July 2023

LEARNING A NEW RIGHTNESS
     This is a lesson for you. The man in the illustration is going to find out by detaching himself — he can only do it little by little — detaching himself from the wild actions, just to see what happens to him as a result of it. And what happens is that he begins to listen to the teacher, and he begins to learn! And he begins to see the practical part of it. If he learns a bit about arithmetic or about writing, about whatever, he begins to learn. “Ah! This becomes something that I can use. This becomes something valuable for me. I didn’t know that when I was joining them in the rowdiness. I was having too much fun being bad. I was beginning to see a difference in this behavior and the consequence of that.”  The consequences being that he unconsciously robbed himself of something good, something practical, that he could have had for himself.
     And I’ve described this rowdy and rival world, too. I’ve described the world which is a rowdy world in which everyone wants to do what they want to do, instead of slowing down and wondering, “Why did I do that? Why did I show contempt for the teacher? Why do I do those things?”
     I want you to know that there are an awful lot of the rowdiness, attitudes, emotions, inclinations in you that you don’t see. And you are blocking off your own possibility of learning and of acquiring a life which is so far above your present life that there’s no way to compare it.
     So, we’re going to learn a few things that will give us knowledge, wisdom that is practical. Not only for living out in that world — and get this — but for living with yourself. So that when you’re walking all alone somewhere, you’re not lonely. How can you be lonely when you have Life, with a capital ‘L’, so that you don’t fall into depression anymore as you presently do.
     A life utterly different. Don’t try to imagine it. There’s no way you can. I’m describing it to you. I’m telling you the kind of life that it won’t be! The new existence that you can have will be utterly unlike what you now have.
     I started off by telling you that it was a life of pretense. Wouldn’t you like to take off the mask? Take it off! The costume! Don’t you see what a burden it is to carry them around?
     Wouldn’t you like to be one complete whole person that can go out into the world and be one person all the time, while adapting in a certain way to the world simply because the world changes. This means you might be quite stern with someone and the next minute you might be quite easy with them. It all is depending on how the absolute rightness in you tells you to behave.
     See, rightness is a marvelous kind of dictator. No compromise. It tells you to behave this way or that way. But always inwardly right, regardless of how you behave toward the exterior world and toward people out there. And if you want to go around this world and in this life with a sense of peace, of calmness, of being in command, then you invite this new rightness that you can learn about.

WELCOME SELF-FULFILLMENT
     Know that you have nothing of your own. “I can’t resort to my intelligence. I have nothing of my own. No strength, no pleasantness, no wisdom of my own.”
     The chains exist only in faulty thinking. Welcome self-exposure — what you’re really like. Our own nothingness is self-fulfillment. Shocks. Deeper dismays.
     Shake your head. Break the spell, the stupor.