HOW TO BE PERFECT: A Conversation With Super-Conscious Mind

In June of 1997 my life changed. I had been twice married and divorced--to a pro-football player and coach, then a lawyer--and had been living with an English musician for 17 years. I had been a model, a psychotherapist, an actor, a seamstress. As I sat one day trying to make sense of it all for THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE article `Lives', I gave up.

I realized I had no idea what it all meant. I also realized I had only one ambition, to somehow use it all to make life better. But how? What could I do? After all my seeking--in the refuge of marriage, in the halls of academia and the profession of psychology, in the Hollywood night life of drugs, sex and rock & roll, in the acting-school life of New York City, and in the volumes of literature on spiritual enlightenment, I had no answer. And I wanted an answer more than I had ever wanted anything. In frustration, I wrote the words, "I want to be used. How can I help?" and heard the silent answer, "FINISH WHAT YOU START".

That was the beginning of the dialogue transcribed in HOW TO BE PERFECT. Over a period of nine months I wrote whatever questions came to mind from, How am I going to pay the rent? to What are black holes? Always I received an answer. Sometimes the answer was silence and when I asked why, was told I needed to be clear about what I wanted to know and I needed to be calm and patient in my ignorance.

The answers I wrote with my own hand amazed me, thrilled me, baffled me and sometimes seemed dead wrong. I decided not to decide and to just write. I was choosing faith. It felt a lot like learning to do cartwheels when I was a kid. I would throw myself forward with only the vaguest notion about what I was doing and with fear that I would fall and hurt myself. I could `feel' a perfect cartwheel somewhere inside me. The thrill of it egged me on, ever hopeful. Each time I flopped I tried to figure out what I had done wrong and correct it but quickly gave up in favor of just hurling myself forward with blind faith in that feeling within. Suddenly it happened--a perfect cartwheel. I hadn't figured it out and couldn't explain how I did it, but I could do it--again and again. I had it! Something in me knew how. It wasn't my mind and it wasn't my body. What was it?

From then on, every time I did a cartwheel I was performing a little miracle and I knew it. The sheer joy of it. Look what I can do!

Now my desire for perfect love and understanding was egging me on to ask questions, trusting that there were answers and that I could have them. My dialogue continues and has been such a life-transforming experience it became obvious early on I was realizing my ambition. My heart's desire was spilling out on the page and in my life.

By publishing this very intimate journal I want to share, not the sometimes embarrassing details of my ragged, thick-headed human life, but the day-by-day process of learning to trust and use the infinite wisdom that awaits us all.

Sherry Sword
New York City
April 1998

RAY BENNETT of the progressive rock group FLASH says:

Reading HOW TO BE PERFECT will change your life and how you feel forever. You can be perfect. Perfection is not only possible, it is an undeniable fact. We are all steadfastly moving towards it, each in our own way.

But why so slowly? Why not instantaneously? Perfection is always available right now. We have all experienced those `magic' moments when, mysteriously, things happen perfectly. This book will tell you how to be where you want to be right now, how to be thrilled by your life, how to rid yourself of fear, how to live PERFECTLY.

We all want a better life, and that means a happier more fulfilled existence. Our life is made apparent to us by how we feel, and thinking is reflecting on what is apparent, or "what is appearing before us". The crucial relationship between feeling and thinking is explained in this book and the distinction between feeling and emotion. This all-important but over-looked distinction will change the way we think. And our thinking will change the world.

Sherry Sword has devoted her life to searching for truth, as a psychotherapist and in all her diverse endeavors. HOW TO BE PERFECT is an unedited, authentic journal--a very personal journey into the human heart which illuminates her life, and will your own, in a veiled and troubled world, where all of us are looking for answers, and more--HAPPINESS.

I have shared some of the journey with her and have benefitted enormously from her work. I recommend it to you.

RAY BENNETT, Musican

Did you know...

YOU CAN'T THINK AND KNOW AT THE SAME TIME?

YOU CAN'T JUDGE AND FEEL AT THE SAME TIME?

THE EXPRESSION `ALL IN ALL' REFERS TO THE ONE SUPERCONSCIOUS MIND WE ALL SHARE?

FEAR IS NOT NATURAL. IT IS LEARNED AND ALWAYS DYSFUNCTIONAL?

SEX IS A MECHANISM OF LIMITATION AND REVEALS TRUTH?

ILLNESS IS AMBIVALENCE--A SPLIT MIND, WHICH CREATES A LETHAL MIXTURE OF CHEMICALS IN OUR BODIES THAT PRODUCES ALL SICKNESS, AGING AND EVEN DEATH?

DNA IS THE PHYSICAL REPRESENTATION OF YOUR MIND AT A GIVEN POINT IN TIME AND IS ENDLESSLY ALTERABLE?

A LIE IS ALWAYS A COLLABORATION BETWEEN SENDER AND RECEIVER?

FEELINGS ARE PRE-THOUGHT, WHILE EMOTIONS ARE FEELINGS ALTERED BY JUDGMENT?

A DESIRE EXPECTS FULFILLMENT, A `WANT' FEARS DISAPPOINTMENT.

SUFFERING AND PAIN ARE ALWAYS THE RESULT OF RESISTANCE?

WE SLEEP IN ORDER TO STOP THINKING?

WITH SURRENDER DIFFICULTIES BECOME MIRACLES UNFOLDING?

TIME IS A DEVICE--A SLOWED-DOWN ILLUSION USED TO HOLD US APART FROM EACH OTHER AS LONG AS THIS IS WHAT WE WANT, LIKE THE STILL FRAMES OF A MOTION PICTURE?

WE HAVE THE POWER TO SUSPEND TIME?

ENERGY IS WILL IN ACTION?

WE CAN GROW YOUNGER?

EVERYONE IS WEALTHY, BUT FEW KNOW IT?

IT IS AN ILLUSION TO BELIEVE YOU ARE ALONE--EVER?

FIGHTING IS NEVER NECESSARY?

YOUR WILL IS THE MOST POWERFUL THING IN THE UNIVERSE?