Lesson 16
To those of us who have practiced the work this far of self-observation, we have done it slowly week by week, we have not tried to run ahead, we have not tried to improve upon it, we have been using it and we have experienced certain things. We may have experienced a certain serenity that one never knew before. One may experience that there is an absence of the resentment, an absence of the load and the burden that one has carried about of the accounts receivable. One may be aware that anger and guilt are gone. One may be aware that the expectation is based more on what is and one may be seeing value in what is.
But powerful adversaries are still active in the world and one is little in the New World. So one is subject, yet, to suggestion. Sometimes it is called temptation. So temptation begins to be very active at this stage of existence and one can be tempted into falling away from their state of being that the have just entered. They’re little ones in the Kingdom; they’re little ones in peace. It is said that there are great stumbling blocks. It says woe to the one who is the stumbling block but they don’t seem to notice that. So the world around one is powerful suggestion at this state. So there is the beginning of a new phase of SELF-KNOWING. It is still self-knowing and it leads to still further experiencing, not only in experiencing a new man, but if one continues in the work of self-observation and its other phases one will experience FAITH, and one will experience GRACE, and one may experience a much richer, richer degree of AGAPE. It is little and it is new at this stage. While one is considerate there is constantly the suggestion from without that one should be very proud of this state. One will find that there is constantly someone saying how wonderful it is and there is a powerful temptation to accept this idea.
This stage of self-observation is that of REEVALUATION. Now reevaluation is to put a new value, to see it consciously and to look at what is and to always look for its value. You see there are certain habitual values that the world uses and they’re constantly being suggested to one. So one reevaluates every suggestion. Now there are two fundamentals we will use for reevaluation:
1. THAT WHENEVER ANYTHING IS MADE IMPORTANT THE SELF BECOMES ANXIOUS.
Now the only thing it can make important are ideals and one may be tempted by suggestion from the environment to consider that their state of being is ideal and, of course, that would be a stumbling block in one’s way. It would cause a little one to get caught away and might have to start all over again. Now this is not given as any warning or is any threat. It is given as an aim to continue self-observation, self-awareness, to observe all selves now, to observe what other selves are suggesting to one. Remember that because one is out of certain clutches that it does not mean one is not subject to suggestion. There are constant suggestions still being made to one to make something important and the only thing that can be made important is an ideal.
We will reevaluate every ideal as they are suggested to one. Now there will be suggestions to one that everyone should have this work explained to them and, of course, one experiences a certain feeling of peace or joy. One wants to share it with the world, with everyone. That seems like an ideal to suddenly begin to try to teach everyone. If one does one has succumbed to the ideal. It is quite a jolt if one does and I hope you do not experience it, that instead you experience reevaluation of all suggestions. Vanity says that one can do things so it is an idea that one can teach all loved ones, all people one sees requesting information, all the people that are troubled. Vanity says it can do it but it cannot be done. No one can teach another. One can only put out ideas to people who are already questioning the ideal that the purpose of living is to be non-disturbed. This requires considerable effort. It is the place in agape that says, “In the New World one is harmless because one trying to give information, trying to clarify something for a person who is only trying to find a new means of self-improvement, is to give them ideas which they cannot use.” It is like the parable of the sower who went out to sow. Some of the seeds he sowed, cast about, fell on rock and the birds ate it up forthwith. This is the person who is looking for self improvement; that’s a rock. Some of it fell on very shallow soil and it sprang up and on the first hot day it wilted. Again, it is a person looking for self-improvement and they think the ideas will give them self-improvement, but the first day a second force interferes in their pleasure or their fun or their non-disturbance they will forget all about it and go for another type of self improvement. Some falls among the brambles and the brambles choke it out; this is the one who wants to both self-improve and learn new material. He wants to have his cake and eat it too. And, of course, as long as he serves mammon, mammon being very strong will choke out the weak new growth, and so that one is lost. It says some of the seed falls on good soil and it brings forth thirty-fold, sixty-fold or a hundred-fold. So the good soil is that which uses it, practices it, experiments with it, and finds out its value. To give it to others is sometimes to be harmful to them. It is better that we possibly wait for a while and that we really want something because we tend to value something that we really want. Something that is too easily obtained by somebody coming along and offering it to me when I’m really not looking for that is to put no value on it. Once a person comes to a conclusion that something is worthless, “It didn’t do what I wanted it to do,” that person has blocked the future possibility of seeing because there is a very fundamental idea that once a decision is made, it is the rule of attitude action until such time that that decision is discovered and reevaluated.
2. WHEN ONCE A DECISION IS MADE IT IS THE RULE OF ATTITUDE ACTION UNTIL SUCH TIME AS THAT DECISION IS DISCOVERED AND REEVALUATED.
