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A Chief Cause Of Unhappiness Is What I Call Mental Movies. Mental Movies Are A Misuse Of The Imagination. You Know How It Goes. You Have A Painful Experience With Someone, Then Run It Over And Over In Your Mind. You Visualize What You Said, What He Did, How You Both Felt. As Awful As It Is, You Feel Compelled To Repeat The Film Day And Night. It Is As If You Were Locked Inside A Theatre Playing A Horrible Movie.

-Vernon Howard

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A Chief Cause Of

Vernon Howard

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A Chief Cause Of Unhappiness Is What I Call Mental Movies. Mental Movies Are A Misuse Of The Imagination. You Know How It Goes. You Have A Painful Experience With Someone, Then Run It Over And Over In Your Mind. You Visualize What You Said, What He Did, How You Both Felt. As Awful As It Is, You Feel Compelled To Repeat The Film Day And Night. It Is As If You Were Locked Inside A Theatre Playing A Horrible Movie.

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Painful Experiences

More From Vernon Howard

Inner Guidance Is Heard Like Soft Music In The Night By Those Who Have Learned To Listen.

A False Path Must Be Tensely And Angrily Defended By Those It Has Deceived.

Do Not Be Impatient With Your Seemingly Slow Progress. Do Not Try To Run Faster Than You Presently Can. If You Are Studying, Reflecting And Trying, You Are Making Progress Whether You Are Aware Of It Or Not. A Traveler Walking The Road In The Darkness Of Night Is Still Going Forward. Someday, Some Way, Everything Will Break Open, Like The Natural Unfolding Of A Rosebud.

You Can Not Escape A Prison If You Do Not Know You're In One.

All Forms Of Self-defeating Behavior Are Unseen And Unconscious, Which Is Why Their Existence Is Denied.

The Leap Is Made By Dropping Vanity Over Knowledge And By A Willingness To Become Nothing In Order To Become Everything.

A Desperation To Escape A Problem Is The Wrong Way. A Passion To Understand It Is The Right Way

The Search For Truth Is Really A Lot Of Good Fun.

Pseudo-mysticism Seeks To Evade Reality; Authentic Mysticism Wants To Live It.

The Terrible Immoralities Are The Cunning Ones Hiding Behind Masks Of Morality, Such As Exploiting People While Pretending To Help Them.

Always Walk Through Life As If You Have Something New To Learn, And You Will.

When The Mind Is Exhausted In Trying To Find The Answer, The Answer Dawns.

Run Forward When Possible, Walk Ahead When You Can, Stagger Onward When You Must, But Never Cease Your Forward Movement.

It Is Wise To Seek Immortality For Time Defeats All Other Ambitions.

We Are Slaves To Whatever We Don't Understand.

We Can Accept God Becoming Man To Save Man, But Not Man Becoming God To Save Himself.

You Cannot Stop Destructive Actions By Others, But You Can Stop Your Own Destructive Reactions To Them

The Outer Storm Ceases The Moment The Inner Storm Ends, For They Are The Same Storm.

We Clearly Realize That Freedom's Inner Kingdom Cannot Be Touched By Exterior Attacks.

Just As Surely As Distress Must Follow Self-deceit, Healing Must Follow Self-honesty.

We Can Become Slaves To Things We Don't Understand

Be Very Careful That You Do Not Unconsciously Assume That Nervous Tension Is Power. This Is Vital. Watch Yourself The Next Time You Work Toward Some Goal. Look Very Closely To Discover Tense Feelings And Nervous Thoughts Whirling Around Inside. Do Not Let Them Deceive You Into Assuming That They Are Creative Forces; They Are Not. They Are Thieves Of Genuine Powers. As Always, Your Awareness Of Their Thievery Is Your First Fine Step Toward Casting Them Out.

Happiness Is Yours In The Here And Now. The Painful States Of Anxiety And Loneliness Are Abolished Permanently. Financial Affairs Are Not Financial Problems. You Are At Ease With Yourself. You Are Not At The Mercy Of Unfulfilled Cravings. Confusion Is Replaced With Clarity. There Is A Relieving Answer To Every Tormenting Question. You Possess A True Self. Something Can Be Done About Every Unhappy Condition. While Living In The World You Can Be Inwardly Detached From Its Sorrows To Live With Personal Peace And Sanity.

Truth Is Not A Matter Of Personal Viewpoint.

Our Freedom Can Be Measured By The Number Of Things We Can Walk Away From.

