The universe is a work being continually perfected; though unseen, it is justice, compassion in action. Those who resist and resent what comes their way -- who fight with its unending waves that rock their contrived sense of reality -- are actually the ones who live without real choice. They must serve their struggle to resolve the sense of loss that comes each time the world changes without first having consulted them.

Life does not come at us from the outside in, even though that is the way we've always seen it. Once we understand this, we'll see the mistake we've been making all along about the true meaning of strength. Currently, we have a list of things we want to overcome: our past; our failure to acquire what we believe we need; a pressing world that has it in for us. We've identified these...

We have an innate need to rise above ourselves, to open ourselves to higher influences... for one thing, because we understand that without higher influences, we're left to our own flu-like influences from which we don't get well, and that we are sick from following our own prescriptions! Our present condition is imagining what we need to do in order to get above ourselves...

We each have ideas about who we are, how the events in our lives should go, and how other people should treat us. We believe that if everything goes according to our plan, we will be safe. By the same token, anything that threatens the fulfillment of the plan is seen as an enemy. What might some of these enemies be? Other people who don't give us the respect we deserve.

Every one of us knows -- from somewhere deep in the heart of us -- we were not created to spend our lives contesting whatever dominates us in the moment. And yet, we can see how each unwanted state that washes over us is replaced by another state of some similar ilk. It's pretty clear: we're never truly in possession of ourselves, unless we believe that not wanting to be...

What causes disputes between human beings? What is this business of "what I believe" vs. "what you believe"? Can we see that you cannot separate what you believe in from what you want? When I say, "I believe in this," and "I believe that you should be like that," what I'm really saying is that I insist you be what I believe you should be, because if you don't, we have war...

The secret that ends your fear of people, of situations, is the possibility of discovering that these people are as afraid of you as you are of them. What do you think would happen if you knew that the person you're afraid of is as afraid of you as you are of him or her? How do you think that would change your reaction? That man makes the cruel comment, that woman makes the cutting remark...

Do you want to be a new person? Well, you're certainly not going to be a new person when you keep repeating the level of consciousness that literally runs itself into the ground... and where, incidentally, at the end of your physical life you have nothing whatsoever to show for your existence on this planet... any more than a lion has something to show for its existence...

Classroom Talk: 9/13/2020 - Spiritual freedom will never be realized by avoiding what disturbs us, but rather by the work of consciously illuminating what still dwells in the dark of us... that is (always) so quick to find someone, or something to blame for its pain.

Classroom Talk: 8/14/2019 Living within us... is a lower level of consciousness. This "in-the-dark" nature does not want to know itself, and resists any form of light that reveals its highly conflicted character. Fortunately -- by grace -- within us also dwells a Living Light whose awareness not only reveals the dark realm of this unconscious "self"...

Part 1: All around us -- and within us, as well... are those who believe this world of time is the only one; vanity is their reward, and its blind partner, self-love... their unseen prison.