By Vernon Howard

Copyright 1983 New Life Foundation

Man's painful problem can be explained in two sentences: He does not know what is happening to him. He pretends he does. He tries frantically to convince himself that his pretense is certainty, but fearfully fails. He leaves a trail of wreckage and heartache for himself and others.

But he can be certain. He needs only to learn how to listen to a power higher than his own agitated mind. By wanting life-liberty more than he wants anything else he will sense the existence of this higher force. With this the very Secret of Life stands before him, ready for his advance and acceptance.

Right now, as you read this page, there are two choices before you:

Choose to change. You will be shown exactly how to choose in favor of yourself, how to switch from a bewildered believer to a confident knower. A sea captain may believe the weather will be calm, but that belief does not stop an attacking storm. Look at society and notice how hundreds of opposing beliefs separate men from men and all from God. Individual belief in the false ego-self travels outward to gullible belief in human charlatans and foolish social schemes.

Belief is for the self-deceived who prefer appearances of rightness over a true nature. Spiritual security is for the honest person who sees that mere belief always includes a lost believer.

You can believe in yourself or you can be yourself. Only being yourself is good, for its spiritual nature dwells far above believing and deceiving humanity. Being yourself and being self-awakened are the same thing. There is nothing on earth better than being an awakened human being.

Don't try to make sense out of this world. It has none. Once you see that it makes no sense at all, it all makes sense. It is like looking at a puzzling headline in a newspaper to suddenly realize it is ten years old. Just make sense of yourself for yourself. That is all you need to do. Everything else will then be as clear as the room you are now in. You will be as free of problems as if you never had them in the first place, including secret difficulties with love or sex or male-female relations.

The reason most people fail to make it out of their own personal nuthouse is because they don't know they are in one. A man resents being called a phony precisely because he is one, unseen and unadmitted. A woman refuses to understand tragic conditions for fear the trail of responsibility will lead right back to herself, which it will. Both of them lurk in the shadows of life, ready to pounce on anyone who tells them to stop believing their own self-flattering propaganda. Their refusal to see themselves is their refusal of life. Their pretense of sanity prevents sanity.

Don't fear anyone. No one can scare you when you know more about him than he knows about himself.

A man with a mature mind and a happy life told the following story. "In younger years I was sliding downhill in life with the aid of those I thought were my friends. On one occasion I was about to step over the line into a dangerous and punishing mistake. A counselor, who saw what was happening, invited me to sit down to discuss things. Fortunately for me, I agreed, and listened with interest. He asked me to see that a true friend could not have a sneering and evil nature. That hit me like a flash of lightning. I saw my companions as the harmful influences that they were. I never went back to them."

Your hike toward a higher life passes thru three main areas:

1. Self-exploration must come first. Out of this self-knowledge grows favorable change, both within yourself and in exterior events. Feeling as if they live dangerously close to the edge of a cliff, people want to rebel against fearful conditions, but they don't know who or what to rebel against. This unpleasant feeling fades as they become students of the secret life. They move away from scary inner places to high and safe ground. With self-wisdom this can also be your new residence.

2. Your exploration of human society reveals many surprises. You may have heard that people are not what they seem -- now you shockingly see its full horror for yourself. Gone are all the dangerous delusions that people are basically nice and will express love if just given a chance. If given a chance they will grab your gifts and attack you for not giving more. But you need not be the victim of a society in which man hunts man. One of your finest discoveries is that a cruel man can't be in two places at one time. Wherever he is, you can be elsewhere.

3. Higher Truth awaits the explorer who has happily lost confidence in human solutions. Your real purpose in life is to discover how spiritual medicine cures personal ills. This is also your delight. The cure begins as you see how society has given you certain roles to play which at first look like fun but which finally turn into nightmares. Haunted humans are frustrated hourly by trying to live up to society's demands to be financially or socially successful. Don't listen to defeated society. Your pleasant duty is to unlearn all such nonsensical roles and live your own free life in your own sunny way.

Like an interesting life? These discoveries offer the only true interesting life there is. Take all you want.

ANSWERS FOR DAILY POWER

Q. How can I stop getting involved with wrong people and eventual heartache?

A. Ask if you want to get involved with someone just like you because that is what you are going to get.

Q. May we have an inspiring idea?

A. You can be stronger than someone's frown toward you.

Q. How can I realize that I don't really know what my life is all about?

A. When someone says you don't know and you get mad, you don't know.

Q. You are the first man to tell me I can be as scared as I want, so may I hear more of this fascinating idea?

A. Be completely scared. Shake all you wish. Don't call in your usual bluffs of having courage. You will now notice the absence of your usual fakeries of being strong. This reveals your need for higher help, and that honest need turns into power for real strength.

Q. Can we see thru human hypocrisy without turning bitter?

A. If you are bitter you don't see thru hypocrisy -- you are defeated by it. To understand hypocrisy you must be above it, not on its low level.

Q. We must inwardly escape from this crazy world, but how?

A. By not wanting anything from it. This is easy because you don't need anything from it. You need grief? Please!

Q. How do you define spiritual sanity?

A. A pleasant condition in which your inner nature is never at the mercy of person or place or event.

Q. Why do I feel so insecure?

A. Because you have so many securities, like friends and activities, which you sense are impermanent. These are mere beliefs about security, not security itself. You are permanently secure when you have no securities, simply because you have nothing to be insecure about.

