Carelessness is a Curse
  Carelessness is a curse. Well, isn’t it? Haven’t you experienced in daily events when your mind starts to wander off on its own lazy directions that you get careless toward the task at hand, whether it’s cooking or the office work, and things go wrong because you’re not paying attention to what you’re doing at the moment you’re doing it. That is a carelessness that wastes your time, gets you into trouble.
  The opposite of carelessness is carefulness. Now, you want to be careful when you’re doing some kind of a task you like, whether learning to play the piano or studying something. You want to be careful about that because you’re eager to learn, you’re eager to improve yourself.
  What greater task do you have than to change the kind of a nature you have? Don’t you want to be altogether careful toward that? Do you know what a synonym of carefulness is? Love, of course. Isn’t it sad, therefore, that there are so few people who are careful toward the life they have right now, therefore, believe it or not, they do not love their own life. They’re throwing it away. Now you have a lot of work to do on that subject already. You must stop throwing your life away. You must stop being careless because, if you continue to be careless, you won’t receive what is waiting for you. Something is waiting for you. You don’t know that because you’re not careful enough to see it; you haven’t worked. You just want to daydream and you want to find things to howl about. That is carelessness and that is a dreadful thing to be doing with your life.
  Now there are lessons, there are ways, there are methods for you to learn to be careful toward your daily existence, so that that daily existence gives you something every day instead of taking things away from you — taking away your energy and taking away all the good things that you could have had.
  Now, I’m going to tell you one way in which you have been remiss, where you’ve been careless, maybe because the fact has not been presented to you or, if it has, you were careless about receiving it, so let’s go over it again, and now’s your chance to become careful and thereby get something all day long instead of losing something all day long.
  You have been careless in acquiring and possessing knowledge — spiritual knowledge, knowledge about your own life, about your own mind, knowledge about human nature.
  Oh! Knowledge about the incredible evil that rules this world. You have not been diligent in reading, studying, viewing, examining; you have not been diligent in collecting a wide variety of facts that it is necessary for you to have. So I’m going to explain to you, give you certain ideas, which will make you want to read more than you read, to work generally more than you work so that you have facts, knowledge, wisdom, right ideas. And here we go:
  I want you to understand that there is the spirit and there is knowledge. They are different things in the spiritual world. The spirit is the Spirit of Truth, of God, which is alive and invisible and which can take over your life when you have the carefulness to invite it, and then there are the facts. All the facts about yourself and about life and about God and about Satan. Now you must, in order to advance and be careful toward your life so that it becomes enriched, you must have a collection of knowledge. You just can’t have the Spirit of Truth, you also must collect facts because the Spirit of Truth operates through you, in you, with the facts that you collect. If you don’t have information, knowledge, right mental ideas, if you don’t have that, then the spirit has nothing to work on to help you with.
  This means that you have to, more and more and more and more, take the initiative in acquiring facts, truths, right principles. It is your spiritual duty, and pleasure I might add, to acquire these ideas so that the spirit can come down and enter your mind where the ideas are and give them direction, give them life. In other words, in summary, the Spirit of Truth working through ideas, if you’ve collected them, will show you how to live properly; will give you all the necessary wisdom you need for everything on this earth. You’ve collected a certain amount of knowledge about human nature, for example, and you go out into the world and you’re not quite sure what to do with what you’ve learned; that is where the spirit comes in and says, “Take this bit of idea here and use that in order to handle that person.” But if there’s nothing for the spirit to work with, if there’s no knowledge there, then you will remain uninformed and you’ll get in trouble.
  Now this requires a great sacrifice on your part, what I’ve been talking about, because you have careless clutter. That careless clutter is the flippant remark that you make, it is the drowsy, lazy, state of mind that you have. Those have become your substitute for the action of spirit directing your mind. And as long as you have a substitute for what is right, you will go wrong.
  You be very careful. You keep the Spirit of Truth with you all the time. You know, it will really go farther than you finding your way out of all the jams you’re now in. You won’t get into them in the first place. Keep the light with you all the time.

Remember
    Here’s a beautiful lesson and story by Vernon about our need to remember our purpose in life.
  “Once upon a time a very interesting event took place in Heaven. What happened was that a chief angel called in a hundred or so men and women and spoke to them as follows:
  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, you are about to be born in a place called the Planet Earth. You’re going to enter this world called earth and you’re going to be there for a while. Now I want you all to listen to me while I tell you the purpose for you going down into this earth and being born there and experiencing life on earth. The purpose is for you to develop a choice — a love for what is truly good. You are going to be given an opportunity to truly love God of your own will. Nobody can force any human being to love the Creator of this Universe, but you’re going to be sent down there, as many have been sent before you and after you, and you’ll be given a bit of time down there to choose what is true — what is right for you— because it will give you life up here eternally.
