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<center>'''I will not value what is valueless.'''</center>
I will not value what is valueless.
Sometimes in teaching there is benefit, particularly after you have gone
through what seems theoretical and far from what the student has already
learned, to bring him back to practical concerns. This we will do today. We
will not speak of lofty, world-encompassing ideas, but dwell instead on
benefits to you.
You do not ask too much of life, but far too little. When you let your mind
be drawn to bodily concerns, to things you buy, to eminence as valued by
the world, you ask for sorrow, not for happiness. This course does not
attempt to take from you the little that you have. It does not try to substitute
utopian ideas for satisfactions which the world contains. There are no
satisfactions in the world.
Today we list the real criteria by which to test all things you think you want.
Unless they meet these sound requirements, they are not worth desiring at
all, for they can but replace what offers more. The laws that govern choice
you cannot make, no more than you can make alternatives from which to
choose. The choosing you can do; indeed, you must. But it is wise to learn
the laws you set in motion when you choose, and what alternatives you
choose between.
We have already stressed there are but two, however many there appear to
be. The range is set, and this we cannot change. It would be most
ungenerous to you to let alternatives be limitless, and thus delay your final
choice until you had considered all of them in time; and not been brought so
clearly to the place where there is but one choice that must be made.
Another kindly and related law is that there is no compromise in what your
choice must bring. It cannot give you just a little, for there is no in between.
Each choice you make brings everything to you or nothing. Therefore, if
you learn the tests by which you can distinguish everything from nothing,
you will make the better choice.
First, if you choose a thing that will not last forever, what you chose is
valueless. A temporary value is without all value. Time can never take away
a value that is real. What fades and dies was never there, and makes no
offering to him who chooses it. He is deceived by nothing in a form he
thinks he likes.
Next, if you choose to take a thing away from someone else, you will have
nothing left. This is because, when you deny his right to everything, you
have denied your own. You therefore will not recognize the things you
really have, denying they are there. Who seeks to take away has been
deceived by the illusion loss can offer gain. Yet loss must offer loss, and
nothing more.
Your next consideration is the one on which the others rest. Why is the
choice you make of value to you? What attracts your mind to it? What
purpose does it serve? Here it is easiest of all to be deceived. For what the
ego wants it fails to recognize. It does not even tell the truth as it perceives
it, for it needs to keep the halo which it uses to protect its goals from tarnish
and from rust, that you may see how "innocent" it is.
Yet is its camouflage a thin veneer, which could deceive but those who are
content to be deceived. Its goals are obvious to anyone who cares to look
for them. Here is deception doubled, for the one who is deceived will not
perceive that he has merely failed to gain. He will believe that he has served
the ego's hidden goals.
Yet though he tries to keep its halo clear within his vision, still must he
perceive its tarnished edges and its rusted core. His ineffectual mistakes
appear as sins to him, because he looks upon the tarnish as his own; the rust
a sign of deep unworthiness within himself. He who would still preserve the
ego's goals and serve them as his own makes no mistakes, according to the
dictates of his guide. This guidance teaches it is error to believe that sins are
but mistakes, for who would suffer for his sins if this were so?
And so we come to the criterion for choice that is the hardest to believe,
because its obviousness is overlaid with many levels of obscurity. If you
feel any guilt about your choice, you have allowed the ego's goals to come
between the real alternatives. And thus you do not realize there are but two,
and the alternative you think you chose seems fearful, and too dangerous to
be the nothingness it actually is.
All things are valuable or valueless, worthy or not of being sought at all,
entirely desirable or not worth the slightest effort to obtain. Choosing is
easy just because of this. Complexity is nothing but a screen of smoke,
which hides the very simple fact that no decision can be difficult. What is
the gain to you in learning this? It is far more than merely letting you make
choices easily and without pain.
Heaven itself is reached with empty hands and open minds, which come
with nothing to find everything and claim it as their own. We will attempt to
reach this state today, with self-deception laid aside, and with an honest
willingness to value but the truly valuable and the real. Our two extended
practice periods of fifteen minutes each begin with this:
<center>''I will not value what is valueless,''</center>
<center>''and only what has value do I seek,''</center>
<center>''for only that do I desire to find''</center>
.
And then receive what waits for everyone who reaches, unencumbered, to
the gate of Heaven, which swings open as he comes. Should you begin to let
yourself collect some needless burdens, or believe you see some difficult
decisions facing you, be quick to answer with this simple thought:
<center>''I will not value what is valueless,''</center>
<center>''for what is valuable belongs to me.''</center>
[[Category: Workbook I]]
<center>'''I will not value what is valueless.'''</center>
I will not value what is valueless.