Q. What will I lose along this higher path?

A. Your nervous nonsense which you now think is personal wisdom. See how nice it all is?

Q. I want to take the inner voyage, but what about my fear of starting?

A. The voyage is marvelous. The danger is in remaining where you are.

Q. Does my own wrongness really cause my own shocks?

A. Of course. You can't separate the nature of a runaway truck with its frequent crashes.

Q. What is wrong with me?

A. You are sinking without thinking. This means you employ ordinary thought to banish problems caused by thought in the first place. That is like asking a bat to lead you out of his cave into the sunshine. You will know what is beyond ordinary thought when you go beyond ordinary thought.

Q. Why do we always fall for the tricks and deceits of this crazy world?

A. The chorus in the lunatic asylum sings such seductive songs that the visitors decide to stay.

Q. What is the meaning of life?

A. Stop imposing your meaning on it and you will know. You give meaning from yourself when you should receive meaning from above yourself.

Q. How does higher intelligence protect us from this crazy world?

A. Intelligence knows all about dangerous stupidity, but stupidity knows nothing about intelligence.

Q. Why do people crave to feel important?

A. Because they are senseless. You are the slave of everyone who makes you feel important, and the enemy of all who deny you the feeling. There is no natural need to feel important, only a need to feel free.

Q. Are not our complaints about this anxious life justified?

A. Complaints are lies. You insist on living in a haunted house and then have the nerve to complain about spooks. Get out of the haunted house built by your own delusions.

Q. What about forgiveness of follies?

A. Awareness of folly is everything. Your sins are forgiven when you no longer need to ask God what they are.

Q. I know certain things are wrong, such as worry over my sex life, but how do I stop?

A. See worry as unnecessary. Your true nature never does useless work, so join its efficiency.

Q. How are spiritual ideas valuable?

A. Humans are like a man standing in the doorway to a dark room, fearing to enter but having no place else to go. Spiritual ideas supply a new and needed direction toward right places.

BRIDGES TO A NEW WORLD

Select a subject listed below which appeals to your needs of the moment. Read and ponder each of the six numbered items. You will quickly discover a needed strength or solution.

People are eager to find something to do with themselves -- something with real meaning and value. You have found it. Release yourself. Pass thru the self-walls and walk beyond yourself. The new view is magnificent.

Wise Exercises... 18, 22, 47, 68, 73, 95

Useful Stories... 5, 36, 48, 53, 66, 93

Powerful Truths... 1, 12, 49, 55, 88, 92

Inner Healings... 3, 15, 33, 40, 77, 84

Protective Ideas... 2, 10, 23, 37, 67, 91

Instant Powers... 6, 17, 35, 44, 52, 98

Practical Actions... 7, 32, 41, 56, 70, 97

Appealing Aids... 11, 30, 50, 57, 79, 100

Pleasant Paths... 19, 31, 45, 65, 71, 89

Tricky People... 8, 14, 29, 46, 69, 87

Strong Lessons... 4, 39, 43, 62, 78, 86

Inspiring Guides... 16, 20, 27, 54, 61, 99

1. LOOK UP

Man's plans cannot cure human ills because his schemes are the very cause of social chaos. You cannot end social madness, nor is it required of you. Your adventure is to find higher answers. To be wise with money, find yourself. To not be shaken by bad news, welcome spiritual sanity. To have pleasant human relations, live above human nature. With the Spirit of Truth at your side you can take on the whole crazy world and you will win.

You invite someone over and then wish you had stayed silent. You buy something and the next day wonder why. You agree to help someone and hope he forgets. Your mind changes directions as often as a nervous butterfly. For relief, establish spiritual headquarters within yourself and follow its guidance only. You will nicely know what you really want at every moment. You will never again ask your nutty friends to tell you who you are. You know from yourself. Thank heaven.

These teachings are for those who want to live, not merely appear to live. Fighting is not living. Living is liberty from conflict. You either understand yourself and your life or you don't. Come on -- admit that you don't. The perfect way to win a sane and happy life is to not think like most people think. Most people are creepy creatures. If you want to understand human behavior, just realize that someone left the zoo gate open.

Only miserable people go to war against each other. This includes battling males and females. Their chief weapons are demands and deceits. A woman nags a man to get her demands and then hates him for removing her beloved complaints. A man slyly guides a woman to the bedroom by first escorting her thru the cafe and the theater. Too bad. They could have enjoyed each other. A few do. They are the ones who know what this publication is all about.

The citizens of a town behaved in strange and foolish ways. A detective discovered a tunnel beneath the town's main street. The tunnel concealed scientific machines that sent evil suggestions up to the minds of the unsuspecting people. This actually happens. Unaware humans hear and obey weird influences from their own immature nature, while believing they behave wisely. What are you listening to? Find out. Your discovery heals.

People try to drive you crazy in ways you don't see. You don't see the difference between what they say and what they really think. Alertly listen to what people say and how they say it. Let them give themselves away with a sneaky manner or a forced cheerfulness. You need not reply to anyone the way he wishes or pressures you to reply. See what he wants, then reply according to your wants. Your reply is right because your life is sacred. Live daily with this.

Anything that helps anyone to awaken to True Life is good. Whatever prevents self-awakening is evil. Take paper and pencil. Make long lists of both Good and Evil ways. Under Good you might list: welcome higher ideas, never excuse self-errors, do not value what society values. List under Evil: enjoy hostility, practice self-deceit, call useless actions important. Study your lists. Live only from the Good. Night will turn into day.

