“Leave It Alone,” the Exercise & Doorway to Another World.
If you were to experience a glimpse into another world where your day is not a struggle, your troubles turn into enlightening opportunities, and you view the universe as being very friendly, wouldn’t you want this every day? Well, this is so, even if up to now you have not experienced this.
“The mind can be a wall or an open gate before Reality, depending upon which one we make it.” -Vernon Howard.
To be crystal clear, you may have only experienced the wall life, the world teaches us this wall life is all there is, but for those who have dared to see more, this is viewed as a terrible, confining lie. The world is a stage, where all its actors and actresses are pretending they are happy and have found contentment. It is taboo to expose this.
Go into action with this marvelous exercise, “Leave It Alone.” Whenever you see your reactions, whether so called negative or positive, you do nothing to counter them. You leave it alone. You don’t try to fix it in any way. Your attention swings to your next reaction, where you do the same, see it, and ‘Leave that reaction alone.” You will start to go sane. You will observe that others around you aren’t aware of this secret. They are still repairing, fixing, and getting involved with their reactions. Mind games.
This exercises keeps you free of your wild imagination, and brings you back to the present moment. Life’s lessons happen in the present moment. When you are learning, you are also not burning. Burning meaning, not in thought, resenting, complaining, and wallowing in your regrets. This is the road to happiness, and you are now on it. This is the doorway.
P.S. Vernon gives this life-changing exercise in a talk dated 4/26/78 (S1).
“You will start to go sane, and you will know it from yourself.”
Thanks Steve.
A great lesson to learn. Note to self: Brain – remember the lesson!!
A big smile just crossed over my face.
‘The world teaches us this wall life is all there is.’ The world really does do this. Even in the tiniest examples that we receive as we grow up, the message is one of defeat. The life that human society teaches us is one of hiding out. If you play your hand perfectly things will only get a bit worse. That’s the best you can hope for! What a life of crashing boredom and despair! And the best thing is I cannot talk, there are hidden areas of my life where I will not even consider anything other than the wall life.
Thank God there is the quiet voice whispering ‘Maybe none of this really matters’. I listen to this voice when I stay true to the exercise ‘leave that reaction alone’.
Yes Leo, you can witness this ‘wall life’ out in the world. This mechanical life (wall life) was revealed to me yesterday when I was purchasing batteries at a hardware store, and the clerk asked me if I wanted my receipt. I said yes, and then stuck my credit card into their machine to pay. There was a problem with the machine reading my card, so I took it out and asked if I should re-insert it. The clerk fiddled with the machine, and then the transaction went through. Then, looking up, she asked if I wanted my receipt. Less than a minute had gone by since she ask me the first time, and I realized she was not present when she asked the first time and watching her reaction, which was not recalling she had asked me already, as I said, Yes, I ‘still’ want my receipt. There was no recollection she had already asked me.
I know this is small, but it was proof that we as humans are so mechanical in our daily lives. If you stay alert, the lessons are everywhere. The world is moving so fast, so everything gets missed. We as spiritual students of the higher life seek to be different.