Imagination

Fear and anxiety do not exist outside of an old mind that -- moment by moment -- creates these dark states in a deeply divided space within itself.

Imagining all that remains to be done to realize the contentment we seek -- or that we must struggle with to attain some illusive peace of mind -- is like trying to calm the ripples on the surface of a reflecting pond...by throwing a polished stone into its waters.

Topics covered: The harder you work, the more profitable you become. And to be "profitable" means "to ascend."; Who do you work for? To know who it is that you work for, look at what you attend to all day long; You cannot separate the idea of "your" achievements from "your" fears; For us presently, resistance is an entirely personal force. And we get used by the resistance because we meet the resistance from the exact same part of us that...

Topics covered: Between awakening and rebirth there has to be a death. Nothing is born anew that doesn't die to what it was before; Our lives are presently the experience of our own creation; Until we are aware of what dwells in the dark of ourselves, we are subject to whatever that nature does in the absence of that awareness; Imagined security requires an imagined self to keep it in place...

Topics covered: If you want to have the ending you are looking for, you are going to need a new beginning; Today's humanity continues to write a story for itself that it doesn't like, always hoping that the next chapter will finally satisfy; Understanding is simple. The ultimate understanding is that you think you have to hurt yourself, but you don't... you think you have to be afraid, but you don't.

Topics covered: Reality, inner and outer, is a lot bigger than our thoughts about it; We have an innate longing to belong to something greater than ourselves; Thought is the limitation, not the way to transcend limitation. Identification with thought stops exploration and discovery; The greater our resistance to any unwanted moment, the bigger that moment seems...

Topics Covered: We are rendered powerless any time that we get caught up in an interior dialog. Most people do not know how much time they spend talking to themselves; As goes my attention, so comes my experience. Attention connects us to whatever it has landed on; We believe that talking to ourselves is the way in which we bring an end to pain. But that dialog is part of being...

Topics Covered: There cannot be fear without unconscious desire. When there is no fear, then there is no conflict. And when there is no conflict, there is no unconscious desire; Without really knowing that we do it, much of our lives is spent trying to protect what we imagine we have; The fear we feel cannot be separated from the substance that we lend to the objects...

Student Talks: 11/20/2020 - Key Lesson: When it comes to the Great Way that leads to self-liberation -- of entering the Kingdoms above and beyond this temporal realm -- there is no such thing as "getting there." There is only getting the whole of that image, along with its false sense of self, out of the way.

Topics Covered: We're convinced that something is in the way of our happiness. The real question is: How do we get ourselves out of the way?; The sense of self that desperately seeks for happiness only exists as long as it pursues what it wants. The painful sense of self, and the destination it seeks, don't exist without each other; Spiritually speaking, there is no "getting there" because...

The more you imagine a problem, the more real it becomes.