How to End Suffering Archive 4

SULLENNESS
     Have you always gotten what you wanted in life? Did things always go your way? Of course not. So as a little boy or girl you watched your parents or someone else in the family or a friend of the family and you simply mimicked the way in which they handled things in their life. Almost everyone without exception pouted or became sullen and resentful when denied their own way.
     We have unconscious demands. We expect to be treated in a certain way. If this doesn’t happen, we get mad or pout or get surly. The dictionary defines sullen as resentfully silent or glum. If we’re honest everyone has done this or has experienced a negative reaction when something doesn’t go our way. We get dejected.
     It’s simply a bad habit we’ve picked up as we were growing up. If we’ll study ourselves and others carefully over time, we’ll begin to see these are just mechanical habits we’ve acquired. We were not intended to feel bad or to suffer. God didn’t do this to us, it’s something we learned as a way to deal with life on this earth. If we can start to see clearly that this is not who we really are and we were not intended to be tormented by dark states, we can actually put an end to this nonsense.
     I recently observed a young couple having a disagreement. She was crying about something and he was trying to explain something to her. So she eventually stormed off in one direction and he went in the opposite direction. It took about 5 minutes before she came back forlornly calling his name in hopes that he wouldn’t leave her and that all would be well in their little fiefdom.
     Because I appeared on the scene it threw a monkey wrench into the equation. They were supposed to be a loving couple but there they were arguing with each another, which exposed them as being something other than the nice, loving people they were pretending to be. That young couple did not know they do not have to be contentious or argumentative toward one another.  Unfortunately, they will more than likely continue to get into arguments because they haven’t seen through the lie yet.
     Human beings have been duped into believing that suffering is necessary. This is very hard for the ordinary person to grasp. We’re convinced that suffering is a necessary part of life. A relationship must be a struggle. Things need to be worked out. It’s all a gigantic lie. Vernon Howard puts it this way, “The self you suffer over does not exist. But this is something we all must work hard to understand for ourselves.”
     If we begin to see through the hoax that’s been played on us, we can receive higher help to go beyond being sullen or falling into any other negative state which we’ve wrongly taken as being real. If we truly want a different kind of a life we can have it.

RESENTMENT
     We as spiritual students need a bridge to cross over from an existence captured by negativity to one of a complete and full understanding of life. This bridge won’t be built without consistent self-study, and voluntarily putting our attention and focus on just one harmful human trait operating inside of us can be an integral part of building a section of the bridge. What is required is a receptivity and willingness to hear the true facts about the false nature and a desire to go beyond that nature.
     This article is about resentment, its many causes, and the forms it takes. This is one state that truly does spread out to all areas of life. Here’s a partial list of the mental and emotional causes of resentment: feeling put upon, thinking our self-importance has been challenged, following instructions (even useful ones), feeling unappreciated, believing we should have what another person has, having to take care of “mundane” tasks and many more.
     One interesting thing about resentment is that a lot of it is secret, isn’t it? It hides out and thrives under the surface of outer appearances and then the pressure is finally released in the form of a sour state or nasty demeanor. Following the trail of how it operates to put us in a self-enclosed box can be very enlightening and helpful in our efforts to break out.
     We recently held New Life’s summer banquet and I noticed there was resentment inside about everything that had to be remembered and taken care of. Vernon said, “Realization is a dynamic force for self-transformation” and becoming aware of the painful state I was in led to taking challenges as they came and genuinely enjoying the entire experience. Without the drag of resentment, I could appreciate the opportunity I’d been given to go beyond myself to learn something new. And this effort made one thing perfectly clear. Feeling inspired is much more pleasant than feeling resentful!
     We’ve likely all experienced the resentment of having to do some piece of work we don’t want to do. We put it off, push it back into the corner of the mind but in the end, it must be done. We can either perform the task with dread or with practical understanding. Vernon urged us to not put things off. He instructed, “Get it done! Do it now! Bang! Bang! Bang!” And if done consciously, there are no painful thoughts or feelings connected with having to take care of it at all.
     Another cause of resentment mentioned in Chapter 2 of The Power of Your Supermind (page 31) is “thinking that someone or something is chaining you down, restricting your opportunities for advancement or enjoyment. Such faulty thinking is always accompanied by painful resentment toward those felt to be responsible for the chains. And that leads to useless rebellion, much like smashing a violin because our playing of it produces disharmony.”
     This attitude creates a big roadblock in the psychology of many people. Always looking around for someone to blame, trying to get back at a person who we believe is “holding us down”, etc., leads nowhere. God did not put us in a helpless position, dependent on the whims and manipulations of others. We must become sick and tired of being tyrannized by the bully inside, the thing that’s always agitating and eagerly straining to experience more and more negative vibrations. We were not created to be imprisoned by the faulty operation of the mind and to realize this fully brings authentic freedom and contentment.
