Reminders to the Advanced Soul



To the serious student:

These reminders are to be used as just that - reminders.

Each of you know that these reminders have been known to you at one time or another, but forgotten over the years and lives of this physical plane.

Each is to be taken as seriously as you wish to take it, as each has its own message to each individual, differing in depth and importance depending on the evolution of the person, and the lessons they need to learn at the time. However, each should be contemplated to see how it relates to the individual at this point in their evolution.

I suggest a very slow and very thorough reading of each of these reminders, spending as long as you need on each one (days or even weeks are fine) to fully comprehend its full meaning - its relation to your present position on this plane. You should not just read them and say "Oh, yes, that sounds very good. I like that one." Spend all the time you need to make one idea a daily practice, and then move on to the next one. Come back to the book to refresh your memory. Open it up and apply what you read and understand to the problem at hand, and the lessons of daily living.

Note for this web-page version of the book, I've separated the quotes so that only one should be on the screen, and in your focus, at a time. Just scroll through them, or scroll up and down and randomly stop at one.

                                                                -- Philip Nehrt















You have always had your solutions. You just haven't known how to arrive at them.



















Your search has truly started when you stop seeking new frontiers, and seek new eyes instead.



















Beliefs create limits.



















To limit yourself is to limit your world. Look out across the oceans and mountains, and see your house of worship. Raise your hands to the sky and touch your cathedral ceiling. Become one with the billions of souls in the world and know your congregation.



















Events will affect you only as much as you allow them to.



















There is no death. Only change.



















There is no shortcut to wisdom; it must be lived.



















Truth is like a butterfly; One can chase it forever and never catch it, yet when at last One sits to rest and relax, it alights on the open hand.



















It may seem hard to be constantly loving - but it is harder still to be unloving.



















It is all a condition of mind; your mind.



















When you cultivate a powerful awareness, you learn that there is no one who thinks - only thinking, no one who walks - only walking, no one who sees - only seeing.



















What we give away, we have; what we hold, we lose; what we have lost was never ours.



















What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above.



















Do unto others, and you do it unto yourself.



















Your consciousness is not you, but rather an attribute, a tool to be used by you.



















To bring anything into your life - imagine, no - live, as if it is already there.



















Where your thinking is, there is your experience.



















Don't be impatient. We are all on our way to learning more.



















Like attracts like. Like words... Like action... Like thought... Like being...



















Live never to be ashamed if anything you do or say is published around the world - even if what is published is not true.



















You teach best what you most need to learn. Listen carefully to what you say.



















The way is simple: no resistance.



















There is no need to seek Truth; only stop having views.



















A master is a very simple person; When he walks, he walks. When he talks, he talks. And that is all. When he listens, he listens completely. He does not day dream while walking, but is the walking. While touching, he is the item and the touch, while tasting, the experience. That is very hard. That is why he is a master.



















Instead of seeing with your eyes, try to see through them.



















When you stop talking, and stop thinking, there is nothing you will not understand.



















Each one of us learns only when we are ready to learn. We can not learn before we are ready, but this time can come sooner through desire for the wisdom and knowledge.



















You are constantly creating yourself with every thought you think.



















To do anything - imagine it is done.



















The only 'sin' ever committed is the denial of the perfection of what is.



















What is wrong for one can be right for another.



















You dislike others only to the extent that you see yourself reflected in them. Everyone is a reflection of yourself. Look at your reflections closely and appreciate them as part of yourself.



















Don't try to avoid that which you wish to avoid; instead, strive to achieve the opposite, with no thought to that which you will leave behind.



















Those who are attached to nothing, and hate nothing, have no fetters and are bound by nothing.



















When you know that enough is enough, you will always have enough.



















Thoughts are not necessarily connected with reality. That is why the master knows to become aware of them before she allows herself to be influenced by them.



















Questions are answered in the way they are asked.



















You carry heaven and hell with you, but you don't have to. That choice is yours and only yours.



















In the child's mind there are many possibilities; In the adult's mind there are few; In the master's, many.



















All that we are is a result of what we have lived. All that we have lived is a result of what we have thought.



















Do not be so focused in your role, so intrigued by the reality you have created, so entranced by the problems, challenges, hopes and sorrows of your role that you forget that you created them yourself, for yourself.



















Progress is measured in terms of the particular ways in which problems are solved. You progress when you solve a problem, whether or not it seems as if you have made a correct decision. There is no progression when there is avoidance of a solution.



















It's better to wear out then to rust away.



















You create your environment and your physical world by propelling your thoughts and emotions outwardly into matter.



















You begin to control the situation when you cease to be concerned with the situation or the outcome, but rather with the quality you are seeking within yourself, which is why you picked the situation in the first place.



















