Interviewer: In all of your writings I have found the idea of practicing and starting with the idea of True Self. I was wondering if you could give our listeners a definition so that we have a place to start here.
Vernon: Yes, fine. We have to approach it not by trying to find our True Self at the start. Otherwise, we’ll go into imagination based on our past experiences — which would simply be memory describing us, So rather than trying to find out who we are at the start, we want to find out “who we are not” — and that can be a very interesting process.
  For example, we might have an idealized image that we are courageous, or that we are in charge of ourselves. Then some unexpected event — a broken-up marriage or a discharge from work — reveals to us that we’re really not in charge of ourselves at all!
  Now, the part that is not in charge is definitely not our real nature. It’s certainly not of Truth, of God, of Cosmic Consciousness, but it’s something unnatural to us.      
  Now, if we can begin very earnestly to study this unnaturalness, to see how it’s tearing us apart, disturbing us every time we step out the door in the morning — from morning until night — we can understand that we are operating from something that is not really us, although we are quite sure it is! But we have so many — hundreds — of wrong ideas about “who we are”!
  Again, very briefly: A very honest observation of how our invented personality meets events and gets rebuffed, knocked down, hurt, made tearful. If we can begin to see that the way we’re presently operating is “not doing it” for us, then we can go to the next step of dissolving it through higher knowledge. And when this invented self is out of the way — when the cupboard is bare — we can put new products into it.

Interviewer: Excellent! I really think these ideas are special gifts.
Vernon: Well, the Truth, of course, comes down from something much higher than we are. And with our receptivity, by making just a little tiny empty space there at the start, then Truth has the opportunity at least to begin to tell us something different from what we’ve had in the past. Our part — to repeat my previous point —is to get the “junk” out of the way, and to admit that it’s there, which is not as easy as it sounds because we resist anyone trying to tear down our structures of all these years.
  When Truth starts to penetrate — even just a little bit — it gives a very distinct, unique kind of feeling that is unlike anything we have ever felt before … and we know we’re on the path at last.

Interviewer: Yes … it’s a great feeling. And it’s nice to know that there are other people in the world who are reaching for these ideas and who are willing to go the route in order to live them. And there are people — people all over — who are on this path.
Vernon: Yes, yes. Quite right … quite right.

Interviewer: When this Truth begins to glimmer, and we are beginning to see the “junk” — then there’s a point where you know you’ve got to do something else. Would you give our listeners an example of finding that “junk” and then moving into the Light?
Vernon: Ah … yes, yes! There is a very, very DEFINITE point along the upward path (the path up the mountain) where what we’ve been doing begins to get through our heads — our thick heads! (Chuckle) We see the ideas that we’re clinging to, the concepts, the stubbornness, our whole “life style”. And then it begins to dawn on us, that instead of giving us something, it is simply punishing us!
  When we get to the point where we’re able to recognize unconscious self-punishment as self-punishment, it begins to fade away of itself. No conscious man, no man or woman who is even beginning to wake up ever wants to cling to something that is actually hurting him. But it takes a long, long time because our pride, our vanity, always says, “Don’t you tell me what to do! I know …” A man who is destroying himself will insist that he’s doing something for himself!
  And it’s indeed very, very frightening at first to let go of our prison cells because we’re used to them; they’re comfortable. We’re taken care of by our own neurosis, so to speak, never seeing that it confines us to one little part of our own inner world. So, to break out we have to have a little bit of courage to start — and anyone can start. That’s the encouraging thing!

Interviewer: So to start, we say “Help!”
Vernon: Fine! Yes!

Interviewer: I think that’s a very good beginning prayer — “Help!” And then that glimmer starts.
Vernon: Right! And then we must have the courage not to look at our own confusion and neurosis for help, but rather — to repeat the previous point again — to let it GO! We begin to give up everything we’ve depended upon before for the answers because it hasn’t given us the answers. It’s only gotten us deeper into the marsh — for example, our stubbornness that we have the answers. See?
  We begin to have the honesty to see that my answers have given me nothing but grief and misery and heartache. Then we have just a little bit of courage to say, “I’m going to drop it just to see what happens if I drop my stubbornness.” That leaves the opening so that something higher than my stubbornness can come in and begin to operate.

