Wish for inner change and true development

"The overall human problem can be simply explained. Men and women

think, twenty-four hours a day, with a thinking that lacks a wish

for true inner development. It’s absent. The wish to change from

the kind of mental operation they now have, that wish is not there,

so they stay where they are and wonder why.

You want to do different, you want to include the wish for trans-

formation, self-transformation, for a new mind, to be a person who

is not harmful to yourself. And there is a way to do that and you

have to start with a wish for inner change.

The wish for inner change must be accompanied by you realizing

that you must not judge what you must do, where you must go or

the nature of the change. This is very important."

   from a talk given 6/14/1986 AM

 Vernon Howard's Higher World - MP3 CD Volume 4, talk 89, track 10

No such thing as knowing too much

"A story was once written, which was later made into a movie at

least twice, with the brief and interesting title of "Rain."

And the story took place out on a South Pacific coral island with

coconut growers, traders and sailors. And there was the usual bar,

loud all the time with human voices, shouting sometimes angrily,

sometimes in impulsive delight or surprise. Just plain active, but

sad and worried human beings, drinking and talking business, being

angry with each other and trying to deceive each other. All this

was, of course, the story of human beings anywhere, any time, any

place.

All the time that this low-level behavior was going on, the rains

were coming down, all the time endlessly during the whole story.

And the rain itself was superb symbolism - an awesome force,

lightning and thunder going with it, and you don’t understand it,

it’s overpowering, you can’t stop it, you can’t control it, it

controls the way you feel and think, threatening to burst through

the thin roofs - and it's confining.

Now, we have the picture of people being confined within their own

natures, that’s what human beings are, knowing that the experiences

and the pains and the heartache and people hurting each other, and

knowing, just as you know, that the future will be a repetition of

the present unless the present is changed.

I am hammering home a point and you must get this point because it

is the only thing that is going to give you the urgent wish to walk

toward the door no matter how frightening the storm is, and it will

make you want to go somewhere else.

There’s no such thing as you knowing too much about your own

confined life with the rain coming down on you, no such thing as

knowing too much."

   from a talk given 8/3/1986

 Vernon Howard's Higher World - MP3 CD Volume 5, talk 112, track 8