Your friends have definite ideas of the kind of person you should be toward them. No matter what you want to be they insist on seeing you thru their own desires for rewards. They believe you should be their helpful neighbor or romantic lover or future partner. Recognize these cunning and invisible pressures upon you. You need not yield to their demands and you must not yield. Don't let their dreams turn into your nightmares. Be who you want to be.

It is not crazy to see you have nothing to say about your own life. It is the dawn of spiritual sanity. What is crazy is to nervously act as if you have self-direction while inwardly running wild. This is surrender to deceit and defeat. To win, catch yourself acting out a role of false confidence while actually trembling. This defeats deceit. Why imagine yourself a king when you can truly own the throne? Be an owner.

Let a nervous thought cause healthy investigation, not punishing desperation. You may fear making mistakes toward someone you need, and worry over losing him. Investigate. You think troubles will come with the loss of the valued person, like loneliness and insecurity. No! You wrongly take yourself as someone who can get hurt. Your false self can get hurt, but you are not it. Only good can happen to your true self, so live confidently under its guidance.

Jewels appear valueless in a dark room, but dance with light and color out in the sun. This explains why most people don't value Truth. Their inner darkness cannot appreciate the truly valuable. Unwisely thinking they have the only kind of life there is, they resentfully submit to suppressed rage all day long. How strange they never ask, "Could there be more?" There is. Just ask for it. How nice to know a gift is on the way.

You cannot escape the punishment for choosing what is wrong. You cannot escape the reward for choosing what is right. Here is how to develop power to choose the rewarding right. Realize that only the right is painless. If it hurts it is all wrong. For example, in an attempt to ease his pain a rejected man may pretend that he did the rejecting. But wrong self-deception is also painful. Choose right, feel right, just as it feels good to choose flowers over weeds.

Don't let anyone interfere with your inner life. A meddler always pretends he wants to come in for your own good, but you will be robbed. His real motive is loot and tyranny. One sly method of interference is to try to set off an emotional explosion inside you with criticisms like "Don't be so dumb" and "It's all your fault." An intruder has an empty life. Don't let him fill it at your expense. You don't need a traitor.

The road to Lunatic-land is crowded with a shoving mob. Stay off it. Avoid these mental wrecks: A. He knows his rights more than he knows his wrongs. B. She pretends indifference but is out to grab. C. His idea of fun is to slam a door in someone's face. D. She resents anything that takes her mind off herself. E. He hates the emptiness of his success. F. She hints that her failure is your fault. What on earth is there to want from a sickie except his absence?

Use the period after a quarrel for self-healing. Don't retreat into sulking or accusing. And don't fall into ego-saving or shame-burning. Behave as if the present moment is not the same time period as the quarrel, for it is not the same. Forget the clock and relax. This snaps the time-chain of negative memories and places you within the present free moment. Never mind how the other person behaves. Cure yourself of yesterday.

If you had no worries, who would you be? That worries you. That is why you want to worry. You think that anxiety supplies a sure self, a comforting idea of who you are, someone with troubles but at least someone. Do not be deceived. Worry is a crazy impersonator. You are not your worried self at all. You can think worry into existence but you can't think it away. This proves there is no real self-power in self-concern. Drop self-worry. Pick up self-certainty.

Remember the four letters RRRR. They mean Revealed Rightness Releases Relief. Drop the barrier of the false self and let the light flood thru you. For example, you may know someone whose only reaction to his pressures is to attack and blame you. Know that he is a fiery comet plunging to self-shattering. That is his choice, not yours. His folly cannot reach and hurt you. Feel relieved, refreshed. You have chosen Life.

Discovering new worlds within yourself is a natural need with rich rewards. The agony of a closed mind is the absence of new discoveries. So release your power of self-discovery. Do you wonder why you often feel painfully guilty toward others, especially those who want things from you? Intelligent people have discovered this reply to others: "Any time you try to make me feel responsible for your foolishness you are wasting your time." Discover this free world for yourself.

Buying some land, a man impulsively started to build his home on it. When half done his friends told him the house was faulty and would keep him in discomfort. The man sensibly told himself, "I don't care how long I worked on it -- if it is wrong it is wrong. I will make it right." Don't be angry or afraid when told you are building a wrong life. Just sensibly start all over with new building materials. How sane!

Your problem is your thinking. Your solution is to see the difference between right and wrong thoughts. Don't expect wrong thoughts to help in this self-rescue. You won't see a criminal looking for a policeman and you won't see self-ignorance seeking self-intelligence. A wrong idea can appear quite charming while being harming, as when it whispers the lie that hostility is healthy. Just stay close to these teachings. All will be well with you and your mind. Always.

Heartache can be seen so clearly that it is only a word and no longer an experience. Heartache is a useless feeling from your false nature which you presently prefer over your real nature. Whether you know it or not, you actually fear the absence of heartache because it seems to fill your emptiness. But heartache is emptiness itself. Instead of fighting the fact of the uselessness of heartache, join it. It saves you from heartache.

For a healthy day, use this exercise. Interrupt your mind several times each day to ask, "Where was I a moment ago?" You will be appalled to see how often you were wandering in dangerous places, mentally and emotionally. Maybe you were in a storm of anger or in a jungle of despair. This insight urges you to stay in quiet places where you are in control of yourself. Self-command means you don't bother to notice whether society pelts you with rocks or with flowers.

