The Mystical Man

STUDY INSTEAD OF FIGHT In order to do that you have to be aware of how much you fight life. Try to see the wide variety of ways you fight, resist, strike out, cry out, instead of just standing there and studying your condition. Example: Watch your resistance to something higher than you.

This show had a profound impact on me. It's about Islamic miracles in life. It's like the Turkish version of Beyond Belief:

"You're going to be astounded at how much mind power you waste in simply thinking unnecessarily about other people." - Howard

You get involved a hundred times a day in vagrant unnecessary thought, one of which is the false belief that you must be involved in other people’s problems. Never do anything to keep your image of being nice in place. Spiritual growth cannot just happen, it needs a very, very special effort of going against life. You can work in spite of your own laziness. You can work in spite of your own hatred. You can work in spite of that person who might be displeased with you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

You are to remain poised. You have to not let anyone looking at you, their attitude towards you, nor anything inside you take away your poise. Remember the lesson, “Instant Recovery.” Don’t you dare let anyone intimidate you.

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

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

“WHEN LOST IN THE JUNGLE IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE WHETHER I STUMBLE LEFT OR RIGHT.” You don’t make choices — they make you. Catch yourself saying “What should I do?” And ask yourself “Who is asking the question?” What is asking the question is a very apprehensive so-called you inside that wants to perpetuate itself in needing to go this way or that. You can’t perpetuate an illusion. What you can do is cease to identify with your stumbling to the left or to the right. Make a supreme effort when you make a choice to watch what is happening to you and watch which way you are impelled to go, but don’t say “I am going left” or “I am going right.” Just see that there is a going.

I'm not talking about American politics. I'm talking about American entertainment: the greatest movies, shows, games, and books are produced in America. Even many of the great spiritual teachers are American: Adyashanti, Jed McKenna, Dr. Hawkins. Why does America produce so many great people? It can't be just the economic power of the nation, because Germany is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, but we didn't manage to make one great movie. Many people love "Dark", but, in my opinion, it's not good enough. It's too German, and as long as something is produced in Germany, it can't escape its Germanness. American culture values greatness, and it knows how to consistently produce greatness.

Nothing is easier than falling asleep. Nothing is more difficult than staying awake. Vernon Howard was a voice of sanity.

Will you please stop talking about yourself as if you're real! Realize that anything you tell yourself about yourself is a lie — good, bad, indifferent.

THY WILL BE DONE. Oh, how tremendous! By saying that, you’re allowing God’s will to replace your will. And if you really do that, I tell you, and you’ll tell yourself when you see it happening, you’ll talk in an entirely different way than you talk. You talk in a certain way now, don’t you? This talking is just one phase of it. Feelings, actions, attitudes are all included, but just specify talking for now. You talk in a certain way to other people. They know more about it than you do because you can’t see yourself talk. You’re too wrapped up and hoping it’s going to give you a benefit if you go into that little speech or whatever. But as a first stage in allowing the Heavenly will to be done, you’re going to know how you talk with someone. Just notice how you converse and notice the emotion that goes with it. And oh, you’ll be able to see a lot of wasted feelings going on inside of you. Now, having known by personal witnessing what it means to do your will: to speak, to chatter, to say your will — having known that you’re nothing but wrapped up in what you call your life, which is a memorized and boring life and a flop and a failure life; having noticed that, you can bring the healing statement in: Thy will be done.

I want you to know where you are in the dark desert and I want you to be absolutely horrified at what you have permitted to happen to you. That is the only experience that can produce something new in you. That’s the only thing that can break your mechanical talking, your mechanical thinking, and your mechanical emotionalizing, because the seeing of your state is the first stage of inviting consciousness that will dismiss it.

You know finally, listen to this, you know that you are no longer talking to yourself. You have become silent in your mind and in your emotions. And in that silence God is able to speak to you and you will recognize it. This new hearing that you have is totally unlike anything else. It is immediately recognized when it really happens to you. And when it happens, that is the same thing as you changing from a mere human living from thoughts and ambitions and anxieties. Your nature starts to change so that while you still have a mind and still have emotions and still have a physical self, while you have those, you understand that something, this voice that you are hearing, is operating on and through your mind, your feelings, your body, your voice, your reactions. And that voice is giving you instructions on what to do and how to get out of the dark cave that is felt by you. Feeling is the same as hearing. And hearing changes what you do with your whole composite nature, self. You are following the orders of this spiritual voice, the voice of God, you are following those orders. And to your great interest and delight you find that you don’t want to go down to visit your friend's house anymore where you were going to have drinks and chatter about nonsensical things, trivial things. And you will get such a wish to be always listening. And if you catch yourself beginning to get a chattering mind, or you catch yourself being attracted for the moment to the noisy mob out there — the time will come when you’ll be able to catch yourself in time. You’ll want nothing more than to stay home all the time. Being at home means living with yourself, with this true nature, which is always receptive, always listening for the little insight, the little warning, the little advice so that you don’t have to think your life as you used to. Stay home and listen and you will hear.

Now this is your exercise for the next two days. Catch yourself right in your behavior at home or out in the café if you live alone and ask yourself, “Why am I behaving the way I'm behaving right now; what secret motive is there behind it?” The only answer to that is you begin to slow down your mind through the techniques that we've talked about here so that you, the illusion of you begins to slow down. You finally got smart, it took you long enough, you finally got smart and you got up in the morning and you say, let's see now, what particular inner exercise shall I have today? Well, I'm going to remember when I walk out the door. Oh I forgot. Well you remembered that you forgot. That’s good.

Now that’s marvelous for you to see ... trying to hold your life in place is folly. What does that mean? Very briefly, trying to hold your life in place means to rush through your mind as many thoughts and emotions as you can, to give yourself the surface appearance, the illusion of you being a self-creator. You don’t have charge of anything.... Be very, very suspicious of how hidden conceit has robbed you and does rob you every minute of your life of living very quietly, very calmly.

Your first duty in life is toward your inner development and nothing else, absolutely nothing else. Don’t be tricked into thinking there is anything else but the first rule is your self-transformation.

Whatever your life now is, question it. Inquire into your life and don’t fight with anything you see there. Just ask what is going on inside me? Inquire. And when you see what is going on inside of you quite clearly, that is an invitation to God to come and turn on the light for you.