Everything occurs in cycles; what goes out must come back. Watch for their return and learn. Learn not to send out what you don't what to come back.



















It isn't the mountains ahead that wear you out. It is the grain of sand in your shoe. Concentrate on removing the grain of sand, and you will have climbed the mountain.



















If you don't understand silence, you won't understand words.



















The mind is the workshop where things are made of thought, and you build being.



















One is 'saved' when rescued from themselves, for themselves, by themselves.



















Change is a necessity of life, no matter how minute or how drastic, whether it be the parting of a friend or the death of that friend, a simple cold or a terminal illness. Without it, life is stagnant; we learn nothing. With change of any kind, we have movement, progression, evolution of the mind and soul, a chance for advancement of the Self.



















It is never the obstacle which frightens us, but rather the mental picture we have made of it.



















You see what you look for.



















Begin as if you have already succeeded.



















It is better to light the candle - no matter how difficult it is to find the matches - then to curse the darkness.



















If you wish to eliminate something, strive for the opposite.



















Let your goal be awareness, and that in itself will see you through your growth.



















Success comes only through effective use of failure. Without failure, nothing is learned, there is no success.



















The result is not the point. It is the effort to improve yourself that is valuable and necessary.



















Do not try so hard. Relax. Leave your mind silent and open, and let it fill. As with any other vessel, it must be emptied before it can once again be filled.



















We are all on different paths, and they all lead to the same place. Do not criticize if other's paths are harder, or more exciting, or more scenic then your own path, nor be bothered if other's are shorter and easier. We each pick the exact path we need.



















Knowledge is that which enables us to live in harmony with the laws and truths of the universe. Wisdom is the ability to use this knowledge correctly, and is made practical by proper application in day to day experiences.



















The importance of any event does not lie in the event itself, but always in your reaction to it.



















To be anything - imagine you are, and act as if you are.



















We must deal with appearances, but must not confine our evaluations and judgments to them only, nor be bound by them.



















If a problem arises in which a decision must be made sometime in the future, and does not have a clear answer to you today, that is all right. You will not be the same person when the decision needs to be made. Watch for answers along the way.



















The farthest distance you can attempt to run is away from yourself, and the situations and experiences you have set up for yourself. It is far more effective to turn and see what you need.



















Spirit is the ideal. Mind is the builder. The world is your tool and workshop.



















Whatever your situation in life, it is a reflection of your inner self, and the kind of thoughts you have. To change your situations, first you must change your inner self, and your thoughts.



















Sit silent and listen to what comes from within. The static must be stopped before the station comes in clearly.



















As you mold your thoughts, you mold your life.



















Conduct yourself as though it were impossible to fail, and you can't fail. You may make mistakes or have problems, but those are not failures, merely your stepping stones along the path of growth.



















The more you grow, the more you become capable of growing, for the doubt of being able to grow becomes less and less.



















Aspirations and desires become abilities. Repeated thoughts become pathways. Will to performance becomes action. Experience becomes conscience. Understood experiences lead to wisdom. Wisdom is growth.



















The more you understand, the more you have to continue learning and applying. The more you learn and apply, the more you want to understand.



















The chains that bind you to the workshop of the earth are wrought in your own forge; they are made of thought and welded in illusion's fires.



















Sometimes you must love others enough to allow them to make, and learn from, their own experiences, no matter how painful they choose to make it for themselves.



















Strength is measured not by how powerfully you can resist others, butrather how compassionately you can accept them.



















Do not take this life too seriously, nor hold it in too great esteem.When you are finished with this life, you will move onto your next setof experiences, as has happened many times before, and may well happenmany times again. Without these changes, further lessons cannot begained.



















Be in the world, but not of it. Work within the framework of this reality you have chosen, but try not to get so entranced with it that you forget that you helped write the script, produce it, and are one of the main actors, all by your own choices and decisions.



















To have anything, imagine you have it.



















Knowledge is the awareness of aspects of reality. Wisdom is the application of that awareness in material life.



















You meet your destiny on the road you take to avoid it.



















It isn't what goes in you that may poison you; it's what comes out. Don't be so concerned about the things you see and hear around you, but rather your own actions, words and thoughts. Those are what can do your Self harm.



















Allow it, don't force it. Let it flow.



















Your aim is simply to be, and not to be this or that. To be something is to limit yourself to that thing.



















Remember that while on this stage you choose all of your fellow actors, and they have agreed to play the parts you need. Why then, should you complain so much when those you chose to play the evil roles, the villains, play their parts so well?



















Inside yourself or outside, you never have to change what you see. Only the way you see it, and how you allow it to affect you.



















You must learn to accept each event with equal appreciation, as you put yourself in each situation for the same reason; to experience, learn and understand. To grow.



