     It’s one thing to follow practical instructions from the boss at work, but on an entirely different level, we must learn to recognize and follow spiritual instructions. Vernon once told his longtime secretary to convey a message to another woman who attended New Life classes. Believing the instruction came from the one who had delivered the message, the student came out into the hallway and angrily muttered, “I’m not doing what she says.” There was no discernment there whatever that the source of the direction didn’t come from a human mind but from something much higher. Being able to recognize a higher instruction when we’re given one is an ability we can learn to develop. One of the most encouraging principles in this Work is the assurance that pure essence resides inside and can be brought to light more and more as we let go of the familiar but phony. Although not fully understood or accepted now, it’s impossible for Truth to tell us to do anything that would harm us.
     So, Truth urges us to create a separation between the negative state and the false “I” by studying what living in the dark does to us. Basically, living in the dark creates bad thoughts and bad feelings on every level of life. Start to view all types of resentment as “useless rebellions” and rebel consciously and with awareness against the combative force that doesn’t want us to make the “Great Escape.”

SELF-PITY
     One of the greatest thieves of energy and happiness is self-pity. In fact, in Chapter 6 of A Treasury of Trueness (#1224 in the new edition), Vernon says, “The most sickening self-feeling of all is the self-feeling of self-sympathy.” That truth certainly conveys the indulgent and self-destructive nature of self-pity.
     The feeling of self-pity comes from the false part of us, the part that wallows in what it calls its misfortunes. It seems to say that life has treated “me” unfairly. The more we give in to self-pity, the stronger and more controlling it becomes. What it is really doing is keeping us trapped in the belief that somehow my pain is special and that I exist as a separate entity apart from Truth, God, Reality.
     In a talk by Vernon Howard, he said that a sigh really indicates self-pity and that has stayed with me. When I hear someone sigh, myself included, it brings me back to myself and if it’s me who’s doing the sighing, I try to track it back to what it is I’m sighing over. If I can see that clearly, it has less power to torment me again and that is always worth the effort.
     Somewhere along the line in working with these principles, a kind of motto came to me, “You get what you get: what can you learn from it?” This saying fits this work perfectly. All situations, whether related to age, health, finance, or relationships have a valuable lesson to teach us. For example, if I have a problem in a relationship, am I willing to admit that maybe my own negativity contributed to the discord between me and that other person? If I’m willing to let the lesson clarify and illuminate rather than frustrate, life gets better. The willingness to look deeper can lead to some stunning insights that can move us to a higher level of life understanding. If we learn the lesson, we will not have to repeat it. If we refuse to learn the lesson, it will repeat itself and if we continue to refuse, self-pity will be the inevitable result.
     One of the pitfalls on the path is the propensity of the mind to look at others and see their faults, their self-pity. Yes, we must observe the behavior of others, but not without seeing ourselves more clearly. Doing the work consists of seeing something in another and asking, “Where do I do that?” If we’re diligent in applying these truths, we become a freer man or woman and we suffer less and less. The work, self-study — the study of the inner workings of our own being — will always lead to genuine independence and to being free of the nonsense of ourselves and the world.
     We’re meant to rely on only one thing, God! God is always with us, trying to guide us to allow Him to take care of everything and if we yield to the Higher Power, self-pity will have no place to exist within us.

COMPARISON
     The grass is always greener in that memory and those memories are rarely accurate as to how things really were. The trap of comparison is looking at the way things used to be or wishing you could go back to that place in time. You may look back to that past relationship and think, “Why did I ever leave him, he wasn’t really that bad and we had so much fun!” You compare your loneliness now to what you thought was a lack of loneliness when you were connected to that person. What you’re probably forgetting is that when you were in the relationship, there were a lot of times when you just couldn’t wait to get away from that person! The ideas we have in our heads about how things used to be compared with how they currently are cannot be trusted. Sincere students of these teachings are lucky enough to have the chance to see through all of this and to be free of it.
     In Esoteric Mind Power, pages 59-60, Vernon says, “Unhappiness is caused by comparison. You feel unhappy only when you unconsciously compare your present state with another state, perhaps when you were younger or healthier, or perhaps when you had a certain companion or possessed certain public honors. Where there is no comparison, unhappiness is impossible.”
     In the spiritual world, there is no place for comparison. A part of us senses the truth of this fact, but the attitude and act of comparison is so deeply ingrained in the false nature that we have no idea the extent to which we’re living and operating from it. Our aim is to develop a deep awareness of the personal unhappiness this causes.