Sometimes in teaching there is benefit, particularly after you have gone
through what seems theoretical and far from what the student has already
learned, to bring him back to practical concerns. This we will do today. We
will not speak of lofty, world-encompassing ideas, but dwell instead on
benefits to you.
You do not ask too much of life, but far too little. When you let your mind
be drawn to bodily concerns, to things you buy, to eminence as valued by
the world, you ask for sorrow, not for happiness. This course does not
attempt to take from you the little that you have. It does not try to substitute
utopian ideas for satisfactions which the world contains. There are no
satisfactions in the world.
Today we list the real criteria by which to test all things you think you want.
Unless they meet these sound requirements, they are not worth desiring at
all, for they can but replace what offers more. The laws that govern choice
you cannot make, no more than you can make alternatives from which to
choose. The choosing you can do; indeed, you must. But it is wise to learn
the laws you set in motion when you choose, and what alternatives you
choose between.
We have already stressed there are but two, however many there appear to
be. The range is set, and this we cannot change. It would be most
ungenerous to you to let alternatives be limitless, and thus delay your final
choice until you had considered all of them in time; and not been brought so
clearly to the place where there is but one choice that must be made.
Another kindly and related law is that there is no compromise in what your
choice must bring. It cannot give you just a little, for there is no in between.
Each choice you make brings everything to you or nothing. Therefore, if
you learn the tests by which you can distinguish everything from nothing,
you will make the better choice.
First, if you choose a thing that will not last forever, what you chose is
valueless. A temporary value is without all value. Time can never take away
a value that is real. What fades and dies was never there, and makes no
offering to him who chooses it. He is deceived by nothing in a form he
thinks he likes.
Next, if you choose to take a thing away from someone else, you will have
nothing left. This is because, when you deny his right to everything, you
have denied your own. You therefore will not recognize the things you
really have, denying they are there. Who seeks to take away has been
deceived by the illusion loss can offer gain. Yet loss must offer loss, and
nothing more.
Your next consideration is the one on which the others rest. Why is the
choice you make of value to you? What attracts your mind to it? What
purpose does it serve? Here it is easiest of all to be deceived. For what the
ego wants it fails to recognize. It does not even tell the truth as it perceives
it, for it needs to keep the halo which it uses to protect its goals from tarnish
and from rust, that you may see how "innocent" it is.
Yet is its camouflage a thin veneer, which could deceive but those who are
content to be deceived. Its goals are obvious to anyone who cares to look
for them. Here is deception doubled, for the one who is deceived will not
perceive that he has merely failed to gain. He will believe that he has served
the ego's hidden goals.
Yet though he tries to keep its halo clear within his vision, still must he
perceive its tarnished edges and its rusted core. His ineffectual mistakes
appear as sins to him, because he looks upon the tarnish as his own; the rust
a sign of deep unworthiness within himself. He who would still preserve the
ego's goals and serve them as his own makes no mistakes, according to the
dictates of his guide. This guidance teaches it is error to believe that sins are
but mistakes, for who would suffer for his sins if this were so?
And so we come to the criterion for choice that is the hardest to believe,
because its obviousness is overlaid with many levels of obscurity. If you
feel any guilt about your choice, you have allowed the ego's goals to come
between the real alternatives. And thus you do not realize there are but two,
and the alternative you think you chose seems fearful, and too dangerous to
be the nothingness it actually is.
All things are valuable or valueless, worthy or not of being sought at all,
entirely desirable or not worth the slightest effort to obtain. Choosing is
easy just because of this. Complexity is nothing but a screen of smoke,
which hides the very simple fact that no decision can be difficult. What is
the gain to you in learning this? It is far more than merely letting you make
choices easily and without pain.
Heaven itself is reached with empty hands and open minds, which come
with nothing to find everything and claim it as their own. We will attempt to
reach this state today, with self-deception laid aside, and with an honest
willingness to value but the truly valuable and the real. Our two extended
practice periods of fifteen minutes each begin with this:
<center>''I will not value what is valueless,''</center>
<center>''and only what has value do I seek,''</center>
<center>''for only that do I desire to find''</center>
.
And then receive what waits for everyone who reaches, unencumbered, to
the gate of Heaven, which swings open as he comes. Should you begin to let
yourself collect some needless burdens, or believe you see some difficult
decisions facing you, be quick to answer with this simple thought:
<center>''I will not value what is valueless,''</center>
<center>''for what is valuable belongs to me.''</center>
[[Category: Workbook I]]
