Why is it that we will challenge and then work to change the world's opinions as they concern us, but we never question our own beliefs no matter how much personal pressure, stress and anxiety they may produce? For example, we wouldn't dream of diving for sunken treasure in our bathtub because we know that the best we can hope to find there are a few plastic pearls. And yet we still dive headl...

In the competitive and complex worlds of business and science, imagination is critical to the processes of creativity. It serves a valuable and practical purpose. New developments are created by imagining better ways to improve old technologies. Important developments come in increments. Progress moves ahead one step at a time. But in our inner life, we don't want a continuation of *what has...

Before speaking to someone who intimidates me, I sometimes feel my throat start to close up and my voice choke up with so much tension that I find it hard to speak. I've got to get behind this fear, but I don't know how! One way in which it's possible for us to outgrow the problems that we face is to not let those problems dictate our behavior to us. In this instance, whenever we run into...

Do you remember the opening lyric to the classic song "Love and Marriage?" If not, allow me to refresh your memory: "Love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage." Along with its memorable melody, this particular song has endured the test of time because hidden in the heart of its simple lyric is a celestial law about the power of attraction. If you recall, the rest of the lyric go...

When it comes to letting go and living in the Now, no sincere effort goes unrewarded. In the long run, it is not our ability to succeed with some individual task that determines our spiritual success, but our willingness to learn what is new and true about ourselves. Within each of us dwells a being without bounds, but unless it is explored and exercised wisely we will never know the heights...

Has there ever been a time in your life -- a period of real self-enriching growth -- that wasn't connected to a risk you either willingly undertook or -- to a time of inner trial where there was no other choice for you but to take a risk? Of course, there's only one answer to this question, and it's one recognized as being true wherever you may ask it in the world: The prize of greater wisdom...

Before you can learn how to change your destiny, you must first realize that secret place within yourself where your own future is created. You must consciously enter that place of power where all of your life-choices are made for you. It's called the Present Moment: The Now. And this Now is the seed of all that comes later. The following paragraph helps us see into this great mystery. It's o...

No one succeeds in life who lives in fear. Fearlessness is first the will to proceed in spite of conditions, and then it becomes a consciousness fixed in us that is beyond conditions. Real success is a fearless state of being in a conscious relationship with an Intelligence that always achieves its ends in spite of changing conditions. The success that our present nature looks for is to try...

Reality is very different from our distorted ideas about it. For instance, there are many parts of us that are secretly afraid that should we earnestly reexamine our ideas about life we'd just stir up some things better left alone. However, if we don't stir them up, we'll never find out that these things we're afraid of are nothing more than "ghosts" created by our own minds. The following sto...

The fall of fear begins with our heightened awareness of fear's presence. Out of this higher level of self-consciousness comes something as mysterious as it is grand: the spiritual intolerance of fear. This deep, nonnegotiable disdain for fear comes to us in advance of the powers we need to win our freedom from it. And the arrival of this supreme strength -- that ultimately leads to lasting...

There is no such thing as a shaky situation, so any time you start to tremble, don't look around you for the fault. Look inward. It is the inner-ground you are standing on that is not solid. That seemingly scary condition, whatever it may be, is not the problem. It's your reaction that has you shaking. And that's why, if you'll become conscious of a fearful condition instead of afraid of it,...

Our usual reaction to any event not of our choosing is to fear it, so that our tendency is to see these experiences as being adversarial. These unwanted moments are seen as threats to our present happiness, as well as being a thorn in our tomorrow, because with any unwanted event comes the fear of not having the right answers to address the flood of new questions arising out of life's sudden t...