THE MASTERY
OF YOUR ATTENTION WILL COME
WHEN YOU WILL START SEEING the truth..
Lead me from opacity to clarity.
Lead me from the complicated to the simple.
Lead me from the obscure to the obvious.
Lead me from intention to attention.
Lead me from what I'm told I am to what I see I am.
Lead me from confrontation to wide openness.
Lead me to the place I never left,
Where there is peace, and peace
- The Upanishads
*note* pretty rough life and explaining the way to the good life..From my friend Vernon....but then,never forget these words,,THE MASTERY OF YOUR ATTENTION WILL COME WHEN YOU WILL START SEEING THAT IT IS ALL A MYTH THAT UPSETS YOU.JUST THROW IT AWAY..AND UNDERSTAND THAT YOU ARE THE ETERNAL LIFE.ONLY THEN YOU WILL FULLY ENJOY YOURSELF BECAUSE YOUR ATTENTION WOULD BE COMPLETELY DRENCHED IN THE BLISS OF YOUR TRUE SELF.-SHRI MATAJI NIRMALA DEVI-..but then,I wrote some time ago a poetry about this topic..
The one you think
The one you feel
Will never,ever want to shrink
And all it wants is a good deal
How can I use my mighty powers
How my desires won't be sorrow
How can I be as entity
Away from pain and cruelty
I say abandon the term ,I,
Then you will feel,and think as sky
Just think of nothing,be yourself
The universe amazing elf
With 2 big eyes and a big nose
You room the galaxies across
Forget the big smile on your face
Dead or alive..you are the grace..
The cosmic joke has been rezolved
Just smile and know this game is old
There is no past,there is no future
There is no me,there is no you
There is this moment's right composure
Of this and that,and white and blue
Awake from this and you are free
As butterflies can only be...
-added by danny-
...............................
Follow The Guide Out Of The Desert
A talk by Vernon Howard given on 10-18-81 at 2 PM
Follow The Guide Out Of The Desert
A talk by Vernon Howard given on 10-18-81 at 2 PM
Pretty rough life, huh? It's always been pretty rough, hasn't it? Go on back a
few years. Remember when you were a little boy, a little girl, seven or eight,
and you were so excited about life, about so many things – until your great
shock. You ran into blows by people – your own parents, by society in
general. And then you started to retreat.
Now this experience I've briefly recounted is typical of every human being
who comes into this world. You can't come into this world without becoming
its victim. Can you take that simple fact that I've given you so far and see
the full horror of it? That every one including you, which you well know, you,
you know what your parents did to you. You know what those
schoolteachers did to you. You know what those sick relatives did to you.
When you're young you don't have much sense. You don't have any
reasoning power. You don't have any ability to take a blow, an insult, a hurt
in the right way. There is no way a child can do that. All a child can do is
feel the pang of it, the heartache of it. And then – and you had better listen
to what I am going to tell you next because it's an – you can't understand,
even begin to understand the importance of it. When those aches and those
headaches and those angers that started to build up inside of you, when
they started to become a part of your daily life you embraced them as the
only friend you had in life.
Now follow. Human beings take the ache and they take the disappointments
and the blows to their ambitions and their desires, they take them in and
they get frustrated and pretty soon a horrible thing happens to every human
being on earth. And what happens to that man or that woman is that he
begins to live from, begins to live with his agony and call that his life. And
I'll guarantee every one of you listening to me right now, I'll guarantee you,
whether you're aware of it or not, that this is your inner state as you are
seated here right now. That part is a fact.
What we are going to do now is talk about a way to break the fact. Do you
know what a difficult task it is that you have? Yes, you. Not me. You. It's
your life. Do you know what a task you have to stop loving your anger? To
stop loving your retreat and say, "I am so fed up with being scared. I am so
tired of it I am not going to tolerate it anymore. I don't know what I am
going to do about it, but I know that I am not going to bed anymore the
way I do now with a madhouse mind of mine. When I put my head on the
pillow and it drives me crazy and doubly crazy because I know that
tomorrow morning that madhouse mind has to get up and face that world,
and may Heaven help me, all I can do is take that madhouse mind out and
fake it, and pretend that everything is all right."