When you see others in situations you would not want to be in yourself, remember; you did not put yourself in that position. They created those specific circumstances around themselves, no matter how 'bad' it seems, nor how helpless they may seem. They did it specifically to learn. Don't take that opportunity away from them, or feel that they shouldn't have to go through these things. They do, or they wouldn't be.



















The world is limited to those in a valley, monotonous and pointless to those on a prairie, but unlimited and exciting to those on a mountain top. Your ability to see clearly the workings of your universe is determined by your perspective of the world, by how far above the material world you can raise your view of things.



















No one can be helped unless they want to be helped, and until they are ready; until they have sufficient desire and belief that they can change.



















If you are afraid enough that something will happen, it probably will, because that is what you have spent your thought energy creating.



















The measure of a Self's evolution is the acceptance of the unacceptable.



















Nothing can ever happen to you except that from which you have chosen to grow, 'good' or 'bad'. So what is there to fear?



















Don't just listen to yourself. Listen to yourself listen to yourself. Do you like what you hear? Is it what you would say in the ideal situation? Take every situation as the ideal one for a learning experience, and say only what you know you should say.



















Truth is subjective; whatever a person believes, is true for them, at that particular time. This concept requires you to respect the right of each individual to believe whatever is the truth for them, even though it may not be the truth for you.



















Like attracts like. Be content. Focus on being yourself, with your inner Self shining to those around you. Automatically, as you shine who you are, doing only what you feel you should be doing, you turn away those who have nothing to learn from who you are, and attract those who do, and those from whom you have to learn as well.



















The solution to problems can often be seen in the way they are posed, and you pose each problem you need to solve.



















People can only believe in terms of how they perceive themselves and the world around them, and their perceptions are completely determined by their philosophy of life.



















To those who are aware of being on the path, every day is a fortunate day, every event a fortunate event.



















Success is not achieving the goal. Success is understanding how you got there.



















Within you lies the ability to choose between health and sickness, riches and poverty, freedom and slavery, happiness and misery. It is you who controls these, only you who decides.



















The actor does not forget who they are while on stage. Try not to forget who you are while still on this stage.



















You need to joyously accept what is, knowing that it is completely of your own creation.



















In the path of your happiness you will find that which you have chosen to learn in this lifetime, for when you are beginning to understand those things which you have chosen to learn, you will be happy.



















Become a student of life, Then a teacher, Then the teaching itself.



















When you search long and far for your freedom and peace of mind, it's no wonder you don't find it. Even the longest search must end with the stopping and turning within, to find it with the acceptance of Self.



















Keep things in perspective. Don't forget - what is going on around you is not reality. Remember where you're going and why you created these problems in the first place.



















Learning is coming to an understanding of what you already know. Doing is demonstrating that you understand it. Teaching is reminding others that they know it just as well as you. We are all learners, doers and teachers.



















The simplest questions hold the most important answers. Why did you choose to be born in the circumstances you were? Who are you? Where are you going? What are you doing? Think about these once in a while, and watch your answers change.



















Don't turn away from possible lessons before you're certain you don't have anything to learn from them.



















Allow yourself to be a master, and you are.



















Truth often knocks on your door and you say "Go away - I am looking for the truth", and it does.



















Do not try. Do, or do not. There is no try.



















There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in it's solution. You create your problems because you need their gifts.



















You already know all of the answers. You're just not aware that you do. You need to become aware of an understanding of each lesson.



















If your happiness depends on what somebody else does or says, or doesn't do or say, you have a problem.



















If you believe enough and argue for your limitations, you will, by your own choice, be confined by them.



















You can never desire something without also having the power to achieve it. You may have to work for it though.



















If you try being fictional for a while, you will understand that fictional people are sometimes more real than people in flesh and blood, and that people that think they are real are really quite fictional.



















We are, each of us, entirely free to do exactly what we want to do. We are also, however, entirely responsible for each of our actions.



















We choose, ourselves, to be hurt or not to be hurt. No matter what the circumstances are, no matter how things seem, we choose.



















Every person and all events in your life, no matter how trivial or how devastating they may seem, are there because you have drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is entirely up to you.



















The truth has no past and no future. It is.



















Responsible is able to respond, able to answer for the way you choose to live. There is only one person you have to answer to - your Self.



















Don't look for the differences between religions, but rather seek the common truths in all of them.



















The truth does not control and bind, it frees.



















The purpose of life is not to believe, but to be.



















To find happiness, help others achieve it.



















Disease is caused by dis-ease. The body is continually being maintained and created - programmed by the mind. A strain in the mind creates a strain in the body.



















A measure of 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.



















Your environment is not a separate thing in itself, but rather the result of your perceptive patterns.



















