Liberate Yourself: My Top 10 Vernon Howard "Secrets of Life" of 2008

In a society dominated by charming psychopaths, where bullying is mistaken for leadership and accountability is too uncommon, Vernon Howard should be required reading. If you feel like a doormat, wrestle with painful memories, or just want to drop some emotional baggage, consider the Zen proverb: "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear."

New Life Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded by Vernon Howard in the 1970s, offers a free Daily Quote email subscription. Howard's books and audios challenge the cherished and counterproductive beliefs we may not even realize we embrace, but it's from my saved Daily Quotes that my Top 10 Vernon Howard "Secrets of Life" below are taken. Their sources, available through the Foundation's bookstore page, are cited behind the quotes.

1. "One way to delay inner healing is to wish to have and to feel power over other human beings" (Cosmic Command, # 615)

2. "Don't walk into another person's nightmare. Don't let his grief become your grief. It is quite possible for you to know that you are now taking rides in the tunnel of horrors into which you need not really go" (from a talk given 1/13/1989)

3. "When we are sufficiently tired of getting wrong answers from society we are ready for right answers from our essence" (Inspire Yourself, p. 54).

4. "I give you assurance: The Truth within is stronger than your fears, a person who dislikes you, your boss at work, restlessness, shattered hopes, scary headlines, someone who seems to dominate and threaten you, the accusations of failure and defeat from your own mind, illness, social hypocrisy, a demanding government, enslaving habits, boredom, panic over the future, depression, a sense of ruin, heartache, fear of God, aloneness and loneliness, anxiety over loss of something valuable, collapse of your strength, the terrifying suspicion that life is passing you by, a nagging business complication, humiliation, utter confusion as to what to do and how to do it. The Truth, which is always a part of you, is always stronger than anything else" (The Mystic Path to Cosmic Power, p. 202)

5. "Always enter relationships on your own terms of rightness, never on anyone else's" (A Treasury of Trueness, # 536)

6. "The very fact that you do not want to continue with your present ways is a valuable message to be heeded" (1500 Ways to Escape the Human Jungle, # 1335)

7. "You are not required to act in any way that sacrifices your wish to grow in spiritual strength. For example, you are not required to support the weakness of another person. Also, you are not required to relieve the anxiety of anyone whose anxiety is caused by his preference for delusion over reality" (A Treasury of Trueness, # 440)

8. "In one way or another, everyone you meet tries to make you the same as he is, so observe carefully the kind of life he leads" (Secrets for Higher Success, p. 40)

9. "A man with false desires will attempt to satisfy them by going to wrong places and meeting wrong people. This always gets him into trouble in one way or another, but in his unawareness he may even call his approaching trouble a stroke of good fortune - until the inevitable shock occurs. We see this in the case of a lonely person whose heart thrills at meeting an attractive person of the opposite sex, only to sadly discover that he or she is just another smiling deceiver. We must study false desire intensely" (Secrets for Higher Success, p. 119)

10. "Have no timidity in discovering that life is different than you always believed" (Cosmic Command, # 326)

Sharing Vernon Howard's writings with others elicits a variety of responses. He appeals to me because he doesn't overintellectualize. Instead, he uses vivid imagery and unusual metaphor to capture the essences of the practical psychological, philosophical, and spiritual concepts he believes are most valuable.

Acquiring an awareness of the games we, as human beings, unconsciously play to elevate ourselves in our own minds can be disconcerting. At the same time, it is astounding to put one's eyes on simple words which solidify vague, nagging anxieties into identifiable targets that can be blown out of the water.

Vernon Howard is a unique guide, daring readers to see differently and live new lives.

Sources:

"Secrets of Life" - New Life Foundation email quotes

"Vernon Howard" - Wikipedia

"Liberate Yourself in 2009: My Top 10 Vernon Howard 'Secrets of Life'" - C.A. Gage