From the Fall/Winter Newsletter of 2011
     First of all, this work is magnificent. It is beyond anything anyone can imagine. It is the only thing that can truly make a difference in your life. It can turn your life around and give you real purpose and direction. If you will allow it, this work will explain everything. It is the most important thing anyone can ever pursue. There are so many charlatans and phonies and hostile people out there. But if you don’t have eyes to see and ears to hear you will be fooled. What most people refuse to comprehend is that there is an evil force that is hell-bent on destroying us, making our lives miserable and generally making everything we do while here on this earth as difficult as possible. Almost no one will look at this fact. But if you stick with it long enough you can begin to see all these things for yourself.
     So here are a few of the things that must be seen. This next point is immense, because most human beings are so tied to their mental activity, they never realize there is something which exists beyond ordinary human thinking. Almost everyone who proclaims to have gone beyond the human mind is lying. In a talk I just recently heard, Vernon Howard says, “Human beings are thought worshippers.” (MP3 CD – Vol. 6 – Talk 134 – Track 5) Thinking is not the way out. It never has been and never will be.
     I googled the word consciousness and found many websites related to this topic. There have been all sorts of studies done by the so-called experts but the instrument that is trying to understand and explain is a function of the lower. Look closely and you’ll see that all questions and results have as their source human thought.
     The scientists and philosophers expound on imagining, visualizing, ruminating, cogitating, intellectualizing, rationalizing and everything in between. Imagination is not reality. All of the consciousness studies that have been done originate from memorized knowledge, data and information. They’ll even show physical pictures/images depicting what the particular state of consciousness represents. This is physical matter. This is not the actual state. It has nothing to do with what is spiritual. Awareness is invisible. All of that is meant to deceive us.
     If a person is stupid because of a lack of spiritual development, they are stupid. How many have ever in your life had contact with another human being whom you knew was stupid? There was no doubt in your mind. There was no getting around it. They were just dumb. Or maybe it was you. Come on, all of us have done stupid things in our lives for lack of spiritual understanding and awareness.  Now, that’s a fact, is it not? There is no criticism in a fact. It just is. This is so difficult for the average human being to understand. Listen to what your heart (the truth) is trying to tell you. Why? Because we have been so brainwashed by society to believe certain things. We have been told we are being insensitive, that we must be ‘caring’, we must be ‘loving’, we must go along with it.
     What we fail to see is that there are literally millions of thoughts telling us what to do, how to feel, how to act, how to handle this situation or that situation. We are nothing but programmed robots; I’m sorry, I should have said synthetic humanoids. That’s how evil forces use and manipulate us. Realize that “Almost all human advice is worthless.”(Your Power to Say NO)
     Let’s say you are in a city where you have never been before and you don’t know your way around, and someone points out that you are lost. So the fact is, you are lost. Where’s the problem? The mind says “You’ll look foolish” or “You are stupid.” If all you do is SEE that you are lost and then don’t go into a self-condemning thought, where’s the pain? There is none. Who or what says you have to go into pain over this. The ‘thought worshipping’ self does. Do you now understand why Vernon Howard says that “You love your pain.” By the way, you got lost in the first place because you allowed a thought to distract you.
     What almost every ‘authority’ does, whether they are ‘trained’ or self-taught in the field of spiritual studies or consciousness, is to read a bunch of books. They then take certain key points that strike them and meld them into their own philosophy or discipline of life. There is nothing original or higher involved. Their discourse has nothing to do with God, Truth, Reality. It has all been created from the mind, from thought. They say their motive for doing this is to ‘help’ people but they may also see an easy way to make money in order to survive on this earth. Maybe they don’t like digging ditches or doing some other labor-intensive job so working in the intellectual realm is very appealing to them. See, people are looking for the easy way to get through life. Nobody wants to have to work for anything anymore. They want it all handed to them on a silver platter.
     Here’s the mistake we are making. We choose what to do in this life rather than allowing truth to choose for us. Vernon Howard puts it this way, “You choose to allow God to choose for you. Now you don’t have to be a thought worshipper anymore.” Have you ever considered all of the problems inherent in living a thought life? If you are looking for love or companionship or completion in another human being you’ll never find it. You will only find pain and heartache, because that’s the nature of the beast. “Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and all else will be added unto you.” Real completion can only occur when we, as individuals, return to our spiritual homeland.
     Here’s another popular misconception put out by sick human beings who profess to be religious guides. Have you ever considered the possibility that there are those who are deliberately twisting everything to purposely lead you astray? How many have heard or think or believe that God punishes you for your sins or transgressions? God doesn’t punish you; you punish yourself. We punish ourselves by our lack of awareness of cosmic laws, which reside far above human laws. This isn’t religious rhetoric; this is fact. The world is trying to foist off lies that certain behaviors are now all of a sudden acceptable. They can legislate it, they can shove it down your throat, they can rationalize it, they can do all sorts of things with it, but it doesn’t change the Truth of what is. Study the faces of those who think they can do whatever they feel like doing.
