Topics Covered: Setting out on the spiritual path is not about achieving a result. We want to place ourselves on a path where there is a never-ending possibility of discovery and realization; At their root all negative states are connected to the fear of death. Not only the death of the physical body, but also the death of a cherished sense of self; An epiphany is the revelation of an understanding...

Topics Covered: We cannot DO anything to create freedom. What we CAN do is understand that which takes freedom from us. Our reaction is usually one of doing instead of seeing; There is no captivity outside of ignorance of the activity of our own consciousness; There is no such thing as "I can't" when it comes to your spiritual life. What you are really hearing is the voice of an...

Topics Covered: It is only in a real school that it is possible for a person to receive consistent new impressions. A new impression cannot be separated from a revelation about yourself. A new impression and a revelation about yourself are one and the same thing; Every real new impression only happens once. There is no such thing as a repeating impression; All impressions are spiritually...

Topics Covered: We have become accustomed to caving in at the onset of anything that seems to threaten us, believing fear's interpretation of the moment; Who you really are is not separate from the meaning of the moment, and therefore never needs to ask, "What does this moment mean for me?"; All forms of psychological fear are useless suffering; Why is it that fearful...

Topics Covered: Whenever something in you says "I can't," what is really behind that is "I won't"; The nature that never wants to meet its limitations will filter out anything that does not conform to its image of itself; We are meant to be more than we presently are. Our present sense of self doesn't satisfy us. We have a longing for something higher so we might be elevated into...

Topics Covered: In the same way we derive an identity from our possessions, we derive an identity about the qualities and characteristics we imagine about ourselves. That mind becomes dependent upon its own images; Everything requires contrast in order to understand the consciousness that created it, and to ultimately transcend it into a love that doesn't compromise itself...

Topics Covered: In order to receive the truth that sets us free, we must begin to see the images that we have about ourselves that keep us in captivity; We get glimpses of something that reminds us that within us is an order of being that we're not the instrument of yet, but sense we could be; The more identified you are with something, the more asleep you are. Identification is captivity...

Topics Covered: There is nothing more useless than looking outside of yourself to fix a pain that is not outside of you; All psychological suffering comes out of an identification with a problem outside of yourself that a part of you is trying to resolve; Real peace cannot be disturbed; Without disturbances there would be no consciousness of the world around us. But the natural and inevitable...

Topics Covered: There is no freedom without understanding the root of fear; We cannot have a problem that is not connected to the fear of losing something. Inherent in any anxiety-inducing problem is an unseen threat; Anything that threatens what we depend upon for our identity is perceived as an enemy; Fear is always trying to save itself from perishing. But listening to...

Topics Covered: All judgment is born out of fear. There is no judgment until someone is first afraid of something; Fear is the source of hatred and conflict between human beings; There is no form of self-destruction without there being fear behind it; As long as we remain spiritually asleep we are a machine that is complicit in the harm being done to the world...

Topics Covered: All psychological fear is an unseen form of exile from the Kingdom of Heaven produced by the presence of an unsuspected form of self-ignorance; The only time we harm ourselves or others is when we are afraid; When does fear appear? Psychological fear appears when a condition -- that we were relying on for our happiness -- starts to change; Who and what we...

Topics Covered: What we are looking for is already within us, not outside of us. It is true that "the Kingdom of Heaven is within," but we don't know anything about that when we're afraid, anxious, and fighting with life; What if we could know -- whenever we find ourselves in some kind of pain -- without having to think about it, that what we were experiencing in that moment...