“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.”

  “There really is a spirit of truth that can come into your physical body, into your mind and your whole being. There really is an all-powerful force, an entity that you can live with 24 hours of the day. And then you will never cry again. You’ll never feel cheated again. You’ll never wonder how you’re going to get rid of your grief again because it is gone and you know it is gone permanently. This is what is called a genuine spiritual experience. It’s waiting for you.”

  “You run into one problem after another because you really don’t realize that you live in an insane world. This insanity includes both the outer world and your own inner lunacy. Now this is not a cruel or insulting thing to say to you; in fact, it may be the first gift of compassion you have ever received in your entire life. Can you see why? You have been told how to end your problems once and for all. To review, you must clearly admit both exterior and interior insanity, which is the first daring step toward sanity and problem-free days.”

  “All of society lives from an endless deceptive practice. That practice is to perform the unnecessary and the harmful while trying to make them look like the necessary and the beneficial.”

  “Society says, ‘We know what is best for you.’ That is a monstrous lie. You will get nothing from society. And yet, we abandon our integrity and swallow it whole. No one knows what is best for you except the real you.”

  “All our lives we have excused ourselves. There is no excuse whatever for any one of you now reading these words to not find yourself. That means there is no excuse for you loving your pain any more because an alternative has been supplied. I am telling you that an alternative has been supplied and it is ready for your investigation and taking.”

  “One of the most spiritual statements you could ever make is, ‘I’ve had it!’ Make it refer to your own weakness of falling asleep when you should stay awake.”

  “There is destructive excitement and there is constructive excitement. You know what destructive excitement is, such as the thrill of receiving money or having power over other people. Constructive excitement is a miraculous life-elevating experience. It consists of anything that happens to you while you are in a state of surrender to the lesson in it. The feeling that accompanies the learned lesson is constructive excitement.”

  “The overwhelming insistence of your own desires prevents you from seeing and understanding the desires of the other person. This causes conflict, for your unseeing state arrogantly insists that the other person must think and act in the only way that exists to you — your own self-centered way.”

  “Human existence on earth makes no sense at all the way it presently operates, so any effort you make to make sense out of it will only drive you more senseless. You cannot make sense out of ordinary human life, but you CAN understand clearly that it makes no sense. This places you on a high level which alone makes sense.”

  “Your actual level of spiritual health reveals itself each time you leave practical thought. An unhealthy mind instantly falls downward to self-centered thought, such as returning to a grudge or feeling left out. A healthy mind rises upward to levels of inner-development, such as reviewing a spiritual lesson or seeing through the falseness of fame. As an example, two men work side by side in a factory giving thought to turning out furniture. The noon whistle blows. One man departs from practical thought to scheme how he can take some small advantage of someone. The other man leaves practical thought to ponder how human affairs are dominated by personal craving disguised as noble ambition.”

  “A person who suffers from a loss or heartache or crisis cannot understand why it happened to him. This is very characteristic of a foggy mind. It cannot look back and see the firm connection between his careless cause and its shocking effect. Seeing the connection breaks it. You have just been given your first clue in a great mystery, that of conscious time-travel.”

  “Do not turn against yourself, no matter how badly you may have blundered in the past, for blundering exists only in man-made time and your true nature does not live in time but in the pure present.”

  “One evidence of an empty life is that you are anxious. Notice how you are trying to fill your empty life with ________________. (Examples: moneymaking, activities, etc.)”

“During any tragedy say, “As best I understand it, I will put God first.”

“All good things come to anyone who refuses
to be intimidated by his own despair.”

  “Let the following powerful fact swirl around in your mind. Let it go wherever it wants to go and reveal whatever it wants to reveal: “The world is one giant mistake.”

  “If you want to know why things are the way they are, it is because things are the way they are. If you try to change the way things are, you will just keep them the way they are. Knowledge of this changes the way you are, which places you in a new and commanding relationship with the way things are.”

   “If you are in painful conflict with someone and you can really see the whole situation from the other person’s viewpoint, you will instantly dissolve your pain, for it was in your own exclusive viewpoint that the pain resided. Passing over to the other person’s viewpoint shatters your own exclusive and self-centered viewpoint.”

  “It is impossible for any fact or circumstance to harm you, for the fact itself has neither punishment nor reward for your spiritual nature. Punishment comes only to false beliefs about yourself. It is when false beliefs meet the fact and try to twist it for ego-serving motives that the damage occurs. The fact itself remains pure and innocent.”

  “The following fact occurs to only one mind in a million: when someone is punished for bad behavior, it is also for bad behavior against himself.”

“Be pleasantly touched by the following statement:
there is no natural need for you to be bad.”

“It is bad to be mad.”

  “Don’t waste the works of the devil. Spiritual roots can grow deeper in adversity. Use the inner raging storms. Have sight without flight or fight. Remain a see-er. Nothing is too much. All storms are for growth. Remember, no exceptions!”

  “Society is like a crowd in carnival costumes with everyone fearful that others will see through his disguise.”

  “The painful human contradiction is easily explained: A man behaves like a devil and then expects to be treated like an angel.”

  “If you are compelled to think about the condition, it controls you. If you don’t need to think about it, you control it. But this kind of control is unique. It is a state in which there is neither a controller nor anything to be controlled. It is non-mental control, something like a man in good health who never needs to think about controlling illness.”

   “Sit or lie relaxed and watch what is going on in your mind. Whatever you think — that is what you are at that moment. You will see there is no controller, just vagabond thoughts. You will also see that thoughts come to you rather than you promoting your own thoughts. Look at these thoughts as if they had no connection with your real nature, which they don’t.”

  “Make a rule not to spend over five dollars foolishly. Watch the compulsion come up and refuse to go along with it. You don’t need anything that money can buy to be happy.
  Try being disloyal to your compulsive spending.”

  “Right daily decisions are as simple as smiling, once you see the difference between natural and artificial needs.”

  “The other person has a right to his own life, and you have no right to demand that he give it to your neurosis.”

   “Inner liberty can be judged by how often a person feels offended, for you can no more insult a mature man than you can paint the air.”

   “You will understand human badness better by seeing its cause in deep, haunting and unadmitted insecurity.”

   “When you hear your enemy criticized and you feel pleasure over it, there is something seriously wrong with you. It is possible to know that you or another person is faulty, without falling into any kind of self-centered reaction.”

   “When you send a mean remark, look or attitude toward someone, it happens because you are asleep. You are your own worst enemy and don’t even know it because you have no right values. Instead of feeling bad about being mean, you will say to yourself, ‘I must go forward.’ You have then made up your mind to get out of yourself and the total madness. This cuts off the thievery of energy.”

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