Pain

Classroom Talk: 03/15/2026 -

Part 1: I can't speak to you of life without speaking to you of death; not the death we fear, but the fear we have of it. For to live in fear is to die in slow motion.

Part 2: Our principle fear is not what any moment may or may not bring, rather what we really fear in any unwanted moment is our reaction to it.

Classroom Talk: 12/07/2025 - What you understand, you command; what you don’t understand commands you.

Classroom Talk: 06/22/2025 - No seed - whether a kernel of corn, or a special talent - can prove itself any more valuable than the sweat it takes to sow it, cultivate & nourish it until it offers up its latent Good. In much the same way, the soul is a seed; relationships are its ground; and what grows when all is properly cared for...is unconditional Love.

Classroom Talk: 05/11/2025 - The only thing good about any negative reaction is the revelation of how useless is that (level of) suffering to change anything about our present nature, let alone the condition it convinces us to blame for its pain.

Classroom Talk: 03/16/2025 - It may be said that one finds freedom from suffering over oneself in direct proportion to one's realization that there is no separate self whose suffering is to be resisted.

Remastered Classic Talk: 02/28/2016 - The inevitable sense of emptiness that eventually nips at the heels of most men and women is the sudden realization that in spite of having "banked" a billion self-stimulating sensations -- even when all have been added up -- they still amount to nothing.

Classroom Talk: 11/10/2024 - He alone is self-realized, of whom it may be said: for him, it is enough to be just what he is, as he is; nothing more or less is either needed, or required.

Classroom Talk: 12/9/2022 - Without resistance to its appearance... there is no negativity inherent in suffering; to realize the fact of this truth is the first step in proving (to yourself) that all forms of psychological pain are optional.

Classroom Talk: 4/24/2022 - It is a distinct stage in the development of the aspirant when -- rather than being easily distracted by some imagined consolation for his pain, or by concluding who is to blame for it -- his first and real preference in that dark moment is to increase his awareness of his condition, and not to find ways around it.

Classroom Talk: 12/26/2021 - Many times the best gift we can offer another is what we're willing to keep for ourselves; for instance, rather than burdening others with our fears and doubts -- or judging them for the same -- we choose, instead, to bear this pain in conscious silence. So that not only might we realize a spiritual strength that can't be awakened in any other way...

Classroom Talk: 11/21/2021 - The more we dwell on something in our life that we wish wasn't so, the more we soak ourselves in negative energies created by our own resistance. The longer we soak, the more we suffer; the more we suffer, the more we resist what seems to be the unwanted event when, in truth, what we are really drowning in... are the dark dreams of our own sleeping consciousness.

Classroom Talk: 8/1/2021 - Part 1: Whoever doesn't know himself, suffers uselessly for the sake of ignorance. Whoever works to know himself, agrees to suffer for the sake of wisdom. Whoever becomes wise, slays the suffering born of ignorance. And whoever transcends the useless suffering of ignorance shares in the birth and burden of creation, in which can be found...