Karma

We can never hope to be free as long as any part of us struggles with, or suffers over what others are doing, have done, or won't do with their lives. Besides, if we could remain aware of the often-compromised state of our own character, that is, how we still do those things to others that we don't want to do, this awakened conscience would stir in us a new need. Rather than worrying about whether so-and-so gets his comeuppance for being the...

What is this power that can show us the truth behind the mystery of who and what we are - even as it gives us everything we need to know? A few examples from the history of human discovery prove helpful in our inquiry...

Do you find yourself going through your day, running around like some mad human being, trying to juggle the pieces of your life to make them fit into some picture you've imagined? Have you had enough of suffering uselessly over your best attempts to change those daily experiences? Then here's what you need to consider...

When we're negative -- in a "power struggle" with someone over whatever is being contested -- we're reduced to being little more than a puppet. We're literally "strung out" -- momentarily animated -- by unseeing forces in us that can only do one thing: mechanically oppose whatever seems to oppose them.

Useless suffering can't be separated from useless resistance. The more you resist something, the more you suffer, believing that somehow or other your resistance to what you don't want to do (or be) is going to separate you or liberate you from the thing you don't want. Resistance is an unconscious form of attention, and the more attention you give to something you don't want, the more of it you get.

Around and within us reside invisible and powerful laws that rule over reality in all its infinite forms. These forces of instant righteousness, or perfect balance, are always at work. Nothing escapes their imperceptible presence; everything yields to the weight of their judgment. We've all heard the phrase, "What goes around comes around." This principle of karma, the idea that...

Remastered Classic Talk: 01/27/16 - The only way it's possible to be punished by some mistaken action on our part... is if we make the second mistake: allowing the same level of self that we followed into that "pit" to condemn and then punish us for the very misstep that it first assured us was the right one to take!

Topic: Insights into the Nature of Suffering, Surrender, and Other Painfully Misunderstood Ideas (Classroom Talk 10/23/24)

Topics covered:  There is no action that we take that doesn't begin with an impulse born of an unseen set of energies that inhabit us; The mind's analytical interpretation of a disturbance is not the actual reality of that moment of disturbance. The reactions that come out of the mind's analysis are based on illusion; Everything we do to change our experience of moments we don't want comes from an unconscious, mechanical will that does not belong to who you really are.

Student Talks: 6/7/2024 - Key Lesson: It's well known that storm-tossed waves often expose new treasures along the shoreline... and there is unexpected wealth to be collected by those who know the secret value of rough seas. And yet, even though most of us have little tolerance for anything that "rocks our boat," the truth of the matter is self-evident: Unwanted moments introduce us to dark parts of ourselves that would otherwise never be...

Topics covered: The only pain you have is that you don't know that you see life through a set of eyes that although they can't see any differently than they do, you suffer for their poor vision. The pain is always in the nature of the see-er; You live in a world the size of the one that you see, and you don't know what else to look for; You have to see how absolutely useless it is for you to habitually suffer over the things you do...