being concerned as to what is going to happen to you if that nation declared war against another nation?
     I’ll give you a fresh start. You have no business ever allowing yourself to be overwhelmed by what passes into your eyes and into your ears. Now, toss all that into the trash because I’m going to tell you something. You really honestly, truly were meant to enter this world to finally win.
     So, when you hear the news from anyone, whether the TV or the neighbor, you will not fall for it. Not once during that sixty minutes news show did you know that you existed as a human being. Right? Nod your head. No, you didn’t know. And even when the news was over, you remained with it.
     As it occurs to you that you don’t need the evil news of life, your understanding will grow stronger. Then you will see and understand the evil of this whole world, and you don’t need it. The TV events aren’t happening anymore because you understand them. This mad world can go as crazy as it wants, and you’ll retain your sanity because you simply won’t be a part of it.

REALITY IS EVERYTHING
     To be right, just be real. Reality is everything. The problem is human beings don’t know what rightness is. If you knew it, you would live it. If you lived it, you wouldn’t have a single problem on earth.

THE WAY OUT
     Spiritually accurate facts are friendly forces. They are the only friendly forces we have. They’re here to help us, guide us, not to hurt us. Now, I bring this up because of the very touchy explosive topic that we’re going to go into. I put that statement at the start of the talk so that it can be your sword and shield of righteousness which will work against any unseen tendencies to resist the friendly forces.
     But just for now, suppose you’re in a very deep and miserable dungeon. A prisoner down there, and you knew that there was just one way to get out of the horrible cell that you found yourself in.
     There is one way, very clearly. You got knowledge of that while suffering in the cold, in the dark and the isolation. You know there’s one way out.
     However, you heard so many scary stories about the one way out that you hesitated for a long, long time before giving it a try to make your way to freedom. That there were mazes, puzzles that you had to pass through in order to keep on the right trail, so that you’d get discouraged to try to make your way back.
     Now, with that picture in mind, remember this. There is only one way out of life’s misery, out of the mental and psychological prison cell that we find ourselves in. Only this single trail out, and you either take it and go past all the obstacles, and find your way to sunlight and freedom, or you don’t. That’s the summary of every human life on earth. They either go through it and make it out, or they refuse to go through it, and so stay suffering.
     The one way out. The only way out is the recognition and the release of egotism.

ONLY ONE THING WORKS
     Nothing works. No more living inside a shack, calling it a castle. You never will make it on your own. Presently the world is too much for you, but you’re beginning to see that nothing works. God provided a way out and you’re hearing it here. Only one thing works. That one thing is outside this world.

CHANGE THE PROBLEM MAKER
     You don’t find much rest, do you? You don’t have much command of your life, do you? All you have is a churning, inwardly that takes you nowhere, exactly nowhere.
     That’s all right. It’s all right because this is the condition you are in. But, with proper listening, with application, you can change. Not change one problem for another; don’t change one problem person for another in your life, but change yourself. And listen to this so that you cancel out every single difficulty and confusion that you have in your life.
     We are talking about the inner person, about your mind and about your spirit and about your feelings. Now is the time to begin to make a change.
     You see, there are no problems at all. There is a problem maker. And if you change the problem maker, if you change being the kind of a person you are, then you would not create all these difficulties, and these strains, and all these guilts, and all these regrets. You would cancel them out completely because you would no longer be manufacturing them from yourself, from illusions.
     Weren’t you anxious today? Weren’t you nervous over many things?
     I’ll tell you another thing people worry about. It’s when people see it’s twelve noon and they haven’t found the port yet, out sailing the high seas, and it’s getting late, and they want to make it before nightfall.    I’ll tell you how you can make it before nightfall. Listen carefully to everything we’ve said. Take it into your life.

YOU ARE A RECEIVER
     Think of yourself as a receiver. Egotism has to be shattered. YOU be the one who got away. There is no answer out there, nor in your own mind. Sit alone and do nothing but think about righteousness. Something has to shatter. This new life is a gift from God. Sit back and let God and his righteousness come to you.