     At an early age we start looking up to the adults around us and in the world, thinking they have got it figured out. We begin dreaming of how our lives will be some day when we grow up and have a “great” life like they do. As we get older, we constantly refer to those people we believe are examples of how to look, how to run a business, how to ski, how to have a good relationship, what kind of car to drive, where to go on vacation…and on and on. The list is endless.
     I need to honestly ask myself, “Why do I want to imitate or be like anyone else?” Vernon said, “Never acknowledge any other person on earth as being superior to you in the opportunity to become spiritually intelligent” (Your Power of Natural Knowing, page 130). If I’m interested in bringing the pure truth into my life, isn’t that really the point of my life? I’ve personally wasted a lot of energy in comparison and competitiveness, trying to be better than those around me and I’ve suffered from a constant nagging to do more, go faster, and try harder. My whole life I have heard nothing but “losing is not an option” and “if you’re going to make it out there in that world, you’d better be better than the rest.” This has all been in the name of “winning,” and for the most part, I’ve not been conscious of behaving this way at all. This is just how you live life, right? No, it isn’t! These teachings are showing me that to follow this path leads to nothing but suffering.
     Comparison divides everything into inferior and superior qualities and automatically makes you the winner or the loser. And oh, the torture that comes with losing. Then there’s the unseen pain that comes with the winning, being equally as torturous, knowing that it can never last.
     Vernon said, “Comparison is the essence of sickness.” It truly is sick to live our lives this way, succumbing to the games society plays, when in reality, there is no winner or loser, just unhappy, discontented people. We cannot afford to brush aside the spiritual intuition that’s available for us to develop because that is what can lead us to genuine happiness. There is tremendous relief in knowing that when you slow down and tune into higher guidance, there is no need to look around at what anyone else is doing. We can listen to our own higher guidance and receive the opportunity to live a happy life like no one else in this world does.

JEALOUSY
     You have childhood experiences that are more vivid and memorable than what happened to you five minutes ago. Each of those experiences was a revelation in some way about our situation here on earth — we suffer. It was one piece of the scattered spiritual treasure map that Vernon Howard said we had to personally collect and put together to rise above the suffering so we can freely enjoy the life we’ve been given.
     When I was about five years old, I met what Shakespeare calls “the green-eyed monster” — jealousy.  A girl cousin was staying with the family for a few days. At one moment my mother just gave her some normal attention, and out of nowhere I felt intense fear, confusion, anger, and suppressed violence. My whole little world seemed threatened. When my delusory self is rejected in favor of another, even in a very small way, the pain is intense. You have no doubt felt this too.
     Many years afterwards I read this in Vernon Howard’s 1500 Ways to Escape the Human Jungle, #114: “Awareness of how easily life can hit and hurt us is the first course in the cosmic college.”
     The spiritual journey is to meet one dragon after another inside, try to conquer them yourself and fail, and then gradually allow Truth to vanquish them for you.
     Comedy often conveys the truth about us. In plays, movies, and real life you have heard this exchange in some form: “I think you might be a little jealous.” “I AM NOT JEALOUS!” We laugh at how absurd the denial is. But this humorous scene contains the hint that before we face the jealousy monster, we might have to come face-to- face with a different monster, that of vociferous denial. Recently in a Vernon Howard class in Strawberry, Arizona we received help from his book Secrets for Higher Success for doing just that:
     “Consider the words ‘seriously’ and ‘lightly.’ In higher thinking, these are not opposites, but the natural and productive way of meeting everything. It means to meet every event of life with a deep thoughtfulness which does not include negativity…. To think seriously-lightly means to meet everything with a new mind, a mind without hardened judgments formed by past experiences. Experiment with this. Today, take everything seriously-lightly.”
     What keeps our suffering in place, whether from jealousy, anger, fear, depression, or any other negative state? We can approach this question seriously-lightly, which will help us to take on the DENIAL DEMON. This malicious force takes people over and makes them deny that they suffer or that they’re jealous or that they have any responsibility for unconsciously inviting heartache — and this force will attack anyone pointing this out. Have you not seen this in other people or in yourself?
     The DENIAL DEMON says to anyone who tells me the truth about myself — regardless of their motive — “Who are you to tell me that?” The DENIAL DEMON will go all out to try and negate any truth said about me, for instance: “She said I was petty, but she is disorganized, therefore her criticism can be ignored.”
     If I try to conquer the DENIAL DEMON by thinking about what to do, I will fail. The seriously-lightly conquest begins when I simply become deeply thoughtful, relaxed and alert in the presence of any negativity or defensiveness.
