What if whatever we see in the world that makes us feel confined or sorrowful, that has us angry, anxious, or rushing around is because of what we are? When we look at the world around us, it's easy to see there is beauty in nature, love among family, compassion in times of disaster; in truth, there are wonderful things all around us. But, when we look at the world that we've made, what do we see there?

There is so much that goes unexplained in human life. And that isn't to say that you and I don't have explanations, but over and over again our explanations prove to be lies. And the way we are able to justify this way of getting around a problem (or a person), and stand momentarily on some ground as if we've conquered the world, is that we believe we have understood the situation and risen above it...

Our eyes and ears, thoughts and feelings, empower us to move freely through the extraordinary web of life of which we're a part. But these gifts of perception, as considerable as they may be, are more like a looking glass than they are the keys to that secret kingdom of freedom we seek. With their aid, we can almost see into, and so confirm, that innermost realm where our heart senses we belong.

Whenever we find ourselves running after something -- anything -- to complete us, what is the real nature of this force within us that compels us in this way? We are pushed along in these pursuits by a very subtle, but solid sense of feeling as though we are somehow incomplete.

In one respect, at the heart of our predicament as a species of beings -- because it negatively impacts our possibilities -- is that we do not see the big picture. For most of us, the big picture is our problem, our heavy heart, our irritation with somebody else, or our own sense of inadequacy. The big picture is the weight of our past. And that's not the big picture at all. That is a self-pitying picture. It has nothing to do with what it is that we need to understand.

If our intuition can perceive that the peace we long for is inherent in this perfectly present moment we call the "Now," what is it that keep us from knowing the fulfillment of its promise within us? Let's look.

Classroom Talk: 07/12/2026 - Any real spiritual shock is alchemical; atomic in nature. The energy it releases alters consciousness from the inside-out, changing everything about you…including the way you breathe.

Classroom Talk: 07/05/2026 - The only way we will ever know that death is an invisible doorway into another level of being  – Higher or lower, depending – is if we do the interior work – here and now – of dying to an unconscious nature whose “will to live” – we’ve mistaken as being the same as our own.

Classroom Talk: 3/30/2005 - If you stop trying to pull things into your life, Or struggling to push them out, You gladly discover you're are neither a teapot, Nor what pours out from its spout!

Classroom Talk: 3/30/2005 - If you stop trying to pull things into your life, Or struggling to push them out, You gladly discover you're are neither a teapot, Nor what pours out from its spout!

Classroom Talk: 3/23/2005 - Experience proves that whatever we seek to end usually lingers all the longer, which is why we must learn the Way to grant negative states their safe passage through us -- in spite of the temporary pain that always attends their appearance.

Classroom Talk: 3/23/2005 - Experience proves that whatever we seek to end usually lingers all the longer, which is why we must learn the Way to grant negative states their safe passage through us -- in spite of the temporary pain that always attends their appearance.