Bitterness Is The Outcome Of A Wrong Mental Movement - The Attempt To Force External Events To Conform To Internal Fantasy. The Cure Is To See Fantasy As Fantasy, Which Will Reveal It As Neither Necessary Nor Rewarding.

We Are Exactly Where We Have Chosen To Be.

Beauty Is Only Skin Deep, But It's A Valuable Asset If You're Poor Or Haven't Any Sense.

Everyone Must Concede That There Is In Existence Something Wiser Than Himself. Now There Is A Challenge, There Is A Challenge Which Few Even Investigate. We're Going To Do That Now. Let's See What We're Talking About. All Troubled People, Which Is All People, Must If They Are Going To Be Delivered From Themselves, Must Make The Concession That There Is A Force, An Entity, A Power That Is Higher Than Their Own Present Nature.

When One Plan That You Have, To Get This Or To Get That, To Advance In The World, Or Whatever It Might Be, When That Seems In Danger Of Veering Off The Path You Have Set For It, You Have Your Emergency Plan Ready. And In Simple Language What That Emergency Plan Is, What You Put Into Operation, Is Called Worry. If You Can Worry You Are Occupied, And What An Incredible Human Situation It Is!

We Are Enslaved By Anything We Do Not Consciously See. We Are Freed By Conscious Perception.

The Reason Why Most People Are Frustrated Is Because A Lie Cannot Be Turned Into A Truth.

The Truth Must Be Told At All Costs, No Matter How Unpopular It May Be. The Authentic Spiritual Leader, Having Freed Himself Of His Own False Need To Be Popular, Tells The Truth Whether It Falls On Fertile Or Stony Ground. Such A Teacher Is The Salt Of The Earth, Though Few Know It. If You Think The World Is Delirious As Is, You Would Find It Intolerable Without His Healing Influence.

Healing Fails To Occur Because It Is Much Easier To Injure Another Than To Heal Oneself.

You Know What Is Right. Deep Down, You Know. The Battle Between Your True Wisdom And The Counterfeit Wisdom Of Society Is What Causes Frustration. Refuse To Compromise With What You Know Is Right-with What Is Right For You.

Society Is Like A Crowd In Carnival Costumes With Everyone Fearful That Others Will See Through His Disguise.

A Chief Cause Of Unhappiness Is What I Call Mental Movies. Mental Movies Are A Misuse Of The Imagination. You Know How It Goes. You Have A Painful Experience With Someone, Then Run It Over And Over In Your Mind. You Visualize What You Said, What He Did, How You Both Felt. As Awful As It Is, You Feel Compelled To Repeat The Film Day And Night. It Is As If You Were Locked Inside A Theatre Playing A Horrible Movie.

Painful Experiences

Can You Think Of Anything More Permanently Elating Than To Know That You Are On The Right Road At Last?

A Person Obsessed With The Need To Be Happy Will Never Be So. The Obsession Is The Obstruction.

A Clear Understanding Of Negative Emotions Dismisses Them.

The Answers Come When You Are Quietly Willing To Be Without Them.

Is The Beam From A Lighthouse Affected By Howling Wind And Rain? It Remains Perfectly Steadfast And Unaffected By The Storm. Your True Self Is Like That. Nothing Can Ever Harm You Once You Are Consciously Aware That It Is So.

You Can End Half Your Troubles Immediately By No Longer Permitting People To Tell You What You Want.

Learn To See Things As They Really Are, Not As We Imagine They Are.

It Is A True Miracle When A Man Finally Sees Himself As His Only Opposition.

It Is Utterly Useless To Try To Change The Outer World, For It Is But A Reflection Of Inner Causes. The True Seeker Seeks To Change Himself.

Realize That The Surface Personality Has No Interest In Anything Which Might Disturb Its Darling Delusions.

Instead Of Fighting Your Problems, Picture Your Way Out Of Them.

All Heartache Is Caused By Wrong Viewpoints.

You Need Only Choose ... Then Keep Choosing As Many Times As Necessary. That Is All You Need Do. And It Is Certainly Something You Can Do. Then As You Continue To Choose, Everything Is Yours.

Study Carefully The Law Of Cause And Effect.

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.

Don't Try To Be Unafraid. That Is Impossible. Rather, Go Ahead While Being Afraid. That Is The Entire Secret For Abolishing Fear. The Supermind Teaches Us To Have No Self-concern At All. Whatever Happens To You, Act As Though It Happened To Someone Else.

When You Are Genuinely Strong, You Neither Attack Nor Defend And So Retain Your Energy.

