To those of us who have practiced the work this far of self-observation, we have done it slowly week by week, we have not tried to run ahead, we have not tried to improve upon it, we have been using it and we have experienced certain things. We may have experienced a certain serenity that one never knew before. One may experience that there is an absence of the resentment, an absence of the load and the burden that one has carried about of the accounts receivable. One may be aware that anger and guilt are gone. One may be aware that the expectation is based more on what is and one may be seeing value in what is.

But powerful adversaries are still active in the world and one is little in the New World. So one is subject, yet, to suggestion. Sometimes it is called temptation. So temptation begins to be very active at this stage of existence and one can be tempted into falling away from their state of being that the have just entered. They’re little ones in the Kingdom; they’re little ones in peace. It is said that there are great stumbling blocks. It says woe to the one who is the stumbling block but they don’t seem to notice that. So the world around one is powerful suggestion at this state. So there is the beginning of a new phase of SELF-KNOWING. It is still self-knowing and it leads to still further experiencing, not only in experiencing a new man, but if one continues in the work of self-observation and its other phases one will experience FAITH, and one will experience GRACE, and one may experience a much richer, richer degree of AGAPE. It is little and it is new at this stage. While one is considerate there is constantly the suggestion from without that one should be very proud of this state. One will find that there is constantly someone saying how wonderful it is and there is a powerful temptation to accept this idea.

This stage of self-observation is that of REEVALUATION. Now reevaluation is to put a new value, to see it consciously and to look at what is and to always look for its value. You see there are certain habitual values that the world uses and they’re constantly being suggested to one. So one reevaluates every suggestion. Now there are two fundamentals we will use for reevaluation:

1. THAT WHENEVER ANYTHING IS MADE IMPORTANT THE SELF BECOMES ANXIOUS.

Now the only thing it can make important are ideals and one may be tempted by suggestion from the environment to consider that their state of being is ideal and, of course, that would be a stumbling block in one’s way. It would cause a little one to get caught away and might have to start all over again. Now this is not given as any warning or is any threat. It is given as an aim to continue self-observation, self-awareness, to observe all selves now, to observe what other selves are suggesting to one. Remember that because one is out of certain clutches that it does not mean one is not subject to suggestion. There are constant suggestions still being made to one to make something important and the only thing that can be made important is an ideal.

We will reevaluate every ideal as they are suggested to one. Now there will be suggestions to one that everyone should have this work explained to them and, of course, one experiences a certain feeling of peace or joy. One wants to share it with the world, with everyone. That seems like an ideal to suddenly begin to try to teach everyone. If one does one has succumbed to the ideal. It is quite a jolt if one does and I hope you do not experience it, that instead you experience reevaluation of all suggestions. Vanity says that one can do things so it is an idea that one can teach all loved ones, all people one sees requesting information, all the people that are troubled. Vanity says it can do it but it cannot be done. No one can teach another. One can only put out ideas to people who are already questioning the ideal that the purpose of living is to be non-disturbed. This requires considerable effort. It is the place in agape that says, “In the New World one is harmless because one trying to give information, trying to clarify something for a person who is only trying to find a new means of self-improvement, is to give them ideas which they cannot use.” It is like the parable of the sower who went out to sow. Some of the seeds he sowed, cast about, fell on rock and the birds ate it up forthwith. This is the person who is looking for self improvement; that’s a rock. Some of it fell on very shallow soil and it sprang up and on the first hot day it wilted. Again, it is a person looking for self-improvement and they think the ideas will give them self-improvement, but the first day a  second force interferes in their pleasure or their fun or their non-disturbance they will forget all about it and go for another type of self improvement. Some falls among the brambles and the brambles choke it out; this is the one who wants to both self-improve and learn new material. He wants to have his cake and eat it too. And, of course, as long as he serves mammon, mammon being very strong will choke out the weak new growth, and so that one is lost. It says some of the seed falls on good soil and it brings forth thirty-fold, sixty-fold or a hundred-fold. So the good soil is that which uses it, practices it, experiments with it, and finds out its value. To give it to others is sometimes to be harmful to them. It is better that we possibly wait for a while and that we really want something because we tend to value something that we really want. Something that is too easily obtained by somebody coming along and offering it to me when I’m really not looking for that is to put no value on it. Once a person comes to a conclusion that something is worthless, “It didn’t do what I wanted it to do,” that person has blocked the future possibility of seeing because there is a very fundamental idea that once a decision is made, it is the rule of attitude action until such time that that decision is discovered and reevaluated.

2. WHEN ONCE A DECISION IS MADE IT IS THE RULE OF ATTITUDE ACTION UNTIL SUCH TIME AS THAT DECISION IS DISCOVERED AND REEVALUATED.

If we give the Teaching to a person who is trying for self-improvement, and that is what he really wants, the Teaching will not give him something for self-improvement. It will only be a fallacy to him and he, of course, will come to a conclusion that it is worthless. Some very drastic things may have to happen to that person before he may consider reevaluating or possibly he will never consider it. So possibly we have blocked, by trying to do good, by sharing our state with everyone who comes along. So we will reevaluate what it means to be helpful.

Now that constant suggestion comes to us that we should help all people. It is really that we will work with anyone on the level on which they want to work. If they want self-improvement give them whatever tidbits of it that are around, or we might ask them questions over a period of time so that they might be given a little crumb that falls from the table that will get them to question the whole purpose of living. Without having questioned that the purpose of living is to be non disturbed, that person isn’t even a student of self. Furthermore, we generally want to give the great things to those we want to help and we give it out of line.

Remember a few weeks ago when you started, that observing self was not a pleasant situation. We began to see things that some of us were horrified to discover that was in self. We were quite horrified to discover vanity when we thought we were so humble, that we had a very beautiful picture made up of everything we had heard through the years, being complemented and put into that false picture and that is vanity and we had defended it. We not only see this in the individual but whole nations form an illusion of themselves as being so wonderful. They’re going to do “good” for the whole world and so they practice “saving the world.” They’re going to be helpful, they’re going to be condescending to all other nations, and, of course, this usually leads to wars because that don’t want to be condescended to and they don’t want to be helped. Possibly they would not mind if someone worked with them. We see that what’s on the inside of man expressed in his outward affairs, his nations and his organizations. You see various institutions that feel they are the only true institution, that they have the only truth, and, of course, they try to convert everybody to see it their way. They promise rewards and threaten punishments if one does not.

So let’s reevaluate every suggestion we hear. Now, if one is observing self, one notices the impact of a suggestion. It is really like a physical blow. One hears it coming; it makes a sound like a bullet going through the air. It is suggested that one should be helpful. It is suggested that one should share everything. There is a great statement some place that sounds very crude. A great Teacher said, “Do not throw that which is holy before dogs,” and “Do not cast your pearls before swine,” because if you do the swine will trample them under their feet; it means they will defile them, misuse them and “then they will turn and rend you.” In other words you’re still little in the Kingdom of Heaven. You still, possibly, have not experienced faith to any degree and therefore do not have power. There is much to survive in the New World, much as a baby on arriving to the earth world from the uterine world is in a very precarious position for survival and must be protected and somewhat defended. It is frightened by loud noises, by sudden bright lights and all such other sudden stimuli. When one feels a suggestion coming, it’s like a noise to a little infant because one is little in the New World. So one observes these