Interviewer: I’d like to invite you now to give us a call here and let’s limit calls today to questions. I think it would be a great thing to ask Vernon a very basic question — something that has great meaning to you in an area that you are working through right now. Your answer will be invaluable.

Caller: Yes, Marilyn. This is Beth, and I would like to speak to Dr. Howard.
  First of all, I really enjoyed his lecture last night. It was fantastic! But I spent all last night dreaming I was in search of my True Self! (Laughter) I was out there taking journeys like crazy! It was rather an exciting dream though.
  But what I would like to ask Dr. Howard is this: Now, I will see a negative. But it’s like a pair of mice, male and female. And just about the time I think I’ve trapped those little devils, I find that that pair of mice and that negative has already bred a whole litter of little negatives.
Vernon: Yes!

Caller: (Laughing) This means I’ve got to set a whole lot of traps! How can you stop the breeding of the litter of small negatives from the larger negatives before it happens? Can you stop that or do you have to work on the little negatives after they’ve already gotten born?
Vernon: May I ask you … yes (laughter) … I understand your question. May I ask you … how much are you in love with your little negativities?

Caller: … Uh-h …
Vernon: (Laughing) Did we trap you?

Caller: Yes, you trapped me! Gee, I must really be in love with them or I wouldn’t be hanging on to them, would I? (Laughter)
Vernon: Remember what we said during the discussion part — that we have a certain peculiar fondness for our negativities because they seem to give us a sense of security, a sense of the familiar?
  Are you willing to let them go and not know what will replace them? Are you willing to stop being the “you” who has a peculiar fondness for any kind of a negativity — anger, upset, feeling cheated, or whatever?

Caller: Most of the time … I think … yes. But I’m not sure I can say, you know, a wholehearted 100% “yes.” And that’s a difficult thing to admit because it must mean that I have become hypnotized and obsessed by these little negativities that I have made such an important part of my life.
Vernon: That’s right. They’re …

Caller: Now how do I get rid of the hypnosis and obsession? (Laughter)
Vernon: Stop trying to do it by yourself. You see? The part of you that is trying to get rid of them is on the same level as the little negativities themselves.
  Now, there is something that is above what you call “you,” and therefore above the companion to that, the little negativity. When the “light” from this “something that is above” shines on negativities, it will dissolve them. But you must understand the necessity simply to drop the negativity. Don’t — whatever you do — don’t you ever hold a conversation with a negativity. That is why they breed! Do you understand so far?

Caller: Yes, I certainly do.
Vernon: You understand how you converse — and even embrace them? Stop conversing with them. You turn your psychological back on them! Turn away and walk away! And don’t you dare listen when they call back, “Come back, dear friend … I need you!” They may need you but you don’t need them!

Caller: That’s when you say, “Fine, but I really don’t need you!” And you just keep walking on.
Vernon: You keep walking — and remember: you walk on, not knowing what you’re going to hear next and not caring — because you don’t need to know! When the higher voice — Truth, God — begins to speak, you will recognize it. And it will not be part of imagination if you just keep walking in silence long enough and far enough.

Caller: Oh. Very good … very good. Thank you very much.
Vernon: You’re quite welcome.

Interviewer: Thank you, Beth.
Caller: Yes … Bye-bye.
Interviewer: Bye-bye. Excellent analogy.
Hello … you’re on the air. Could I have your first name, please?
Caller: Yes, this is Donna. My question is: How in the world can you ever get over my grieving and mourning … (inaudible on tape)? He was the first boy I ever dated — I was 14 — and I was married to him for 37 years.
Vernon: Yes … I …

Caller: ... And he dropped dead at my feet and he’s been gone for 10 years and I still grieve and mourn and cry over him. How in the world can I ever get over that?
Vernon: You want to know how to get over grieving over your lost husband? Was that the question? How to get over your grief?

Caller: Yes.
Vernon: Have you been listening to the earlier part of the program?