THERE IS NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT
     A plimsoll line runs all around the lower part of the hull of the ship, very clear to see. And it has a very practical purpose, which is simply so that captain and crew do not overload the ship.
     You already know what I'm talking about, don’t you? Useless, dangerous cargoes. Your life was meant to carry only that which is necessary for a safe voyage and one that arrives where it’s supposed to arrive.
     Sometimes we’re so worried about the esteem in which we are held by other people, that we’ll settle for just sort of a neutral tie contest. We don’t win a lot, but at least we didn’t lose much, right? You figure it’s a pretty rough world with everybody looking at you so harshly. You figure maybe the best I can do, and maybe all I can hope for is just kind of just hope they like me a little bit, and don’t risk that.
     Now, you can’t get rid of anything. Set yourself aside, as best you understand what that means, and then you listen. Now what do you listen to? What you see is that you’re in a battle that you’ve never won, and you suspect you can’t win. Let that suspicion grow.
     You have got to stop the stupid enjoyment of thinking that you’re inferior. You’re not inferior, you’re not superior, you are absolutely nothing at all. Who you really are cannot be thought about, explained, cannot be supported, cannot be defended. Who you really are does not need that.
     The only necessary object in the universe is God and everything that goes with God. I'm not necessary, you’re not necessary, nobody is necessary. God knows this. He wants you to know it so that you can live in God’s kingdom instead of in the junky boat that you’ve chosen that isn’t going anywhere.
     See the weight of self-concern. Think about that now. Since and because you don’t have an individual independent personal self, there is nothing to worry about ever again.

BECOME CONSCIOUS OF THIS
     You have to become conscious that this is your state that you say to everyone, “Please don’t get mad at me. Please don’t hurt me!”

ALL IS SETTLED
     We’ll teach you how to remember, as the prodigal son did, that you have a higher home and that’s the only place to be. All those friends out in the wilderness, they betrayed you, didn’t they? You know very well they betrayed you. The Father in his castle will never betray you, and is the only entity you’ll ever meet that is true to you. I’m not talking religion, I’m talking facts, and all of you know I’m telling you the truth. Follow that truth.
     Let’s see. Oh, we have one more. This is a poem — “I’m nobody, who are you?” (Laughter) Any hands of recognition? All right. That’s the cry of everyone, “I’d like to know who I really am.”
     Remember, we discussed several people going on inside of you alternating in conflict? And I have to end now, but I want to say one final thing. When all the strangers inside of you as a writer and as a human being, when all those stranger have disappeared through the strength that you find that is higher than yourself, when you find out who you really are, all is settled. All is settled. You have it now. No more fear of the future of what is going to become of you, you have it now.
     There’s the statement that when you face the sun the shadows are at your back. You take that with you: “When you face the sun your shadows are at your back.” All right, as a human being, and as a writer, too, you live with that truth in mind. What it’s saying is turn toward what your heart knows is true and decent and clean.
     Clean! This is a dirty world and it’s getting worse, and you know it! Save your soul for eternity by turning toward the light, and all the shadows you might have — either as a human being or a writer — will disappear. There will be no more problems whatever because you have achieved the only success that’s worth having in this life.

GRATITUDE ALONE
     Insights are preceded by upheaval. Without challenges, we wouldn’t grow. Thankfulness alone can take you all the way. Gratitude alone can take you all the way out.

NO NEED TO WORRY
     A plimsoll line runs all around the lower part of the hull of the ship, very clear to see. And it has a very practical purpose, which is simply so that captain and crew do not overload the ship.
     You already know what I'm talking about, don’t you? Useless, dangerous cargoes. Your life was meant to carry only that which is necessary for a safe voyage and one that arrives where it’s supposed to arrive. 
     Sometimes we’re so worried about the esteem in which we are held by other people, that we’ll settle for just sort of a neutral tie contest. We don’t win a lot, but at least we didn’t lose much, right? You figure it’s a pretty rough world with everybody looking at you so harshly. You figure “maybe the best I can do, and maybe all I can hope for is just kind of just hope they like me a little bit, and don’t risk that.”
     Now, you can’t get rid of anything. Set yourself aside, as best you understand what that means, and then you listen. Now what do you listen to? What you see is that you’re in a battle that you’ve never won, and you suspect you can’t win. Let that suspicion grow.
     You have got to stop the stupid enjoyment of thinking that you’re inferior. You’re not inferior, you’re not superior, you are absolutely nothing at all. Who you really are cannot be thought about, explained, cannot be supported, cannot be defended. Who you really are does not need that.
     The only necessary object in the universe is God and everything that goes with God. I'm not necessary, you’re not necessary, nobody is necessary. God knows this. He wants you to know it so that you can live in God’s kingdom instead of in the junky boat that you’ve chosen that isn’t going anywhere.
     See the weight of self-concern. Think about that now. Since, and because you don’t have an individual independentt personal self, there is nothing to worry about ever again.