Everyone you meet is slyly frantic to give you his own nature. A burdened man wants to drop burdens on you. A wacky woman hopes to lure you into her lunatic life. A goofy group wants to paint you with its own crazy colors. These vicious vandals care nothing about their own lives and therefore cannot care anything about you. It is all wrong to permit others to be a burden to you. Release yourself from them. That is all right.

Careless people say, "But these higher ideas seem so negative." This is painful and dangerous delusion. A negative mind looks at Truth, but cannot take its brilliance, and so turns back to see itself, which it foolishly thinks is negative Truth. Darkness sees only darkness. Such ignorant people would call a scientist negative if he warned them against drinking impure water. Let positive Truth declare what is negative. It makes you positive.

People ask, "If I see social injustice, should I not try to correct it?" Answer: Who is doing the correcting? What is your actual nature beneath your show of concern for others? How much greed and deceit and violence is concealed inside you? What self-gain and self-glory do you want? When that person tries to correct anything he ruins everything. Leave the world alone and correct yourself. Only that is good.

Who can be saved from this crazy world? Those who listen to the heavenly shout: "Man, look what you are doing! You attack the very Light of Truth that alone can lift you above this evil earth. Set aside your false idols of words and imaginations. Look at your own frantic face and manners and be shocked by what they mean -- that you are lost. Look and don't lie. For your own sake, hear these words." Those who hear and obey will inherit life above this earth.

You don't find the answers to life because you don't ask the questions. You don't ask the questions for fear there might not be any answers. There are. Find them by shockingly seeing that your answers are not the answers and by remaining in that state of unknowing. Now, all questions are answered, like a sailor in stormy seas who receives his captain's guidance. When your answers hurt, let the answers heal.

One woman admitted, "My mind is like two radios facing each other, each broadcasting a different program." Crazy thoughts attack everyone. You need not fear them. You can be stronger than maddening or embarrassing thoughts because you are not these thoughts. You are someone higher than all riotous thoughts about intimate sex or family fights or anything else. Just be you. The flooding thoughts you now fear will one day fear you, and will leave your mind at rest.

There is a big difference between the way someone appears to think toward you and the way he really thinks. It is incredibly important to see this. That man who impresses you with his helpfulness -- beware. He is like an exciting ad to a terrible movie. Don't enter his dark theater. You will be robbed and tossed back into the streets. God does not want you to think people are nice. He wants you to see thru human evil. Do so.

A problem met rightly fades fast. Meet an anxiety with these two powers: A. Situation. B. Solution. Clearly describe your situation to yourself. You might fear your own weakness may lead you into trouble with someone, financially, sexually, any way. Next, realize that the solution resides in the strength of new spiritual insight, not in mental acrobatics. Know that a new nature reveals higher places to live, like a map reveals new and wondrous worlds to explore.

Stop bumping into yourself. This means you expect to be treated one way but are abruptly treated another way. You bump into your own delusions about the nature of yourself and others. Take this cure. See that earth is populated and wrecked by wanderers who don't know what to do with themselves. Don't expect anything intelligent from lost sheep. You don't need them. You need the free country beyond yourself. Journey there.

Why does a loser, who may appear happy, remain sick of life? Because he won't place himself where his delusions could be exposed as dangerous. He hides out like a wretched swamp-outcast who won't leave for fear of losing his security! He takes his fantasy as fun when it is really his heartache. His rescue is to casually walk away from familiar but hurtful ideas and then see, "Well, I lost nothing of value after all!" Anyone can exit any swamp like this.

Have you noticed that when you explain a problem to yourself that you end up more confused than before? Correct this. When puzzled, don't seize the first answer that jumps up in your mind. Instead, remain aloof from all offered answers. Bravely do this in spite of the temporary discomfort it causes. Your aloofness closes the door to wrong and impulsive solutions and opens a new door to peaceful views. Make this happy way your way.

Practice this secret for sane strength: Make a positive act toward a negative fact. If you are weak and wobbly, that is a negative fact. The positive act is to refuse to take sarcastic accusations from your weakness as authoritative. Have you noticed how your weakness snarls in contempt at you? Don't take these insults as official. They are lies spoken by a dummy operated by a ventriloquist called Evil. The power called Good wants to speak to you. Listen. You will hear.

Humans limp thru life like wounded soldiers on a battlefield. This is because no one sees that everything he touches turns into himself. There is no difference between his inner and outer worlds, but he lies about this to protect his pretense of innocence. Dumbness is its own punishment. Stay out of it and let rightness itself reveal what is right. Intelligence is its own reward. Seek revelation, not repetition. Revelation glows.

Any outer condition that now hurts you can be replaced by an inner power that heals you. Just find your way back to yourself. All will be new. You won't be hurt by sickies with hatred in their eyes. You won't feel blackmailed by someone who knows your secret past. You won't fall victim to people who try to drop fear into your mind. You won't be under the power of any hideous human. A weasel never attacks a lion.

Talking to the average man about something higher than sex and money is like talking to a rabbit about a rainbow. Only a new realization can jolt his journey away from self-mania and toward the real world. He must see with astonishment that everything he does either builds or wrecks him. He must therefore drop his furious fantasies in which he dreams that his defeats are victories. Let this new realization appear to you. Watch yourself rise above yourself.

Sick society has a compulsion to draw you into its madness. In its insecurity it can't leave you alone. Its emptiness makes endless demands upon you, no matter how evil or ridiculous are its claims. Make an effort to see this during today. Society invites you to a masquerade party, and at midnight the smiling dancers change into vicious monsters. Refuse their invitations. Stay home. Their evil stops at the door of your inner castle.

