From the Fall/Winter Newsletter of 2007
  I remember Vernon Howard once telling us that there’s always more work to do. There’s no end to what can be learned. There’s always more understanding to be gained. If we’re truly working on ourselves, there is no end to what we can see and discover. It’s extremely important to NOT settle. Most humans do. They settle for the rewards of this world. They stagnate. What we must understand is that everything of this world is temporary. Here’s an astounding and incredibly shocking fact that I recently read on the internet. In the last 3000 years there have been 5000 wars on this earth. This was a warring planet 3000 years ago and this is still a warring planet. The good news is that this is not our permanent home, but we must work hard to understand what this means.
  If you ever get to the point where you say you’ve reached the spiritual mountaintop, there’s nothing more to learn, this work is boring, ‘I just don’t get it’ or if the work has become mechanical or mundane in any way, then you just aren’t applying the principles correctly. These teachings should come more alive and you should become more excited the further you go and progress. If this isn’t happening, everything is still on the mental level. Here’s a quote from “Secrets for Higher Success” which should help. “I am familiar with many basic truths,” said Jean E., “but something is wrong. For instance, I know I must do my own thinking, but I am still wrongly influenced by others. Why?” Reply: “Because you know it as a quotation but not as a personal experience. Ponder deeply the difference in the two. Anyone can quote.”
  This work must become very personal to us. For example, instead of trying to avoid difficult people and challenges, we must both expect and welcome them to come into our lives. You don’t have to go out and look for them because there are plenty of sleeping human beings everywhere who will more than accommodate you. All of them believe they are intelligent and special of course. Dealing with this kind of egotism can actually help us to grow faster. Are we living in imagination about how much we can really take? If we still get bothered or agitated or negative in any way, we haven’t really risen above the problem-creating self.
  If we’re ever going to get this we have to stop living for and through other people. In reality, we don’t need anyone else. One big crutch we have which is getting in the way is that we’re unconsciously depending on someone else to do it for us. Even the most enlightened man who ever walked this planet cannot understand these things for us. He could point us in the right direction and give us helpful clues but he cannot wake up for us. You must and have to do it for yourself. That should be great news! But you want the easy way. You want someone else to do it for you. That’s why you’re so easily fooled, influenced, manipulated, victimized, used, taken advantage of, etc., etc. That’s why when you’re thrown back on yourself there’s nothing there to guide you through the difficulty. You haven’t as yet done the necessary work.
  We must get a life of our own. Here are some words of encouragement from Vernon Howard, “Always keep in sight the fact that truth is in YOU, not in an exterior source … We must remember that the self which takes challenges all wrong can be replaced with quite another self which takes everything all right … a higher mind which transcends all problems.”
  Another student recently came over to help pull thistles on the New Life property. In England they are planted in gardens and if I’m not mistaken it is the national flower of Scotland, but in Colorado the thistle is considered a weed that is detrimental to the natural indigenous plants and vegetation of the region. As Judith was pulling some thistles, she spotted more a little further down from where she was working. So she took off to get them. She was walking through vegetation and flowers in the area that were about knee high when suddenly she saw a tiny fawn lying on the ground that had just been born the night before. The fawn instinctively knew she was there and tried to get up but couldn’t. So Judith immediately left the area so the mother would come back as soon as the human presence or threat had left.
  We weren’t sure if the fawn would survive because we had disturbed and intruded upon its resting place. But the next morning I made it a point of looking to see if there were any signs of the doe. Sure enough she was there taking care of her offspring. We knew that the only chance for the fawn to survive was for us to get out of there and leave the area alone.
  Later I pondered the spiritual significance of this incident. In order for us to wake up and grow up spiritually, we have to stop interfering in God’s plan for us. The only chance for us to make it out is to begin to get out of our own way. There’s something higher which wants to take care of us but we won’t let it. We’ve got all of these important plans and goals in life that have done nothing for us but we keep insisting on doing things ‘our way’.
  Wouldn’t it be great if we were just able to admit we don’t know what we are doing and leave it at that? This type of honesty would open the door for something above our ordinary mind to supply the solution. The doe and the fawn didn’t need our help. Just leave it alone and stay out of the way. Something has provided for its survival. It’s all taken care of. The same has been done for us if we only were to open up our eyes. There’s nothing for us to do, there’s only something for us to SEE!
  Any thoughts we had of trying to help the fawn were pointless. Any emotions that went through us or you concerning the fawn when reading about it served no useful purpose. They would be negative in their nature. “Oh, there must be something we can do (or that could have been done).” “Is it going to (did it) survive?” See, these are fear thoughts. And fear thoughts take me away from who I really am. They steal my life. It occurred to me that one of the most difficult things for us to do in this case is to do nothing. That’s the way it is with almost everything we do. It can then be expanded to man and this planet we live on. Leave it alone.
