SECRETS OF LIFE2/16/24
"To risk all is to win all; to play it safe is to play it dangerous. To
risk all is to win all: in those few words are buried very deeply the plan
by which you can be a kind of a person with which you are not presently
acquainted. To risk all is to win all.
I'm going to tell you at the very start of the talk a little story about
that, about a worried man. We'll even give him a name - how about Waldo
the Worrier? How many would like to hear a story about Waldo the Worrier?
[laughter]
Here we go. This worried man lived in a certain kind of country with which
we are all acquainted - we're acquainted with its features and
characteristics and its endless hazards. And the reason he was worried is
because the name of the country matched its low nature. And the name of the
country was Ambushland.
Now you know what an ambush is - an ‘Am' stands behind a bush and jumps out
at people, right? [laughter] He was afraid of all these 'ams' behind the
bushes and he had ideas in his mind that he would like to move away from
Ambushland. But every time he started he got worried as to what would
happen, because he'd go out a short distance down the road and a monster
would jump out from behind the bush and go 'Grrrrr!' and scare him.
Or a demon or a devil or a dragon or a harpie. How many know what a harpie
is? A flying lady monster [laughter] I’m sorry, ladies, but that’s the
way it is. [more laughter]
And so he was afraid to go out because he was afraid he’d get hurt and
worse. So he just stayed home and worried, which means that he was really
like everyone else in Ambushland, just like everyone else in this world.
Now he was, of course, frustrated and sad and every once in a while he
thought he had the solution to it in the excitement, surrounding things he
could find to do. But nothing worked, so he just remained a worried man.
But there was something different in this worried man than the rest of the
people who lived in Ambushland. He wanted to know the answers, not very
much - I told you he just wanted to stay home. But there was a little tiny
spark of curiosity, of inquiry, of wanting to find out why it was so bad,
why he was stuck there. And of course he was worried that there was no
answer to all his questions.
However, something happened while he was wondering about his miserable life
that he didn’t know about. In later years he understood it, but he
didn’t at that time. What he didn’t know was that his simple desire to
understand was a prayer. It was a prayer to High Heaven.
from a talk given 3/8/1987 Vernon Howard's Higher World - MP3 CD Volume 10, talk 235, track 4
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