Nothing seems harder to accept than some of the strange and often shocking spiritual facts to which we are awakening. After all, who would ever believe that we are responsible for so much of what proves to be unnecessary suffering? But with the help of honest self-investigation, we begin to learn that we must challenge this involuntary, often intractable refusal to consider such ideas. The tru...
We live in a small world of thought. In our pain itself is something that can lead us to true change. We need to withdraw from this pain (sensation) of life.
Part of our work to let go and live in the Light of Now requires new self-knowledge. Consider the following: Our lives are a part of a perpetual and perfect balance whose invisible power governs all things. This idea is as timeless as it is true. The fabric of our universe is a delicate weave of primordial opposites whose ever-changing expression gives rise to existence as we know it. We are g...
It is a Law, not of man's or of woman's, but of life: Before you can have a different life -- before you can be happier, wiser, more at peace, and in quiet command of yourself -- you must first be different. Being is everything. What is Being? A moment's consideration helps determine that everything around us has some form of Being. Why is this true? Because all physical forms -- whether ani...
We are made to be self-correcting, so that each real correction effected in us elevates us above the dark and limiting influences we have been living under all our lives. Like moving from a hot desert to a cool mountain retreat, each discovery of what darkens our path in life moves us toward higher, happier ground. And though we may not yet understand how this works in us, each time we catch a...
No one succeeds in life who lives in fear. Fearlessness is first the will to proceed in spite of conditions, and then it becomes a consciousness fixed in us that is beyond conditions. Real success is a fearless state of being in a conscious relationship with an Intelligence that always achieves its ends in spite of changing conditions. The success that our present nature looks for is to try...
Before you can learn how to change your destiny, you must first realize that secret place within yourself where your own future is created. You must consciously enter that place of power where all of your life-choices are made for you. It's called the Present Moment: The Now. And this Now is the seed of all that comes later. The following paragraph helps us see into this great mystery. It's o...
We are created not to know ourselves by what we think about, but to know ourselves within God's ever-present, perfectly changing life. The challenge for us is that we are habituated to thinking about ourselves and deriving a sensation of ourselves based upon the images that we consider. What happens to us when we feel the blows in life? In those moments where Life is actually trying to bring...
If we wish to realize the Real Life that only a life of Truth can provide, we must each agree not only to put Truth first in our lives, but to will this highest of intentions every day with all we can gather within ourselves to do so. There are no shortcuts to reaching this higher ground in us. However, we may be rightly encouraged to know that there is no substitute for the naturally prevaili...
There are two basic kinds of prayer. The first kind of prayer -- the one most commonly understood and practiced -- is when you are asking for what you want; when you are temporarily filled with -- and renewed by -- both the self making that request and the anticipation of what is requested. This is the only kind of prayer that most men and women ever know; when someone asks from himself for...
Do you feel this tug in your heart to transcend yourself, to be free to journey into a place of infinite renewal? To discover what is unfound within and therein to know its Secret Founder? Good! Because what pulls on you from within in this way is trying to get you to let go of yourself. For the majority of us, what we consider being renewed has nothing to do with what is real renewal. Most...
In order to have a sunny life on a moment-to-moment basis, you must be willing to let something new happen to you. No one sincerely asks for a new life until they are thoroughly dissatisfied with the old one. Letting go of the old ideas is the only way to really invite something new. This is what we are learning to do with the help of these higher ideas. Let's look at one example of how our...