When your behavior really improves, both you and your friends notice it by comparison. But now you worry over their sudden realization that your past behavior was in fact all wrong. You feel exposed and hypocritical, like a slave caught impersonating a king. Gladly go thru this ego-humiliation. The blow to your false pride powerfully lifts your free spirit. Dare constantly to just stand there and be seen as mistaken. Volunteer for self-liberty this brave way.

False love creates more citizens of Lunaticland than a barrel of problems. This includes the raving religionist and the sympathetic faker. Hatred is their only true love. Your pain is their pleasure. Their idea of heaven is to make your life hell. With contorted faces they attack fiendishly the smallest appearance of real compassion. See thru these false lovers. There are more than you see. Let Truth alone teach you the true nature of love.

A man can be mentally sane and yet be spiritually insane. Mental sanity is the ability to handle daily duties at home or office with reasonable skill. But a socially competent person can be a violent madman from the spiritual viewpoint, as with a clever inventor whose new weapon murders millions. Remember this difference. Seek help only from spiritual sanity. With its help all becomes right. It steers your boat safely around the rocks in the river.

People think they are running toward a self-chosen goal when they are really running away from a self-created tragedy. They twist facts into flattering fantasies which then twist them into useless objects. The masses can have spiritual sickness, but only an individual can have spiritual health. Let the dull and unseeing stare of humans you see everywhere ring the alarm that you must not become like them. You must not become like them.

Don't say, "The world out there scares me crazy." This attributes power to lunatic society. Say, "I am scared crazy by my confusion toward the world out there." This pulls imaginary power out of the world, leaving room for self-change. Don't think that the world scares you. That keeps you under fear of a world that will not change. But you can change. When you are unafraid there is no scary world out there at all! This simple switch attracts sanity. Switch today.

Don't expect your friends to get excited over becoming sane. They think they already are. That is their delusion -- and suppressed agony. Who can be helped? Whoever asks, "Please help me break out of myself." You don't even need to know who you are talking to. Just send your sincere request out into the universe. It will be heard. Help will come -- and be different from what you imagined. Your life can have any healing desired by your heart.

Sick society is the fierce foe of sanity. The average person is a touchy little neurotic who flares up with hateful revenge against anyone who exposes his actual evil. The worst thing that can ever happen to a human being is to remain stuck with himself -- which is what his madness loves. Beware of anyone who lives from the philosophy, "If I want it, that makes it right." Such a man roams the streets simply because they ran out of room at the lunatic asylum.

Anyone can practice to increase healthy sanity, just as music or science is practiced. One rewarding method is to secretly study people to discover a man's slavery to Attack Back. Attack Back is any unhealthy reaction, such as rude remarks, whining demands, slanderous lies. The stronger the Attack Back the weaker the man. Lacking intelligence for a sane reply, his heaven is to hurt. Your study of this human lunacy drives you sane.

A young woman was strolling a college campus when a uniformed guard told her she was not permitted in certain areas. She replied, "That does not apply to me any more -- I've graduated." The guard smiled and left. Like sad restrictions to not apply to you any more? Like something higher than feeling offended often? It is fine progress to rise above "Why do people offend me?" to "Why do I feel offended?" Stop giving yourself a reason for crying and crying will stop.

Concealed anxiety rules millions of people. No matter how happy or active they seem -- they are desperate. Of no use to themselves, they fake being of use to others. Their hell is their hidden hysteria. It is all so senseless because there is a way to become truly happy. Walk apart from their dangerous delusions. Ask yourself, "For what reason should I continue to secretly tremble all day?" Answer yourself, "No reason."

Ever notice how seldom you meet a pleasant person? Gloomies and grouchies are so common you forget there is another way. Know for sure that nothing exterior can create a cheerful interior. A person either suffers from his own unpleasant nature or is gladdened by his own sunny self. Let spiritual sanity shine thru. Self-wholeness is like a bright light in the window. Even when caught out in dark events of life, you remain pleasant, for you see the way home.

Man is hurt and baffled by an unexpected event, like a bird unable to understand the absence of a fallen nest. You can be new. These lessons supply perfect personal security which no shocking incident or obnoxious person can shake. For instance, you will remain totally free from a brute whose sick idea of strength is to try to hurt you. Your strong state is the Light of Life within you, brightly revealing the upward path.

Think of something valuable you have learned to do, perhaps a business method or when cooking. Well, learning about life is a thousand times more rewarding than these. Appreciate learning. Take a fresh and eager look at the power of learning something new about yourself. Learning is a natural need that breaks down one wall after another to let you roam as free as a stream, enjoying everything and bothered by nothing. Memorize and practice: Learn life-liberty.

A man insisted upon driving an abandoned road that cut thru the mountains. When warned of danger he laughed it off, boasting that he knew all about the road. One night he barely escaped a landslide -- which shook him awake to his folly. Are you tired of driving nervously thru life? Take the higher highway. It starts by seeing that you don't win ego-thrills -- you are stuck with them. This self-revealing is self-healing.

Use every crisis to build inner strength. Here is how. When a problem jumps up, set aside the usual habit of breaking down with tears and anger. Then, try to understand that these emotions are punishments, not aids. Get tired of being betrayed by tears and anger which promise relief but deliver grief. You can have either breakdowns or insights, but not both. The insight is within the absence of the breakdown. Use this to rise above this crazy world.