Look, I am going to give you a great opportunity right now. I am going to
give you an opportunity to do something that you've never done before in
your life. I know you haven't. Oh, what a beautiful chance you have right
now if you will take it. I am going to give you an opportunity to know
absolutely and one-hundred percent and fully that you are a lost human
being. I'm going to give you a chance to see it, to understand it and to
accept it as a fact, so that you can smash the fact. You haven't done it up
until now. I watched you as you came in here. I watched your faces, I
watched your gestures, I watched your inner state, and very easy to see, by
the way, for me to understand what you're like. Because I know. You don't,
you don't understand how your face gives you away. You don't know how
the very way that you walk gives you away.
Now, back to the opportunity. You have a marvelous chance right now as
you're seated here to simply say something like this. Look how simple it is.
"All my life I have been nothing but a fake." How marvelous! For the first
time in your life you told the truth. And for the first time in your life you
have uttered a true prayer, because you have admitted the condition that
you are in.
The title of this series is, of course, stress – Success Without Stress. If you
want to start out with the word stress that's fine. You're under stress, are
you not? How many of you are under stress? Raise your hand. You can all
raise your hand – every single one of you. (Laughter)
You're under economic stress, do you think? You're under sexual stress, do
you think? You're under social stress. You don't know what to do with that
husband of yours. You wonder how you ever got married to him. Or that
wife...why you ever got matched with her. And the children, they drive you
crazy – don't they? – and drain your pocketbook. And you wonder – you
wonder how you ever could have been so stupid as to get into the trap that
you're obviously in. That is pretty stressful, isn't it? And you look out in the
world and you see political stress, you see financial stress. People nervous –
not knowing what to do. Nobody, nobody knows what to do.
Do you know that, by the way? Do you, do you know that nobody knows
what to do about anything? How can the cause of the problem be the
solution to the problem? How come all – how come all your sick maniacs
who run things politically, religiously, socially, educationally – how can the
madmen express sanity into the world so as to correct the condition. It can't
be done and you know it. And the evidence is so plainly in front of you. You
look out and you think it's the world against you. That's pretty bad odds,
isn't it?
Now let me tell you something which you're going to have difficulty
understanding, but you have to start somewhere. And it's about time you
started. You've wasted your life up till now and it's about time you started
doing the right thing for yourself. You've done everything possible to keep
yourself in this miserable state including hostility, including hatred, including
anger, including sneering at decency, including sneering at anything that
doesn't go along with what you presently believe in.
Let me tell you a story. Then we'll get back to stress a little later, but it all
connects. Listen to these. Try to find yourself – try to find yourself
somewhere in this illustrative story I am going to tell you. Imagine a desert
land. Thousands of people living out in a dry, dusty, hot, miserable desert.
You know how it is out in the Mojave there, Sahara. Dry, miserable. Here is
several thousand people living out there. Living outwardly just as the world
lives inwardly – in distress, not knowing – not knowing where to get a cool
cup of water, dusty and hot, hating their environment.
How do you like your inner environment as you go along with yourself all
day long, by the way? Not very pleasant, is it? How do you like living with
yourself? Going around every day with you. Pretty unpleasant company,
isn't it? Because you don't know what to do about anything! Of course you
don't! But you can if you come to every one of these lectures and you stop
lying to yourself. If you can stop lying to yourself.
Anyway, here are these thousands of people out in this miserable place,
desolate, lonely. You're lonely, aren't you? Here you have a husband, wife,
ten kids and you are lonely. You are, you know. The reason you're lonely is
because you are separated from home. Here are these people living out
here, and a man comes along and his origin is a vast, bright, beautiful
mountain a hundred miles away. He lives on top of this mountain where
there's cool water and pretty springs and streams and grass and beautiful
green trees and colored flowers. This is where this man lives who we'll call
the Guide, capital G. This Guide comes down from the top of the mountain,
walks down, walks over into the desert.
And by the way, let me get a little point in, extra point in, and see if you can
understand it. When this Guide who lives up in the mountain comes down
into the dry, hot, blistering, thirsty desert, when he comes into it he doesn't
feel hot, he doesn't feel thirsty, he doesn't feel dry. Is there one of you who
understands that? I'll give it to you very briefly. When you are authentically
spiritual you can live in this dry desert of the world and you won't feel any
thirst at all, because that's not where you're really living from.
Alright, so our Guide comes down and he gathers all the people together.