Caller: Yes. (Inaudible remark)
Vernon: Did you perhaps see the answer to your question in what we spoke about before? Remember that we talked about how we’re so much in love with our past, and especially with our grief’s, that we cling to them because we’re afraid that we might be empty without them? Can you simply drop your grief — and see what would happen to you without it? Instead of clinging to it? You understand what I am saying? Try to see how you have a fondness for your grief … that you …

Caller: This man I am speaking of was my first boyfriend. He and I started dating when I was 14 and he was 15. We married when I was 20 and he was 22, and we lived together in marriage 37 years and he dropped dead — sat right in front of me — at my feet with a heart attack. (Tape inaudible) … and I can’t get over it.
Vernon: Let me ask you … (Donna is speaking inaudibly in the background) … let me ask you, please … please let me ask you a question.

Caller: All right.
Vernon: How hard … how earnestly and how persistently … will you work on your inner nature in order to change it?

Caller: I’m not working on the change — that’s my problem.
Vernon: All right then, how do you expect to solve your problem unless you do something right toward it?

Caller: I’m doing something terrible, I know.
Vernon: All right … all right! If you’re confused about what to do, never mind about that. That’s all right. I’m asking you, are you ready to start right now, this very minute, whatever time it is, to change directions — in order to understand why you love your grief? Are you willing to try to understand why you love your tears? That’s my one question to you.

Caller: Am I willing to understand what?
Vernon: Why you love your tears. Are you willing to try to find out why?

Caller: I love his memory.
Vernon: I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about you loving your grief.

Caller: No, I don’t love my grief.
Vernon: Yes, you do love it or you wouldn’t have it.

Caller: I kiss his picture good morning, good afternoon, and good night — and I know that’s not right.
Vernon: Yes, let me add one more point and then perhaps we’d better stop.

Caller: Yes?
Vernon: You understand that these truths, that Truth itself is not harsh? It’s not your enemy? It’s not trying to hurt you? The Truth itself is the most gentle compassionate Power there is — and the ONLY compassionate Power. And if you take your grief even as a source of pleasure, then that is a wrong way to look, a wrong place to look. Simply understand that Truth is trying to give you something that you don’t presently have — and yield to it, instead of yielding to your tears.

Interviewer: Thank you very much for calling. We have to pause now for a quick message.

Caller: I have read Mr. Howard’s book, and I have been through three years of metaphysical studies. And for the last two years I have worked on the problem of unemployment.
Vernon: Yes.

Caller: I have counseled. I have studied. I have tried to use all these truths, and yet I have no employment.
Vernon: And you want to know the answer to that?

Caller: Yes.
Vernon: I wish I could talk with you for about … uh … six months.
(Interviewer laughs)

Caller: Pardon?
Vernon: I wish I could talk with you about six months — because it would take that time to cover the subject thoroughly. But let me cover it briefly in a minute.

Caller: All right. But we don’t have six months or … uh … so what is the use …?
Vernon: Um-huh. Are you concerned over the welfare of your physical body — that you won’t have enough money to feed your body? Or are you concerned over psychological factors? Do you perhaps feel rejected by life, seeing that you haven’t been able to find work? Do you feel that life is against you? See, that’s quite another thing than trying to find work in order to get money in order to put bread on the table. Do you feel rejected by life? Do you feel that perhaps it’s overwhelming you and the world is against you? Do you ever have such thoughts as that?

Caller: Uh-h ... yes, I believe so ... although health wise I have used the metaphysics. I am perfectly healthy. I am perfectly competent.
Vernon: Yes!

Caller: I am an employable person.
Vernon: May I ask you … do you feel a bit bitter toward life?

Caller: Yes, I do.
Vernon: Do you think that that is a good thing for you or a bad thing?

Caller: Well, I know it is a bad thing.
Vernon: Why do you treasure it then?

Caller: Uh ... I don’t treasure it. Every day I take my thoughts and I turn them around 180 degrees and say … you know … “I am …”
Vernon: May I tell you something, please?

Caller: Yes.
Vernon: If you were to work with these truths that you said you’ve worked with for several years, keep with them, going deeper, deeper, deeper, you would find out that there is no real problem out in that world at all! I will tell you — there is no real problem as far as you’re concerned with that sick society out there. It is a sick society — no doubt about that — with its wars and crimes and its general madness and its cruelties, masquerading as love.
  If you were to find yourself, that is, find out who you really are, you would be, as we discussed last night at the lecture, like Daniel in the lions’ den. You would be right in the den of this fierce world — and it wouldn’t be able to touch you at all!
  And let me add something, very quickly, to that. What I just told you is not simply a religious phraseology, not something that I’m saying to make you feel good. It is something — if you will work with every ounce of energy you have — you can see for yourself! And THAT will answer your question concerning employment, so that you either have work or you don’t have work — but you’re a free, whole human being!
  Now which do you want — to be a free, whole human being or to find work? Which do you think is the most valuable?

