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Messiah’s Handbook, Reminders for the Advanced Soul. “What do you mean, Saviour’s Manual? This says Messiah’s Handbook.” “Something like that.” He started to pick up things around his airplane, as though he thought it was time to be moving on. I leafed through the book, a collection of maxims and short paragraphs. Perspective — Use It or Lose It. If you turned to this page, you’re forgetting that what is going on around you is not reality.
Think about that. Remember where you came from, where you’re going, and why you created the mess you got yourself into in the first place. You’re going to die a horrible death, remember. It’s all good training, and you’ll enjoy it more if you keep the facts in mind. Take your dying with some seriousness, however. Laughing on the way to your execution is not generally understood by less- advanced life-forms, and they’ll call you crazy.
Learning is finding out what you already know. Doing is demonstrating that you know it. Teaching is reminding others that they know just as well as you. You are all learners,
doers, teachers. Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself. Being true to anyone else or anything else is not only impossible, but the mark of a fake messiah. The simplest questions are the most profound. Where were you born? Where is your home? Where are you going? What are you doing? Think about these once in a while, and watch your answers change.
You teach best what you most need to learn. “You’re awfully quiet over there, Richard,” said Shimoda, as though he wanted to talk with me. “Yeah,” I said, and went on reading. If this was a book for masters only, I didn’t want to let go of it. Live never to be ashamed if anything you do or say is published around the world — even if what is published is not true. Your friends
will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years. The best way to avoid responsibility is to say, “I’ve got responsibilities.”
You are led through your lifetime by the inner learning creature, the playful spiritual being that is your real self. Don’t turn away from possible futures before you’re certain you don’t have anything to learn from them. You’re always free
to change your mind and choose a different future, or a different past.
There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts.
The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.
