or: Up to Your Ass in Aphorisms
by Werner Erhard – Copyright 1973
The truth doesn’t mean anything.
It just is.
If you keep saying it the way it really is, eventually your word is law in the universe.
Man keeps looking for a truth that fits his reality.
Given our reality, the truth doesn’t fit.
If you experience it, it’s the truth.
The same thing believed is a lie.
In life, understanding is the booby prize
Obviously, the truth is what’s so.
Not so obviously, it’s also so what.
You don’t get to vote on the way it is.
You already did.
When you’ve said all the bad things and all of the good things you haven’t
been saying, you will find that what you’ve been withholding is, “I love you.”
You don’t have to go looking for love when it is where you come from.
I know that you know that I love you.
What I want you to know is that I know you love me.
Happiness is a function of accepting what is.
Love is a function of communication.
Health is a function of participation.
Self Expression is a function of responsibility
It’s much easier to ride the horse in the direction he’s going.
Life is a rip-off when you expect to get what you want.
Life works when you choose what you got.
Actually, what you got is what you chose.
To move on, choose it.
Perfection is a state in which things are the way they are and are not the
way they are not.
As you can see, this universe is perfect.
Don’t lie about it.
You’re god in your universe.
You caused it.
You pretended not to cause it so that you could play in it,
and you can remember you caused it any time you want to.
If you’re not all right the way you are it takes a lot of effort to get better.
Realize you’re all right the way you are, and you’ll get better naturally.
Don’t change beliefs. T
transform the believer.
One creates from nothing.
If you try to create from something you’re just changing something.
So in order to create something you first have to be able to create nothing.
To make sure a person doesn’t find out who he is,
convince him that he can’t really make anything disappear.
All that’s left then is to resist, solve, fix, help or change things.
That’s trying to make some thing out of something.
Life is a game.
In order to have a game something has to be more important than something else.
if what already is, is more important than what isn’t, the game is over.
So, life is a game in which what isn’t, is more important than what is.
Let the good times roll.
This is it.
There are no hidden meanings.
All that mystical stuff is just what’s so.
A master is someone who found out.
The essence of communication is intention.
If you could really accept that you weren’t ok
you, could stop proving you were ok.
If you could stop proving that you were ok
you could get that it was ok not to be ok.
If you could get that it was ok not to be ok
you could get that you were ok the way you are.
You’re ok, get it?
The end is the end, or it isn’t.
The end justifies the means, or it doesn’t.
If God told you exactly what it was you were to do,
you would be happy doing it no matter what it was.
What you’re doing is what God wants you to do.
Be happy.