Insightful Q & A Archive by Vernon Howard

Q: Why is criticism so popular?
A: Because it requires no intelligence.

Q: What is meant by instant recovery?
A: It’s a skill for returning to yourself instantly after getting kidnapped by a harmful feeling.

Q: We feel encouraged when you assure us we can make it.
A: Do you know what — it’s far more than an encouragement — it’s a beautiful fact.

Q: I don’t know how to change myself.
A: What’s that got to do with it? Keep going.

Q: You said I can change the entire world. How?
A: Change your reactions to the world and the whole world changes for you.

Q: Why can’t I get help from friends?
A: Why can’t a carrot get help from rabbits?

Q: Give us a liberating message.
A: You need never pretend to be unafraid.

Q: What must I understand about heartache?
A: It’s a condition but not a necessity.

Q: How can I see myself as I really am?
A: Ask whether other people might see you different from the way you see yourself.

Q: I feel tied down by invisible ropes.
A: The ropes are your own wrong thoughts which higher insight can break.

Q: Give us the first step for ending suffering.
A: Stop denying that you suffer from being you.

Q: It’s hard to even ask intelligent questions.
A: I’m just waiting for someone to ask if they’ll be tap dancing in heaven.

Q: Please summarize these teachings.
A: You suffer from being who you now are. We will show you how to end suffering by becoming someone else.

Q: I want to find this new world you speak about.
A: Then don’t be like a duck who thinks that his private pond is a great ocean.

Q: Why do riches and fame fail to satisfy?
A: Because a decorated dungeon is still a dungeon.

Q: Are my thoughts eternal?
A: No, but you are.

Q: Tell us one of the wonders we will see.
A: While still in this life you can discover what is beyond this life.

Q: I don’t understand what it means to be receptive.
A: It means to suspend your pride so that your deep confusion can be explained to you.

Q: How does knowledge of the mind conquer pain?
A: By seeing that thoughts must be allowed to come and go naturally, you give pain no den in which to breed itself.

Q: Give us an example of how we misunderstand life.
A: Anything that forces you to examine your present beliefs is a friend.

Q: What makes me feel in danger?
A: Trying to force life to conform to your personal notions of safety.

Q: Help us get rid of self-defeating ways.
A: See that your habits and impulses have been acquired, for that supplies power for dismissal.

Q: How can I tell whether or not I have a false position?
A: You have a false position if the opposite position makes you nervous.

Q: Tormenting thoughts scream for my attention.
A: We’ll teach you how to refuse to talk with them.

Q: What is profitable seeking?
A: Seeking without a cunning wish to find yourself in everything you find.

Q: How does awareness bring relief?
A: When you’re aware of playing a role you no longer play it, which ends self-division.

Q: How can I replace false confidence with real confidence?
A: You may wish to write down the following: cosmic confidence is constant confidence.

Q: Why can’t I hear the rescuing voice?
A: The voice is calling down into the cave but you must climb up within hearing.

Q: How can we tell the difference between fact and fantasy?
A: By not having an ego-investment in fantasy.

Q: What happens when I give up pretense?
A: Release and relief.

Q: When will I be right?
A: When you need no other person to confirm your rightness.

Q: I think I’m nice but others don’t.
A: I wonder who’s right?

Q: I like to have fun.
A: First take life as a school, not as a theater, after which you can have all the fun you want.

Q: Give us a helpful truth that our vanity doesn’t want to hear.
A: You’re doing the wrong things to solve your problems.

Q: Please explain hostility.
A: Hostility exists in the space between what you imagine you are owed and what you actually get.

Q: I live for thrills but you say this is foolish.
A: If you’re caught in a storm it’s senseless to stop and get excited over all your money.

Q: I lust after every pretty girl I see.
A: Lust is loss of self-command. You can see her without losing yourself to her.

Q: I need inner refreshment.
A: Truth-drops are as refreshing to the spirit as raindrops are refreshing to the earth.

Q: Tell me how to get more.
A: Give up more.

Q: What does it mean to think from my cosmic mind?
A: To NOT think from your conditioned mind.

Q: Give me a thought to take back to my local study group?
A: Be aware of what you are doing at the moment you are doing it.

Q: What do you know about me that I don’t?
A: That along with the rest of humanity you’re under a strange hypnotic spell and don’t see that you are.

Q: What do you mean when saying we have a false feeling of life?
A: Living from emotions such as anger or envy which produce a destructive thrill.

Q: You said a feeling of futility can be used wisely. How?
A: See the futility of solving problems with usual thinking, which is an upward step toward cosmic wisdom.

Q: Help me stop the mad pace of my life.
A: See how hard you work to make life hard.

