WHAT’S GOING ON?

2022 JUNE Newsletter

#167 MAY 2008 

ALONG THE WAY

Only X knows how to do anything.

THIS MONTH’S THOUGHT

Fear is the result of wanting to be safe.

HOW TO BE MISERABLE AND SICK ANY TIME   By Dr. bob Gibson

The following instructions are given that any person by following any one of them can and will be miserable and sick.  This is true although one may by using the services of a wise and skilled doctor.  By following any one of these instructions (one does not need to use a combination of them), you can also make your doctor miserable.  Please remember that just any one of these sets of instructions that appeals to you will do the trick.

1. READ ONE OR MORE ARTICLES ABOUT DISEASE (Usually called “health” articles) FREQUENTLY. Once a week will do.  However one a day is better.  Any disease will do, because at least one of the symptoms can be made to fit you and give reason for alarm. Alarm or FEAR produces glandular reaction to prepare the body to fight or run; you neither fight nor run, but just fret.  These glandular products are not used in your metabolism, consequently there must be symptoms of unusual cellular activity to use these products.  These unusual cellular activities are symptoms and give further cause for alarm and fear.  This is an excellent method and when used even haphazardly is guaranteed to keep you miserable and chronically ill.
2. GO OVER ONESELF CAREFULLY AT LEAST EVERY FEW DAYS LOOKING FOR ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING THAT COULD BE WRONG, JUST TO BE SURE TO CATCH IT IN TIME. Look the skin over carefully, looking for areas of dryness or slight discolorations.  Inspect the tongue minutely.  Feel of all joints.  Look between the toes.  There will usually be at least one thing that will seem to be in some way abnormal.  Then keep a close watch on it and feel of it several times a day. Become informed about such conditions.  Get the low-down on it.  This is guaranteed to keep one’s mind entirely on self, with fear and anxiety producing misery and sickness.  YOU WILL BE SURPRISED AT HOW EASY IT IS.
3. FIND FAULT WITH EVERYTHING AND EVERYBODY. Look for the hidden motive in things.  One reads where someone has given a million dollars for research for world peace.  Be sure to know why he did it, probably to keep from paying taxes on it, so the poor people have to support the government. Know that prices are too high without reason, just make an extra profit off people.  See people crowding out in front, not waiting their turn in line.  See the trucks tearing up the highways.  See how big business is ruining the country.  See how it is raining too much or the sun is shining too much.  The list is endless.  One doesn’t have to look for annoyances.  They are everywhere and they are all aimed directly against one.  Don’t ever fail to recognize them for what they are, think them over and become annoyed by them.  One doesn’t have to try at all to get oneself stressed.  STRESS is the best known method to stop the free flow of life in the body.  This is the start of misery, whether it be expressed as disease, unhappiness or lack.
4. Eat in a rush; why take time to chew when one can wash it down with coffee or coke?  Don’t take time to order a meal; one can eat a sandwich more quickly.  Don’t ever be satisfied to be doing the job which is at hand; be thinking of something else that needs to be done.  Don’t wait for another person to finish their sentence, finish it for them.  You know what he or she was going to say anyway.  Why not show them?  Drive a car in a hurry.  If every other driver doesn’t give the right-of-way, then tell him a thing or two.  This builds up stress very rapidly.  Get and keep that drive.  This is the QUICKEST way to be miserable.
5. NOT TO BE INTERESTED IN ANYTHING. An excellent infallible way to develop this uninterested state of being is to state and believe, “All a person GETS out of life is a little to eat, a place to sleep, pay taxes and die.”  Just take care of the first three of these.  If one is invited to take part in or do anything, just ask the question:  “What is in it for me?”  It works.  You are soon not interested in anything except, “What’s in it for me?”  The answer is the obvious.  Boredom, sickness, lack, friendlessness and dried up old age.
6. ANGER. It is easy to develop and hold; something on which to pride yourself (“I am hot tempered”).  It gives something with which to keep the mind busy (ways and means to get even.)  This is a very potent one.  Not only will it wreck health, but also business and social life as well.  Like the other methods that have been given, it is simple and easy to do.  Somebody has sometimes done something you didn’t like.  Decide NOW that you will not stand for it.  Decide to stick up for your rights.  Just dwell on it and think up some good nasty things to say to him or her.  Just keep it up and look for new opportunities to stick up for your rights.  Then watch your health, happiness and possessions take wings and fly away.
7. SELF-PITY.   Just sit down. Slump down.  Let the corners of the mouth droop down and begin to mull over all the times that you have been mistreated; how little everyone thinks of you; how much you have done for others and how little has been done in return.  So little in fact, that you may as well forget it.  How hard you have to work and how little you have to show for it.  How bad you feel and how little anyone does about it and how much less they care.  A little time spent at this can put you in bed sick, or on the street broke, all alone and miserable.  Want to try it?
8. SEE ONLY BAD IN THE WORLD. Read all sensational news stories and keep repeating, “The world is going to the dogs.”  One murder among the 160 million people in the United States proves it.  Three or four hold-ups daily.  Juvenile delinquency stories… five kids involved.  Kids are all rotten these days.  Then watch six or seven crime stories on TV.  Read the stock market reports.  See the impending financial crash and coming depression.  Be assured that you will be real good and stress as well as settled in your mind that there is only evil and that the world is going to hell with its back broke and since you are bad off, why bother?
9. STATE YOUR AGE AND SUBTRACT IF FROM WHATEVER AGE YOU HAVE DECIDED IS OLD. 28 from 36.  36 from 44.  45 from 56, etc.  It is really a frightening study of the illusion of time.  It is easy to visualize yourself as wrinkled, stooped, with knotty joints, a trembling wobble, too late to take advantage of opportunities and too old to do anything about it.  This frightening thought produces STRESS and glandular reaction to fright, hence you can very soon be enjoying aches and pains and signs of aging.  This makes it even more easy to visualize the whole horrible picture.  Truly a working illusion of time.
10. This method is so easy that most people who use it don’t even know that they are. So you can see that it will be no effort on your part to use this method to be miserable and sick.  Just sit slumped, stand on one foot at a time, with the other one out of the way.  Lean on something if at all possible.  Let your chin hang forward and down.  Watch the floor or the ground.  Learn to do gymnastics with your eyebrows up-down-and clamped together.  In other words, JUST LET YOURSELF FALL APART.  You will feel weak, worn-out, discouraged and miserable.

