Don’t Do The Accepting Or Rejecting
You watch and see how soon you are kidnapped when you go out of this door. Just know that that is happening. If you see that, you’ll also know why you barely missed that car going out of the driveway. Because you weren’t paying attention to your driving when you were going out the driveway which you should have done. You were thinking about something else.
You see, distraction is always a pain that masquerades as a pleasure. Anything that takes you away from awareness of what you are doing at the moment, and I’m doing it now. Do it for yourself right now. Do you know that you’re seated there listening to me, or are you fixed visually with your eyes up here?
All right. Turn your invisible eyes back on yourself. I’ll do it too. And know that you’re seated here. You can know that I’m seated here. And you can be dimly aware of the person on your left or on your right.
Now that’s the beginning, that you know that the physical self is there. Go much deeper than that. Can you see yourself think right now while you’re listening?
As a result of this, long practice of this, while you are seated in this class, you can do what I am constantly doing from this chair up here which is—I’ll tell you what I’m doing right now, as an example. I am talking to you right now. I know my hands are like this and my legs are crossed. I know the expression on my face is fairly neutral. Now while all this awareness is going on, I’m aware of you out there. I can see this lady and this man. I can see your varied expressions.
Now that’s good. That’s a good start, isn’t it, to know that you are here and the other person is there. That’s good. That’s both opposites together. I am here and you are there. That’s bringing the two together. You are aware of the whole thing, aren’t you? Not just you. You are not lost in your thoughts like that. You’re seeing the whole room.
Much deeper than that, now as I am talking to you, I am watching my mind here and it’s fascinating. As I’m talking to you, obviously the movement of the lips, and of the tongue, they’re activated by something inside. Now what’s inside? It’s all these thoughts that are coming up. Thoughts of communication. I’m using the English language which goes into a mechanical center, so there is no effort there.
But I’m watching thoughts come up and I can even see right while I’m talking to you a choice of two words to use. And instantly, because of certain logic I use the one that seems to be best for the occasion. On another occasion I might use the exact opposite.
The point is this: You can watch your own mind operate, you can see your thoughts come up just as we illustrated in the talk of a while back. Remember the man was sitting at his window watching the trucks go by? And all he had to do was just sit there and note which ones went by.
You can watch what thoughts go through your mind and if you don’t—now listen—if you don’t do the choosing, if you don’t do the accepting or rejecting, the right thoughts will always come up. But if you choose, do you see what is happening? If you choose the thought that’s the self-protective thought, the accusing thought toward another person, then you have kept yourself alive as the error-maker because you have kept yourself alive. And the self is always the error-maker.
From now on, when your thoughts come up, just let them come up and watch them as they come up. Do not choose. If you choose you have re-created yourself on the basis of delusion, on the basis of greed for money, or the desire or yearning for another person. Let me tell you that Truth has made you complete in yourself! You don’t need to yearn for anyone. You don’t need any kind of excitement. You can have right entertainment. You can have people in your life. You can have sex. You can have a nice relationship with another person. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about whether you have put Truth first in your life or not.
Because if you do, then all else is well, is it not? If you put Truth—is not Truth complete in itself? But you don’t understand this yet. You don’t get it yet. Because you’re still comparing. You still think that another person who has a million dollars and you have 50 dollars, you still think that he has an advantage!
Just to begin with, look at his life? Look at a rich man sometime. What on earth do you see? You see an empty man. That wealthy man or that man with all the friends and the power, the political power, he’s running around, an empty barrel trying to convince you that he’s full of life. Does he still deceive you? Well, he will if you’re still trying to do the same thing yourself.
When there’s an emptiness inside us which is voluntary, we don’t care—we don’t care how our life unfolds because it’s not my responsibility or yours. If you don’t care in the right way, in the higher way, then something will come down and do it for you.
Transcript from a talk in 1980 by Vernon Howard
Mankind does not realize they have untapped inner powers that need only daily development, which would change everything for the better. Deep down we all realize we could be doing much better than we presently do. Because of this refusal to grow up, humanity remains on the same troublesome level, never realizing all could be different. Being anxious over the future keeps us stuck on a very uncomfortable level which repeats itself over and over—keeping us in futile states of mind. This wrong thinking has become our bad habit. There are nice heavenly inner states that render a nice happy, peaceful existence. What could be more important than being content with the real you, your higher self?