There Is No Way Reality Can Be Prevented From Flowing The Way It Flows. It Is Our Vain Attempts To Force It To Flow In The Service Of Our Imaginary Needs Which Sets Us In Painful Conflict With Our- Selves And Nature. You Are Not Separate From The Flowing Reality; You Are That Flowing Reality. See This And You Will Not See Any- Thing Else Which Conflicts With It. You Will Be What You See.

It Is Against The Law To Permit Weak People To Steal Your Strength. Never Permit It.

Remember Above All That Mental Stability Comes By Examining The Contents Of The Mind, Not By Avoidence.

If You Call One Thing Good, You Must Call Its Opposite Bad. If You Think It Wonderful To Make A Big Profit In Your Business, You Will Also Think It Terrible If You Incur A Large Loss. The Idea Is To Live Above The Opposites.

No One Can Tell You What Is Right For You Except Yourself. So Start Telling Yourself What To Do. If You Blunder For Ten Years While Thinking For Yourself, That Is Rich Treasure When Compared With Living These Ten Years Under The Mental Domination Of Another.

Mysticism Is: A. An Advanced State Of Inner Enlightenment. B. Union With Reality. C. A State Of Genuinely Satisfying Success. D. Insight Into An Entirely New World Of Living. E. An Intuitive Grasp Of Truth, Above And Beyond Intellectual Reasoning. F. A Personal Experience, In Which We Are Happy And Healthy Human Beings.

Be Teachable. That Is The Whole Secret.

The Problem Is Not What Other People Think, Do Or Say; It Is Your Reaction.

It Is A Mistake For Anyone To Think He Has Lived Too Long In His Old, Unsatisfactory Ways To Make The Great Change. If You Switch On The Light In A Dark Room, It Makes No Difference How Long It Was Dark Because The Light Will Still Shine. Be Teachable. That Is The Whole Secret.

Cruelty Practiced As A Matter Of Social Principle Or Public Policy, And Presented To The Community As A Means To A Higher Goal Is The Most Obscene And Decadent Phenomenon Of Any Civilization.

An Obvious Fact About Negative Feelings Is Often Overlooked. They Are Caused By Us, Not By Exterior Happenings. An Outside Event Presents The Challenge, But We React To It. So We Must Attend To The Way We Take Things, Not To The Things Themselves.

One Of Society's Absurd Delusions Is That The Spending Of Money Can Cure Something.

Do Not Mistake Desire For Love. Desire Leaves Home In A Frantic Search For One Gratification After Another. Love Is At Home With Itself.

To Change What You Get You Must Change Who You Are.

Many Of Us Knock On The Door But Remain Outside, Because Knocking And Entering Are Entirely Different Actions. Knocking Is Necessary, Consisting Of Reading Books, Attending Meetings, Asking Questions. But Entrance Requires Much Bolder Action. It Requires One To Enter Into Himself, To Uncover Hidden Motives, To See Contradictions, And To Realize His Actual Power For Self-change.

Our Life-transformation Is In Exact Proportion To The Amount Of Truth We Can Take Without Running Away.

The World Consists Of Imaginary People, Claiming Imaginary Virtues And Suffering From Imaginary Happiness.

We Cannot Be Free Of Nagging Desires Through Suppression. This Is Like Trying To Keep A Rubber Boat Beneath The Water. But We Remove Compulsive Desires Altogether By Understanding Their Nature.

It Is A Thousand Times More Sensible To Climb One Foot Up The Mountainside Than To Chatter For Years About The Mountaintop.

A Cheery Relaxation Is Man's Natural State, Just As Nature Itself Is Relaxed. A Waterfall Is Concerned Only With Being Itself, Not With Doing Something It Considers Waterfall-like.

There Exists A Special Self Which Takes Every Event As If It Were The Very Thing You Wanted To Happen. That Self Is The Supermind, Which Is Never Upset By Anything. Your Goal Is To Nourish It Into Greater Strength. Then, Every Step Is Sunlit.

Your Central Self Is Totally Untouched By Grief, Confusion, Desperation.

The Genuinely Spiritual Person Is One Who Has Lost All Desire To Be Anyone But Exactly Who He Is, Without Labels And Without Apologies. He Is What He Is And That's All There's Is To It. Such A Man Is Undivided, Uncomplicated And Contented.

The Power Of The Present Moment Is So Immense It Is Capable - When Lived In Fully - Of Destroying Forever Every Past Mistake And Regret.

Genuine Kindness Is Not What We Do, It Is What We Are.

