There do come to us in our lives, for any one of innumerable possible reasons, certain conditions that challenge the very fabric of our being. Certainly, none of us would think to ourselves, "I wish upon myself these difficult circumstances," and yet the truth is it is through and because of these same unwanted moments that we are granted the opportunity to meet parts of ourselves...

"Each of us, as human beings, is created for a specific purpose. And it's impossible for any of us to understand what that purpose is as long as our present condition prohibits it. Our present condition is that we are prisoners of a sort. We remain captives (without knowing it) within the confines of a certain order of our own mind, our own consciousness, in which we were never intended to live..."

Question: I know it's a mistake looking to someone else for a sense of myself, but how can I keep from giving myself away? Answer: What good is any feeling we may have about ourselves, if it only lasts as long as others agree to it? Seeking and receiving approval from others is like sitting down hungry to an imaginary meal. You're invited to eat all you want, but no matter how much im...

We live from a bottomless basket of endless wants that drive us everywhere, including crazy! Hoping to find comfort and life direction in your wants is like trying to find shade under a swarm of stinging flies -- while it may be cooler, you also have to keep running. Your pleasure is your pain. Real pleasure is not the opposite of pain, it is the absence of it. Think about it. What you re...

We're often led to act against ourselves by an undetected weakness that goes before us -- trying to pass itself off to others -- as a strength. This is secret self-sabotage. It sinks us in our personal and business relationships as surely as a torpedo wrecks the ship it strikes. Any person you feel the need to control or dominate -- so that he or she will treat you as you "think" you should b...

Who among us hasn't found themselves conjuring up some imagined pleasure when faced with the pain of some contradiction in life that seems greater than our ability to deal with? If we're honest, we can see that most of our time is spent identifying the so-called cause of our discontented conditions, and the rest of our time is taken up trying to change our unwanted situations into what we ima...

Real self-command dawns within us as we realize that reliving the past is powerless to change a present misunderstanding.

When you think that who you are is connected to something you are not, you are identified with it. To make this clear, think about how you felt the last time you accidentally scuffed your brand-new shoes or tore your brand-new pants. It felt like it was you who got damaged! Remember? That's what it means to be identified with something or someone. It hurts! None of this is too difficult to und...

Our attention connects us to life; it establishes our relationships with all that unfolds around and within us.

Once we start to see, to know in our innermost heart, that life itself is already complete, we can let go of whatever -- or whoever -- would have us believe otherwise. Old attachments and their long-standing aches are now seen for being what they have always been: appendages of days gone by, worthless to the Higher Self we have agreed to become and by whose stillness we realize this need for a...