Interviewer: Excellent! I think that we can all identify with stubbornness, just a little bit! (Laughter) I can hear the ideas spinning in heads, and they say, “That sounds really good! How do I do it?”
Vernon: You start exactly where you are! Don’t have any ideas of where you’re going — you don’t need any! What we do need to know is exactly where we are — that is, we are lost! (Vernon and the interviewer both laugh.)
  It may not sound like fun, and it isn’t at the time, but we have to go beyond the shock. I have to go beyond the shock of seeing quite clearly that I am lost and that I have been deceiving myself all my life! And beyond that shock is what I have been yearning for all my life! What’s the matter with seeing that we’ve been wrong all our life? Nothing the matter with that! Isn’t that better than suffering from it forevermore?

Interviewer: It sure is … it sure is.
Vernon: This is a major operation. The sooner we submit to it — to this Great Surgeon — the better off we are!

Interviewer: Yes! Would you give us a definition of that Great Surgeon?
Vernon: Yes. It is something that is not a part of my past, something that is not a part of my conditioned beliefs about “who I am”, what life is all about, about where I want to go in life. The “lower level surgeon” is all my past. When I am willing to give that up I make room — and something else comes in.

Interviewer: One of the things that people ask me, I think more than anything else, is “How do I release? How do I release that past? I have all this hurt and fear — what’ll I do?”
Vernon: Here it is: We’re very peculiar people. Do you agree with that?

Interviewer: (Laughing) Oh, yes!
Vernon: We’re very peculiar — in that we love our misery! If we take a very good honest look at ourselves, we see that we love our misery; we love our complaints! What would we do with ourselves if we couldn’t complain all day long, find someone to accuse, someone to blame!
  So, if we can see that we’re treasuring that, and then see the punishment in treasuring false ideas about myself, that in itself will cause the release. The consciousness itself — of the false — will release the true.

Interviewer: I think that’s good to know. People keep thinking they have to do — do it themselves. And we can’t do anything for ourselves!
Vernon: We’ve been trying all our lives to do it ourselves — and look at the mess we’ve made out of it! But we’re very confused because we don’t know — at this point — any other self but the confused, awkward self that keeps getting us into one trouble right after the other, one day after another.
  When we see that we’ve been all wrong — and drop that — something else happens.

Interviewer: And what a relief it is.
Vernon: Yes. One clue as to what we have to release is to observe tense and angry self-defense in ourselves. And then just simply look and say, “What on earth am I defending?”
  And we’ll find out that we’re simply defending every idea and emotion that has got us and kept us in this state. We’re loving our jailers! Now, isn’t that strange!

Interviewer: We do it all the time!
Vernon: Yes!

Interviewer: I have the great pleasure of visiting with Vernon Howard. I highly recommend the classic bestseller, The Mystic Path to Cosmic Power. He has beautiful ideas and it’s a very refreshing viewpoint because he has a knack of telling it like it is. And that’s a real gift. You don’t find many teachers around that are willing to just lay it on the line — it is not only refreshing, but it’s a very freeing action.
  Vernon, I think you should talk about the jailers that you spoke of a little bit. This is something that our listeners are very interested in because many of them are ready to let go of these jailers.
Vernon: Yes, fine! To comment on the jailers. If anyone wants a very simple and short statement that will make this clear, it would simply be — Our jailers are our unconscious negativities.
  Any time we’re unconsciously negative, that means we don’t really see it. We may feel it, and we may be punished by it. For example — anger. When I am angry, I am punished by that anger. If we very honestly look at ourselves we can see how we burn when we’re angry, how it’s an escape from facing something we don’t want to face within ourselves, for example. So this is one jailer.
  Now, if we can just stick with that and study it for just a minute. Why do I get angry at anything at all? Why do I prefer this jailer? It’s because my anger has a certain fiery feeling to it — I feel as if I am doing something! If you hurt my feelings and I flare up at you I get a certain feeling of identity, of being someone — and a certain wrong idea that I am doing something intelligent about the disturbance that I assume you caused me. Of course, I caused it myself by my wrong reaction, did I not? But not knowing that my reaction is a jailer, simply not seeing how I’m submitting to “his” treatment of me, I love this jailer rather than the man with the key who could get me out! I have unconsciously preferred this jailer because I know of no other way to react — and this is the way I have been 40-50-80 years! If I go out … I won’t have this false feeling of life I get from blowing up!
  Again, if I can see that blowing up punishes me, keeps me miserable, then makes me feel guilty later, of course — I can then recognize the jailer as someone who’s keeping me away from the Good Life, from True Life. And when I see that, I want nothing more to do with him!
  This does not happen overnight; it doesn’t happen in a week. It happens definitely though, as I continue to gather all the knowledge about these things that I can, and then put it into practice down at the supermarket, at home or wherever I am — and regardless of whether anyone else wants to work on themselves or not. I must want Truth more than I want anything else. And when I have that attitude Truth hears it, understands it … and races to the rescue.