The world that you perceive and know is your inner reality, only a reflection of true reality, and is changed, re-formed and re-created by your inner Self, according to your thoughts and attitudes, your inner being.



















Don't be upset by good-byes, no matter how permanent they seem. A separation is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.



















Decisions are made with actions, not words.



















Meditation is a centering activity. Breathing is a centering activity. Concentration and clearing of the mind are centering activities. Come to think of it, walking and talking, working and playing can be centering activities.



















Treat all aspects of your life with the same attitude regarding the importance towards your growth.



















Until you realize you have the power to say no, you can never really say yes.



















If you focus only on the final goal, you will seem never to succeed. Allow yourself many small successes.



















People rarely fail - they only stop trying.



















Live in the present. Only now is real.



















Before enlightenment, one chops wood and carries water. After enlightenment, one chops wood and carries water.



















You may not be able to control the events, but you can control your reaction to the events.



















The snow goose need not bathe to make itself white; nor must you do anything but be yourself.



















What you think you believe has little impact - what floats on the surface does not reveal, nor does it hide that which is in the depths. Only the deeper assumptions have the ability to shape your reality.



















What you see depends on where you look, and where you look depends on what you expect to see.



















Integrity is the state of being integrated. Know yourself - be yourself. To this end, live towards your highest ideals despite the impulse to the contrary, and do so when no one is looking.



















To see is to be aware. To learn is to know. To do is to understand. To be.



















From each life, you take with you what you are, not what you own.



















Seeing an imperfection in something shows only the flaw in the attitude of the seer.



















The most frigid winter day, the hottest summer night, a downpour during your picnic. These are all the perfect embodiment of their ideal, and should be embraced fully as such.



















Learn to appreciate that everything should happen exactly as it does.



















To know who you are and where you come from, don't bother tracking your ancestry, but rather your own growth through the past.



















Learn again to be in awe of the everyday.



















If you cannot see your part in the play, you may actually believe it is real. To see the play going on around you is to be freed from the limitations of the stage.



















The evolution of the Self is determined by your reactions to the circumstances around you, not the circumstances themselves.



















Attachment to the past is the chain that binds us from the future. Forgiveness is key to the breaking of that chain.



















Enjoy life in every way it presents itself to you. Remember - regardless of what you do, you're not going to escape alive.



















How much benefit comes from reading the words of wisdom, or repeating them endlessly? You benefit only from performing them.



















It is necessary to have goals in life, but it is the journey towards those goals that really matters.



















You never set in front of your Self a task you know you cannot accomplish.



















Look around you and see your Teacher.



















You have arrived at this point in your life without realizing your part in it - accept the hand you have dealt your Self, and work on understanding your reasons behind it.



















Now that you are aware of your control in the game, play your cards with decisiveness.



















You do not see things as they are - You see things as you are.



















The difference between a weed and a flower is your attitude.



















Acceptance of an event brings joy - expectations bring disappointment.



















You find who you are only in how you relate to others.



















In any individual, find their finest aspect and nurture that to its fullest.



















There are no limitations to the Self except those you feel the need to impart.



















Change is not necessarily good or bad - it is just - change.



















The shadows in your life are there because you are holding your past in front of you like a trophy of honor instead of setting it aside like a well studied but now obsolete textbook.



















Speak strongly with silence.



















Do what you can, when you can with what you've got.



















As others are a mirror reflecting our beliefs and inner selves, relationships are our most powerful tools for determining where on the path we are.



















The path you travel only reveals itself as you progress. Without your journey, there is nothing. There is no destination. Without your struggle through your obstacles, there is nothing for you. In this particular life, there is no destination, only the specific lessons and wisdom you acquire along the way.



















Knowing something is nothing. Doing something with that knowledge is everything.



















You are not who you are. You are who you are creating. Life is a continual process of re-creating yourself into who you want to be.



















Don't tell someone - Show someone.



















Don't measure your life by what you get - Measure your life by what you give.



















There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly.



















Dare to be ignorant.



















You can lead a man to knowledge - You cannot make him think.



















Being happy is not a goal - it is a way of life.



















When a friend is needs help, don't annoy them by asking if there is anything you can do.



















Understand what is appropriate - and do it.



















Whatever you are, be a good one.



















Don't bother to expound on your virtues to others - If they do not actually exist, it will be patently obvious to them. If they do truly exist, they will be also.



















You cannot destroy what you perceive as the "bad" in yourself by attacking it - that is only directing more and more energy to the exact location you don't want it to go. To destroy it, gently borrow that energy and direct it towards the opposite direction - deflect it away from what you don't want and focus all thoughts only on what you want. You do not want the "bad" thing to stop being, but rather some "good" thing to be.



















Be Here Now