You See Everything Depends Upon The Psychological Headquarters From Which We Live. 'where Am I Living From?' Ask Yourself That Question. If You Don't Like Your Headquarters, You Can Move Any Time You Like. Break Away. Don't Tell Anyone About It. Others Will Either Smile Tolerantly Or Mouth Sanctimonious Babble. Make Your Escape Plans In Secret. Never Mind If You Lose Certain Friends, You Will Find Others Who Also Have Dared. They Will Be Ten-thousand Times More Valuable To You.

Resistance To The Disturbance Is The Disturbance.

Truth Does Not Really Hurt, Rather It Is Our Resistance To Its Message That Causes Us Pain.

The Only Way To Do Something Truly Important Every Day Is To Seek To Understand Yourself Every Day.

Interpretation Blocks Reception While Masquerading As Reception. Rightness Does Not Need Interpretation; It Requires Simple Acceptance And Nothing Else.

Who Asks A King For A Penny?

Don't Try To Live. Let Yourself Be Lived.

We Must Become Acquainted With Our Emotional Household: We Must See Our Feelings As They Actually Are, Not As We Assume They Are. This Breaks Their Hypnotic And Damaging Hold On Us.

Anger Or Bitterness Toward Those Who Have Hurt You Will Block Your Path To Higher Ground. You Can Have Anger Toward People Or You Can Have Freedom From People, But You Can't Have Both.

You Have It Made When You Don't Care Whether You Have It Made Or Not.

Truth Breaks You Down So It Can Rebuild You According To Its Specifications In Heaven.

Human Sickness Is So Severe That Few Can Bear To Look At It...but Those Who Do Will Become Well.

One False Idea Is That Anyone Can Hurt You. Events Can Ruin Your Reputation, Take Your Money, Mistreat You, Revenge Itself Upon You, Deceive, Betray, Abandon You, But Cannot Hurt You.

As Incredible As It Sounds, An Unhappy Man Does Not Realize That Happiness Is Better Than Unhappiness. Knowing Only His Own Concealed Anguish, He Worships It, Which Is The Same As Self-worship.

Self Awakening Enables You To See The Human Scene As It Is, Not As It Appears To Be, Which Frees You Of Its Chaos.

Don't Try To Be Spiritual. That Is Only A Word In The Dictionary. Make It Your Goal To Become A Normally Functioning Individual. Let These Principles Shape You According To Your Real Nature Of A Simple, Decent, Honest, Unafraid Human Being.

Persistence Prevails, Like A Stream That Is Temporarily Blocked By Boulders And Then Collects Force Enough To Overflow Onward.

All We Have To Do Is To Receive What We Are Given...we Are Given The Naturalness To Love Someone, To Be Calm In Crisis, To Ignore Self-defeating Suggestions, To Be Pleasant, Forgiving, Tender, Helpful, Unworried, Brave, Energetic.

Men Have The Illusion Of Having A Duty To Make The World Spin Properly, Which Is Precisely What Makes It Wobble.

A Truly Strong Person Does Not Need The Approval Of Others Any More Than A Lion Needs The Approval Of Sheep.

Whenever Encountering A Troublesome Person, Do Not Identify Him As Being Cruel Or Stupid Or Rude Or Anything Else Like That. Instead, See Him As A Frightened Person.

No One On Earth Can Hurt You, Unless You Accept The Hurt In Your Own Mind. . . The Problem Is Not Other People; It Is Your Reaction.

Mysticism Is Not This Or That Particular Cup On The Table; It Is The Water Poured Into All Of Them.

Freedom Begins As We Become Conscious Of It.

The Only Reason You Do Not Do Great Things Is Because You Timidly Cling To Small Things. Will You Let Loose Of Small Things And Bear The Uncertainty Of Having Nothing For A While? Do This And Eventually You Will Do Great Things.

If Heaven Existed As A Physical Building On Earth, Human Beings Would Remodel It To Make It Right.

Happiness Is Liberty From Everything That Makes Us Unhappy.

Procrastination Is Illogical From Every Viewpoint. It Is Like The Man Who Wanted To Cross The Stream, So He Sat On The Bank To Wait For All The Water To Run By.

Procrastination

We Can No More Enjoy Life By Hoping For A Future Result Than We Can Enjoy Music By Waiting For The Final Note.

Happiness Is Not The Acquisition Of Anything; It's The Understanding Of Something.

We Never Get Upset Over What Happens. Never. We Get Upset Because Of Preconceived Ideas As To What We Think Should Happen, What We Want To Happen. When Our Preference Clashes With The Reality, We Get Hurt. Rid Yourself Of All Preconceived Ideas As To What Should Happen. You Are Then At Peace Whatever Happens.