If we give the Teaching to a person who is trying for self-improvement, and that is what he really wants, the Teaching will not give him something for self-improvement. It will only be a fallacy to him and he, of course, will come to a conclusion that it is worthless. Some very drastic things may have to happen to that person before he may consider reevaluating or possibly he will never consider it. So possibly we have blocked, by trying to do good, by sharing our state with everyone who comes along. So we will reevaluate what it means to be helpful.
Now that constant suggestion comes to us that we should help all people. It is really that we will work with anyone on the level on which they want to work. If they want self-improvement give them whatever tidbits of it that are around, or we might ask them questions over a period of time so that they might be given a little crumb that falls from the table that will get them to question the whole purpose of living. Without having questioned that the purpose of living is to be non disturbed, that person isn’t even a student of self. Furthermore, we generally want to give the great things to those we want to help and we give it out of line.
Remember a few weeks ago when you started, that observing self was not a pleasant situation. We began to see things that some of us were horrified to discover that was in self. We were quite horrified to discover vanity when we thought we were so humble, that we had a very beautiful picture made up of everything we had heard through the years, being complemented and put into that false picture and that is vanity and we had defended it. We not only see this in the individual but whole nations form an illusion of themselves as being so wonderful. They’re going to do “good” for the whole world and so they practice “saving the world.” They’re going to be helpful, they’re going to be condescending to all other nations, and, of course, this usually leads to wars because that don’t want to be condescended to and they don’t want to be helped. Possibly they would not mind if someone worked with them. We see that what’s on the inside of man expressed in his outward affairs, his nations and his organizations. You see various institutions that feel they are the only true institution, that they have the only truth, and, of course, they try to convert everybody to see it their way. They promise rewards and threaten punishments if one does not.
So let’s reevaluate every suggestion we hear. Now, if one is observing self, one notices the impact of a suggestion. It is really like a physical blow. One hears it coming; it makes a sound like a bullet going through the air. It is suggested that one should be helpful. It is suggested that one should share everything. There is a great statement some place that sounds very crude. A great Teacher said, “Do not throw that which is holy before dogs,” and “Do not cast your pearls before swine,” because if you do the swine will trample them under their feet; it means they will defile them, misuse them and “then they will turn and rend you.” In other words you’re still little in the Kingdom of Heaven. You still, possibly, have not experienced faith to any degree and therefore do not have power. There is much to survive in the New World, much as a baby on arriving to the earth world from the uterine world is in a very precarious position for survival and must be protected and somewhat defended. It is frightened by loud noises, by sudden bright lights and all such other sudden stimuli. When one feels a suggestion coming, it’s like a noise to a little infant because one is little in the New World. So one observes these suggestions and immediately reevaluates. We have an aim to be aware of suggestion and to reevaluate it. One says, “If you do not do so-and-so you will suffer great consequences of a very dire nature.” We will reevaluate that suggestion. Another one offers one great rewards for doing a certain thing and one will reevaluate that suggestion. Does that suggestion offer that I should have self-observation and find out for self, or should I should accept the word of an authority, accept something as being true because I heard it on the radio or the television or because it was written in a book or a magazine or a newspaper? The newspaper is full of suggestions. One has been reading them all one’s life without noticing. One has built up a crippled, tattered, spiritual body.
Now the whole effort is to develop a strong, healthy, spiritual body. In order to do it, it must not be contaminated; it must not be infested by evil forces such as suggestions of various kinds. When a baby is little we take every precaution to protect it from sudden and powerful stresses. We feed it with food that it can handle. The great teacher Paul said he couldn’t feed a certain group of people with strong meat, he had to feed them with pap or with milk and that he gave strong meat to strong men. So, recognize that we are babies, infants, in the New World. Therefore we must be protected and watched that we do not eat contaminated food, which are ideas that there are ideals that one should improve and that one can improve the world, that one can improve the earth. That one has all sorts of do-gooder things to do and that one can improve other peoples by convincing them of certain viewpoints. This is to eat contaminated foods or giving a baby spoiled milk. It is not based on self-observation and discovering for self. The Teaching insists that one experiment and discovers for self both the truth of the Teaching and the value of it. So in this state we are going to REEVALUATE EVERY SUGGESTION. It is our aim. It is also well to check up to see if one accepted a suggestion from yesterday and the day before. Sometime in the quiet of the evening or in the early morning check up on what suggestions one heard. See what is functioning within the being because these forces are intent upon tearing you out of that New World. It is an enemy of the New World. Its whole being exists on the New World not existing. One may be experiencing the greatest joy and peace one has ever known but that doesn’t mean that one is beyond the capability of being suggested to. This is what we are going to observe.
So let’s write down on a sheet of paper: The suggestions I heard today. Then on another sheet of paper: The suggestions I heard yesterday. Each day through the week we’ll observe these suggestions, whether we heard them audibly, whether we read them or whether they were implied to us. We’ll write that down for today and then we will check up at least once everyday to see about the ones yesterday. That way they will not have much toehold and force. If we should miss one today and get caught with it, it will be seen very shortly. This is the beginning of a continual effort of reevaluation. It is building strength into one’s spiritual body. It is nourishing the spiritual body because it is seeing suggestion.