Let's say there is two hundred of them in one particular group. He gathers
two hundred people together and he says, "Ladies and gentlemen, I have
the most marvelous news for you. Never in your life have you heard what I
am about to tell you. Please listen very carefully to everything I'm going to
say. Ladies and gentlemen, you've lived in this dry, desolate place all your
life and I understand, I understand why you're so crabby." How many of you
are crabby? Come on. I'll use a different word. How many of you are
irritable? See, different people raise their hand. (Laughter)
"I understand why you snap at the boss secretly. You can't do it openly or
he'll fire you. I understand why you hate your wife at times while you
pretend you have to like her because she's given you sex and that is what
you want to keep. I understand everything about you, ladies and
gentlemen, and I have, again I have good news for you. If you will follow
me I will guide you, I will lead you from where you are to where you can be.
I will lead you from this dry, miserable desert along the desert floor for
awhile. It takes a long time to even get to the foot of the mountain where
you can start to learn to change yourself. I'll take you for a long, long
journey but a fascinating one. Isn't it? Fascinating. It's fun. It's downright
fun to find yourself! Come with me on this journey and eventually we'll get
to the foot of the mountain, and then I'll guide you step by step up the
mountain where there is all this water and beauty and rest and peace and
quiet – a beautiful place for you to live."
"And ladies and gentlemen," the Guide added the following, "when you
arrive at the top of the mountain you will dwell there forever more. That will
be your everlasting place to live. But that is a bit difficult," he explained,
"for you to understand now, because you have a time-bound mind which
cannot understand the vastness of eternity. However, I give you this
preliminary thought, to give you something to think about and begin to
work up toward an understanding of. So ladies and gentlemen, if you are
willing to follow me we'll go on the journey. How many would like to go?"
Now there were two hundred people – oh, you've already raised your hand.
That's fine. (Laughter) There were two hundred people in the dry desert in
this particular group and he said, "How many want to go?" and all two
hundred raised their hand. How many of you would like to go? Let's make it
official. Want to go along? Well, let's find out.
See, I have not finished the story yet. You may find yourself somewhere
along in it and might be surprised at where you find yourself. So the Guide
with a capital G, which indicates he is no ordinary Guide, right? – the Guide
said, "Follow me, except I must tell you one thing. And I know you've
listened closely, ladies and gentlemen," the Guide said, "to the rewards, to
the niceness of where you're going. I know you listened to that. And you
had better listen not only with equal attention, but with triple attention, to
what I'm going to tell you finally before we start out. Listen very carefully.
Now ladies and gentlemen, let's get one thing straight – absolutely and for
all straight. I am the Guide! I'll tell you what to do. I'll tell you the directions
to take. I'll teach you how to climb. I'll teach you what you should do in
order to climb better, climb higher. I'll tell you what attitudes you should
have toward the journey. I will tell you completely and exactly what you
must do in order to finally arrive on the top of the mountain."
And the Guide got a little sterner, which doesn't mean he was any less
compassionate, but because people react so mechanically to a stern face
they got a little bit frightened. But he knew human nature, he knew how to
talk to them. So he said, "Now if there is any among you who wants to
argue, don't start. If any of you know better than I do, then go on. Go on
your own. Don't come with me! Go on. You can leave right now. You can go
all alone. You can take your wife with you if you want – if she is stupid
enough to go with you. You can start right now and go your own way. Get it
straight, get it clear, and get it once and for all. I am not going to argue with
you. If you want to argue anywhere along the way, you just go ahead and
argue all you want, but you're not going to argue with me! Because you're
trying to convince me that you know better than me and I know better than
that. If you want to argue, go ahead. You go your own way – go any
direction you want."
Now the Guide said, "There are two hundred of you here. How many of you
agree to the rules and will follow exactly, precisely, without any deviation at
all, follow the path that I give you all the way." All two hundred of them
raised their hand. And you know what the Guide did? He gave a big sigh,
because he had been around – he has been around for thousands of years
and he'd seen that before. He'd given that little talk millions and millions of
times before and always two hundred people smile and raise their hand,
"Yes, I want to go." Just like some of you did. Let's see if you do.
So they started out and inevitably it happened. Because they were people
under stress having lived in that desert so long and because stress had
become a preferred way of life, at the start they began to argue in small
ways among themselves. They couldn't argue with the Guide yet because
they remembered what he had said. "Don't argue with me. There is no
argument. You argue among yourself if you want." And pretty soon two or
three of them began forming little groups and they got together and they
stood aside as they were camped for the night. And they would stand aside
and they would look at the Guide and all three or four of them would begin
to hate the Guide.