     Vernon Howard told us that we need all the help we can get and that when you are dealing with human nature it is always worse than you think. When it comes to jealousy there is a motion picture that dramatically captures this and is worthy of study. Leave Her to Heaven was one the biggest films of the 1940s. Visually, it is a bright, sun-lit movie done in Technicolor. But it enters deep into the darkness of someone possessed by possessiveness, dominated by suspicion, whose jealousy knows no limits. This may seem too extreme and remote from us, but then I remember my jealousy at five years old produced suppressed violence.
     You will neither forget the ending of this movie nor will you dismiss it, especially with the guidance we get from Vernon that says when you understand human nature, you are never surprised by anything it does.
     Leave her to heaven was an instruction taken from Shakespeare’s Hamlet on how to deal with a specific person’s evil. Evil is separation from God. Suffering is separation from God. Almost everything in us and out in the world relentlessly conspire to keep us separated from the permanent source of power. We are learning from these teachings that in order to end this separation, we must leave everything to Heaven.

COMPLAINING
     Life is met with the wrong attitude. In Pathways to Perfect Living, we’re told, “Strain exists in the gap between what we insist we need and what we actually receive” (p. 147). Life presents itself and we either complain, object, fight and suffer, or meet it with a completely new viewpoint.
     To illustrate what this new attitude would be like, there is a question asked in The Power of Your Supermind about the problem of insomnia. Vernon answers, “Stop fighting sleeplessness…. If your mind and body do not want to sleep, why should you object? Give up caring whether you sleep or not” (p. 150).
     Relinquishing the illusion of control is a monumental lesson. It relates to the esoteric principle of non-action. We must give up so-called self-protection to be cared for by Truth. As Vernon once said in a talk (3-23-84), “If you still take care of yourself, then God can't do it!"
     Vernon once told a story of a young peach tree, which provided nourishing peaches. In the natural course of life, it grew old, died and fell to the ground. But when our body undergoes physical changes through normal growth and aging, we fearfully protest and complain, “I should remain beautiful and young forever.” So people go on diets and exercise regimens, count calories, run marathons and oppose the inevitable changes.
     When you’re young, you think you’ll always be quick and you’ll never be sick. Then things start to change and surprise! You have to slow down and can no longer be as active and spry as you once were.
     With aging and poorer health, more than just physical discomfort usually occurs; if allowed, psychological suffering from negative emotions arises. It is easy to go wrong if these changes are faced mechanically and unconsciously, which results in a lot of complaint and sourness. Unfortunately, negativity toward health matters is often encouraged by so-called friends, relatives and allies. Listen to older people talk. Fear is present, accompanied by feelings of helplessness and a wish for sympathy, a desire to control the body, with an increase in prescription drugs, in doctor and hospital visits, insurance and financial worries.
     Remember, the world does not want us to wake up. It wants to be able to manipulate sheep who are asleep. It wants to snuff out the light we’ve found here and keep us entangled in more and more distractions that can cause distress and anxiety, which can easily consume us as we age. When someone complained to Vernon that he had had many bad breaks in life, Vernon said “to change your thinking.” The negativity is not in the event, it is in you!
     Besides complaint, another way to describe the cause of psychological suffering as we age is that we are strong objectors to what is happening to us. The mind grumbles, “These changes should not be occurring in my life. What can I do to stop them?” The true answer is that we are setting ourselves up in opposition to the natural process of how life unfolds on this earth. We demand certain requirements in life which cannot be met. So the mistake and cause of suffering is our own misunderstanding, which is that I can and must control what happens to me. This is impossible.
     This situation is a whole new adventure of discovery if you’re a truth student, a chance to learn something new. Am I going to go along with what the world says I must feel or will I allow the changes to occur without objection and quietly watch?
     Human beings are unique in that they have a chance to rise above being earthbound; this life is an opportunity to rise to a higher world while still living in a physical body. New Life students can use everything to wake up and to “come out from among them,” so this presents a wonderful opportunity to rise higher spiritually.
     With a sense of curiosity, we can observe: “Well, look at that. I’m going to watch and see what happens. Yes, it’s new, oddly unexpected. I don’t have to like or dislike it. I only have to watch without calling it mine, my body, my eyes, my weight. Yes, it’s where I live now, in a temporary vehicle on this planet. But it’s not me, my essence. So what comes and goes is not mine.” There can be no suffering if I refuse to identify with any painful thoughts or ragged, desperate emotions. Vernon says in “End of Frustration,” in his book Esoteric Encyclopedia of Eternal Knowledge, “With the vanishing of the illusion of self, there is no one to oppose what happens.”
     It comes back to the question, will I trust Truth or am I an atheist who battles with life? Do I fight the God who made me or will I learn from Reality as it comes? Vernon said, “Let it all unfold.”
     “The spirit is 10,000 times more important than the body.” We can separate simple and practical health information from the obsession to control what happens to the body. And Vernon assured us that the spiritual has complete dominance over everything, including the physical.