You Must Dare To Disassociate Yourself From Those Who Would Delay Your Journey... Leave, Depart, If Not Physically, Then Mentally. Go Your Own Way, Quietly, Undramatically, And Venture Toward Trueness At Last.

The Miracle Of Self-healing Occurs When The Inner Patient Yields To The Inner Physician.

Suppose You Stand On A High Place To Enjoy The Beauty Of The Sparkling Sea Below. You Need Do Nothing To Create That Beauty; You Need Only Be In The Same Place Where It Is, And Let Nature Do The Rest. So It Is With The Inner Life. There Is Nothing We Can Do To Gain Psychic Beauty. It Already Exists Without Our Effort. We Need Only Be Where We Belong, That Is, In Self-union. Then, Beauty Is.

Quit Thinking That You Must Halt Before The Barrier Of Inner Negativity. You Need Not. You Can Crash Through... Whatever We See A Negative State, That Is Where We Can Destroy It.

You Must Never Fear Anything At All.

Self-knowledge Is The Great Power By Which We Comprehend And Control Our Lives

You Have Succeeded In Life When All You Really Want Is Only What You Really Need.

Learn This Great Secret Of Life: What People Call Interruption Or Disturbance To Their Routine Is Just As Much A Part Of Living As The Routine. To Split Life Into Two Parts, One Called Routine And The Other Called Interruption, Is To Be Caught Between Them.

A Perfect Method For Awakening Is To Examine The Results Of Our Daily Actions. If They Are Harmful, We Know We Need More Consciousness.

Have The Daring To Stop Doing The Things You Really Don't Want To Do. Can You See Them? Look Closely. Can You Observe The Many Things You Do Because You Reluctantly Feel You Should Or Must? Watch Closely. Examine Every Action And Reaction. Do You Act Naturally Or Do You Act Because You Feel Compelled? If You Feel Compelled, Stop. Compulsion Is Slavery. Example: Refuse To Go Along With The Crowd.

What You Really Want For Yourself Is Always Trying To Break Through, Just As A Cooling Breeze Flows Through An Open Window On A Hot Day. Your Part Is To Open The Windows Of Your Mind.

Change Is Never A Loss - It Is Change Only.

The Need To Impress Others Causes Half The World's Woes.

We Find The Light Only After Total Defeat Of Our Attempts To Deceive And Outwit It.

Ignorant People Remain Ignorant Because They Have A Secret Agreement To Call One Another Intelligent.

Don't Look For Someone In Whom To Believe. Believe In Yourself. The Only Authentic Authority Is Your Own Original Nature.

Just Be Honest With Yourself. That Opens The Door.

Aloneness Is A Wise Teacher. Kierkegaard Remarked That One Sign Of Spiritual Maturity Was The Ability To Be Comfortable When Alone.

Insight Into The Two Selves Within A Man Clears Up Many Confusions And Contradictions. It Was Our Understanding That Preceded Our Victory.

Awareness Of Your Weakness And Confusion Makes You Strong Because Conscious Awareness Is The Bright Light That Destroys The Darkness Of Negativity. Detection Of Inner Negativity Is Not A Negative Act, But A Courageously Positive Act That Makes You A New Person.

Living In The Now Is Freedom From All Problems Connected With Time. You Ought To Remember That Sentence, You Ought To Memorize It, And Ought To Take It Out, You Ought To Practice It, You Ought To Apply It. And Most Of All, You Ought To Rejoice In It Because You Have Just Heard How Not To Be Wretched, Miserable You Any More But To Be A Brand New, And Forever Brand New Man Or Woman.

Find Yourself For Courage And Confidence Are As Easy As Breathing To The Person Who Really Knows Who He Is.

Finding Yourself

Genuine Effort Is Success.

See Human Nonsense As Nonsense And Save Years Of Trying To Make Sense Out Of It.

The Most Marvelous Experience Of Life Is To Transform Life According To Reality, Not Imagination.

Every Day That You Attempt To See Things As They Are In Truth Is A Supremely Successful Day.

When Told That Man Lives In Delusion Everyone Thinks Of Himself As The Exception; Hence His Delusion.

How Would You Feel If You Had No Fear? Feel Like That. How Would You Behave Toward Other People If You Realized Their Powerlessness To Hurt You? Behave Like That. How Would Your React To So-called Misfortune If You Saw Its Inability To Bother You? React Like That. How Would You Think Toward Yourself If You Knew You Were Really All Right? Think Like That.

Worried Thought Prevents Practical Thought Which Could Prevent Worried Thought.

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