And you know what happened? On one day they lost ten of them who said,
"We know better how to get to the mountain." Next day they lost twenty
more. The next day they lost eighteen. The next day they lost twenty-six.
One man and one woman reached the top of the mountain. A hundred and
ninety-eight knew more than the Guide.
I'm talking to you. And I know you. I know every one of you in this room. I
know how you think. I never met you before. I know what you're going to
say when you leave here. I know what you've been saying as you've been
listening to this.
Shall I tell you something, quite frankly? No... I guess I will. (Laughter) I
am not talking at all to an audience. I'm talking to one or two people. Do
you want to be one of them or do you want to continue to fight and lie and
find yourself back in the desert, which is exactly what's going to happen.
And do you have the honesty and the intelligence to see that this is the way
it's always been with you?
You don't know what you walked into this afternoon. But you're beginning to
suspect it, aren't you? (Laughter) All the devils of hell are combined to keep
you from absorbing, understanding and following the truth that can lead you
out of the desert of your mind up into the mountain. And the mountain
actually exists. You don't know that yet, and don't you say you do. What you
do have is an imaginary mountain. And shall I describe what the imaginary
mountain – your imaginary mountain is like? Tomorrow you're going to get
rich, tomorrow you're going to get married, tomorrow you're going to get
un-married, and that's your idea of heaven. Marriage was heaven and now
un-marriage is heaven, right? That's your idea of true heaven.
Your imaginary mountain keeps you thirsty. Aren't you thirsty? You know
you are! You can't make up your mind about the simplest of things during
your day. You look to the news commentator on how to think about world
troubles. He tells you how to think, and you fall mechanically into the part of
you that identifies more closely with this group or that group and you say
they're right and the other side is wrong. You can't make up your mind
about anything. How would you like to be on the mountaintop where one
attribute, one quality of being on the mountaintop is that you don't have
any decisions to make at all.
I am not talking about little daily decisions on what you should serve for
dinner or where you should shop – things like that. Those obviously you
have to use your elementary intelligence to do those. How would you like to
be on the mountain where you don't have to make any decision at all about
your future?
How old are you? Say it to yourself. How old are you? You know how old you
are. How old are you? Twenty, thirty, eighty? How old? Say your age to
yourself. How would you like to not only know exactly, without thinking
about it, know what to do with the rest of your life and not only that – listen
to the beauty of this – listen to this. Not only know without thinking about it
how to live the rest of your life in peace, but to cancel out the pain from all
those stupid things you did in the past, all those wrong decisions you made,
and all those impositions I spoke of earlier in the talk. All the – you know –
all the viciousness and the cruelty that people did to you. But that's not an
excuse.
If any of you listened to the radio program that was on today you heard a
certain point which I repeat. Now I am talking to you now, not to the radio
audience. Ladies and gentlemen, please answer this question to yourself.
When are you going to grow up and be a real man, a real woman? When are
you going to stop preferring to be a little dependent child? As long as you
are a child you cannot have the rewards of being a spiritual adult. You know
it's quite proper for a little child to depend on its parents. That's fine
physically. But the trouble is most people never mature spiritually at all.
They take over all the false ideas, all the hypocritical religious notions that
have been handed to them, and they settle down with those and become
and remain religious hypocrites – people with hatred in them, people with
violence, people with self-hate.
How would you like to – how would you like to cancel the past entirely? I
don't mean the memory of it. When you are a free human being, when
you've gone to the top of the mountain, I'll tell you how your mind will
operate. You'll be able to remember all those – I'll use these words
deliberately – all those sinful, shameful, horrible things you did in the past –
remember them? Go ahead. That's all right. You can think of them. It won't
hurt you. They've been hurting you terribly in the past because you think of
them unconsciously. I invite you to think of them consciously and knowingly
to bring them up where you can see them.
How would you like to be in a situation where you can have a memory of all
those past events, but they're no longer connected with you at all? Because
you see they had no connection with you – even at that time, but at that
time you didn't know it because you identified with everything you said. You
said, "My mother was so vicious to me and my father beat me. Beat me." It
happened! Certainly it happened as a physical expression and as an amount
of energy, misused of course.
Let's see how much you can understand with the following statement? That
vicious thing never ever happened to you at all. Furthermore, you yourself
never in your whole life ever committed a single sin. You've never in your
life done anything evil, and as a matter of fact you never will, because there
is no entity there, no self there who can either do good things or bad things.
