Freedom

Our eyes and ears, thoughts and feelings, empower us to move freely through the extraordinary web of life of which we're a part. But these gifts of perception, as considerable as they may be, are more like a looking glass than they are the keys to that secret kingdom of freedom we seek. With their aid, we can almost see into, and so confirm, that innermost realm where our heart senses we belong.

What would happen to any of us if we knew, without having to take thought, that the universe was set up to help us succeed with becoming fearless because we understand the right attitude to take... no matter what the moment seems to bring?

Once we realize that whatever we will bring into our awareness has always been an aspect of our own consciousness, only not yet awakened to, we also understand this liberating truth: nothing exists outside of us. All destinations are already within us, including the Love we are searching for and the unconditional freedom that It alone has the power to grant.

To be able to see any life event -- good or bad -- as a vehicle to help transport us from our present level of understanding to a higher one requires that we develop a new relationship with these unwanted events in our lives. Instead of trying to protect ourselves from them, we must become willing to see what they are revealing to us about ourselves in that same moment. The difference between these two paths and their attending possibilities...

When things naturally come to a close in life, our pain isn't so much born of the fact that something now ends, as it is that within this moment of ending, we are forced to meet a certain order of emptiness in us for which we are just not prepared. We are brought face to face with a great void in the center of our heart that we thought had been filled. And then we make this common, but largely unrealized mistake...

It's crucial for us to understand that the thrust of our habitual thinking lives with its attention fixed, not on beginnings, but on the end of things. Don't we always wonder what our lives will be like tomorrow? Aren't we forever dreaming about how different things will be once we win this or achieve that? Don't we, in our mind's eye, perpetually walk towards a brighter moment to come, thinking about how good we'll feel once we're able to resolve some...

One of the greatest gifts that a man or woman can be given in this world (and only if they ask properly) is to understand that everything that happens to them - no matter what -- is for their greater good. It makes no difference what it is -- call it the worst thing in the world -- and most of us have had the experience of recognizing there were times when if we could have thrown away that moment full of fear, anger, resentment, we would have thrown it away.

How many times in your life have you acted not just against yourself, but perhaps against others because your actions were uninformed, and you were moved prematurely into a conclusion? Too many times to count really. And most of these premature conclusions had some negative taint to them -- judging somebody, arriving at some insistence based on incomplete information.

Knowledge, regardless of its sophisticated nature, is a tool. It arises from and belongs to what has passed. As such it embodies, defines, and relates us to life through what we already know is true about the world around us. By definition, this kind of understanding is limited.

How many of us think that there is no individual action that we're ever going to take as a human being that's going to have global impact, even though all of us would like to be a leader or a hero? I want you to understand there is no such thing as an insignificant act on the part of a person who wants to wake up and be a different human being. Every last one of us is endowed..."

There are these moments where a person is introduced to a great clarity that the world they have been looking in, in order to find themselves through, is incapable of revealing the worth they are looking for. This first shock (have you had it, by-the-way?) is when a person realizes, "Uh oh. This is a dead-end. Oh no." And when a person has enough of these moments..."

"Do you know why you want freedom? To know why you want freedom, you must know what you want freedom from. And most of us do not know that idea of 'freedom from' -- other than when we're in a bad relationship. What you want is freedom from pain. You want freedom from fear. Freedom from self-doubt. Freedom from feeling inadequate. Freedom from being alone...."