Caller: Well, of course ... to be a free, whole human being.
Vernon: All right! Then will you place first things first?
(Silence)
Vernon: You understand? Why do you let the problem DISTRACT you and TEAR YOU AWAY from being who you really are — which is part of the Whole, part of the All? Why do you permit it to tear you away? You’ll refuse that from now on! Say, “NO!,” at the top of your psychological voice! You’re being hoaxed and you don’t realize it.

Caller: You’re being what?
Vernon: You’re being hoaxed. You understand? Deceived … fooled … but you don’t realize it yet because the hoax is so complete. When you wake up you will see that there was no problem at all except as your psychic sleep created and perpetuated it. And THAT is a fact!

Interviewer: All right?
Caller: All right.
Vernon: Will you work hard?

Caller: (Laughing lightly) Yes.
Vernon: That’s a girl!
Interviewer: (Laughing) You’ve got quite a project! Thank you for calling.

(Station break)

Interviewer: That is the major project for all of us ... all of the time. It doesn’t make any difference what the problem is.
Vernon: Indeed …

Interviewer: I hope that everybody took notes on that answer. Thank you. Hello … You’re listening to The Good Life. Could we have your first name, please?
Caller: Hello. This is Mike. Vernon, I’d like to ask you one thing.
Vernon: Sure!

Caller: I met you last night and I wanted to say that it was a terrific pleasure to really meet you in person. When I shook your hand I had this feeling that I have always known you before — and even seen you, and yet I can’t remember where I saw you.
Vernon: You know something? Even if you didn’t meet me before, that certain familiarity was a deeper kind of friendship. You understand that?

Caller: Yes sir.
Vernon: You understand, for example, that there was no — or at least let’s say a minimum of pretense between us, and that we were both being real, at least for the moment?

Caller: Oh, yea. Yea, it was a positive feeling — very definitely!
Vernon: Right! Yes! And a right good feeling, wasn’t it?

Caller: It was!
  Vernon, I have been working since 1973 on changing my life, and I have tried many things. They say you have to make up your mind to do it, and I’ve thought many times I made up my mind. But one of the things that keeps getting in the way is anxiety. My awareness is getting to the point where I can see this anxiety always hopping in the way.
  One thing you said last night that caught my direct, pinpoint attention was your phrase, “When these things come up to take control of you, or to take you over …” That hit home with me and it kind of struck a fear in me to realize that these anxious thoughts were controlling me.
Vernon: Right. You were becoming aware of that?

Caller: And I just wondered how … what, sir, what would be your method or your technique for working anxiety out? I’ve tried about everything …
Vernon: All right … in answer, let me ask you a question.

Caller: Okay.
Vernon: I want you to give me a list of all the positive benefits that your anxiety has given you.

Caller: None!
Vernon: Ah-h-h! (Chuckle)

Caller: And yet I hold on to it as something that is so painful that I have to hold on to enjoy the pain — and not the goodness and richness of life!
Vernon: Now! That was a very good sentence! The gentleman said he enjoyed the pain! See how self-honesty is creeping into this? We enjoy the pain! Now — can we go beyond that … to not enjoy the pain any more because we see that it is keeping us out of the Kingdom, out of being a simple, self-commanding human being — which is what we want!

Caller: Vernon, I do believe, deep within myself, that it is possible to program it out, to get rid of it — and then more anxiety gets in the way. I’ve got your book THE MYSTIC PATH TO COSMIC POWER, but in taking care of this anxiety, is there any general lead-in that you could give me? I’m the type of person that if somebody says something and it strikes something in me, like you did last night, I most generally follow it out until I find and perceive the truth in it and how I’ve been deceiving myself.
Interviewer: We’re going to have to pause for a quick message, so we’ll have a message and Vernon will give you the answer. Okay?
Caller: Okay.