Ah, I wonder if there is one person in this room who was watching his mind
at the moment I said that and saw how you objected to that. Objected to it?
Every – every force inside of you fiercely screamed out against that being a
fact, because you want to be either one, don't you? You want to be a saint
or a sinner. You want to be a good person or if you can't be a good person
then be a bad person – which criminals do, chronic criminals do. "I'm bad."
That's their identity. But you found out that it is better to be a big faker and
call yourself good and understanding and religious and all that because
there are certain advantages.
You tell me – you tell me, ladies and gentlemen, what advantages you find
in being a coward? I know what you are like. I know what you're doing and I
do know this too. Thank heaven for this. I know if you will examine your life
closely enough and see where you have argued with the Guide because you
know better – and if you can see how you always, always, always a
thousand times, ten thousand times, fifty thousand times, go right back to
the thirsty desert – if you can see what you're doing to yourself, against
yourself, and have the courage and the decency and the honesty to say, "I
am not going. God help me, I am not going back to that desert anymore."
And that is a beautiful prayer.
You know, you don't have to analyze prayer and answer prayer. All you have
to do is collapse – that is a prayer. When your egotism begins to break
down, when your pretense – any of you who go out of here – I'm going to
warn you people of something. You better listen to me. I am talking to you
now. This is not in the story. I am talking to you seated right here in this
hall here right now. You had better not commit blasphemy when you go out
of here. If you sneer and you reject what you've heard here today you are
committing blasphemy against God Almighty. And you know something
else? You know it. Because every single one of you in this room sense – you
don't know – you sense, you feel that you've heard the pure truth that can
rescue you here today. You know it in a sense that you are sensing it,
feeling it.
If you go out of here and you reject what you've heard, I will – I will predict
your future perfectly and you can do the same thing. You're going to get
scareder as you grow older. You're going to be terrified of what the future is
going to bring you. Now look please, because our time is running out. All it
takes is one ounce of willingness, one ounce of intelligence to say, "What
sense does it make to be sick? It makes no sense at all to be spiritually sick.
In fact, it's awfully stupid." You want to be a truly intelligent human being?
Ponder all these things that you've heard here today. Take them inside as
best you can. You're not expected to be a spiritual genius overnight! You've
been building up your neurosis for forty, fifty years. Say to yourself, "I am"
– listen to this. This is a good one. Listen to this. "I am sick and tired of
arguing with myself and always losing the argument." You stop arguing and
it will put great fear in you at the start, because this is the disillusion of the
ego self. As you, the ego self, begins to dissolve, the fear also goes because
it was based in the ego self, and you will see yourself change right in front
of your own eyes. And you will begin to understand what it means to take
one step up the mountainside, one step at a time where it is cool and
pretty and green. And you are out! Absolutely out of this insane society. You
are out of it while in it physically. You have nothing to do with it. Absolutely
nothing.
Sure, you go down to work and you're married and you have your wife and
children and you drive your car and all that. You'll understand perfectly that
you're no longer a part of the madness and the sickness and the viciousness
and the cruelty of this world, because you had the courage to give up your
own cruelty, your own viciousness, and God gave you something quite
different. And you live very quietly and you live everlastingly with that –
with that newness, with that new life.
Do take a break and we'll come back for open discussion later. (Applause)
[Note: The audience questions have been modified for clarity and only
Vernon's comments have been transcribed.]
We'll get to the questions in just a minute, but a preliminary point please. To
argue against the truth is a severe malicious problem, but it is not the
principal problem. The principal problem is for the individual to not know, to
not see, to not admit that he argues against the truth that can rescue him
from himself. Now take a look at the difference. Now all of you will admit
that you have great negativities in you, you're depressed and you think
cruel thoughts toward the driver who speeds in front of you or something
like that. You have all these negativities inside you. And you know you have
them. That is not the problem! The problem is – the main problem – the
main problem is that you – you don't know how to be honest! You have lied
all your life about what you're like, about what life is like, what reality is
like. You've lied so long and so hard that you've become indeed hardened
inside yourself – a block of steel for a brain.