     All right, study yourself when you get into an argument with another person. Have you ever done that? Watch the effect it has on your inner psychic being. It drains your energy. You feel bad. It brings along regret, self-hate, hopelessness and other negative friends/enemies. Now make the connection that you are breaking a cosmic law. If we were to see this clearly enough to stop doing it we wouldn’t feel bad anymore. This is the beginning of breaking away from the thought-self and discovering that another world exists. Make another connection. How can argument lead to clarity, a real solution? Now, bring up to memory the national debt crisis in the U.S. “All man-made solutions have failed and will always fail. There must be a spiritual solution or none at all. Where human intellect has failed, spiritual intelligence can succeed.” (Your Power to Say NO)
     It is great when a human being actually begins to see for himself/ herself what is really going on. You SEE clearly the trick that is being played on you. You cut through all the nonsense and lies you are being fed and have been fed since you’ve been here on this earth. And finally, you SEE that God truly does exist and that there is an invisible world of understanding that is waiting for any sincere person who wants to know what is really going on. Most of the people on this planet believe in the tragedy or the fallibility of their lives.  If they didn’t, there wouldn’t be war, problems, hunger, drugs, economic woes, murder, headaches, divorce, thieves, etc. You are being duped and don’t see it. “All you have to do is come awake and stay awake.” (MP3 CD – Vol. 6 – Talk 134 – Track 5)

From the Spring/Summer Newsletter of 2011
     To find sanity or to find the Truth in this day and age is truly a miracle. There is so little of it on this planet. Most men are motivated by greed and envy. All they care about is making money when we weren’t intended to pursue that earthly aim. That’s not why we were put here. We were put here to find God. In a lecture on MP3 CD Volume 12, Vernon Howard exclaims, “If you don’t find God you will have to live with yourself, throughout eternity.” That alone should motivate us to get to work right this second and to keep working for the rest of our lives. Pretty strong medicine but absolutely necessary if we really want to get well.
     In a recent talk I heard, Vernon Howard explained that the reason an individual is insane is that “Your imagination has replaced Reality.” Notice how so many things are promoting ‘fantasy’ these days. There are fantasy leagues, fantasy suites, movies for children about living in fantasyland, and so on and so on. What we seriously must ask ourselves is what this egotistical, fantasy life has gotten us. It has gotten us exactly what we have asked for. It’s interesting to study human nature because if we take the blinders off, we can see that human beings get what they really ask for, what they really pray for. It was once explained that our prayers, our requests, are what we are. Vernon used the example of a man who fell into painful regret over having lost a lucrative business deal and explained that the man actually prayed for and got regret. Watch very carefully and you’ll see that what most people call their prayers often revolve around winning over someone else or demanding to have their own way. Our level attracts what we are.
     Everything that happens to us is a direct result of who we are. We attract what we are. And we are not at all who we say we are. In a recent class in Colorado one of the students who actually moved to Boulder City to study under Vernon relayed a story to the class that they had heard from another student a few years ago. The gist of it was that a woman student in Boulder City had her purse stolen at a restaurant. Vernon told her that it was her fault. If she had been more aware it wouldn’t have happened. In other words, her state of unawareness attracted that event to her. What a wonderful thing to learn. I am responsible for everything that happens to me. I can no longer use the typical excuse that the world uses, which is, “Someone else is to blame” or “My circumstances caused the problem.”
     Lost human beings settle for mediocrity and sameness when we were truly meant for greatness. Motorcycle bikers have always amused me. They are supposedly rebelling against society, so what do they go and do? They do the opposite of what the corporate types do. Instead of a suit and tie, they all dress in the same way by wearing worn faded jeans, a leather jacket and a bandana. They all get a Harley, get a tattoo, they all swear and wear colors. They create another culture that is no different than the one they left behind. It’s simply the opposite of the one they are rebelling against. It’s on precisely the same level. Their behavior is still mechanical and imitative. There’s no uniqueness or individuality whatsoever. They’re copycats. There’s an old saying (which is a wrong saying) that goes like this, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” It should say something like this, “Imitation is one of the stupidest of all forms of human behavior.” To imitate means there is nothing original coming from the individual. He or she doesn’t really think for himself or herself; they just do the lazy thing, which is to copy the behavior of another human being or to ape something they saw in a movie.
