From 2026 Spring/Summer Newsletter

     One of the greatest rewards of these teachings is to open up our eyes, to awaken our essence to the reality of this world. I don’t know how many times when reading a book or booklet, or listening to a talk, or watching a video, Vernon Howard has implored us “… to see things as they are.” Yes it is shocking to start to see that human beings are living in fantasyland and are living from an idea or a belief or a self-created illusion. That’s not who we really are.
     Vernon Howard used to periodically tell us almost every human being on the face of the earth is a two-year-old in an adult body. If we’ll start to observe ourselves and everyone around us, we can see examples of this all over the place. You’ve seen a child throw a temper tantrum when you take a toy away from them. What happens when something is taken away from us? When someone gets fired from a job, or someone leaves you, what happens? The person breaks down, gets angry, cries or feels betrayed.
     There are thousands of examples of this happening on a daily basis. You are a waiter or waitress, and the customer doesn’t like the food. So, they blame you and get a little huffy. Before you went to work you had a tickle in your throat and debated whether you should go to work or not, but decided you needed the money so you’d better go. On the way to get into the car you suddenly remember you left a coat you wanted to drop off at the cleaners after work and you had to go back and get it. All these things and many, many more can set off negative reactions inside us.
     As an example of sleep, of being lost, of unawareness, we can catch ourselves and see it in other people as well. Recently I was in a grocery store and heading to another department when I came around a corner of an aisle and almost ran into a store manager. I was able to stop without running into him. He was standing in the middle of the aisle looking straight ahead but didn’t initially see me. His body was present there, but his mind wasn’t. I couldn’t go around him, so I just stood there for about 10 seconds before he became aware of me. It was obvious he was lost in thought. It was amazing that he actually had no clue I was there.
     Where have we been lost in thought or taken over by some negative state and have been gone for an extended period of time? We are supposed to be aware. How many accidents or near collisions on the road or highway have happened because people were unaware, thinking when they should have been paying attention to their driving. How many times have we set our keys down somewhere in the house and forgot where we put them? This is sleep.
     I recently pointed out to someone that they were complaining about something. They immediately responded in no uncertain terms that they were NOT complaining. They took it as an affront to their image of themselves as someone who does not complain. It wasn’t an attack on them, but they took it that way. They even got angry about it. It’s interesting to note that most people are extremely touchy. They’re not interested in studying themselves and seeing where the problem really lies.
     If I want to find out the truth about myself I have to be willing to do some self-investigation to see if there is a complainer inside me. There was a song written in the early 1900s entitled “I Don’t Want to Get Well.” Vernon actually sang it himself in class and had some students who were good singers perform it at a banquet. It was a World War I song and the lyrics said, “I don’t want to get well, I don’t want to get well, I’m in love with a beautiful nurse….”
     The problem with most human beings is that they don’t want to see how badly off they are. I was recently watching a newscast of the current ‘protests’ going on. Have you noticed how what Vernon called ‘Crowd Thinking’ has become a dominant force in today’s society?
     There was one video clip of one of the main agitators, screaming at the top of his lungs, getting in people’s faces, cursing and being just downright nasty. The man looked wild-eyed and possessed, but he couldn’t see himself as a lunatic with no self-command, as he was completely taken over by the thrill of the moment. He couldn’t see the damage he was doing to himself and couldn’t have cared less if anyone else was injured. Vernon points out, “When one person hurts another person, it’s because they get a thrill out of it. Live without the thrill of hurting someone else and you’ll live without the thrill of hurting yourself. The two are tied together.”
     One of the big lies I’m seeing these days is people, human beings keep saying we have a right to peacefully protest. There is no such thing as a ‘peaceful protest.’ If you cause other people trouble that is wrong. If you block the road and people can’t get to work on time or someone has an emergency and is not able to get to a doctor or whatever it might be, that is wrong. If you are yelling and screaming to get their attention while they are driving past and you distract them from paying attention to the road, they might run into or broadside someone and cause a serious accident. That is depraved. We have a spiritual responsibility to not do that.
     You’re not going to change peoples’ minds anyway. Getting in someone’s face is more than likely going to just harden the opposite position. Taking an adamant position is only going to cause friction or conflict. If our life had real purpose there would be no need to protest. You can’t change the world, but we can change ourselves.
     There is a higher law above human law. There is something that God has put inside us that knows the difference between right and wrong. You don’t need some expert or clergyman or legislator to explain or tell you or pass some law to clarify the difference between right and wrong.
     We periodically are contacted by someone who asks us to explain a quote they read in one of Vernon’s books or saw in a Secrets of Life Daily Quote or heard on a talk or watched on a video. Every single time the person is trying to comprehend what Vernon is talking about with his or her mind, with the intellect. In a talk Vernon gave he puts it this way, “You must not do with the mind what must be done with the spirit.” This talk was transcribed and put in the book Your Power of Natural Knowing, Chapter 13. Vernon Howard personally chose this talk to be emphasized because it is loaded with explanations and clarifications about the human condition which includes everyone. Toward the end of the chapter Vernon elucidates, “You don’t have to know from the intellect. You thought you had to. You don’t have to. God knows. That’s it. That’s a fact ... If God knows, which he does, and you’re in communication and communion with God, then you have his wisdom. That makes you someone who has knowledge supplied by God, not by man.”
     The intellect can never understand these things. They must be perceived by something which is above the mind. There is something inside us which must be uncovered through hard work and persistence. It is something which must be seen and known by each of us individually.
     Let’s try and paint a picture, an illustration, using the mind rightly to help us see things more clearly. Suppose someone is trying to describe to you what a peach tastes like. They go into great detail what it tastes like. It is juicy, succulent, sweet, full of vitality, flavorful, etc. But until you personally taste the peach, you won’t really know what it tastes like. It is something that you must experience for yourself. It is the same with these truth principles.
     Vernon Howard can tell you that there is something above the mind, that another world exists for you and me to experience for ourselves, where there is true contentment, relief, no problems, no stress or strain, etc. But until we actually, factually experience it for ourselves we can only believe it to be true or deny that it exists. That’s all the mind can do. It cannot know.
     We have to see and taste the Truth for ourselves. It doesn’t happen overnight. It comes with a lot of perseverance and persistence. How many years did it take society to program and fill us with all its wrongness such as fear, hostility, worry, irritation, crabbiness, confusion, etc.? All that has to be undone, given up in order to receive the higher. In A Treasury of Trueness, Vernon puts it this way, “Don’t believe in instant salvation. All of that is a cruel hoax. There is no such thing. It comes gradually, over years and years of hard persistent work.”
     It can be done. Christ said, What I have done, you can do also and even greater things (paraphrasing). Every time we make contact with these principles, whether in a book, a talk or while meeting for a class, a right healing atmosphere is present which reminds us of why we were put here on this earth. It lifts the spirit and energizes us. It breathes true life into us. This isn’t imagination, it is a fact.