Now you can never change yourself unless you break down and admit that
you lie! And the variety of lies are endless. I want to give you an example of
it. In one of the notes that was given to me which I've seen – believe me –
by literal count thousands and thousands of times the very same type of
cunning lie by one of you out there. And the lie said, "Are you – do you say
you're the only man who knows the truth?" Something like that. And I'll say
it in several ways because it's a variety of lies in that very one itself. "How
do you know that you know what you are talking about? Are you the only
one who knows? Why do you set yourself up as an authority?" And believe
me, all of us, Murray and his group and the rest of them, have heard that
ten thousand times.
Now look at it. Now look at it. A person sits here and hears a talk, a
beautiful talk! – not because it's me – but because it's true! And it can
change you! And I warned you. I warned some of you stupid people what
would happen and you did not listen to me because you don't have the
intelligence to listen. I warned you against committing blasphemy.
But let's get a little closer to home here. When you challenge truth, who is
challenging it? Can't you understand that when you're in a sour, angry,
sneering attitude, can't you see that that is a lie that is killing you? Now I
want to tell you something that very, very few human beings can
understand, even our own group up in Boulder City, Nevada. But you – you
add this to it because if you see this, oh, you'll go fast up that mountain.
The vast majority of human beings on earth – billions of them – have
become lovers of hell instead of lovers of peace and truth. They have
become hardened into sneering, into arguing, into fighting because that is
what they – the kind of a life they prefer to freedom. But, if you can believe
it, they call their slavery freedom. "I have a right to say what I want to say.
I can do anything I want to do. Who are you to tell me what to do?"
That poor, pathetic, lost, stupid, ignorant, self-destructive, vicious, malicious
human being. Oh, you had better listen to me. Listen to me. Remember
what I told you what that Guide said? The Guide said, "Look, if you want to
argue go ahead and argue. You're not going to argue with me. The
reason–'cause I understand you, I know the reason you're arguing–because
you're an agent of hell. And I know why you are doing that. You hope to try
to prove that your lie is the truth, and you'll kill yourself trying to do it and
you'll never succeed."
Now an individual who is a lover of hell can be helped because many of you
are, by the way – in fact, all of you are to one degree or another – can be
helped if you'll do one thing – if you will simply not be afraid to give yourself
up. You are the lie. You are the destruction. You are the viciousness. You are
the hatred. You are the murderer. That's the only identity you have and it is
a false identity, it's not real at all. Remember me telling you that you are
neither good nor evil? Remember me saying that? So if I, if I ball you out –
to put it mildly – you'll say, "Okay, so I'm evil. At least I'm somebody."
You incredibly ignorant, imbecilic human being. You are getting exactly what
you are praying for. You are getting yourself. God have mercy on you. And
by the way, he won't, because you have not permitted him to do so.
Question to all of you here: do you have the honesty to see you're arguing
and trying to knock down the truth that's being presented here? I'd better
tell you something. You are wasting your time. And you are going to destroy
yourself in the process. But if you are a permanent lover of hell then, of
course, you have no business even being in this room. You go back – you go
back to the desert that you have preferred, and you will. You'll go back to it.
You've been given a choice today all of you.
What are you going to do when you leave here? Let me tell you what's going
to happen. When you go out that door all the dark forces inside of you are
going to start screaming, "Don't you pay attention. Don't you listen to, and
don't you follow." And you are one of the hundred ninety-eight who didn't
make it to the mountaintop. I am saying this to give you a chance! Now you
don't know what that chance is, but I am telling you where to start and how
to start. You must! – you must keep in association with these truths, with
the classes here or with the books or with the tapes or whatever. You must
keep in association with truth, otherwise the devil is too much for you. He
has been!
Describe your life. Go ahead. Describe your life! It's a horror story, isn't it?
It can be changed if you can do one thing. And to this person who wrote this
note and to all the rest of you who have said the same thing. Can you look
at yourself while you're sneering, can you look at yourself while you're going
like that with tensed fists, can you look at yourself while asking sacrilegious
questions in notes and verbally? Can you look at yourself and say, "You
know, that's right. I am a human horror show sneering at the truth which I
sensed here in this room." If you can do that, God will save you from the
one thing you need saving from which is your own miserable, wretched,
devilish nature. Only God can rescue you from yourself. He will do it if you
permit it. It all depends on your decision, what you do with what you heard
here today.
Now I will take spoken questions for a while please. And do keep them short
and to the point. And do relate them to something we have talked about.
And if I don't hear the question or all of it I will ask Guy to repeat it to me
please. Please raise your hand one at a time, please. And do keep it one
question at a time, not two parts and so on.