  “So very simply stated, you’re going to be part of the world down there very soon now. And you’re going to be there for what is called a number of years, but you must remember the purpose for which you are there. And I want to warn you, the earth that you are being sent down to as a testing ground is a very, very wicked, sick, incredibly bad place. Now I don’t want that to frighten you. You don’t have to be frightened. You just have to remember what I said: That if you remember your purpose for being down there, then you will grow and you will develop, and you will find inside yourself something is occurring that hasn’t occurred up here because now you’re down there working — and you will find that you will add to yourself all the good things of life which are called strength, virtue, wisdom, and you will finally find that you have inherited a very, very high place eternally for yourself.
  Now one final word. Most human beings do not remember the instructions that they have been given. They forget and they get enticed and lured by the excitements of the world, and they forget the way back home. I want you to remember what I’ve told you and to make every effort possible to develop yourself, which is your purpose in going down there.”
  So they went down to earth and, to their great surprise, it was a nice place physically and they liked that; a marvelous place with continents and huge oceans, and waterfalls, and animals and birds. No problem there. Then when they were about ten days old, the damage began for each one of these candidates for higher development. Just by being in the atmosphere of the planet itself, they began to forget what they were told to remember. And they grew up. They became teenagers. They became twenty years old. And they became forty and fifty years old. And practically every one of them forgot the instructions as to why they were there, which was to not be the kind of a person they were when they entered the world, but to add something to it—through their own choice — by simply loving the instructions that were deep inside them that they’d carried with them from the other world. Remembering those instructions, they could have followed them. Most did not.
  Most made a horrible mistake, and I’m describing the mistake that the world has made, which is to believe that you are on this earth to fulfill your own self-created purpose. What do you think about all day long? What do you think your purpose is here? What was your purpose all day long today? Was it a lot more money making? Protecting your ego? Finding someone to talk to? Finding something to keep yourself occupied? All this is a part of you forgetting the original instructions, but you can begin to remember and reverse things even starting right now.
  So do you know what happened to all these people who forgot? They thought they could remember. They were so confident at the start. Now do I have to explain it in any more detail for you to understand what this world is like? Everyone being weak, everyone being foolish and ignorant, those are problems to everyone, including the possessor of ignorance, and everyone he or she meets. Everyone became a burden to everyone else. Have I described it? Of course I have.
  You have forgotten the instructions, and I will tell you they couldn’t see the angel that came down with them anymore physically, but that angel is circulating around the world today trying to tell a few people, trying to tell them what they have forgotten to remember.
  That’s the purpose of this class: To remind you that you’ve made a mistake. You have forgotten something. You’ve forgotten the single most important thing of your life as to why you’re in life.”

Protect the Candlelight
  Protect the Candlelight is the name of this beautiful and inspiring exercise given to us by Mr. Vernon Howard. He said:
  “There lived in a dry desert wilderness a group of people whose outward condition represented their inner states of confusion, stress and anxiety.” A wise man also lived in the wilderness. Some people went to the wise man and asked him, “Is there another place where there is NOT this wilderness and this misery that we have here? Is there a land different?” The wise man said, “Yes, there is, and I'll describe it to you. You won't understand it from the description but you will understand it when you get there. It's a land of pretty flowers, pretty sky, flowing waters and plenty of room, lots of space, not crowded, a place where you can be happy. Now if you want to go there, I will tell you how to do it because I live there — that's my home. I have just come back to tell you about it. Anyone who wants to come, I am at your service. Ask me and I'll tell you how to get there. I can go there any time I want.
  “First of all, you have to understand that between this dreadful, deceitful place, where you now live and the Happy Land, there is a very long, dark path. You have to take this path and pass through it all alone. You can’t take your mother, your sister or your friend with you. You have to travel all alone. For you to get the reward, you must do the work. Now, I’m going to give you a candle if you want to go — one candle, strong and bright. Take this candle and start at the beginning of the trail through the dark path and, if you keep that candle lighted, if you protect it above all else, you will reach the Happy Land and you will live a different kind of a life. One unbelievably marvelous!
  “I want to emphasize the need for you to protect the light of this candle above ALL else because along both sides of the path there are hordes of evil monsters in human form. They disguise themselves as human and their purpose is to get you to put out the light. They even put up strange winds that might blow the candle out. Or they call out to you. They will even call out to you for help hoping to make you feel guilty if you don’t respond. And once they get in there, they’re going to splash swamp water on your candle and it will go out and you won’t make it. I’m not scaring you — I am both encouraging and warning you.
  “The single most important thing for you to remember when you walk the path to the Higher Land is to protect that candle against all evils that want to put it out because, once it goes out, if it goes out, you will lose the trail and you’ll never find your way to the True Land.”