When anyone declares he can help you out, watch out! He can only help you to become like he is, for that is all he really has. A sweet-talking charlatan can give you only his sourness. A faker with an outer show of strength can give you only his dark despair. Look closely at a human helper. Do you really want to be like him? Certainly not. Send this strong message to every cruel deceiver: "I want to be me, not you."

Give in, not up. Give in to self-newness, not up to self-defeat. Millions are unaware they have given up. A quitter is one who: A. Imagines he is normal. B. Has a crisis a day. C. Fills his emptiness with trash. D. Loves his sour nature. E. Lies when he explains. F. Drives himself crazy with riotous thoughts. Don't imitate these millions. Give in to the Truth that can make you whole. It can be done as certainly as you are now reading this page.

Imagine a hiker lost in the woods. Rescuers on a hill shine a strong spotlight down into the woods, hoping he will see and turn toward it. The hiker does so and is rescued. How are you lost? Afraid that your lover will grow tired of you? Worry that screaming society will steal your sanity? Know that the rescuing Spotlight of Truth is always shining. Just turn until you see. You can learn to turn. You have already started.

The invisible spiritual world creates the visible social world. Human life is activated by an energy far superior to physical or mental energy. Man's only life is that which comes from the world of spiritual light. Man cannot take a step or speak a word by himself, but must be energized by a level far higher than his own. Deluded and arrogant people think they control themselves, which is their tragedy. Let the Supreme Light guide your life. That is peaceful sanity.

Suppose you hear distressing news, perhaps about the loss of something. Rambling and rumbling thoughts take over your mind. You are gone, carried off by a twisting emotional tornado. You must stop this from happening. You must remain with yourself. Declare your insight into this cruel kidnapper by stating, "You are trying to steal my mind, but I refuse to let go." This idea will one day turn into a spiritual power that keeps you safe.

A student of the inner path asked his teacher, "How can I race forward faster?" Said the teacher, "To race more face more. Start by calling things by their right names. Don't call your smiles personal pleasantness. Call them forced fakeries by which you hope to get something for yourself. Don't call your praise of a person or group a sign of your intelligent devotion. Call it your insecurity trying to appear loving and loved." This is how to find yourself.

Inner progress includes a stage called "What's that?" You exclaim this when first sighting a healthy fact. It is like a soldier in battle, unsure of another distant soldier until he recognizes the friendly uniform. The average home is a school in which everyone teaches everyone else to be scared of life. Maybe you reacted "What's that?" to that fact. Know that any damage done to you in a cold home can be cured in sanity's sunshine.

People want to drive you crazy, for this is how they dominate and control you. One evil method is to give you permission to hate others. Anyone who tells you that you are a persecuted victim who has a right to rage is trying to make you a victim of his vicious lies. Giving you danger gives him a devilish smile of triumph. Having lost his own life he is eager to make you lose yours. Detect this maniac. As a clue, he publicly appears normal, even noble.

Suppose you think that a certain person likes you. But you hear he said bad things about you in front of your friends. At first you are hurt, but a second viewpoint lights up your mind. Now you are delightfully free of him! You need no longer anxiously try to keep his friendship! That part of your life is recovered. Now go on to your next victory. This higher viewpoint is new magic in which all problems turn into solutions.

A sad man asked a friend, "Why don't people like me?" The friend replied, "Tell me exactly what you want them to like." The sad man thought it over. Humans go crazy trying to be loved. No one who surrenders to the self-obsession of being loved is ever loved. Don't try to arouse affection in others. That is like trying to relieve hunger by thinking about food. And don't try to repair your broken dreams about love. Instead, wake up. Love is there. It always was.

See desperation as an uninvited guest who should be dismissed promptly. Your own clear mind supplies sane and happy days. You never really enjoy another person or place. You enjoy your own right feelings toward them. All enjoyment is self-harmony, so it is useless to try to find someone to make you happy. Desperation is separation, so return to yourself. You are yourself when you don't think about yourself.

A scientist was in a forest studying wildlife. Some campers invited him to join them. He politely explained, "I am here for another purpose." So are you here for another purpose. Your purpose is to not feel clumsy before people, to not worry over survival, to not be invaded by sub-human relatives. Don't apologize your life away. Tell the bewitching world, "I am here for another purpose than you -- to break out of the dark circle of society." Let nothing stop you.

People ask, "But why is life so tough?" and "Why was he born rich and I born poor?" Stop tormenting yourself with such questions. An evil force laughs with cruel glee when you fall into this pain. When this happens, do just one thing. Simply see how the question torments you. Since torment is useless, drop the question. If it tries to return, drop it again. You will soon learn to ask right questions with happy answers.

Self-correction is a good sign of being sorry for hurting yourself with wrong ideas. And self-correction produces self-health. At the top of a fresh page write Today's Corrections. List and review your self-correcting insights. Examples: A. Only action toward inner change makes life make sense. B. Vanity is unconnected with sanity. C. Men dislike Truth because they can't argue with it. D. All sick people think they are healthy. E. Hopes must not be called securities.

Lost humans glorify and dramatize their misery. They like being tossed about by waves of doubt. Their ignorance provides an excuse for secret cruelty which looks like happiness to their lunacy. Anyone who practices public dramatics has evil intentions toward his audience. Detect these crazy actors. See thru the loving helper, the persecuted martyr, the wise leader. Don't fear to lose your public idols. They will be replaced by personal powers.

