Generally speaking, lessons affect you in some way: You get smarter, or faster, happier, or more skillful. A world lesson impacts you physically with effort and motion, triggers emotional reactions, and then, as you work it through, or think it over later, it affects you intellectually. A world lesson is something that you live through and sort out. You remember it, because it makes sense within the context of your life. You have confidence in it, because it is rooted in your own experience. It becomes an element in your future decisions. It changes attitude and behavior.

A word lesson mainly affects your intellect, and usually ends there. It seldom has any effect physically or emotionally. It does not arise from any experience that you have had. A word lesson is something that someone else sorted out. A word lesson can leave you knowing what the right choices are, but still compulsively making the wrong choices. In the worst case, a word lesson leads to shame and self-loathing rather than self-improvement. 


To avoid depression and poor results, self-improvement lessons need to be conveyed experientially rather than intellectually. They need to be understood in the context of your life rather than in the context of a belief system. They need to be taught as skills rather than as revealed secrets. It is unlikely that you will change your life simply by reading or listening, which is why I invite you to take action and join in one of the upcoming Avatar Courses.

- excerpt from Issue 14 of The Avatar Times