Human beings suffer from a kind of spiritual amnesia produced by having assumed a false identity without knowing it. How is that possible? This temporary false self feels real. There's no mistake about that! It is animated and driven along by the flood of reactions we have as we run around seeking fulfillment. But the fact that this lower nature is driven doesn't mean it is alive. A bulldoze...

There is a corrupting kind of complacency that lives inside almost all human beings. Although being complacent may seem like the easy way, along with the seeming comfort that comes with complacency also comes the loss of a person's possibilities. Most people on the planet are simply coasting through their lives because they feel they have an unlimited amount of time. Human beings are one-hund...

The only creatures that we know of that feel psychological fear are human beings. Psychological fear is impossible without negative imagination. We all live with a certain kind of fear that we consistently feed only because we presently lack proper understanding. There is absolutely no value to any form of psychological measurement. There is value to practical measurement. If you are going to...

There is not a person on earth that does not suffer from what something inside of him or her loves. A man who is addicted to a drug suffers over what something within him loves, at the cost of his own mortality. A woman with a gambling addiction suffers because of what something within her loves, at the cost of her finances, relationships, and integrity. We spend our time doing what we love.

Do your best right now to feel everything that is happening. Most of the time we do not feel anything other than the pain and constriction of a mind that is busy trying to work things out. Feel life as it is--not as you don't want it to be, nor as you want it to be. Feel life as it is. You are invited to feel everything. The reason that our lives are repetitious is that there is "no room at t...

What was it that made growing up hard to do? Have you ever thought about it? What made growing up hard to do was that the meaning of our lives kept changing. When we were young the meaning of life was given to us by a world whose meanings always proved themselves to be empty. What we have called the meaning of our life has turned out to be the source of our pain so many times, that at a certa...

Our lives in these modern times seem to consist of nothing but one problem after another. The level of mind that we live from currently is constantly trying to resolve everything that it sees as a problem. Our minds are often preoccupied with trying to change what we don't want, and so we find ourselves resisting life as it comes to us. But is it actually "me" that does not want my present ci...

There was once a young prince who, having reached the age of majority, left home to live on a grand estate given to him by his father. He was told that if he ever needed help he was to put a light in the uppermost tower window, and his father would send a special horse and carriage to carry him to safety. However, his father also warned him that an evil wizard, an enemy of the kingdom, lived n...

The will to be free belongs to that special part of us able to remember that we are here on earth to grow beyond the limiting influences of our own unawakened nature; it knows we are not created to participate with anything that causes us to suffer unconsciously. Our task is to awaken ourselves to this Higher Will within us that won't be compromised. How is this done? We must remember -- now a...

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...

When the doctor taps your knee and it suddenly jerks, you don't get upset with your leg for jumping out of control. Why? Because in that moment, you realize your temporary jumpy experience is an involuntary physical reaction. But, how do you view your emotional reactions when they start jerking you around? Not only are they hard on you, but once they're done, you're then hard on yourself wi...