Q: Why must we depart from our present beliefs?
A: Because you can’t reach the mountaintop by staying in the valley.

Q: What is an example of social slavery?
A: Giving your attention to a demanding person when you really don’t want to give it.

Q: Does a conscious man have eternal life?
A: A conscious man is eternal life.

Q: Help me to understand my artificial behavior.
A: You try to make other people feel liked by you so that you will feel liked by them.

Q: I try to be myself but fail.
A: Stop trying to be yourself and you'll be yourself.

Q: Help us conquer anxiety.
A: Self-detachment teaches you to not be anxious over your anxiety.

Q: In simple language, what must I do to change everything?
A: Let higher understanding break through the wall of habitual thoughts.

Q: I have a strange loyalty to hardened ideas.
A: How odd to be loyal to self-injury.

Q: How can I have the power of awareness?
A: Once you see the difference between thinking and awareness you can stop thought and be aware.

Q: What is suffering?
A: A message that something needs correction, which a wise person heeds.

Q: Is everyone as dumb as I am?
A: It depends on how dumb you are.

Q: I want a first glimpse of the higher kingdom.
A: Seeing that you must depart from usual thoughts is the same as sighting the kingdom.

Q: What do you mean by cosmic power?
A: The true power residing above all human deception.

Q: What is the new world?
A: Your new mind.

Q: I feel accused and condemned.
A: Only by your present misunderstanding of yourself.

Q: I like the idea of getting out of my own haunted house.
A: And when you succeed you’ll wonder why you waited so long.

Q: Does sadness connect with resistance to truth?
A: You can have a thousand reasons for resisting reality and all of them make you sad.

Q: Why does delusion fail to satisfy?
A: Because nothing can’t be felt as something.

Q: Maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about after all.
A: That’s a positive doubt that can teach you to know what you’re talking about.

Q: I’ve been a phony all my life.
A: Isn’t it a relief to see it? Now you can become real.

Q: How can I end spiritual laziness?
A: Always do exactly what laziness doesn’t want you to do; for example, think about these ideas when you don’t feel like it.

Q: Why do I go to my relatives for dinner when I don’t even like them?
A: Probably for the dinner.

Q: You advise us to be spiritual detectives. What should we detect?
A: Detect the fact that everything that makes you unhappy has false power over you.

Q: Everyone is afraid. Please give us a fact about fear to memorize.
A: Fear is an unnecessary agitation that supplies a harmful distraction from what must be faced.

Q: I want something else but don’t know what it is.
A: Don’t let your usual thinking tell you what it is and you will finally know what it is.

Q: Life demands answers, but I don’t know what to say.
A: It’s marvelous freedom to have nothing to say.

Q: Maybe I have wrong ideas about goodness.
A: Wrong ideas about goodness make you the victim of charlatans who’ll hurt you.

Q: I like the idea of calling the bluff on my troubles. How is it done?
A: Invite troubles to do their worst to you. This gets them so confused they lose interest in you.

Q: I’m astonished that I neglected these truths so long.
A: But now your personal miracle has begun.

Q: I feel like a captive on a pirate ship.
A: Dare to leap into the sea and swim to shore.

Q: What is a first course in the Cosmic College?
A: Never fear that these lessons may be too much for you — the entire universe is your patient teacher.

Q: What is disturbance?
A: Disturbance is the interruption of your daydream by fact.

Q: I want to learn but what if I make dumb mistakes?
A: I give you permission to make ten-thousand mistakes.

Q: What am I?
A: You are what you actually value, not what you say you value?

Q: Why don’t I understand these teachings?
A: Because you can’t see above your own level. But cheer up — you’re raising your level.

Q: How will these ideas change our day?
A: The day will belong to you instead of to your anxiety.

Q: I feel like a soldier on a dangerous battlefield.
A: One day you will tell yourself the war is over.

Q: Is blabbermouthery connected with unhappiness?
A: Blabbermouthery is an attempt to convince oneself, but only succeeds in self-torment.

Q: Can my willingness open the door?
A: If you’re willing to be mistaken.

Q: What good things come from these teachings?
A: So many good things you won’t be able to count them.

Q: I’m guilty of foolish thoughts.
A: You can learn wise thoughts which will chase them out.

Q: How can I detect vanity?
A: Notice the pet flatteries you run through your mind, such as what a lovable little sugar-pie you are.

Q: Why do I tremble before life?
A: Who said you had to?

Q: I see the necessity for knowing who I really am.
A: Yes, because if you owned the entire world and didn’t know yourself you would be sad and scared.

Q: In moments of weakness I make phony promises I later regret.
A: There’s nothing sacred about phony promises and the sooner you see this the better.

