You Are Not the Target

1) [Love, Not-Love]
"At one time or another the more fortunate among us make three startling discoveries.
Discovery number one: Each of us has, in varying degree, the power to make others feel better or worse.
Discovery number two: Making others feel better is much more fun than making them feel worse.
Discovery number three: Making others feel better generally makes us feel better."

2) [Transformation of Energy]
"We must apply the principle in practice, apply it to ourselves and apply it every moment of our lives.
The energy that activates our emotions is a neutral force.
The energy that goes into behaving stupidly and unrealistically, that gives us the power to hurt others and destroy ourselves, is the same as the energy that goes into loving and being intelligent, that gives us the power to help ourselves and do a kindness to others.
It is feeling the energy, becoming conscious of it, that permits us to redirect it according the the best of our physical, intellectual, and ethical knowledge."

3) [You Are Not the Target]
"A person contracting the abdominal muscles ten times a day for ten seconds each time can lose between one and two inches from the waistline in a month. This is the principle of isotonic exercise which is now used by both the American and Soviet Olympic teams."

4) [Questions and How to Ask Them]
"When do i do the greatest good to myself?
When do I do the greatest good to others?
When do I do both, giving and receiving at the same time?
What person, real or fictional, impressed me most between the ages of: five and ten years? ten and twenty? twenty and thirty?
Am I today trying to be that person?
When do I feel that what I am doing is effortless?
When is it full of effort?
When does the result warrant the effort?
When is it that the performance of my duty gives me a feeling of contentment, serenity, and well-being?
In what ways do my personal education and the culture in which I live restrict me?
In what ways do they enlarge me?
When did I do or say something that was not at all like myself?
Since I was not being myself, who was I being?
Why was I trying to be like that other person?
What do I say I believe—and what do I really believe?
When is it that the physical, mental, and emotional elements of my being are functioning as one whole?
When do I like myself and others best?
Am I able to accept and enjoy an individual completely different from myself—and remain myself completely?
When do I act outwardly as I feel inwardly?
When do I express my real self best? inadequately? not at all?
When do I feel that I am acting a part written by someone else?
Is my way of looking at the world the only possible way of looking at the world?
Is my reaction to my present situation the only possible reaction I can have to that situation?
When is my reaction to a person or situation spontaneous, complete, organismic?
When am I most selfish and most generous at the same time?
Whose life am I living?
What is my ultimate goal in life?
Is what I want now, or what I am doing now, compatible with that goal?
Does the life I am living now make sense?"

5) [Something for Nothing]
"When we buy and sell we are careful to know the measures; in land, goods, and money they are fairly exact; and, if we make a bad trade, we usually have only ourselves to blame.
But when we make other trades our measures are subjective. Only I know what my giving has cost me in time, trouble, or emotion. Only the recipient knows what my gift means to him.
What happens when your response is less than I thought I had the right to expect?"

6) [Prajna Now]
"Suddenly your mind becomes cloudy, your thinking ceases to be clear.
Then stop for three or four seconds. Recognize what is happening. You may be thinking, 'I am confused.'
Do not identify. Simply recognize the fact. The fact is: 'There is confusion.'
But confusion is not I and I am not it. And remember that, as well as a passing confusion there is also Prajna. 'Prajna NOW.'"

7) [Your Imagination is Yours]
"Imagination is powerful. If it is persistently misdirected it will make its evil fancies come true. [...]
When one begins to think about the good uses of imagination, one is confronted with the fact that almost everything that is good is partly the work of imagination. From a great bridge to a chemical discovery, from beautiful music to a lively story, from a good soup to social reform—in all human achievements imagination has a place of honor.
Let us use this wonderful faculty to our own advantage."