Interviewer: One of the things that has meant a great deal to me is the statement you made that everything depends upon the way that we take the Truth. And the way is the living of it, is it not?
Vernon: Quite right — the living of it, yes. And one way we can do that, to add another point to that, is to look at our lives, even the physical body — the physical body, the emotions, the thoughts. If we will look we can see how we’re racing, always racing, always running around trying to do something, build something. And here’s a two-word sentence some may wish to write down. It’s very simple, but far more profound than it sounds, and is simply this: “S-l-o-w D-o-w-n!” (Laughter) “Slow down!”

Interviewer: Yes, I think we all need that written right across our foreheads in red letters!
Vernon: Right! If I’m running at top speed through the woods I won’t be able to recognize anything around me, not the pit, not the tree — and I’ll fall down, won’t I? Or bump into the tree!
  If I slow down, then my eyesight becomes much better, and then I can see the pit and avoid it. I can avoid the wolf out in the woods there. I can run away from him — because I’ve slowed down to see him in the first place. If I’m running madly because I’m scared, how can I see?
  Slow down! Slow down and see!

Interviewer: Oh, yes! There’s a beautiful scroll called “Slow Me Down, Lord” that you may have seen …
Vernon: (Laughing lightly) No, but if …

Interviewer: A lot of us have it on office walls around — and it’s really one of the major things that we have to do. People say, “You know, I don’t have the time to meditate.” That’s really a shame because that’s where it all comes from.
Vernon: Yes. Real meditation can go on 24 hours of the day — simply watching what is happening inside of us, and NOT being afraid of it. Or, if we are afraid of it, don’t be afraid of the fear.

Interviewer: Ah-h-h, Excellent point! “Don’t be afraid of the fear.”
Vernon: Correct. Let it be there! Why fight it? That will only continue it!

Interviewer: We energize it, don’t we?
Vernon: We have a little saying in our class, which is, “If you’re shaking, Stand and Shake! Stand and shake!”

Interviewer: Let it happen and get it over!
Vernon: That will break the power of it, yes!

Interviewer: I wonder why all of us are afraid to be people, and to hurt and to shake.
Vernon: I’m afraid it’s because we sense we’re pretty artificial down underneath. And we’re not only afraid that other people will see through us, but we’re afraid that we will see through ourselves! And that’s kind of embarrassing, isn’t it?

Interviewer: (Laughing) Yes, it is!
Vernon: But it’s healthy — if we take that shock. It’s a very healthy shock to see through ourselves.

Interviewer: I loved the statement that you made last night about taking your own tears and using them creatively, and work through those hurts. That is so important. We must be willing to take those energies and use them creatively instead of letting them destroy us.
Vernon: Correct. Look at all the energy — again, in anger. Look at the tremendous amount of energy that has simply been turned toward the wrong thing! If we could have taken that and turned it toward self- awakening, the anger would — all by itself — have to weaken because we’re not feeding it any more!

Interviewer: We must realize that energy is just energy.
Vernon: Right! It is pure energy at its source.

Interviewer: And we use it however we want to. We’re really shortchanging ourselves when we are using it destructively.
Vernon: We don’t know what we’ve missed as long as we are not actively trying to find ourselves. We’re living in dreamland, thinking that it’s moonlight and roses — and we wake up with tears!

Interviewer: Sounds like a sad trip we’re on, but it’s really not …
Vernon: Ah-h-h! This is the most positive path we could ever be on! It’s going to get rid of the tears finally — providing we cease to love our tears!

Interviewer: Right! We must take a good look at what we love. And we are loving whatever it is we are hanging onto. But you know, we hear people say, “I can’t get over my fear — and it’s overwhelming me!” And to tell someone like that that they’re loving their fear is almost cruel.
Vernon: Yes, and besides people say, “Well, if you take away my fears, what will take their place?” Well … (pause, followed by laughter) … we have good news! What will take its place is something that is not fearful! But we’re afraid of the unknown, of the “not tears”. This is all we’ve known, and you take away my tears, “who” will I be? See?

Interviewer: Uh-huh...
Vernon: And so — we have to have the courage to find out what is beyond the false identity of being tearful, of being hurt. And beyond that is True Life … the Good Life.

Interviewer: Yes … The Good Life … and it’s called Happy.
Vernon: Right!

Interviewer: We’re going to pause now for station identification and then we’ll be right back with The Good Life.