Your Five Magic Steps to Truly Victorious Living
(an excerpt from Pathways to Perfect Living by Vernon Howard)
Esoteric wisdom quickly defeats whatever now defeats you. To gain this wisdom, let’s examine the five steps to victory:
1. The Event
2. The Disturbance
3. The Endurance
4. The Awakening
5. The Victory
Presently, you may understand only the first two steps, that is, an Event of some kind causes Disturbance. This is the limited life of most people, which you will transcend.
Your victorious effort begins with Endurance of the Disturbance. What does this mean? It means to observe the Disturbance, to stand aside and watch as it causes a nervous mind and body. It means you do not try to escape the Disturbance with a defense or an attack; it means you don’t explain or complain or resist. You simply watch. Endurance means exactly that — to endure, to let yourself get shaken up without objection. It helps to remember that what is shaking is trying to shake you loose. It is like shaking sour fruit off a tree to make room for sweet fruit.
As you permit Endurance to have its way, something magical appears. You begin to sense something fresh. You begin to understand that you are not permanently connected with the Disturbance which is your awakening. Then, Victory comes of itself. It happens. It is a real experience.
For instance, suppose an Event causes the Disturbance of feeling lost and empty. By practicing Endurance, you sense an Awakening to the true nature of these feelings, which provides final Victory. When this happens, even once, you will never be the same again. You have the beginning of the true view. And with it comes the ending of agitation, like unhooking yourself from a tractor that has dragged you over bumpy ground.
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Inner Life Exercise
Permit Endurance to have it’s way — something magical appears.
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If we put this exercise to work every day our lives change for the better. When we feel strong negative emotions we usually accept them because they are so strong. Ironically, we feel obligated to something that can only take us down a miserable road.
It takes courage to stand apart and just observe because we are so used to doing whatever our thoughts and feelings tell us to do. When starting this path it’s uncomfortable to cut the rope of negativity, but what could be more healthy and practical?
These 4 short paragraphs by Vernon are so helpful. We have been taught only about the first two steps, but that is ok… for now we can go onto our higher education; step 3, 4 & 5. Working with these steps shows us by personal experience that we are finally on the right road at last to getting out. Once we glimpse that this higher life really exists we have a new inner strength to dare to do things that before we were afraid of even think about. The climb is challenging because we meet parts of ourselves we were sure did not exist, but that’s ok for as we continue the climb up, we see things about our lives and the world which explains everything to us. The Creator wants us to be strong and not living the sad life of being a coward.
‘Endurance means exactly that — to endure, to let yourself get shaken up without objection.’
Thank goodness Mr. Howard shows us another way that I know I would never allow of myself! I do not have to be a winner! All I have to do is endure just like he said. So nice and beautiful to know there is a higher alternative to a life of constant disturbance.