Self-observation is the key to a higher order of awareness; it is how we learn to become inwardly vigilant to our own thoughts and feelings, even as they pass through us. When we can observe ourselves in this new way, our higher nature naturally prevails over any troubling thoughts or feelings that want to drag us down into their lower world...

What happens when we see things about ourselves that we don't want to see? In order to avoid looking at itself, the mind will seize on the anger, impatience, grief, loneliness, or anxiety it has seen... and it will try to explain it. It will take the initial darkness, the negative energy, and because it seems to be so bad, the mind will make something out of it that it can deal with...

Have you ever noticed that when you're under the cloud of some negative state, what you do to try to "make things better" actually makes the situation worse? Struggling to free yourself from your own negative reactions is a bit like throwing gasoline onto a fire, isn't it? Recognizing that you get trapped in this pattern of taking action that neither relieves nor rescues you from...

Do we not try to escape the stress we have by further imagining ways to relieve ourselves from the circumstances held responsible for it? And the more we do to create for ourselves an enclave in which we will no longer be confronted with the trouble, the more we isolate ourselves, and the greater the problem becomes because we increasingly resist anything not part of what we've..."

Topics covered: You can't explain the mystery of yourself to yourself. You ARE the mystery that needs to be investigated. You don't already HAVE the answer... You already ARE the answer: What if real life has nothing to do with explanations, but instead has to do with participation?; The wise man because wise because he stopped answering his own questions; The antidote is in the venom. The answer is in the question...

Classroom Talk: 1/14/2024 - The greatest possibility for acquiring the Divine energy required to facilitate the transformation of oneself is found only in the moments of higher awareness that, itself, can only be realized in the same time and place of one's greatest resistance to that moment.

Classroom Talk: 11/12/2023 - Anytime we struggle in the dark of ourselves -- trying to change our nature -- our efforts are misdirected; our real work is to learn to see by the light that dwells in that darkness, and to know the truth of ourselves, as (it is) revealed.

Classroom Talk: 7/2/2023 - Part 1: Here is why it's impossible to run after, let alone come to possess real peace of mind: the same moment we set out to do so... we disturb it. Part 2: Here is the unseen cause of the great circle of human conflict and suffering: we unconsciously resist the appearance, realization, and hence the reconciliation of (our) collective and individual karma, accordingly.

Classroom Talk: 2/5/2023 - Here's an inconvenient truth: being "sorry" changes little, to nothing; only (spiritual) sorrow can help lead us to the liberation of transcending the unrepentant self.

Classroom Talk: 12/9/2022 - Without resistance to its appearance... there is no negativity inherent in suffering; to realize the fact of this truth is the first step in proving (to yourself) that all forms of psychological pain are optional.

Classroom Talk: 12/4/2022 - Thought, along with its incessant activity -- that we commonly consider as "knowledge" -- is a kind of dark Lego block; (it is) constantly building, only to be compelled to repair its own flawed creations. But, what is Divine in nature is not a construction of the mind that imagines a kingdom to come; what is Timeless and True lives now, or never. To seek it elsewhere... is a fool's errand.

Classroom Talk: 1/9/2022 - Poorest of us all... are those who "hear & obey" only their own reactions, because as long as that in-the-dark level of self remains in "power" -- calling the shots -- we will never see how our struggle to escape unwanted moments serves but one useless end: to escape a prison of our own making.