     All these negative conditions and states can be consciously watched, then left behind and ignored. We do not have to be drawn in and engaged by them. We don’t have to go there! See this refusal as a powerful preventative remedy to end suffering. Your force and energy will increase as you focus on true healing and inner health.

REGRET
     How many times have you heard a song lyric to the effect of “If I had just known what to say”? Or read something similar in a book? Or heard it from other people? I’ve personally experienced this many times. That is regret. And since these impressions often get past our inner spiritual sentry, we believe they are our own thoughts. They then proceed to tyrannize us. Regret is yet another negativity that we must work to banish from our psychic system, despite it seeming to be a perfectly acceptable state in our current society.
     Alternately the thought may arise, “I really wish I wouldn’t have said that!” That’s regret too, of course. The more closely we look at regret, the more we realize it takes us away from being alert and aware in the here and now. Truth is trying to give us a higher nature that is never intimidated or tormented by any exterior circumstance or situation, any memory or expectation for the future. But I must be psychologically “home” to receive the benefits of this new nature.
     Vernon Howard gave a classic example of regretting the fact that we didn’t buy that piece of property when we had the chance way back when. Now it’s worth several times the amount of money it was then, and we could sell it and be on easy street. But unless I work very hard with higher, truthful principles I will remain an undeveloped, pained human being — whether physically living on easy street or sweeping out the barn to earn my daily keep.
     The dictionary tells us that regret is: “sorrow aroused by circumstances beyond one’s control or power to repair.” It says nothing about the possibility of rising above the circumstances. That is exactly what Truth is trying to get each of us to remember and to work toward.
     To be content right now includes not missing or being sorrowful over anything in the past, or anything our mind might conjure up that may happen in the future. Regret is simply a wrong internal move that I’ve given in to and gone along with. To cut it off and to return to being aware right now is striking another blow against wrongness and taking another step upward toward truly taking my own life back.
     Regret and associated dark states are much more common to us than we realize. Not long ago I found myself thinking, “Boy, it’d be nice if I could still get a good steak with all the fixin’s for twenty bucks like I used to!” It’s absurd that a person would bemoan the fact he cannot turn back time twenty years and enjoy the small pleasures that he did then. We’re here now to learn and to grow, and we can experience a life without confinement or limits if we voluntarily let go of these lower, destructive states. It all depends on my daily decisions to go against my lower human nature.
     Society is not constructed or controlled by forces that wish to help us. Higher truth principles are absolute anathema to them. The evidence of this is everywhere. And yet Truth remains ready and willing to give an individual the help he or she needs at any given moment. The more we realize this, the more rightly excited we become. And then Truth itself will help us to know what to say, when to say it, and when to say nothing at all.

UNAWARENESS
     Waking up from spiritual sleep is what makes life worth living. It is a life long process that is continually fascinating and enjoyable. The richness felt when realizing I don’t know something about life that I thought I did, and seeing that clearly as a fact, is freeing. In a recent Secrets of Life Quote, Vernon Howard said, “It is a heroic business to see a reality as a reality.” And I’m finding out personally that self-honesty provides release from the pressure and discomfort of self-deception.
     Recently, I saw (again) how I was unaware of the real origin of psychosis and all trouble in people. It is a sinister force that is definitely demonic. All issues are caused by the allowance of the entrance of these saboteurs into our psychic system. To not be aware is to allow them in. Almost everyone is spiritually asleep to this fact. It is quite amazing when you see it clearly though. It “gives the show away”, as Vernon has put it. 
     I had someone in life remind me that some people just want to live 10 feet down under and if we try to help them get out, we will be pulled into the chaos. We can’t help them. Vernon Howard emphatically tells us that we should not help other people who have no interest in helping themselves. To receive real help, someone must at least have a small wish to want to know more about living in the light. But most prefer to be ruled by dark forces that fill them with anger and hostility, which they take as a sign of an exciting life. The awareness of this reality is life saving.
     We as individuals can make it out. So, it is our job to see where the saboteurs are operating in us. If we consistently ask for help from Truth, more and more will be revealed to us. To see where we are suffering about something in life is a key. And to be mindful that there is is always more to see and to understand is another key. But if we identify personally in a wrong way with the knowledge we are gaining, we will “think” we “know” and unawareness will remain.
     The freshness of awareness can only enter when invited in a new moment. Vernon Howard reminds us to be aware of where our body is, how our voice sounds when we speak and in other ways to catch how we behave and position ourselves in the world. To always be watching what comes into our minds and hearts. If we are unaware, suffering is there because identification with the false nature has taken us over.
