Classroom Talk: 6/15/2022 - The ever-anxious feeling that life owes us something -- that we're entitled to have our demands met -- creates two problems at once: first, we are unable to see, let alone realize all that Life keeps trying to give us and, at the same time, the more quickly we are to blame life for the pain created by our own impatience.

Topics Covered: We are already a part of something whose power cannot be denied, even when it is refused; Never run from the fear of feeling powerless, and if you don't run you will be given, by grace, the power to see that everything you feared was a lie; The feeling of being powerless is in fact a doorway into a relationship with something that can never be made to feel...

Topic: Illuminate and Eliminate the Source of Personal Painful Conflict (9/2/20 Classroom Talk)

Topics Covered: Self-acceptance is self-realization. The rejection of a moment is the same as resisting a moment of revelation; There is intended to be a release in each moment... if we are willing to accept the revelation in it; Conditions do not create conflict. The conflict is already there before the condition, and before we even know it. We come into the moment holding onto...

Classroom Talk: 9/2/2020 - The only true solution to any stress, anxiety, fear or frustration -- that rears its ugly head in unwanted moments -- is to do the (interior) work it takes to outgrow an unconscious, conflicted level of self that sees its pain as proof that it knows... the true nature of peace.

Topics Covered: The seed in time reveals what it already is; The seed dies so that the next form of itself can live; Freedom is not a static condition; Freedom is the gradual release from beliefs about what freedom is; The journey is an endless discovery of new levels of freedom; Faith is the ability to see truth in scale; Frustration is the evidence of a misunderstood resistance...

Topics Covered: The comfort of certainty is the conflict with the moment; False certainty and conflict are one thing; You can't serve two masters, you'll love one and despise the other; Stay awake, watchful, a witness to what "Real I" in you must go through; Everything the mind formulates as the next freedom is the next prison; Give up the idea of "perfect"...

Topics Covered: Topics Covered: Following your heart; Why don't I know what's in my heart?; Asking others what you should do; Lose interest in yourself; Risk the sure footing of the dock; The understanding that dissolves fear; There is no "you" that is going to achieve something holy; What can I do about the sickness that I see in the world?; Wanting to change the behavior of others...

Topics Covered: Sensations and mechanical associations; Torment of inner dialog; Emotional pain and depression; Awareness vs. positive affirmations; Observer is the observed; Role as a bridge; Controlling nature; Resistance and fear; Concept of relaxation; Trying and failing; Worry about what other people think about you; Putting the work into practice; True forgiveness.

Learning what it means to take a deliberate step back from our reactions to life is the same as learning to walk past those parts of us that want us to believe our only choices in that moment are those presented to us from the content of these reactions.