Intelligence

Everyone can agree that no intelligent, conscious man or woman would ever intentionally hurt him- or herself. No one would choose to ache. Yet the fact remains that all of us do hurt ourselves every day when we harbor self-compromising thoughts and feelings like anger, stress, and resentment. Even at the simplest level, there is no doubt that fear and worry take an immense toll on our health and well-being.

Can you remember that when you were young, you had a certain sense that there was a greatness about life and somehow or other you were related to it? We are born seeking something through which we know we matter. But little by little, this need to know ourselves through something is taken over by a nature that only begins to understand who and what it is by looking outside of itself for that confirmation.

The reason that we don't have peace is because of the way in which our present minds view the experiences we have with others and within ourselves. Our present nature takes everything personally. In fact, most of us don't know how to do anything other than to take something personally...

Self-observation is the key to a higher order of awareness; it is how we learn to become inwardly vigilant to our own thoughts and feelings, even as they pass through us. When we can observe ourselves in this new way, our higher nature naturally prevails over any troubling thoughts or feelings that want to drag us down into their lower world...

Question: In this time of economic downturn, is there anything to say to those of us who have experienced losing a job or a home? I don't know what to say to my friends and coworkers who are suffering. It's easy to tell them that the universe will provide and that something better will come along when I'm not the one in their position. Any words of wisdom would be appreciated.

Self-observation is the key to a higher order of awareness; it is how we learn to become inwardly vigilant to our own thoughts and feelings, even as they pass through us. When we can observe ourselves in this new way, our higher nature naturally prevails over any troubling thoughts or feelings that want to drag us down into their lower world...

Remastered Classic Talk: 11/30/16 - The compulsive "need" to be constantly on the move -- ceaselessly occupied, either outwardly -- or inwardly, in some useless consideration -- is how the lower nature fills itself with the nothingness it needs to keep itself from seeing its own emptiness.

Student Talks: 4/28/2023 - Key Lesson: Once we realize that living within the limits of the known is the same as the limitation of our spiritual possibilities, there is no recourse other than to depart the safety of all that we have been... in favor of discovering all that we're created to be.

Classroom Talk: 12/8/2021 - Truthful ideas never need to be validated by others; they neither fear close scrutiny, nor avoid the light of any moment that calls for it. False ideas can never stand alone; they tremble whenever life questions their intelligence, mistaking the sudden onset of painful resistance as proof of their strength.

Classroom Talk: 4/14/2021 - Hidden within the opposing forces is a Light -- a quiet Intelligence -- that cannot be induced to act against itself. Awakening to... and becoming aware of this Wisdom releases one from the bondage born of struggling to be, or not to be. Understood properly, all such opposing forces contain and reveal their own gateway...

Classroom Talk: 8/21/2019 - We cannot rise above the suffering born of "running into" unwanted moments without realizing the unwitting nature responsible for creating this kind of pain: (it is) the dark and hopeless work of a lower level of "self" that has nowhere else to look -- let alone to find itself -- other than in the "waters" of passing...

Student Talks: 5/31/2019 - Key Lesson: Sometimes the greatest measure of true interior strength is not what we're able to pick up -- or carry with us -- but rather... what we're able to consciously set down.