Be Intelligent...

"Human beings cannot see beyond their immediate personal self-
interest. Their inner mental eyesight looks around the room,
around the field, wherever they are, and the object of their
gaze sets off desire.'I want to go over there, I want to get
that, I want to meet her, I'd like to taste that.' And this is
the way the day is squandered by practically everyone.
Because that is all there is, no one can look out at the world
and see something and then have a proper reaction, and I'm going
to tell you about the right reaction.

Every time you see anything, anybody, any situation, immediately
go intelligent about it instead of mechanical about it, instead
of wanting to grab it, possess it, thrill at it, wonder at it,
wonder whether you can get it or not. Be intelligent. And I'll
tell you what 'be intelligent' means. It means that you think
about the connection between you and that person, object, what-
ever it might be, in case you get it.

Humans can't do that, they can't see the hidden consequences of
obtaining what they desire. They can't see that maybe they'll
change their mind about what they're going after in the next
five minutes. There's no ability to think about hidden traps in
chasing your desire. A little child, five or six year old Billy
or Mary, all they can say is 'I want.' At their age it's
legitimate, at your age it isn't.

You're supposed to be someone who's able to operate on yourself
so that when you say 'I want,' you'll take the whole thing apart
and say, 'Who is this wanter, who's the desirer, the seeker who
says if I think this way or talk that way then it will be good for
me?' But you can't do that because you haven't grown up where you
can ask yourself, 'why am I nothing but a collection of desires?'"

from a talk given 1/3/1986
Vernon Howard's Higher World - MP3 CD Volume 1, talk 1