  Vernon Howard once gave a lesson which connects with the above story. He gave us the acronym M.E.G., which means meddling ends growth. If only we had enough sense to stay out of it. Man has all these plans for righting the ship, fixing things and all he does is make it worse. When are we going to understand that as long as we think we can do
something about it, help someone (when we can’t even help ourselves), improve on it, figure out the next miracle formula or pill, it will never be all right. It’s not going to be fine as long as you and I are trying to manipulate the outcome. Get out of the picture and everything will be perfect. Let God handle it. He can and He will if we’ll let him.

From the Spring/Summer Newsletter of 2007
  Nothing changes because our nature doesn’t change. If we change our inner world then events and challenges in the outer world are perceived in a new way. Only an individual can change. That is the truth of the matter. Society will never change and has no intention of changing. It is caught in a time warp giving the appearance of movement and progress but not changing one bit. It doesn’t want to change, it doesn’t want peace. Almost every human being on this planet resists giving up their struggles and suffering. There is too much profit to be made from it. The strange fact is that this world lives off the negative vibrations created by all this suffering; suffering makes people feel as if they exist. This world has made a deal with the devil and at all costs, it must keep the lie going. Vernon Howard once vociferously exclaimed, “You have been hoaxed and you don’t know it.”
  These truths are not for the masses, the masses of people out there who are having too much fun deceiving and hurting one another. It’s a mutual destruction society. For example how can you arrive at peace by starting a war? Someone or something is lying to you. If we weren’t lying to ourselves then we couldn’t be deceived by charlatans of any kind. There are billions of people walking around on this planet pretending that they know what they are doing. I wonder why they’re all so miserable and why there are so many problems, so much heartache. We think wrongly that if we didn’t have problems, we would have nothing to do with ourselves. See the proof of this by looking at people’s faces and quietly reflecting when they speak out and tell you how they really feel or when difficulties or challenges come up in their lives. It’s there in the news on TV, on the Internet and in the newspapers. When was the last time you picked up a newspaper and read a headline that was truly good news?
  The reason you see no good news is because there are no good people. Vernon Howard said “Your idea of goodness is not goodness.” That’s a tough one to take, isn’t it? There are a lot of people running around trying to convince you they are good by doing so-called ‘good deeds,’ but you have to ask yourself, what is the motive behind what they’re doing? Perhaps they secretly want to see their name in the headlines, or perhaps they are trying to convince themselves that by doing what some would consider to be ‘good deeds’ that somehow translates into a good nature. You see, God has no need to convince himself or anyone else that he is good. His nature is goodness. Real goodness can do no evil.
  Here is a powerful quote from Vernon Howard about goodness: “A man who is good does not go around contriving to do good. His own goodness does good, wherever he goes, though few realize it. Being one with goodness, he has no separate self-image of being a good man who can help the bad to be good. He leaves such imaginary and ego-centered goodness to the self-deceived. The bad man thinks about goodness with personal gain in mind, while the truly good man impersonally expresses goodness. Because a rose is a rose, it never needs to think of itself as one.”
  If everyone were basically good then why do they continue to hurt one another and themselves? Why are the jails and courts filled with criminals? Why is decency and politeness scorned and ridiculed? Why are there such crude things on television? Why don’t people feel safe? Why is man destroying the planet he lives on? Why is the air and water so polluted? Why does there not seem to be a cure for all the horrible maladies of this planet? Is this a sign of a healthy society? It all connects.
  If we’re ever going to truly understand higher things, at some point we must come to the realization that everything was perfect to begin with. There’s no need to try to control anything. We have been given everything but we don’t see it.
  Here is a quote from one of the CDs offered by New Life entitled “The Freedom of Being Good.” On it Vernon Howard says, “Never be grateful to anyone for anything. What have they got to give you?” He goes on to explain that human beings are like little children who have never grown up spiritually and that all they care about is alcohol, ambition, power, their next excitement or thrill, and so on and so on. All of these things are shallow pursuits that lead nowhere. How many personal stories have you heard about people who over their lifetime here on this earth have pursued the rewards of this world, have gotten the position of power or fame, made a lot of money and after accumulating all these things are still unhappy? I have personally heard and seen perfect examples of this throughout my life. Perhaps your parents were miserable human beings. That doesn’t mean you hate your parents, but you must see things as they are. Be honest! We must ask ourselves these very pointed questions and answer with every ounce of self-honesty that we can muster.
  We’ve all heard people say and if we were paying close enough attention we may have heard ourselves say ‘if only’ I had more money, ‘if only’ I could have one more chance, ‘if only’ I had a new boyfriend or girlfriend, ‘if only’ things were different. That lie ‘if only’ has tormented us all our lives. It’s just another in a long line of tricks we’ve fallen for over the years. At some point we’ve got to get a clue that nothing this world has to offer will ever make us happy.
