One of the most beautiful experiences to have is a mystical experience. A mind-boggling occurrence that turns all of your present beliefs upside down. Shaken by what you observed or occurred, and at the same time, refusing to go into any fear reactions to what just happened. Usually, you explain away everything to keep your sanity. Try something new. Try not explaining, which is not usual; this leaves you in wonderment and quite baffled to such a degree that you question yourself as to what facts you actually saw. This is a glimpse into the higher world.
Maybe you have a superstitious friend, and they tell you something, and you see clearly what they believe is delusional. You also realize you can’t tell them it is, because they are so, so sure they are right. The mind can fool itself into believing what makes sense only to itself. It is faulty, and sometimes, to confuse things even more, it is exactly correct, so this leaves one unsure. Don’t be distracted, keep observing your mind.
Here’s a great example: You’re running late for an appointment, and can’t find your car keys. You had them or saw them earlier, but now they can’t be found. You gotta go, so you feverishly retrace your steps to see if you laid them down somewhere. To your delight, you find them already in your hand with something else you are carrying. So, an inner voice says to itself, boy, was that dumb, or you berate yourself.
There is a better way to handle this mistake, and that is by working to understand exactly what happened. Not what your mind says happened. Be interested. How could you be carrying the keys, and how could a different part of you not know this? We must ask the question, and it is so important, not to agree with all those nonsensical answers our mind comes up with. This practice works on any problem. Placing your attention, more attention, on even the smallest problem explains by self-observation what really happened.
You can carry a wrong belief or assumption for years and years. Through ruthless self-fact-finding and slowing down, you can discover more about how your mind and the whole of life work. Your self-knowledge is pure gold, for it explains your life to you. By working to understand, you place yourself in a position to have more mystical experiences. It is these occurrences that keep you fresh and alive in a way your imagination can’t conceive. You will witness your happiness level go up, and you will understand why you are on this earth.
Your sleepy present mind, which is drowning in all your past experiences, will not understand or want to understand all this. You, in reality, aren’t your past experiences; the problem is you recreate them every day, and believing this, they become real to you. There is “something else,” and it is superior to your present ways. And that is ok, your new wish for the higher has much more strength. You want out of the surrounding madness? Good, you are on the right road out.
P.S. Continuing your work to understand and going into action with any Vernon Howard exercise will reveal this “something else.” Your bad habit of misplacing your car keys will disappear from your life completely.
Hidden in this post is the door to the contented, peaceful life, where problems are seen so clearly that they never really become a problem for your new existence. Anyone who will take the steps to fall out of love with their old false nature will be replaced with the new Life.