When life threatens to hurt you, just ask, "Who said it has to be this way?" Look around. You won't find anyone who says you must remain hurt and confused. Practice this exercise in self-awakening every time you feel defeated. You won't find an enemy there because there is no foe outside your own misunderstanding of yourself. You simply fear nothing which appears to be something. You now have in your hands something with which you can fear nothing.

Man, alone in a world he can neither escape nor endure, incredibly turns to secret crime for relief, which never comes. His deceit and bribery never fill his emptiness. So the best news anyone can ever hear is this: God exists. Evil men try to argue God out of existence, but they might as well try to argue away the sun. God exists. Live only from this. You will remain safe, like a king behind his strong castle walls.

Here is how to be your own best friend. Know that the lies you tell yourself are the same lies you are eager to hear from others. Deceitfully believing that you are doing what is best for yourself, you cling to those who agree with your fakery. You think they are your true friends, when they are really traitors who scorn you enough to glue you to your sad act. A woman said, "He was the only man who loved me enough to quietly tell me I was all wrong." Remember this.

One word can turn darkness to day. The word is However. Don't just cry "I feel defeated" but add "However, I can change all that." Don't just complain "Everything seems against me" but add "However, I can see life in a new way." However, keeps you cheerfully speeding past your usual stopping place, like a fast train rushing past a desert town. When problems slow you down, speed up with However. Solutions are just ahead.

Have you ever agreed to do something with someone but were later sorry? Time to stop. Tricky people tell you they know what is best for you, but they don't. They know only what they want from you. Don't play the other man's game. Stay out of it. Look for the concealed trap in all human offers. Refuse to enter it. Don't let anyone talk you out of what you know is best for you. Remember, your right life is stronger than the wrong lives of everyone else on earth.

A businessman finally cured a daily pain. The pain started when people criticized his actions. He saw the real reason for their anger. Being insecure, they expected him to act in a way that supported their shaky plans and beliefs. When he refused they turned sarcastic. The cure came as he reminded himself, "Who said that I must behave the way you want? You did. I did not. My refusal wins over your demand." Be as wise.

It is your inner world that needs change, not your outer life. Your mind always duplicates its nature outwardly, even if you don't see it. Inner weakness may pose as politeness to other people, but they will see thru it and take advantage of the bewildered and resentful victim. Work with this information. It simplifies your cure. Your strong spirit will then control outer events, as when you easily walk away from someone who has greedy eyes. You have self-command.

Fear is a thief who sneaks around inside you, stealing your happiness. A chief danger in fear is that a man never sees how afraid he really is. So he lies and bluffs all day, but never deceives his own nature. He shivers over everything but is especially worried that his world might fall apart. This occurs when a close human relationship breaks down, exposing his fakery. Submit fear to the spirit of sanity. Sanity will win. You will win.

A schemer knows that your confusion is his advantage. Perhaps you ask information from someone who wants to deceive you. Notice that you hear everything but what you want to know. To keep you baffled, the schemer changes the subject, diverts you with a joke, threatens anger, uses any stall at all to frustrate and discourage you. Remain above his tricks, just as you might see thru a stage magician. This wise way guarantees that his lie cannot become your injury.

Don't sell your sanity to keep the friendship of idiots. Do what is true, not what seems comforting. You will find that only the true is comforting. You may hesitate to choose self-rightness for fear that someone will think less of you. Just let him think less. That can't hurt your feelings. It is your thinking about his thinking that hurts. Avoid thinking like that. His thoughts and your feelings are as separate as two islands.

Spiritual sanity is skilled in handling all kinds of weird people. You may find yourself mixed up with a cruel or obnoxious person. Remind yourself that the acts of a dangerous or unpleasant man are simply his advertisements of his failure as a human being. Think what this means! It means he has nothing of real value for you, that he is a machine gone mad, that you need not fear him! This insight also shows you how to handle him, which may include your exit.

This exercise develops new strength. Take paper and pencil. Ask yourself, "What would I have if I lived from my true nature?" Now list the powers and wisdoms that govern the higher way. You might write, "I will possess a fast and decisive mind, an inner safe place, a winning spirit, sharp insight into human motives." Want these more than you want your usual ways. Write these powers today, and tomorrow they will be lived.

People claim they want a new life. What they really want is a new way to show off their old life with the aim of attracting admiration or envy in others. What has their self-deceit to do with your days and ways? Well, your unawareness of their unawareness makes you trustful when you should be careful. Don't believe what a man tells you about himself. He lies. He is looking for an opening. Stay closed to his pleasant plans. A thief never looks like one until caught.

A man who felt betrayed angrily ran around seeking his betrayer. All he found was his own throbbing pain in body and mind. In despair he asked a teacher, "Who is my betrayer?" Said the teacher, "Your betrayer is every false wish you now take as true." This mental medicine healed the man. Do you yearn for others to see you as successful or charming? That wish betrays you. Tired of running around? Stop here.

All want mercy from the storms of life, but it is incredible how few show mercy to themselves. Anyone who does not seek the higher way is brutally merciless toward himself. Show self-mercy by accepting the plans for self-healing given in these pages. For example, if you hear only vanity-pleasing things about yourself you will continue to hurt. But if you hear what hurts your vanity, and study it, your hurt will vanish, to be replaced by calm command.