  I will tell you something else and I want all of you listening to this talk, to listen especially to this. It will sound dreadful to you but it’s a part of my warning, so as to make you so alert to not let anyone steal the light and snuff it out. Here it is ladies and gentlemen: If your light goes out through your arrogance, through your stupidity, through your carelessness, if your light once goes out, you will never ever know or remember that you once had it. When you fall off the path, that candle light goes out because it fell with you into the swamp water.
  When one of the demons comes up to you and says something like, “I see you put your candle light out. That’s very good. That’s very wise. Now you can live in hell with us,” if a demon were to warn you that you once had a candle, you won’t believe it. Once the candle of light goes out, it is impossible for a human being to ever remember that he once had one. You talk to a person who’s had a taste of truth and it’s gone away, and you tell him the beautiful things that you heard in that class and you read in the book and you say, “Weren’t you attracted by that light?” That person will say, “What light?” HIS darkness has become his light. That’s what he’s going to call it. He’s floundering around with the rest of the monstrous creatures there, all of them saying that they have the light. They don’t even know what they’re talking about. I want you to know what you are talking about.
  I want you to protect with every ounce of energy and alertness you have, the candle that all of you in this room and hearing this talk wherever you may be — I want you to protect it as the most precious, vital, the ONLY important thing in your life. I want you to protect that candle of light that you have just been given. Yes, yes, EVERY single one of you has been given the candle. Now it becomes your responsibility to care for it, to protect it, to not let ANY human being put it out, try to trick you, try to deceive you. I want you to listen to what other people say if and when you ever talk about right things. Can’t you see them trying to put it out. Can’t you understand that’s the only thing monsters can do. They want you to join them in the dark hell of that swamp, thrashing around hating each other, hating God. You be very sharp in your human relations now. Notice it with people who are close to you physically and strangers alike. Watch how the whole world is in that darkness wanting to destroy the smallest appearance of light.
  This morning, God himself has given each one of you the light of the candle. It is now glowing right now if you have been receptive to it. I want you to keep it glowing. I want you to study and work harder than you’ve ever worked before. I want you to be willing to sacrifice everything, even your so-called friends who are not your friends at all. Sacrifice those habits that you love so much but which you know are all wrong for you. I want you to be willing to let God take them and sacrifice them for you. You can’t do it but if you’re willing to have them go, then they will go.
  Above all else in your life, from now on protect that candlelight.

Never Cooperate with Anyone Who Angrily Judges You
Vernon Howard gave us this exercise as follows:
  Never Cooperate With Anyone Who Angrily Judges You
  When you cooperate with someone who angrily judges you, it means that you believe that you are a rascal, a hypocrite, lazy, unkind, cruel. It means that you are on the same level as the angry accusation. Therefore, you are doing nothing more than keeping your false position in place. This means that you are going to needlessly defend and protect yourself against accusations and judgments.
  Every time you get angry over an angry accusation, you reward your accuser. That’s what he wants. He knows how to get you, how to make you bristle in a small or large way, and he will go as far as he can to get a sense of power over you. You are not going to harm yourself or anyone else and you will not explain yourself anymore.
  Let’s see what it means not to cooperate. You are accused of something and either it is true or it is untrue … it makes no difference which. The important thing is that you don’t remain on the level of the angry accusation, the slander, the judgment and that you don’t reply in kind. Even though you don’t reply in kind verbally, you will do it internally … you will get emotional when accused. You are not to cooperate, mostly because you want to be free of him or her.
  While working on yourself, watch his or her discomfort waiting to see your typical reaction. He wants you to get mad and he keeps nagging at you. For example, he keeps slamming the door. You notice his state, which is frustration. But it is most important for you to watch your own discomfort. Before, when you talked back, you had false comfort. That false comfort covered up the fact that you are always uncomfortable. You have been uncomfortable all your life with others. So your awareness of your uneasiness is very important.
  When you are accused you have to go to work and do this exercise. That one little incident will give you a faint feeling of how you can handle all of life.
  You should know that the accuser is in you as well as in that other person. You will begin to feel that there is a part of you that is truly independent of all accusation. Your refusal to cooperate consists of one thing — silence.
  As a start you will have to practice using one center at a time. The first one is not using the mouth center to talk back. You are doing this consciously and not mechanically because you want to understand and be free of accusation and slander. You can even press your lips together as a sign to your physical center.
  You will find that, while that center cooperates, your feelings and intellect won’t. They will go on. But you can begin to see that one center can stop and the others can’t because it has been so habitual with you. You will see that if you can stop one center from its harmful reaction, you can stop another.
  Never cooperate with anyone who angrily judges you, otherwise you are simply cooperating with his or her insanity or your own insanity. No longer cooperate with the other person’s neurosis and the time will come when you no longer cooperate with your own.