A child is grown in its physical body somewhat when it can see traffic coming. It is capable of noticing a certain food is not fit to eat, that a certain bottle is marked poison, that it leaves things alone things that are not fit for food or drink. Babies, little ones, might drink kerosene or they might drink household cleaning fluid. They might eat almost anything including dirt, bugs or food dropped on the floor and soiled; they have no discrimination. Now, we are little in the Kingdom of Heaven, in the New World. We are a tiny baby born into a New World, a world of AGAPE, of CONSIDERATION, of HARMLESSNESS, and of CONTRIBUTION; we are little. The wise little one knows he is little and observes carefully that he doesn’t eat cleaning fluid, kerosene and spoiled or contaminated food. The food we are talking about is spiritual food, that which builds the spiritual body. It is very carefully examined because it comes in the form of suggestions, suggestions from many sources, suggestions from those nearest and dearest who are in the same School one is.
When we started we said we each had a School, someone we associate with or are in some sort of relationship with and that it was just as well that that person was not a student. If they are, wonderful, if they are not it’s wonderful. Maybe some of those very near to one make suggestions and we want to be considerate and we feel considerate is being nice to them. Considerate means, among other things, that one considers suggestions and it also considers that the other person is unaware they’re giving suggestions. To be considerate means one who pays particular attention and, of course, that makes one considerate or well mannered towards all people because one paid attention. But the word considerate doesn’t mean to simply accept and be kind to all people, it means to consider instead of react. One looks at the situation, sees it in the light of self-knowing, see it in the light of the Teaching. The Teaching is a light that one can use for a while. One may not need to always use it but it is a wonderful light to have around. One experiments with the Teaching and considers it, considers the value of it, and considers every suggestion that comes, and almost everything that is said is a suggestion. If you hear a suggestion in any of these discussions, check it out, consider it and be careful with it. See that it is experimented with before one swallows it. You can always taste a food before you swallow it. You can taste milk or any liquid to see if it is fit to drink. When you report how it tastes, X says whether it’s fit to drink or not, usually; sometimes we can overpower it and tell it that it is. One can taste of a suggestion or a group of words put together and see if they can be experimented with and found out for self. If you taste of it and find that you cannot experiment with it, it might be well to leave it where it is until such time, place and circumstance arises in ones way where one can experiment with it. Then one has knowledge, one has knowing and one has wisdom.
Wisdom is seeing the value of something and knowledge is seeing what is moment by moment. So one has what is and also checks out the value of it. When one is considerate, one is harmless to I, to Being, one is harmless to other people because one was first considerate. When one is harmless to being, harmless to self, one is making a contribution to survival, to evolvement, to being in a New World, to growing, to having a grownup spiritual body. So to be considerate means to think carefully, to observe and to experiment with it, to taste of it, so to speak, before it is accepted or assimilated into the spiritual body. That new spiritual frame of reference is an entirely new creature and it is growing. It is made by a new education. The first education was just accepted by suggestion from whatever source it came that we considered to be an authority. The only authority we will accept is that we have experimented with it, we have tasted of it, we have considering it carefully before it is assimilating into this new spiritual body that is being grown, developed and evolving.
That spiritual body is one’s most precious thing. It is more precious than the physical body. It is the thing that makes I grow. Now the Teaching idea is that I has never grew, that it was born and was quickly put to sleep into a suspended state. It did not grow but the self grew, accumulated a great amount of things and developed many things that were very detrimental. So I, the awareness, is evaluating everything in the personality, in the self. It finds that driving an automobile is worthwhile, it keeps it. It finds that being able to cook is worthwhile, it keeps it. It finds that being able to make clothes or raise a garden is useful. It finds that having ideals is not useful. It finds that having contention is not useful. It finds that accepting suggestions is not useful.
It is now CONSIDERATE. This is having a second education based on experiment and consideration. Now the self is diminishing and the real I is growing, growing in strength and wisdom because it is taking nothing that it has not experimented with. It is accepting no idea from whatever source, even from the Teaching, without experimenting with it, checking its value. Then when all of that has been checked it may accept it as food into the spiritual body. So the self diminishes and I starts to grow. We have reversed something and something new is growing and becoming in self. It is evolving day by day. Is it where it can’t be touched again? No, there is still temptation from the world, the world of the four ideas of ideals, self-improvement, signs and demonstrations of various sorts that this is fact and that is fact because something can be shown, and above all, blaming, which is really anti-agape. As one keeps these little charts of what suggestions I heard today and yesterday, one is checking the food supply of the spiritual body.
Copyright © 1973 by Rhondell. All rights reserved. This material is for an individual student’s personal use; it is not to be duplicated or loaned to another.