     Every new moment can be filled with an appreciation of the life given to us by the Higher Power. Everything is there for us to see and to use to guide us out of a life of pain. There is a higher purpose for our lives and awareness will reveal that too. Truth shows the way and what we must do is to yield and to follow.

ANGER
     Anger is an extremely self-destructive emotion. It seems to affirm the existence of our phony, non-existent, invented self. I can scream out in rage over “my” stupidity for making the same mistake over and over again or I can lash out at someone who I believe has wronged or challenged my imaginary picture of myself in some way. I can say, “They’re the one to blame for all my troubles and difficulties! How dare they suggest something different.” We always tend to have self-flattering but inaccurate images of ourselves.
     In Conquer Harmful Anger 100 Ways, Vernon Howard defines anger as this: “Anger is the mechanical reaction of the thought-self which feels that someone or something threatens its imaginary existence which it calls real, causing human damage and misery.” This booklet goes into great detail of the harm that anger causes and how anger can be conquered. It is not an impossible task to conquer this destructive emotion, which is great news. We can put an end to this detrimental behavior.
     What we must start doing is to see clearly the harmful effects that anger has on us and others who might be around when the volcano erupts. If you will study your angry state carefully, you will see that it causes you to lose energy, puts you in distress, results in you doing stupid things which you later regret, leads to despicable behavior, wrecks human relations, leads to loss of self-control and gives you headaches. Vernon Howard says when you allow anger to take you over, it “imprisons your spirit.”
     But with a right attitude and a desire to live freely, we can begin to turn this fateful path around. We no longer need to keep paying the price for going along with this foreign invader that has taken us over. In a 1956 movie entitled Invasion of the Body Snatchers starring Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter, alien plant spores fall from space and invade a small town, replicating the residents one body at a time. The pods were able to take over humans and duplicate them when they fell asleep. Anger can be likened to these intruders which take over the human mind, body and emotions to wreak havoc.
     Instead of falling asleep we must learn what it means to wake up and to take our lives back from these extraneous plunderers/interlopers. See through the trick that’s being played on us. Develop spiritual daring and “… discover the goodness of the Spirit of Truth, which will carry you above yourself and humanity.” This isn’t just another platitude or saying; it’s something you and I can authenticate and experience personally for ourselves.
     When I was a little boy growing up my father emphatically instructed me to never put my hand on the electric stove. Of course, in spite of your father trying to protect you and save you pain and treatment if you were to burn yourself, you usually had to find out the hard way why his warning was so unequivocal. Truth is like a strong father who looks out for our well-being, but we stupidly ignore the warnings and instructions of what to do and what not to do and so pay the painful price.
     Anger is just one of many wrong negative states that we have allowed to take us over. All we have to do is have a sincere wish to no longer want to suffer from these agitated anomalies. Being enraged is not natural but over the centuries it has become an abnormal acquired behavior, and everyone has excused it, given it false power and allowed it run amuck in our daily lives. We must stop putting up with it.
     It’s time to change and be different. Vernon Howard assures us, “Use wrath to get rid of wrath. It can be done because you are wiser than wrath.” There is such a thing as strength without anger. Discover this true and verifiable way for yourself.

REJECTION
     “A wish to understand why you suffer,” Vernon Howard said, "a wish to see what part you play in the fact that you always feel rejected, that you feel unwanted, that you feel unworthy, that you feel inferior ... will always lead to a higher level of insight” (on DVD 11: 4). So let's explore the topic that's difficult to even admit to feeling — rejection.
     Basically, there is a desire to be liked — accepted, approved, affirmed — and thus comes its opposite, the fear and dread of being disliked, rejected. This “I” is the ego, the false part of us which desires, fears and suffers. It can never be satisfied, only hurt and then pretend it's not. A common denial is, “Oh, I don't care what other people think,” which usually means a big lack of self-knowledge, which must come before any healing can occur.
     Girls learn to want “love” and to think “please don't hurt me.” In boys, it manifests more often as a desire to compete, win, and gain prestige. We may use big or sentimental words such as affirmation or love, but it still comes back to the little boy or girl who wants to be liked and not rejected.
     Since this desire and fear stem from the ego, as it grows up, the child just wants its own way. The terrible two-year-old becomes the demanding adult who falls into wrong, negative habits, and emotions, reactions like crying or greedy grabbing or blaming to compensate for its inability to get approval. Vernon says, “Nobody really likes you anyway” —  it’s a losing battle for egotism. The False Personality can never win for it’s built on a shaky foundation without substance. Being real is a whole new ball game, which we're here to learn.
     Now we come to a clarification about growing up into a mature, healthy adult, particularly in the Work: Correction is not rejection. Here's an example from a recent encounter.