Q: I don’t know how to act with other people.
A: Your inner self always knows how to behave outwardly, so find and live from it.

Q: I worry that there might not be something on the other side of my mental wall.
A: There’s something there but you must climb the wall to see it.

Q: I feel the existence of something higher than my own thoughts. What’s happening?
A: You’re making contact — making contact with Cosmic Command.

Q: I’m not at home with myself.
A: Listen carefully and you’ll learn how to move back home.

Q: I cry over the loss of the man in my life.
A: Believe me, he’s not worth it.

Q: Why does life seem to attack me?
A: Because you wrongly assume you have a self which life can attack.

Q: Why am I the victim of everything?
A: Because you fight everything.

Q: How is the higher life different?
A: Just as music is different from noise.

Q: I’m just plain lost.
A: Your real self can never be lost.

Q: The world is often too much for me.
A: The outer world pressing down on you is really your inner world pressing up on you.

Q: I don’t know about my future.
A: If you love these ideas your future can only be good — and that is all you need to know.

Q: How can a weary wanderer turn toward home?
A: By constantly throwing himself back on himself while not knowing what will happen.

Q: How can I stop feeling persecuted?
A: Stop having a secret love for persecution.

Q: I’d like a friend who is never angry with me.
A: Truth fits that description.

Q: I feel a new inspiration in this class.
A: Because you sense that you are doing what is truly necessary for yourself.

Q: What can motivate us to drop wrong attitudes?
A: See how they exploit you and you’ll drop them fast enough.

Q: How can understanding end grief?
A: By being grieved but not minding it.

Q: Please repeat what you said about a conscious rebuke of suffering.
A: One day you’ll be able to get so tough with sorrow that it will run away.

Q: Give us a liberating message.
A: You need never pretend to be unafraid.

Q: What is a good defense against hostile people?
A: The perfect defense is not to have a defense.

Q: How am I connected with universal power?
A: Just as a tree is connected with the entire earth.

Q: Help us to choose the higher life.
A: Choose answers that please your true self, not answers that please your vanity.

Q: What do you mean by a right kind of defiance?
A: This is when you defy your fears and tell them you won’t tolerate them any more.

Q: What does it mean to return to our spiritual home?
A: Basically it means to rise above the intellect to the lofty level of cosmic wisdom.

Q: How can I stop getting involved with the wrong people?
A: Stop getting involved with your own wrong values.

Q: Is there a way to soften the jolt of these facts?
A: You must never soften the jolt — it’s trying to jolt you awake.

Q: What can break my habit of worrying about everything?
A: Just see that you have something much better to do with your life.

Q: We’re not afraid to laugh in this class. What part does laughter play in self-development?
A: Laughter is often a good sign that we recognize nonsense as nonsense.

Q: I hide it from others but I fall apart a dozen times a day.
A: Learn what it means to fall apart consciously and you’ll build yourself a dozen times a day.

Q: Why are we so reckless with our lives?
A: Recklessness is energy uncontrolled by intelligence.

Q: I guess we’re not very logical.
A: What’s more foolish than to fight to keep the very errors that make us miserable?

Q: How do we keep ourselves miserable?
A: By trying to be good before seeing what this really means.

Q: What is antagonism?
A: A heavy curtain that blocks the light.

Q: In what way are shocks our teachers?
A: Shocks are trying to tell us we don’t know what we pretend to know.

Q: How strange! Why do we fight to preserve our conflict?
A: Because the emotional thrill in conflict is falsely called an exciting life.

Q: Why do we indulge in useless worry?
A: Worry supplies the illusion of doing something about a problem. Only a silent mind supplies real action.

Q: Our solutions only cause more problems!
A: The earthly can’t cure the earthly — the only cure is the Cosmic Cure.

Q: My mind gushes out with frantic questions.
A: Learn the secret of a silent mind and they’ll stop gushing.

Q: How can we teach ourselves?
A: Remind yourself to do what you know.

Q: What prevents natural living?
A: When the unnatural becomes popular it’s called natural.

Q: What action can free us?
A: Never be meekly obedient to inner tyrants. Instead, find the knowledge that overthrows them.

Q: I admit my despair, as you say we must do, but it leads nowhere.
A: Each admission of despair must be accompanied by a wish to find something higher than despair.

Q: Sometimes I resist the external discipline in this class.
A: The purpose of external discipline is to teach you internal discipline.

Q: Why do I make endless trouble for myself?
A: Because you don’t understand the foreign forces which have taken over your life.

Q: Supply an example of being in mental prison.
A: When you think about what others think about you.

