The true nature of anything -- whether a newly opened leaf or a fearful thought or feeling -- is inseparable from what it serves.
There is a spiritual idea that appears in the New Testament which states, "Ask and ye shall receive. Knock and the door will be opened to you." It is our mistaken belief this idea is saying that all of our desires will be fulfilled simply by asking God, and that our "order" should be filled to our exact specifications as quickly as possible. Most of us have to learn the hard way about what it...
Within the space of each beat of your heart, you get the exact measure of the answer you gave to life the moment before.
Far more important to our inner success than coming upon so-called secret "how-to" practices -- or those who would teach them -- is the work to awaken our awareness of our need to be more awake. It is this awareness alone that remains our true friend and ally upon the path. Here is why: Our willingness to remain in the emerging awareness -- this Light in the darkness of ourselves -- helps t...
Day in and day out, our minds are literally swamped -- socially, culturally, economically -- with new ideas, fail-proof programs, promises of special places... things that, if we could only acquire them, would quiet our restless minds and hearts. So it goes that most of us are always running after something to quiet that nagging sense of feeling as though we're incomplete. But repeated experie...
The following key lessons are taken from 365 Days to Let Go. Use their insights to help free yourself from the self-inflicted punishment of complaining. Until we become conscious of how many more times a day we complain about our life than we feel gratitude for the gift of it, we not only miss the taste of life's secret sweetness, but we continue to sow the bitter seeds of our own sorrow.
If you watch animals in the wild, one thing is obvious: The nature of an animal and its natural experience of life are indivisibly related. For example, deer attract biting flies. In the high heat of summer you won't see one without the other, and I have seen deer driven nearly crazy by these pests. They have no choice but to suffer this seasonal torment. An animal's nature attracts to it the...
To enter the true Now, where a timeless intelligence awaits, awake within itself, requires first that we align ourselves with the eternal principles that are its secret foundation. Let's look into one of the most fundamental of these empowering principles taught by every great teacher: We reap what we sow. In these so-called progressive times, this all but forgotten principle is as simple a...
A young woman once decided that her best chance of getting hired by a company doing geological survey work in the Alaskan wilderness was to earn a private license to fly twin-engine planes. A few days later she began taking lessons from a wise old bush pilot, highly respected throughout the region for his cool and collected ways of dealing with the worst possible situations. After the mandato...
At any given moment we always do what we know. This may seem obvious, but with closer examination, especially in light of the fact we wish to elevate ourselves and what we are getting from this life, we will discover something astounding. Read the next three sentences carefully. I have separated this trio of important ideas for ease of reading, but they are very much connected to each other. E...
In this world that you and I live in, response is request. We can slightly enlarge this idea by restating it this way: The way you respond to life is also a request you make to it. See how the next few examples prove this important discovery: Someone walks into your home or office and says something to you that upsets you terribly. You respond with a negative state, continuing to brood or...
Almost every kind of unhappy feeling is the result of mistaking the partial for the whole. What this means is that when we don't see the whole picture, we are likely to act in a way that is self-defeating. One example of this would be that terrible sinking feeling that comes with learning too late, after you've become upset, that things weren't the way you were so sure they had been. That, in...