A STORY

Am I an idolater?  Do I have any idols?  I would like to say “of course not.”  Yet, I am learning that on which I habitually focus my attention is idolatry. I am discovering that I have MANY idols.

What do I think about all day? At times I catch myself attached to memories of the past and their corresponding emotions.  This line of thought leads nowhere and accomplishes nothing, leaving me paralyzed in the past.  Attachment to the illusion of the past becomes my idol.

Or I may direct thoughts to a friend or loved one, mentally arranging their life, concerned with their problems and compulsively figuring out solutions for them.  It is possible that control of others could be my idol?

Do I dissipate time and energy worrying about inflation or money matters?  If so, being comfortable, secure and non-disturbed is my god.  Even the acquisition of spiritual knowledge can be an insidious god, as I move from book to book, teacher to teacher.

Am I substituting knowledge for the experience of Life?

Many old concepts and ideas are idols (sacred cows, gods) that keep me from seeing clearly “what is.”  As I become aware of them, X removes them, one by one, setting me free.

BELIEFS (Science of Man Lesson 41)

1. People know what’s right and go on and do wrong anyway.
2. I believe I have inalienable rights that I must stick up for.
3. I believe I know what ought to be.
4. I believe in magic.
5. I believe in luck or chance.
6. I believe that disease attacks me.
7. I believe I should say I believe even if I don’t .
8. I believe money will make me happy.
9. I believe in the teachings of Karl Marx that one is product of the society.

I believe in Freud that I am a victim of what was done to me when I was a child.

And I believe in Darwin that we’re the product of evolution and that I simply        cannot help being what I am, that after all, I inherited it.

And I believe that the reason I believe all of them is that they all say I am not responsible.  One says society did it.  One says the parents or early teachings or happenings did it. And the other one says heredity did it.  So therefore I am relieved of all responsibility.

***

Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.