Man is like a faulty typewriter in which everything he produces comes out wrong, whether a love letter or business note. Continued use of the damaged typewriter guarantees continued frustration. All human wrongness occurs in inner darkness. There is no shameful act when it is seen as shameful first. See before you act and most of your actions will remain undone. Give yourself over to the light. Don't scheme. Instead, see.

Terrible man consists of sick imagination and raging egotism. When these are dissolved he inherits Eternal Life. Evil egotism is conquered by asking, "Did I create my own body and mind and spirit? No, but I foolishly act as if I am both creator and controller of my life. I will let my own concealed terror expose this lie." Don't fear to not be you. There is something much better than your present self. What is better is to know the Creator of the universe. Know.

People don't just want your help. They want you to do their work for them. If he could get away with it a man would gladly let you suffer the pains of his own madness -- and tries to do just that. His sick philosophy is, "I have the right to tell lies about you but you have no right to tell the truth about me." It is amazing how people suddenly take care of themselves once seeing that you won't do it for them. Let them see it.

False goodness drives people crazy. See this and keep your sanity. One horrible false goodness is to help others in order to conceitedly see yourself as kindly or useful. It won't work. You will feel good but you will be wrong. Besides, you hurt anyone you help who should help himself. Don't compulsively help other people. Help yourself to independence from acts that block the true virtue of spiritual health. You will feel right because you are right.

A man who lived just outside a small town became successful in both local business and farming. When asked the cause of his success he replied, "Simple. Three years ago I just drove into town for the first time." Find inner success by doing something for the first time, like these: A. Don't surrender your individual spirit to mass propaganda. B. Place yourself on the side of life and health, not sourness and defeat.

People exclaim, "This is a mad world! What is the alternative to fighting?" If caught in a storm, you need not think about an alternative to it. Just walk out and there you are. Don't seek an alternative to pain, for mental deceit will trick you into accepting a second pain as an alternative. For example, someone who feels betrayed swings between hate and fear. Whoever demands the right to fight demands to destroy himself. Walk out of the self-storm.

The world is crazy because it is crazy with pain. Pain is pressure and pressure is aggression without conscience. Pain does not understand life. Remember this. A sufferer cannot understand what he is doing here on earth any more than a canary can understand television. Self-misery is the self-punishment for the self-refusal of the self-reward of self-sanity. Now you know what to do for yourself. Let these seed-thoughts grow.

A man confessed, "I feel like I'm part of a loud orchestra in a madhouse with everyone playing a different tune." Ever feel like that? It is because you think you are doing something for yourself when you are actually working against yourself. Want proof? Here it is. No matter what you do, the orchestra clangs on. But be cheerful. Just think how happy you would be if you were someone else. That someone else is waiting for you above your present self. Climb.

Some children were touring a movie studio when an actor in a strange costume suddenly appeared before them. As the children gasped in fright, the actor removed his mask and explained, "Please, children, I'm not here to scare you." The children laughed with relief. Remember, Truth merely appears scary at first because it is seen thru distorting ideas. Develop supersight. It sees that Truth is here to heal, not hurt.

An insecure man does all he can to get others to think about him. He wants to think about their thoughts about him in a desperate attempt to convince himself that he is important enough for others to think about. He is like a deluded man who wears an odd hat and thinks others see it as a crown. If everyone on earth thought about you at once it would not raise your security one inch. Ordinary thought cannot make you feel safe. Only Spiritual Sight supplies security.

Crazy emotions play a low trick on everyone. They make you think that you own them, therefore you must attend to them with care. To survive as an evil force they need your cooperation, which you can now stop. You don't own emotions of gloom and anxiety any more than you own a storm that you walk thru. When a painful feeling tries to enter, tell it, "You don't belong to me at all. I refuse to take care of you. Goodbye."

A tourist stood in a dry river bed that ran thru the woods and asked a local resident, "Why is it dry?" The local man replied, "Something has to happen from above." He meant that the water had to be released from the upstream dam. Something has to happen from above to renew a dry life. Your personal request to God, Truth, Reality, releases refreshment. You can't renew yourself with mere thoughts. It must be done for you from above. Let it. Now.

Think of someone who scares you with his tough or intimidating face. End his tyranny with this exercise. At the same time you see his face, also see your own scared reaction to it. Don't just feel nervous, but look inward and be conscious of your fear. Your self-awareness shatters your fear which ends his arrogance. Work with this until it works. Behind his scary mask you will see a weak and wacky man -- who is scared of you.

An outer appearance of strength is worthless, like a deserted castle. This weak world believes that strength resides in screaming at and hurting others, in winning over them. Don't believe this wicked world. Nothing is more absurd than a man acting as if there is an alternative to inner power. There is no excuse for weakness in human relations or anywhere else. And no need for it. Build spiritual strength, for strength and sanity are the same thing.

Don't mind if you feel empty inside. It is no cause for distress. Emptiness is not the problem. It is simply that you don't understand it. Be free to feel totally empty. In fact, go right ahead and try to feel even more empty. It won't hurt a bit. Don't mind emptiness any more than you would mind a picture of an empty glass when thirsty. One day you will know so much about an empty feeling you will be empty of interest in it.

There is no personal self to be either inwardly sick or healthy. There is sickness and health. There is sickness when you wrongly believe you possess a personal self. This egotism is the cause of all human illness and suffering. There is health the moment you understand that there is no personal self and no need for one. Any wise person who lives from his inspired nature is healthy, happy, sane, eternal. You are called to this high place by Truth. Gladly nod to the call.

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