After reading some of the heated exchanges on a particular thread I signed off and began reading from one of my favorite books, 'The Mystic Path to Cosmic Power' by Vernon Howard.

My eyes happened to fall upon page 82 under the title 'Twenty Special Secrets'. I offer the following for what it's worth:

"1. When two people meet, the prize always goes to the one with the most self-insight. He will be calmer, more confident, more at ease with the other.

2. Never permit the behavior of other people to tell you how to feel.

3. Pay little attention to what people say or do. Instead try to see their innermost motive for speaking and acting. When you apply this very same rule to yourself you become an enlightened person.

4. Any friendship requiring the submission of your original nature and dignity to another person is wrong.

5. Mystically speaking, there is no difference between you and another person. This is why we cannot hurt another without hurting ourselves, nor help another without helping ourselves.

6. When we are free of all unnecessary desires toward other people, we can never be deceived or hurt.

7. You take a giant step toward psychological maturity when you refuse to angrily defend yourself against unjust slander. For one thing, resistance disturbs your own peace of mind.

8. You understand others to the exact degree that you really understand yourself. Work for more self-knowledge.

9. Do not be afraid to fully experience everything that happens to you in your human relations, especially the pains and disappointments. Do this, and everything becomes clear at last.

10. The individual who really knows what it means to love has no anxiety when their love is unseen or rejected.

11. If you painfully lose a valuable friend, do not rush out at once for a replacement. Such action prevents you from examining your heartache and breaking free from it.

12. You can be so wonderfully free from a sense world. This is a deeper and richer truth than appears on the surface.

13. Every unpleasant experience with another person is an opportunity to see people as they are, not as we mistakenly idealize them. The more unpleasant the other person is, the more he can teach you.

14. You can be so wonderfully free from a sense of injury and injustice that you are surprised when you hear others complain of them.

15. We cannot recognize a virtue in another person that we do not possess in ourselves. It takes a truly loving and patient person to recognize those virtues in another.

16. Do not mistake desire for love. Desire leaves home in a frantic search for one gratification after another. Love is at home with itself.

17. There are parts of you that want the loving life and parts that do not. Place yourself on the side of your positive forces; do all you can to aid and encourage them.

18. You must stop living so timidly, from fixed fears of what others will think of you and of what you will think of yourself.

19. Do not contrive to be a loving person; work to be a real person. Being real is being loving.

20. The greatest love you could ever offer to another is to so transform your inner life that others are attracted to your genuine example of goodness."

"Look very closely. You will see that no person and no circumstance can prevent you from becoming a self-understanding man or woman.

"This is a tremendous message of mysticism: You need not be hurt by anyone or anything; you need not be enslaved by anything outside you or within you. Not when you really understand.

"How will you know when you've grasped this idea?...(When) you no longer feel insults as insults, losses as losses, threats as threats. While other people may, on the human level, behave badly toward you, you are no longer on that level, so you cannot be offended."
_____________________
"Then can men have no more power over us, because they can neither take us by our desires nor by our fears." Francois Fenelon
"Such men not only liberate themselves; they fill those they meet with a free mind." Philo

Thanks SC.

that is some useful information SC

Dear Noone and Mandalasdiscple,

I'm glad you found something you could use in my post. I would like to strongly encourage you both to consider buying a copy of the book. According to Amazon.com the price for this book starts at .01 to an average price of $8.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/013...88344329&sr=1-2

If, after reading it, you determine it was not worth the price you paid you can simply E-mail me and I will arrange for you to mail your copy to me for a full refund of your purchase price.

I purchased my copy from a flea market several years ago. I put it on one of my bookshelves and forgot to read it. Later, when my aged canine companion passed away I fell into a deep depression. Several months passed. The first sign of relief came from watching an old episode of the Kung Fu program. In it, Caine asked someone 'Is it not better to look forward to what you may find than look back to what you have lost?' I felt a little better as a result of this bit of Taoist philosophy.

Later that same day I was organizing and cataloging my book library when I happened upon that book. I oftentimes use a technique of allowing fate to tell me what I need to know about a book by opening it to a random page.

Sure enough, the page I opened to was all about the Way of the Tao! What it said sounded like it was written just for me. That was it, I stopped what I was doing and read it from cover to cover. And then reread it again! It literally changed my life! Not overnight mind you, but immediately!

When I look back on myself some 20 months ago I don't even recognize the person I was then. I wouldn't be here on this website talking to you today if I hadn't read that book. The beautiful thing about truth for me is the instant bodily reaction to the recognition of something you never heard before but always knew existed.

Joseph Smith claimed his Book of Mormon was composed of words on pages of gold. This book, in my opinion, is gold written on pages of paper. If either of you is interested in improving the quality of your life experience then please take this opportunity to do so. The best of luck to you both!
____________________
"If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor." Albert Einstein

i check the book out SC thanks.

The Tao is a special book. I've read it in the past, and I think I'm gonna read it again, soon.