Vernon Howard's Monthly Lessons

[The Mystical Man]

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.

[Leo Gura]

@The Mystical Man Nice!

You found the good stuff.

[Thought Art]

Enjoy Vernon Howard’s work. Ive read about 6 of his books cover to cover. 

[Thought Art]

“Suppose a person wishes to ask only profitable questions. What must be do?”

”Ask all questions in a right spirit”

[The Mystical Man]

“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.

Edited September 12, 2022 by The Mystical Man

[The Mystical Man]

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.

Edited September 12, 2022 by The Mystical Man

[The Mystical Man]

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.

Edited September 12, 2022 by The Mystical Man

[The Mystical Man]

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.

Edited September 12, 2022 by The Mystical Man

[The Mystical Man]

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.

[The Mystical Man]

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.

[The Mystical Man]

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.

[The Mystical Man]

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.”

[The Mystical Man]

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 Mystical Man]

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.

[The Mystical Man]

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.

Edited September 12, 2022 by The Mystical Man

[Anon212]

This is amazing. Thanks for sharing this!

[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.

[The Mystical Man]

Have the courtesy and decency to let other people think the thoughts they want to think instead of you imposing your thoughts on them. The reason you do this — yelling, interrupting and wanting to be the center  of the conversation — is because you want to try to prove to yourself that your thoughts are real; that they are important and that they back up a very real person.

[The Mystical Man]

This is an attack on muttering. Speak loud and clear, with head up. This will tell our emotions and mind not to be a mutterer and not to be afraid of the consequences.

[The Mystical Man]

Don’t dump your trash on my desk.
Who said I had to explain myself to you?
If you want to fight, find another enemy.
What if I made the demands on you that you make on me?
I won’t lift a finger to solve the problem you have caused.
I was not born to be the ear to your chattering mouth.
No, I don’t owe you a thing.
You are several years too late to play that trick on me.
How evil of you to try to drag me down to your low level.