WHAT TO DO WHEN CORRECTED
     Choose to investigate why nothing has changed inside yourself. Exercise: When someone corrects you, watch your angry remark, “Who are you to tell me what to do?” And see that it feels awful. Instead do this: Be very quiet and poised and pleasant, and say, ” Thank you so much. Could you please tell me more?”
     You are putting out the fires of Hades. The old ways, wrong reactions, keep you tied to this earth.
     It’s not really you who fights back. There is something else besides my mind that can react to a situation. I am the created not the creator. Choose to let the Higher Spirit respond correctly when you are scolded or corrected.
     You can choose the right response. Let yourself collapse, disappear. There is something else besides you. Do not go along with yourself when you are corrected or insulted. You can’t do it for yourself – presently a mechanically reacting machine. There is something else that will respond for you. You handle a problem by not being there. God’s quietness is the right response.
     Be extremely watchful of how you react to what you see. There the false “I” goes again, wanting to defend myself, my precious little darling inside myself. IT IS NOT YOU!

NEVER BE BETRAYED AGAIN
     We’ll teach you how to remember, as the prodigal son did, that you have a higher home and that’s the only place to be. All those friends out in the wilderness, they betrayed you, didn’t they? You know very well they betrayed you. The father in his castle will never betray you, and is the only entity you’ll ever meet that is true to you. I’m not talking religion, I’m talking facts, and all of you know I’m telling you the truth. Follow that truth.

SELF-DECEPTION IS THE PROBLEM
     You have to see that you are being lied to by you. It says, “Accuse someone else. Feel sorry for yourself.” The feeling is not real. Unconscious self-deception is the problem. Want a new innocent nature.

JUST DON’T RUN AWAY
See, do you understand what it means to be lost? To be lost means that you lie when you say that you know what life is all about. To be lost means to have a parade through your mind of dull ideas, of lashing feelings, of wandering through your day while having something planned intellectually, like working, or taking care of your children; or while having something planned to do as far as the intellect is concerned, not noticing the heavy ache.
     How many of you here would just chuck it all if you could? What you want to do is get out of your present confining state. You’re ripped apart inwardly, aren’t you? You can’t go forward and you can’t go backward. Human beings have the dreadfully persistent habit of doing a certain thing that if they were to cure it, they would cure all of their life.
     And that habit (and you look inside of yourself as I’m talking and see if you have it), that habit is running away every time you get scared. The reason that you continue to get scared is because your old habit system of being scared comes into play, instead of your intelligence and your knowledge, your higher knowledge, that you’re perfectly safe where you are and always were. You have abandoned the safety of being where you are in Reality, in spirit way up here.
     Don’t you let anyone, any authority, any human being, tell you what your life is all about, or what you should be doing with it because they’re lying to you. They don’t know themselves, and they have a compulsion to tell you how to live. And if you listen to them, you’re going to lose your balance.
     Everybody is running away from what they fear. And the alternative to running away is to not run away. Did you ever think of that? Just don’t run away. Instead of running away scared, you stay right where you are and be scared. You tremble right where you are, right out in the middle of the storm.
     All the knowledge, all the insight, all the right daring, everything you need to make the journey, is available to you. It’s available to you because only the pure truth is told in this class. The question, do you want that truth or not?
     Now it’s your decision, isn’t it? If you make the decision in favor of truth, in favor of learning, in favor of investigation, truth is faithful to give you right results for a change. Aren’t you tired of wrong results?
     Of all these hopes you have of things being different and they’re not different, this is how to make them different. Ponder what you’ve read. Give yourself a good start. Truth will do the rest for you.

THE SECRET ROOM WITHIN
     You haven’t found the secret room within because you haven’t put that first.
     Right now, drop all thought. Just know where you are. Slow down. You have deliberately done something to locate the castle.
     This must be done all day long. The room is cleverly hidden. You must have a magnificent obsession with finding it.

Coming in January