Captivity

Student Talks: 06/26/2026 - To identify with any experience of life, no matter how whole it makes us feel in that moment must – at some point – reveal that the “experiencer” of that moment is, in fact, apart from it.

Topics covered:  The thinker can't escape its own thought. It is impossible. And yet we spend most of our lives trying to do just that; Two people arguing with each other each believe that they know what reality is. But there cannot be two different realities. There is only one reality; There are I's that are trained in the art of combat, and there are I's that are trained in the art of compromise. Each I is seamlessly handed off to another I. "If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch."

Topics covered: We go looking for a way to save ourselves from a nature that creates the very thing that we suffer over; We are intended to live within the immensity of God's life. We are drawn to that immensity because everything else pales in comparison; Something within us is terrified of disappearing, of not being able to find itself in passing time.

Remastered Classic Talk: 2/8/17 - 

Part 1: This moment -- now -- is the timeless ground, seed, and fulfillment of all that is possible for us to be; to discover its riches is the first step in realizing, and then reclaiming our True Self.

Part 2: Wanting to be anything other than aware of what creation is ceaselessly showing you about yourself is wasting what Life itself wants for you: a chance to realize, and become as one with a new and higher level of consciousness attainable in no other way.

Topic: How to Ask For and Receive Perfect Freedom (Remastered Classic Talk) (Classroom Talk 10/29/25)

Topics covered:  When I am caught up in some conflict in my life, I unconsciously turn to the nature responsible for that conflict to end it, but it can't do it; "The way the wise man became wise is that he stopped answering his own questions." -Vernon Howard; The answer I come up with to address a problem may temporarily resolve it or give me a way to navigate around it, but I keep coming back to the same problems, which means the consciousness that created them never changed.

Remastered Classic Talk: 8/3/16 - Authentic spiritual teachings are designed to do two things at once: first, to help us remember that our true nature -- Real "I" -- is an unconditional strength born of an unconditional love. But, the second part of this teaching -- equal in every way to the first, and why the vast majority of aspirants reject true interior teachings -- is as follows: we must also agree to see where some form of weakness...

Remastered Classic Talk: 06/08/16 - The repetition of patterns, even painful ones, is a form of safety to a mind that prefers to remain asleep to itself... because in the continuation of the known it finds a fitful kind of rest, even as it talks to itself about how much it hates being stuck in a rut!

Topic: How to Step Out of the Dark Waves of Any Unwanted Moment (Remastered Classic Talk)(Classroom Talk 3/26/25)

Student Talks: 10/25/2024 - Key Lesson: United we see, and are free; divided we struggle...and fall.

Topics covered: In the midst of unwanted moments, remember that real life is bigger than what you don't want; The mind is in a ceaseless rebellion against the perceived authority -- outside of itself -- that it believes is threatening to take away its freedom; You cannot separate a negative reaction from the consciousness that blames something outside of itself for the negativity; The last thing that occurs to us is that we may not know what we believe we do...