     At our City Market deli, I had ordered 1/2 lb. of ham for New Life breakfast enchiladas. The deli employee working on the slicing machine was blabbing non-stop to another woman doing more slicing. Handing the package to me, she said, “Oh, you didn't want a full pound, did you? My mistake.” I answered, “No, only a half-pound. You were talking and forgot what you were doing.” (Not to mention, working on a sharp machine.) A lady waiting near me bounced over and said, “And we never do anything like that, do we?!”
     She was being “a good person,” though sarcastic, commiserating with the person in error and so dismissing their chance to face the error and learn from it. This is one reason we don't learn from our mistakes. We're taught to justify them and ignore people who bring attention to our blunders in case we might feel hurt. The ego protects and justifies its wrongness at all costs: “Build self-esteem, praise people, give them sympathy.” So instead of learning self-responsibility, we become lazy and point the finger of blame at others.
     Vernon told us to be receptive to correction and say, “Thank you. Please tell me more." What could be more important, for instance, than learning to be practical and keep your mind where your body is, especially in a potentially dangerous physical situation, as when driving or using a sharp tool?
     In the Work, this is a crucial distinction: Correction is not rejection. We must be rightly corrected in order to change and to grow up. It requires us to see what we actually are behind the mask, the false front. The question is are we willing to look and see where we're wrong, or do we just embrace self-pity, lash out at the other person and burn?
     The pain only comes from our wrong thinking. One error is in thinking the self is never wrong, always right. That’s nonsense of course but it's still the knee-jerk reaction. So we must go through a purification process of realizing deeply that we are all wrong, have been wrong all our lives. We can't evolve spiritually until we do. As a mystic in Psycho-Pictography (p. 156) is quoted, we must “be cured of the insanity of conceit....”
     We mistakenly believe in words. Labels like ridicule, scorn and rejection fix responsibility outside me, rather than seeing the assault is really from within. Rejection is a word, just like success or failure. They are labels, not realities. But I believe I am that person who suffers, that it’s real. It is only the wrong identification with what’s artificial in us that gets hurt. When losing “the agonizing need to prove” myself right or real, the pain and blame disappear.
     Be honest. Become aware when you get pained. See the attack and forcefully stop it right there. Remember it is the false  part that is disturbed, the weak, wimpy nature. It’s an illusion, imaginary. Separate from this “I” by seeing this is the very enemy force within which loves to self-reference everything and say “poor me, they don't like me.” It loves to be someone who struts or suffers on the center of the stage, liked or disliked. We were cautioned, "Do not fall in love with your suffering!”
     “Another person can't hurt you unless your thoughts allow it” (Psycho-Pictography). This realization takes the wind out of its sails. When the ego starts to collapse and disappear, we begin to be free of feeling rejected (and its many allies, feeling left out, envy, bitterness, hatred). Both the enemy and the answer are within.
     Vernon once told a story of a father teaching his young son how to play baseball. He necessarily had to explain and correct his errors for he was just learning. Like a kind father or coach or teacher, Truth gives us only what we need and can take. We can trust Truth to guide us through every obstacle, every difficulty as the false self weakens and the true self, the essence within, takes its rightful place in our lives.

HARDHEARTEDNESS
     Vernon Howard said, “We know you have been hurt.”
     I recently watched an online video of an interview with a relationship “specialist”. In the interview, the interviewee said that it would be very practical for a person to sit and write down all of the times they remember being hurt since they were a child. From a spiritual viewpoint, and if not taken to solidify the false, “victimized” nature, this exercise can be very valuable in becoming aware of how we’ve allowed ourselves to be hardened by our circumstances and experiences.
     Vernon said to write down your top five hauntings in his book, Your Power of Natural Knowing in the chapter entitled, “Live in the Bright Light.” He knew we operate from hundreds of past hurts and hauntings. Vernon Howard was a big proponent of writing exercises and making up this type of a list can be very revealing and helpful. He went even farther by instructing us to also put down on this list where we have hurt other people.
     All of the relationships we have are affected because we’ve both hurt others and been hurt by others before. Vernon knew this deeply and pointed it out quite often in his talks. As a result of taking these painful experiences on as essential parts of ourselves, we’ve become closed-off, guarded and hardhearted. And unfortunately, we’re ruled by a false nature that seeks to keep this hardheartedness and all those hurts protected and alive in our thoughts and feelings. This traps us in a memory life that has nothing to do with right now.
     When I was in my thirties, I was divorced, with two small children, trying to survive with two small start-up businesses. My youngest child had extreme health issues at birth and almost died. During one of my yearly physicals, our family doctor told me not to lose my “vulnerability.” I can see now that what he was trying to say was not to become embittered and hardened because of tough life circumstances. Putting it in New Life language, we must not allow the false nature to build walls of so-called self-protection which shield and protect only that which is false in us. What a waste of energy!
