Advanced Inner Life Talks

Classroom Talk: 3/18/2020 - Until we are fully present -- awake and attending to each moment as it enters our consciousness -- we dwell somewhere outside of what is being ceaselessly revealed. This means that to whatever extent we are absent from what is real, neither can our response (to it) be real; and so, it follows...

Classroom Talk: 3/4/2020 - If seeking -- even realizing -- the consolation of some comfort had the power to placate our appetite for pleasure, or if running from a fear was the way to throw off and escape its power over us... then surely, we would have realized this kind of peace a long, long time ago.

Meditation Talk: 2/28/2020 - Strive for excellence in all things -- especially in your spiritual work -- to make your studies and actions continuous. Even a small amount of inner work on oneself, done each and every day, is better than a "grand" effort made every second moon.

Classroom Talk: 2/26/2020 - If we would awaken -- if ever we are to realize a (conscious) relationship with the Divine -- then a time must come when we are no longer able to believe in the time of becoming.

Classroom Talk: 2/19/2020 - We may discover ourselves -- or (psychologically) defend ourselves -- but, as long as we choose the latter, we will never succeed with the former, let alone hope to realize... "the Truth that sets us free."

Classroom Talk: 2/12/2020 - The unseen conflict & bitterness hidden in ALL belief systems is that there can't be a belief in something without a "believer" ... someone who loves the image of what he or she believes in...and despises anyone, or anything that appears to threaten it.

Classroom Talk: 2/5/2020 -Part 1: Effortless contentment appears as unconscious resistance -- along with its "partner in conflict" -- involuntary insistence, disappears. Part 2: Spiritual freedom is not found by avoiding what disturbs us, but rather by the deliberate interior work of illuminating whatever still dwells in the dark of us that is...

Meditation Talk: 1/31/2020 - All things... be they character or creature -- animate or not -- speak to you from within yourself. The wildflower, the wind, the tumbling leaf and the dead branch that catches it: all have voices, and all may be heard. Learn to listen and you'll hear the Eternal as the sound of yourself.

Classroom Talk: 1/29/2020 - If you want a “misery-backed” guarantee that whatever troubles you about someone else will get worse... Just be sure and start complaining to him or her about it!

Classroom Talk: 1/22/2020 - If our contentment - our joy in life - doesn't start somewhere deep and untouchable within us, as does the beauty of a rose begin before it flowers, then our happiness is "in and of this world": (it is) a creation of passing time that will - as must all things that live in time - wilt and wither away.

Classroom Talk: 1/15/2020 - We cannot run away from what we don’t want to see in ourselves, any more than a mirror can escape whatever is reflected in it. And yet, to SEE the truth of this fact (about our present level of consciousness) is the action of transcending it, along with its pain.

Classroom Talk: 1/8/2020 - Where is tomorrow's fear other than in today's troubled imagination? And, if this is true, and IT IS... Then, what to do with our attention now? Let it be swallowed up in the dark shadow of what "may be"... Or, hold it in the Light of higher awareness where no shadow can dwell, let alone its fear?