Q. Earlier you said the first thing you must do is come back to all these
lectures. Providing we do that, what is the second thing that we must do?
A. Be receptive.
Q. Vernon, where have you studied to get some of this data that
you've been teaching people for a number of years?
A. Oh, I get so many easy questions. (Laughter) I studied myself.
Q. Provided that we are receptive to what you are saying, how come
it is so hard then to follow the truth. Even though you know it is the truth.
[The question was summarized to the following:] Provided that we've done
the second step which is to be receptive, how is it that we can keep going?
How do we take the next step and the next step. How do we work on
ourselves?
A. You see, your old nature, your conditioned nature, the negative nature
wants nothing to do with what you're hearing here. Now if you become
aware of that, that very awareness is a weakening of it. You know what the
word "displacement" means? If you take – if you take the junk out of the
cupboard and throw it out, then the cupboard is – there is room for
something new in the cupboard, is that not right? Yes. The same way
spiritually. If you simply see how negative you are, how you argue, how you
fight, if you see how afraid you are, if you can honestly admit it, that's the
first ray of light that begins to dissolve the fear which centers around the
ego self.
I will absolutely guarantee you something and I will put it in a
little mathematical way that will make it very clear to you. If you are now
one hundred percent negative and you've been receptive to what you've
heard here today, you have one tenth of one percent of a positive, a
genuinely spiritual, positive attitude. And you'll be able to feel that because
it will feel different from the rest of you. It's like a ray of light is different
from the darkness. You continue to be receptive – it will be two tenths of
one percent, three tenths and on and on and on over a period of many,
many years. Don't you delay another day. Don't you go out of here and start
talking about reincarnation or something else like that. You, you, you have a
chance now! How many of you want to repeat the same wretched life over
again anyway? (Laughter)
Q. Mr. Howard, you said that you are a guide. Is this a guide with a capital
G and can we trust you one hundred percent?
A. Now look. Every single one of you in this room knows you heard the
truth. You know it. You know you haven't been lied to, you haven't been
coddled, you haven't been told all sorts of nonsense that flatters your ego.
You haven't been told that you are okay as you are. You're not okay. You're
a mess and you know it. Don't you know it? Then didn't I tell you the truth
about yourself? Then did we not switch over to the other side and say there
is a chance for a human being who wants to be decent but who presently
can't because his old conditioning is too much for him? Because – because
too much of your father is still living in you, and your mother. You know how
sick your parents were. You know how sick they were! You lived in that
home! You saw them lie and cheat and you saw them wreck you.
Now do you want to be a decent parent and not pass that on to
your children? Do you have any decency at all that you are not going to
wreck your children? Then be a student of truth so you won't hurt them,
you'll give them something genuine and right. And by the way, you wreck
your children – they hate you. You really want to be loved? See that there is
no one there to be loved and there will be love. Now figure that one out.
Q. The inner work that we have to do is something that we really don't
know anything about yet, isn't it?
A. You know that something has to be done, but you don't know whether
to use a pick or a shovel or a spoon or a fork. (Laughter) We'll teach you
which tool to use. Starting – you know what the first tool is? And there is no
other first tool: self-honesty. If you're a liar and want to stay a liar, then get
up and walk out right now. There's no place for you in this room. I mean it
seriously. Get up and walk out. You're poisoning the atmosphere. Not really,
you can only poison yourself, but you understand.
Q. Is there a relationship between dishonesty and fear?
A. Very much so. When you lie you tremble. Well look, find out for yourself
even in ordinary things, ordinary life. When you lie about your age don't you
tremble a little bit that they are going to find you out? (Laughter). How
many of you lie about your age?
Q. Mr. Howard why is that so few people will accept these teachings, these
truths?
A. They don't accept it because they have not been – listen to this – they
have not been called. You can choose – shhh, slow down – you can choose
to be called.
Q. I can perceive that there is truth in how it comes across to me in what
you are saying. There are other groups which I can perceive truth too. How
can I choose? What results do you achieve? [Guy repeats the question] The
man says that he can perceive that there are truths being given here. He
also says that he can perceive truths being given at other groups where he
is. He wants to know how is it that he can know that this is right and how to
get something from it.
A. Want it more than you want anything else in your life. And you will be
able to recognize the truth wherever it is and wherever it isn't. What do you
want? What do you put first in your life? Any of you? What do you put first?