Q: Why is all this good news?
A: Because there’s a key to the prison you’ll be glad to hear about.

Q: How can I take care of myself?
A: Stop asking others to take care of you.

Q: What is a step toward true security?
A: Simply try to see that all your present efforts to feel secure only increase your insecurity.

Q: Why are we so touchy and defensive?
A: Because you’re hiding something you should be studying.

Q: How can we detect a self-damaging attitude?
A: It’s any attitude that demands attention and agreement from others.

Q: Why do I crave admiration?
A: Because you think it will tell you who you are, which it won’t.

Q: It seems impossible to change things.
A: Your present nature has no choice but to think that, which is why you’re here to change your nature.

Q: I know I need to go beyond myself, but find it scary.
A: Start by making small decisions for yourself. This is a first daring step out of yourself.

Q: I feel anxious about the many things I don’t know.
A: That’s because your false self still demands its answers. This anxiety will finally fade.

Q: It seems we’re hypnotized by our own badness.
A: Yes, there’s a certain false fascination with badness, like watching a monster movie.

Q: What contradiction do we fail to see?
A: You hide in a mental cave and then complain about lack of sunshine.

Q: When will I see the value of tearing down the inner haunted house?
A: The minute you start tearing it down.

Q: How can I find a real teacher?
A: Be a real student.

Q: Why is it so hard to have an open mind?
A: Because we mistake an empty head for an open mind.

Q: What’s the difference between knowledge and wholeness?
A: You can be given knowledge but you must develop wholeness.

Q: I’m afraid of a certain cruel man.
A: Fear disappears when you see him as both cruel and pathetic at the same time.

Q: I sense the decency of these teachings.
A: Right.

Q: I never know how I’m supposed to feel about something.
A: Forget what you’re supposed to feel and see what you actually feel which will show you what to really feel.

Q: My mind is a mental museum.
A: Only because you choose familiar and dreary sights to the new world outside.

Q: If you’ll be frank with me I promise to not get mad.
A: If you’ll stop thinking you won’t get mad I’ll be frank with you.

Q: I feel caged
A: By your own thoughts. The sparrow feels at home in the sky, not in the cage.

Q: How does it feel to rise above ourselves?
A: It’s like dropping heavy oars to let the sail carry you forward.

Q: My impulsiveness gets me into trouble.
A: Impulsiveness is a form of escape where you prefer to believe in people instead of seeing through them.

Q: But human beings seem fairly friendly and cooperative.
A: Lions obey their trainers out of hope of reward and fear of punishment.

Q: I want to know what happiness is.
A: You’ll know when you’ve exhausted everything that happiness is NOT.

Q: How is awareness practical?
A: It lets you see the trap before you walk into it.

Q: Give us an idea for increasing inner light.
A: Nothing is more valuable than taking a humiliating experience with humility.

Q: Will the obtainment of these ideas help family problems?
A: When the underground stream breaks up to the surface it makes everything green.

Q: How can I know what I don’t know?
A: Honestly and patiently remain with your not-knowing.

Q: My life spins dizzily.
A: You can live from the part in you that doesn’t spin.

Q: What causes frustration?
A: Trying to do the impossible, like trying to prove you have a separate self apart from the cosmic whole.

Q: How can I behave rightly in a crisis tomorrow?
A: If you have to think about it you’ll behave wrongly. Only a time-free nature behaves rightly.

Q: Why do you teach that we must first drop our wrong thoughts?
A: Because the pebbles must make room for the pearls.

Q: May we have a deep idea to think about?
A: Habitual thought is frantically and vainly trying to arrive at where cosmic insight has always resided.

Q: We’re so careless with our minds!
A: We wouldn’t let wolves and tigers prowl our home yet we permit all sorts of beasts to prowl the mind.

Q: If a new life is offered how come I don’t have it?
A: You live on a mountain of gold but you have to start digging.

Q: My life is like a movie I’ve seen fifty times.
A: This class will show you how to get out of the boring theater.

Q: Why do I get hostile when told I don’t know what I’m talking about?
A: Because you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Q: What happens when I wake up?
A: You wake up cured.

Q: I’d like to make the most of this class.
A: Choose the healthy message of truth over the unhealthy reaction of your hostile nature.

Q: Give me a fact I may not want to hear.
A: Where you can be hurt by others is where you would like to hurt others.

Q: Show us how to help ourselves in class.
A: Practice at calling your wandering mind back to what is being said.

Q: If you knew of the cruel things I’ve done in the past you might not let me in this class.
A: Your past is nothing — your present wish for help is everything.

Q: I worry you might see through me.
A: That’s exactly why truth can help you. You can’t help yourself because you can’t see through yourself.