First Steps Toward A New World
by Vernon Howard
FIRST STEPS TOWARD A NEW WORLD
Perhaps all you need is someone to explain a new life to you. If so, be like a good pupil who simply realizes that knowing is better than not knowing.
Light always dispels darkness in the room, but there must be someone there to turn on the switch.
You can take the first step in whatever place you now find yourself, for when wishing to learn to swim it makes no difference where you step into the lake.
Whoever realizes the need for another trail has already started along the trail.
Truth is both tender and firm at the same time, for like a kindly king it invites weary warriors to enter the castle but reminds them to leave their weapons outside.
The higher education of one man began with the wish to make it worthwhile to live with himself.
A stallion advised a colt, “Never argue with mules about the way to the pasture, for they delight in argument, while you must delight in actually finding the way to the pasture.”
An admission to oneself that something is dreadfully wrong activates a right force that attracts other right powers of help, as when several firemen race to the rescue of a comrade.
A speaker informed his audience, “If you wish to be kind to yourself, just have an earnest wish to discover what life is all about.”
If we can have wheat without a field, we can have self-command without self-insight.
You understand what it means to be conscious by attempting to be conscious, just as you learn the nature of the seashore by walking the seashore.
The confusion aroused by hearing the truth should not cause dismay but should be seen as a first lesson in an esoteric education, just as you eagerly enter a cave to learn its secrets.
A wise man taught, “Learn what it means to let cosmic power work for you to correct your life, for your knowledge releases the power.”
Returning home from the wilderness of the world consists of returning to who we really are.
A discouraged seeker was told, “Not even you can prevent your success if you will simply walk forward while attributing no power to the roughness of the road.”
The light is not outside of you any more than the flavor is outside of the grape.
By becoming weary of reading life wrongly we take the first upward step into the hidden library of the mind where every answer is located.
Gathering cosmic facts is like traveling through many countries and collecting their best songs, the songs appealing to you personally.
For a while a seeker wondered why he should study higher facts, but it finally occurred to him that there was no sense in doing anything but that.
Learning begins when a seeker sees that truth is not a theater but a school.