     By writing down and clarifying what hurts and haunts us and by realizing that we were hurt by sleeping, unaware people, we can begin the process of consciously letting go of old wounds. This breathes life into parts of us that have been pushed down and not allowed to come up into the light.
     And another aspect of this exercise is to ask, “Where am I asleep?” If I was consciously aware, I would have known that nothing and no one can really injure my True Self and that the attack coming from outside was an invader trying to cause inner separation from Reality.
     Never forget that now is new. These old slights and grievances are in the past. They are not in the now unless we are spiritually asleep and living from them. And by being in conscious awareness right now, we are truly protected from inviting new potential hurts to enter and torment us.
     It's becoming more and more apparent to me that many relationship problems are caused by deep-seated, hardhearted attitudes that dictate our present behavior. These habitual reactions are not part of a free-flowing pattern but are constrained by the compulsions of the old nature. By hanging on to past resentments, hostilities, and grudges that we still unknowingly carry, we can never live a truly happy life.
     Of course, we cannot change society, but we can let Truth change us as individuals. We can begin to look inside, make this list of hauntings and really become aware of how we must allow all the hardness be melted down by the warmth of Truth. And then we’ll know it isn’t necessary to suffer over anything anymore.

DEFEAT
     While shopping at a local grocery store recently, I noticed an elderly man waiting in line to check out at the cashier’s stand. What struck me at that moment in particular was his entire demeanor, especially the expression on his face. It was one of defeat. I had noticed how he trudged along on his way, staring at the ground as he came into the line at the register. When it came time for him to pay, he held up everyone in line as he searched for his wallet and retrieved his money. Vernon Howard instructed us to always have your money ready when it’s time to pay the bill, which was a lesson in both awareness and consideration.
     Yes, this man appeared to be defeated; but by what? BY LIFE. Vernon also told us that this world, as we now know it, is too much for us. So many people get worn out by life because they succumb to laziness, cowardice, carelessness, impatience, resignation, despair, anger and fear, among many other negative habits. However, here’s some fantastic news. There is a way out.
     Who we really are is infinitely superior to this world. So, who are we in reality? It is much easier to recount who we are not. And we are not our name, age, physical stature, or mind, financial status, memories, past experiences or reputation. After long years of self-examination, sincere study and yielding to the instructions and guidance of esoteric truth, a student can eventually arrive at who he or she really is. And this entity cannot be defeated by ANYONE or ANYTHING.
     According to the American Heritage Dictionary, the meaning of defeat is to prevent the success of; to thwart; to undo or destroy. The man in the grocery store represents the masses of sleeping, suffering humanity who live in the heaviness of defeat. Yet Vernon stated emphatically in a talk transcript found in the booklet Powerful Guides for Spiritual Freedom that “Defeat Has No Right to Exist.” In this talk he asks, “How come you’re living with defeat when you don’t have to. I’m telling you, you’ve got an awful lot of hellish beliefs in you that you haven’t gotten rid of yet. One of them is the false pleasure of being knocked down and dragged around. And feeling alone! And feeling betrayed! That’s a good one. You love the feeling of being betrayed, don’t you? Why would you want to feel betrayed? That’s a painful feeling.”
     He illustrates how to conquer defeat, how to leave behind all of the pain by relating the story of King Arthur and his magical sword Excalibur. Excalibur came from a very high place and the King Arthur legend introduced downtrodden people, maybe for the very first time, to something which was not a part of this physical world. Vernon explained there is great power in knowing that Defeat Has No Right to Exist. Another world does exist. The sword of Excalibur represents the spiritual power and wisdom that can be held high to defeat anything that now defeats you.
     I too have experienced a feeling of defeat. Having played basketball in an extremely competitive sport on a professional as well as recreational level, I too have experienced a feeling of defeat. At the outcome of every game there can be only one winner and one loser. Also, there can only be so many players on a team and if you’re not skilled enough to make the team, a sense of failure can take over. The loser will actually view himself as personally rejected, defeated. This can carry over to a feeling of being knocked down or betrayed as was previously mentioned. However, if we remember that these things that occur are merely events and that we have the power to not react to them in a negative way, we will experience tremendous personal freedom.
     The defeated man in the grocery store had likely encountered hints of truth somewhere along his path in life but had not followed them. He has no idea that defeat does not exist as a personal reality for him and that its false power over him lies only in his own weakness and timidity. But we can begin to understand that the King Arthur Excalibur legend is not just a pleasant story but a reality to be lived. We are capable of following Vernon’s instructions to “KEEP THE SWORD HIGH.”