     The next time a group of bikers comes into your town and they stop to gas up or dine at one of the local eateries notice how they all look and act the same. They dress alike, have long hair, travel in a pack, have somewhat similar motorcycles, etc. Notice how they tend to think alike as well by using identical phrases and lingo. Then the next time you get a chance to study a group of corporate business types notice how they all look similar. Some still wear suits but nowadays a lot are going to a look that I call the Van Heusen look. They wear slacks, a casual dress shirt, and loafers and generally have shorter hair. You have to look the part or you won’t fit in. Do you see how it’s the same thing? There are all sorts of groups like this that people join in order to feel accepted and to be a part of the gang. There are also the religious types and the spiritual types who tend to dress, look and think in certain ways as well. Right? The point is they are all part of the herd mentality. The herd, the crowd is always cowardly. It is not a higher form of intelligence to mechanically march with the masses. Why don’t we start the process of rightly rebelling by questioning our loyalty and allegiance to this ‘crowd’ mentality? We can dare to break away because despite their threats of punishment, nothing bad will happen if we desert the mad mob.
     Vernon Howard once gave a definition of stupidity, which is quite true and actually very amusing. “Stupidity is to think you’re not stupid.” Let me ask you this, how many reading this article are afraid? Does anything scare you? If we’re honest, yes there is. Now if we are afraid, is that not stupid? Yes it is. I know the common response to all of this is, “But we’re human aren’t we?” I don’t know how many times I’ve heard that expression. It’s really just an excuse to refuse to take responsibility for our lives and to grow up. That’s the point. We have the ability to become less human and to transform into a cosmic being aligned with and living from the all-powerful force itself. As long as we settle for this ordinary life where we’re up and down, pulled this way and that way, we will remain in the undercurrent of the unseen but terrible pain that rules our lives. Here’s a valuable exercise. Have the courage to just look at other people’s faces. Take a look into their eyes. See the pain and uncertainty there. This is not to get an advantage over them but to impartially observe what is actually, factually there. Then take a look in the mirror and be honest about it. You don’t really like being you, do you? But there is a way out and you’re reading about it right now.
     Here’s a statement of fact that Vernon Howard told a class at a lecture, “The reason you have fears, of getting older or whatever it might be, is because you don’t have God in your life.” The whole world is afraid. It’s literally terrified. Watch the 6 o’clock news on TV. What are they selling? They are selling FEAR. Look at the headlines in the newspaper. What are they selling? They are selling FEAR. When you turn the TV on and you tune in that Docudrama, what are they selling? They are selling FEAR. When you rent that action movie to watch, what are they selling? They are selling FEAR. And they are also telling you that fear is necessary. This world is in the business of fear mongering and one of its slickest tricks is to keep you believing that there is safety in numbers. Permanent and lasting security will come only as a result of “coming out from among them.”
     Here’s a side thought to keep in mind when watching television or a movie. Notice how the writers of a show will add humor in to get your defenses down. They’ll then immediately follow the funny scene with something very wrong which you are meant to unconsciously take in and accept without discernment. They may get you to laugh at something that is very low, even blasphemous. That’s why it’s so important to pay very close attention to everything that’s going on. Stay awake. If we’re awake and watching carefully we can’t be taken in or fooled by evil and we won’t pay the price for falling for it. What is the price for falling for it? Continued separation from God. What is the reward for seeing through it? A New Life in which there is no fear, no uncertainty, no pain.
     Now here is a fact about fear that we as good spiritual students need to memorize and remember, “Fear is an unnecessary agitation that supplies a harmful distraction from what must be faced.” We have to start catching these things so that we stop getting taken. Do you see every time we go into fear over anything at all we are adding to the insanity of this world as well as our own madness/pain?
     Also connected with all of this is how easily influenced we are. Start to see how anyone can make us feel bad. The slightest news about our health causes a reaction to come up inside.  An incident happens halfway around the world and it causes shockwaves to go through us. In a talk from 1985, Vernon Howard explains, “People insane with fear are easy to manipulate.” We have to stop falling for these tricks of evil. The tricks are both out there and in here.
     Here’s another example of how gullible we are. Say that during the course of a day you meet a number of people. After a while each one calls you on the cell phone to say, “You don’t look so good.” What do you think is going to be our internal reaction to this type of comment? We may start thinking to ourselves “I’d better go to the doctor and get myself checked out.” For sure at some point worry and fear are going to enter into the picture. In every day terms this is called being gullible. But if we work hard on ourselves, we can begin to escape these mechanical states and stop the bad feeling from entering us. We can be free of the cumbersome burden we’ve been carrying around all of our lives. Vernon Howard on the same MP3 CD – Volume 12 says that at a certain point in your spiritual development, “The only influence there is, because you are wide awake, is God himself.” That means because we have worked very hard to apply these truth principles in our lives we got out from underneath the influences of this world and came under the only influence that matters, the spirit of Truth itself. We no longer are a servant to darkness, our lower nature, we are a servant of God, of something that is out of this world. How wonderful and yes, miraculous.