Tonight's dinner? (Laughter). How many – I am serious – how many have
been thinking about your dinner at any time? And they were all Boulder City
people. (Laughter).
Q. On the Michael Brenner show this morning on the interview you said
you are not what you see. Can you elaborate on that please?
A. Yes. You all have self-views of yourselves, self-pictures, and they are
either flattering or condemning. You look at yourself, you see something –
an action – or you see a thought, and you either approve of it and you say,
"Ah, I am marvelous" or you say, "I am terrible." You are not what you see,
either negative or positive, and we just covered that in a slightly different
version a little bit ago. You are never what you see because what you see is
based on idea, on thought, a concept, and you are not your thoughts, you
are not your concepts, you are not your feelings. You're something apart
from them which you don't understand yet. But you first have to see what
you are not. And you are not, for example, do you know – isn't this good
news? Do you know that you're not a trembling human being who has to be
worried over your future? Shall I tell you something? You don't have any
future in reality. You don't have to have a future when you're living in truth.
Only the petty little worried little ego self – "Am I going to get a raise? Am I
going to get that woman? Am I going to be honored by my children?" Why
don't you try something right now. Why don't you try living right now
instead of letting your mind tear you back into thoughts, into time, thinking
about yourself according to your conditions, according to those things that
were done against you, for example. And so you think you have to protect
yourself. And you – you have a right to assault other people just like they
assaulted you. Oh, what a miserable life that is. Want to cancel the whole
thing? See what it means to live above the intellect. Now don't ask what it's
like. There is one way to find out: climb the mountain. Everybody down in
the desert says – everyone crowds around the Guide. "Please tell me what
the mountain is like? Do I get what I want up there?" Do you know what the
Guide would say to that? When you get up in the mountain you won't want
what you now want. Thank Heaven for that. Your wants are killing you.
Q. Every time I hear you or read one of your books I get high and very
enthusiastic about my life. Then I'd like to know how I can keep that high
enthusiasm on a regular basis. [Guy repeats] The lady says that every time
she hears you speak, every time she reads one of your books she becomes
very enriched, enthusiastic about the truth. She wants to know how do I
keep that going because it goes away?
A. Read more often. (Laughter)
Q. Vernon Howard, the concept of honesty... why is it that an individual
hears the truth, accepts, starts taking action upon it, everything else seems
to get worse? [Guy repeats] The lady wants to know why is it that the
concept of honesty when a person sees it, takes it in and starts to really
work with it, why does everything get worse?
A. Oh, because you are seeing what a maniac you always were! You are
not seeing something new. You've seen something that was in you since you
were five years old and ten years old. You know – you know there is nothing
worse in this world than a junior-high school kid? How many of you where
once a junior-high school kid? (Laughter). Pretty grim, right? How many of
you are junior-high school kids grown up to six feet? You know, we look in
horror at what we really are. And please, when you go out of here or do it
now maybe, make a note, mental or on a piece of paper, make a mental
note of a point that was covered earlier. I am not what I see – good or bad.
Write it, never forget it, or you'll identify with it or you'll say, "I am
wretched. I'm just as mean as I was in the eighth grade." You weren't even
mean then, you were taken over by negative unconscious forces. They were
mean, but you are not your emotions. You are not anything that lives in
time. If you are anything that lives in time then you have no future at all
because thoughts come and go. Who are you going to be – I gave this
recently up in Boulder City. When your mind no longer functions, when you
no longer have a physical mind to identify with, how are you going to keep
yourself going? If the mind isn't recreating, "I'm a genius. I'm a great
provider. I'm a marvelous mother," and that is no longer functioning, how
are you going to know who you are? You never did know; you just called
yourself names. When you see that your true identity is above name –
calling, above labels, above the intellect, you will know who you are without
thinking about it, without having ideas about it. As long as you have ideas
about who you are, you are deceiving yourself because you don't want to
take the leap into something much higher than your present labels.
Q. Let's say I got to the mountain. I'm up on top. How do I tolerate what I
was?
A. Oh please, climb the mountain and all questions will be answered.
Q. A person's name has nothing to do with being called. [Guy repeats] He
wants to know if a person's name has nothing to do with whether they're
called or not.
A. It has nothing whatever to do with anything except what I'm going to
call you for dinner or something like that. Alright, the next meeting is at five
o'clock. Good afternoon. (Applause)
