Monthly Lessons Archive 2002January 2002

ESCAPE THE WALLS OF THE INTELLECT     “Think how you answer people — in order to hurt yourself. You always get yourself back. You must escape the walls of the intellect; mind cannot understand spirit. The higher choice must be made. It comes  automatically when the false ‘I’ is dissolved at last. When spirit and intellect join, it’s an explosion of insight. Strength alone survives. So have a right attitude, and want to know from spirit alone what spirit already knows. You have to be what it is. The spiritual life starts right now!”

PERFECT SEEING — PERFECT LIFE     “The way you think is the cause of your problem! See that you really don’t have any life at all and are the slave of your preferences. You’re going to have to straighten out your life. You’re going to have to make some experiments. For example, note how you project onto others how they should respond to you. As an exercise, be with others and want absolutely nothing from them. Start by seeing how you have all the time been sending out your preference — hoping it will come back to you. It’s extremely subtle. And you don’t see how you’re still in the mire of wanting to be liked. No wonder you’re psychologically drained by the end of the day. You must never get psychologically tired! Even when the body is tired, the mind must be alert. As you doze off, use this period to work on yourself. Stay alert to what is going on inside you, also to your physical discomfort, and let go of the body. When it relaxes, it will send a message to the mind and emotions. See how you can do nothing for yourself, but allow what can help you to do so. And you will feel the new displace the old. First a slower mind, then a silent mind! Your preferences are lying in wait for you, but Truth is lying in wait for them. Make slight changes of position to help shake off dark thoughts that want to sleep with you. As you relax, what has been trying to take you over builds to attack. Open your eyes and look around the room — and that will help to break it. Night after night, your night-work will connect with your old habit of demanding something from him or her, and ask yourself, “Why did I want that person’s approval?” And that will be the end of that preference. Then you will see things as Truth sees them. And perfect seeing brings a perfect life!”

NEVER TRY     “Every time you break down, which is whenever you get negative, remember that you must never enter the lunatic asylum to try to straighten out the inmates — they will only combine to attack you.”