Student Talks: 2/2/2024 - Key Lesson: Because we are literally defined by our desires, we are confined to an unseen house of pain that, in turn, has transformed our fertile planet into a prison filled with frustrated inmates... none of whom can figure out why they're unable to escape the consequences of their (own) choices.

Topics covered: When we try to avoid the consequences of our choices, we believe that the best thing to do is to make more choices that lead to more unwanted consequences; Conflict in consciousness is always a war between what it wants and what it does not want, along with its identification with those desires; You can't have a fear that isn't born out of a desire that you have identified with...

Topics covered: Spiritual parables and symbols are intended to convey celestial principles that words cannot explain; One of the chief deceptions that we fall for is that something is missing from our lives, and that we will be able to acquire it in a time to come. As a result, we don't want anything that gets in the way of that ambition; We spend our lives trying to possess what we perceive to be good, and avoid anything that is judged to be bad.

Topic: Escape the Invisible Prison Most People Pay to Live In! (Classroom Talk 11/22/23)

Topics covered: Spend less time trying to prove yourself, and more time BEING yourself. But "being yourself" is not what the world conditions all of us to believe; Connect the experiences that you don't want with the consciousness that creates those same experiences; Fear lies beneath the compulsion to be seen as someone important; What is important is to understand the importance of life. And what is most definitely NOT important is to...

Classroom Talk: 11/22/2023 - The "importance" of any given moment is inseparable from whatever may be the momentary sense of "self" responsible for lending it that significance. If we are to have any hope of realizing what is actually important in this life -- which is to see through the illusion of a separate self -- then we must be honest enough to admit the following truth: What really makes one moment seem more important than any other...

Topic: Escape the Unseen Prison of Painful Dependency (Classroom Talk 11/15/23)

Topics covered: How long do you want to live a life in which you can be carried off at any time, beaten up, and then released whenever your captor is done with you?; The beginning of the end of useless suffering is in seeing that, at present, you do not really know why you suffer. There is not one solution that you think you know that is going to save you; If you ever want to stop being thrown into a prison whenever conditions seem to conspire against you...

Classroom Talk: 11/15/2023 - No single substance -- whether physical, mental, or emotional -- creates an addiction, let alone the pain and conflict inherent in its corresponding dependency; rather dependency is the birthplace of all false solutions with which we first become identified, and then become addicted to... in the vain hope that it has the power to release us from a pain we have yet to understand, let alone resolve.

Topic: Overthrow the Unseen King of Useless Actions and Start Ruling Your Own Life (Classroom Talk 9/20/23)

Topics covered: To belong to the greater life that is eternal is the source of real joy in life; The real interior work is about helping a person remember what they have forgotten about what is true; The joy of being in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing, is that the moment is complete in itself. There is nothing residual; Psychologically and spiritually speaking, the only thing we ever...