Past

Topics covered:   You do not really understand something until you understand it with all parts of yourself. The intellect alone can only go so far, and can in fact hinder understanding; The New Testament story of Christ being tempted is the story of yourself. It is a teaching story that is your story; The last thing that we want to know is that we have no power of our own, and that all power belongs to, and comes from, what is higher than ourselves.

Topic: Wake Up and Walk Away from Your Constant Conflict with Unwanted Moments (Classroom Talk 10/30/24)

Student Talks: 10/4/2024 - Key Lesson: In this life – regardless of circumstance – there is no greater reward than our God-given right to see what is true, and then to do what is asked of us in the light of that revelation; neither is there any task that comes with so great a personal price.

Classroom Talk: 8/21/2024 - We end the conflict inherent in reliving any painful memory as we awaken to see that no such time, let alone any tormenting thought associated with it, exists outside of an unseen temptation to identify with - and then relive - the unwanted experience of what we've agreed to remember...again!

It's impossible to die to the pain of our past... as long as we remain identified with an unconscious nature that can't seem to go through a day without reliving some dark memory it then summarily resists.

Hoping that a memory from "days gone-by" can show you the way out of any unwanted moment -- and into a safer time to come -- is like finding yourself lost in a dark canyon, and following the echo of your own plaintive voice -- mistaking it to belong to someone who's come to rescue you.

Student Talks: 10/27/2023 - Key Lesson: Any time the mind makes a "package" out of some unwanted moment -- wrapping its reaction (to it) in familiar troubled thoughts, and negative feelings -- it does so at the cost of exchanging a priceless gift it's been given... in favor of giving itself another painful experience (of itself) that it doesn't know it's created for itself!

Topics covered: As goes my attention, so comes my experience. As comes my experience, so comes my sense of self. If my sense of self has fallen into what I don't want, then I AM what I don't want; Negative reactions kill all other possibilities. Negative reactions collapse one's experience into a very limited field; "Divinity is our birthright. God nods to God from behind each of us. But let us remember, divinity is behind our failures and follies also"...

Topic: Set Down Your Struggles and Be... Free (Classroom Talk 9/27/23)

Topics covered: The meaning of the passage "Sell all and follow me" pertains to selling the psychological possessions of your past and your future; The hope in a time to come in which you will be free is the very prison you are in now; If you complete the moment, then you complete yourself. If you don't complete the moment, then you are tied to an incomplete nature seeking to complete itself in a time to come...

Classroom Talk: 9/27/2023 - You can't learn how to be; it's impossible. But you can see through the futility of the endless struggle to make yourself (feel) real. So, yes: it's hard to die to the hope that some time yet to come holds the key, but it does get easier the more you realize that whatever freedom you've imagined... doesn't exist without the fear that it doesn't.