  Now you ask, “What will make us happy?” Seeing all these things one begins to realize that God, Truth really does exist. We must first admit and realize something is very wrong, both within and without. Then there must be a sincere wish to understand. A right and strong emotion of a different kind must arise within us that wants nothing more than to discover the truth. Then at some point we must give up our pain, our suffering, our problems, and mean it. We have to give up the childish and immature behavior.
  There is a way out. No matter what this world says, there is a way out. Here is another inspiring and encouraging quote from Vernon Howard: “We have affection for whatever is natural, simple, innocent, untouched by man, like a rainbow or waterfall. The spiritually natural has the same appeal. So let others nervously scramble for the unnatural rewards of wealth and praise. Just think of the grand prize of winning permanent victory over life.”
  Truth will give you and me the strength to see and know all the things that must be understood in order for us to finally find real happiness.

From the Fall/Winter Newsletter of 2006
  Vernon Howard used to remind us periodically that these principles are the most marvelous message ever given to mankind. This is a bold statement to make but it is absolutely true. Something we all need to be aware of is that the truth is not going to come to us through intellectual prowess or by osmosis. It requires long hard work. The mind and imagination are full of tricky deceits and deceptions, and we have believed all of the lies and propaganda that a sick society has fed us. These facts aren’t meant to discourage us; to the contrary, when beginning to understand the facts for ourselves, we actually start to come alive and to have real fun for the first time in our lives.
  If we are truly working on ourselves and applying these beautiful truths, things start to change and things begin to be revealed to us that we never could have imagined in a million years. It goes two ways: 1) a deeper look into hell, which is evil, darkness and lostness. We can begin to understand why we get angry or depressed or why the world is the way it is or why there is constant conflict on this planet and much, much more; 2) a higher look into heaven, where we can start to see for ourselves that a higher world actually, factually exists above the madness of this earth. We can begin to experience and tap into cosmic energies which are not of this world and to realize “I” can live a different kind of a life which is free of stress, pain, strain and worry.
  You see, the world is dedicated to keeping us trapped and tricked into thinking that there is no way out. Have you ever felt overwhelmed and helpless? Truth guarantees that there is a way out. One obstacle we must see thru is that we believe we already know. Man is utterly stupid believing himself to be intelligent. The New Life class motto is, “If you can take it, you can make it.” How much are you willing to let your pet ideas, beliefs, theories be challenged? How much are you willing to let yourself be consciously offended? Not by this wrong world or by another human being but by the truth itself. The ultimate point of all of this is to get to the point where we see for ourselves that we can escape the hoax, the lie, the suffering, and the circle of self (see explanation above).
  Something else we need to realize is there are many levels of understanding. When one is in the fog he cannot see what someone else sees who is not in the fog. In reality once you reach a certain point in your spiritual development, and start to go beyond the mind, you’re in a different realm. As long as we perceive everything from the mind it’s easy to be tricked and deceived by darkness. Thinking by itself leads nowhere. In fact we have to stop thinking, theorizing, rationalizing, trying to figure it out with what’s between our ears. Someone can always outthink you. But Truth does something very different. It sees and perceives things instantaneously from something higher, from consciousness itself. The mind is of this world and is mechanical. It can be useful for everyday practical things but it can do nothing of itself to take you higher.
  Periodically we receive e-mails from people who receive the daily quote from New Life and don’t understand it. They’re confused or say Vernon Howard would never say anything like that. People even get angry and hostile because a particular quote challenges an idea or belief they have about life or about the way things are. The reason a person does not understand the quote is because, “You’re trying to do with the mind what must be done with the spirit.” Their viewpoint is still from this world, which can never understand truth. Most people do one of two things; they either work harder to try to understand more or they attack what they’ve heard. It’s really very simple. If we are hostile toward what we’re hearing, we’ll continue to live a miserable pain-filled life all the while lying about it.
  Here’s an example of the power of persistence. Let’s say you have been reading, studying, perhaps you’ve attended some classes and are sincerely trying to apply these truths in your daily life. Then after 10 years you go back and play a DVD or pick up a book and read something that Vernon Howard wrote and it has a completely different meaning to you now than it did when you first heard or read it. And you get rightly excited about it. Something dawns on you. You realize you didn’t have a clue ten years ago. Then you turn on the TV and see a rerun of something that you once thought was very entertaining and you discover that it wasn’t really entertaining after all. Or you may sit down and do nothing when no one is around and you suddenly remember that that little annoying habit you used to have has dropped away. The interesting thing was you didn’t even think about it. This is what happens to us if we stick with it and allow truth to begin to reveal things and heal us. If we will allow it truth will explain everything.

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