Helplessness

Remastered Classic Talk: 3/30/16 - It is a big mistake to believe that the operation of imagination requires you to be present in order for it to produce either the illusion of a pleasure or pain to come, along with some temporary corresponding sense of self; in fact, quite the opposite is true. Almost our entire present sense of 'I' is thus created and -- as the offspring of a lower level of being -- is largely responsible for all human sorrow.

Topic: To Be Free "Think 3" -- You, Me, and Thee (Remastered Classic Talk) (Classroom Talk 1/29/25)

Student Talks: 9/20/2024 - Key Lesson: Hanging onto a handful of anxious, worried thoughts to protect you from what they point to as a fearful moment to come, is like wrapping your arms around the anchor of a sinking ship because there's nothing left on deck for you to cling to as it goes down!

Classroom Talk: 9/11/2024 - For anyone with ears to hear, there is but one question and one answer: will we wait patiently for a single moment of relationship with what is eternal and real? Where - by the ineffable touch of something as unknowable as it is timeless - all the moments of our life - past, present, and future - are forever changed? Otherwise, we waste the precious few moments of our life chasing the pleasure of an imagined time to come that recedes from our grasp in the same instant that we reach for it.

Topics covered: You can never be prepared for what you are given to see. However, you can understand the need to see what you are given to see; The only way you can come to the end of "you" is to see the necessity for it; There is anxiety behind the part of you that wonders when and how it will be done with what it has to go through; Having an interior dialog with yourself about a problem does not solve the problem. Instead it adds weight and...

Classroom Talk: 5/22/2024 - It's impossible to let go of any painful moment until we lose interest in the troubled sense of self that we are deriving from it! So that the real secret of letting go begins with seeing how (our own) unconscious nature doesn't just reach to "catch" the experience it says it doesn't want, but then clings to it...

Classroom Talk: 3/20/2024 - So-called "self-love" is the endless hunger of an unconscious nature for the attention of others... to feed its insatiable appetite to feel as important as it imagines itself to be.

Topics covered: New Year's resolutions always revolve around wanting to keep the so-called "good" parts of what I call "me," and not-wanting what I call the "bad" parts; If you want to have a new life, you cannot bring old wants along with you; There is an innate longing to be in relationship with what cannot be expressed in words; True spiritual teachings are not recognizable by the consciousness that has faith only in things seen...

Topics Covered: We are created as beings to fulfill a very specific place in the whole of creation. Everything is ceaselessly being created, and we are made to play an integral role in that creation; That which is ceaselessly being created is ceaselessly being reborn, and our life is meant to be a part of that rebirth; The idea of helplessness is despised by all of us. In fact, up until now most...

Student Talks: 5/14/2021 - Key Lesson: Admitting to ourselves we are powerless to make permanent changes in ourselves is the true beginning of rising above all that troubles us about ourselves; for any and all such unadorned confession is the invisible entrance into another, higher order of being that is transcendence itself.

Topics Covered: It should be evident by now that we cannot give ourselves what is genuinely good. Despite our good intentions, why is the world the way that it is?; Instead of just wanting to be a better person, we must NEED to be a better person; Regret is a kind of unseen prayer that does not really change anything. Real prayer is connected to watching yourself in the moment of action...

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...