Pretense

Many of us have come to believe that being a good performer in life is somehow the same as fulfilling the purpose of life. Here's the strange logic behind the self-created misery that follows it: For each successful "performance" we pull off around others or within ourselves, it feels as if we've won, for the moment, what we've imagined will make us whole and happy -- but the drawback here...

Look around you, wherever you may be and at any moment. Try to see through the roles of actors and actresses crossing this or that stage of life; look past their appearances and seeming differences and you'll find all share one thing in common: people do the things they do in order to try and provide themselves with a feeling of being complete. They sense that there is a...

Any time we feign anything, we do so out of fear that without that "persona" to protect us--to make that impression we want--we won't get what we want. This whole way of thinking is secret self-sabotage. Your consideration of the two special insights that follow will start you down the path to a whole new kind of self-command.

Student Talks: 8/20/2021 - Key Lesson: Part 1: A rose doesn't "try" to be beautiful; it never struggles to win one's attention, or to prove its value. Any part of us -- pressing on us to try and make a favorable impression -- of any kind, upon anyone for any reason -- is a form of useless suffering born of trying to escape the fear of being seen as "no one."

Topics Covered: We are awash in a world of resistance which isn't just global in its formation, but finds in us a willing instrument; It doesn't matter what this world does because this is not your world; We all suffer from SFS and FOPPS, which stand for "Stage Fright Syndrome" and "Fear Of Poor Performance Syndrome." The symptoms of these syndromes are anxiety, worry and self-doubt...

Student Talks: 11/8/2019 - Key Lesson: Pretending -- to yourself, or around others -- that "all is well" is the unseen hell of the false self. On the other hand, the realization that all unfolds -- moment to moment -- in the only way that it can is not only the first step in awakening from this lower level of consciousness...

Topic: Cancel Your Membership to "Club Me" (4/14/19 Classroom Talk)

Topic: Cancel Your Membership to "Club Me" (4/14/19 Classroom Talk)

Classroom Talk: 11/11/2018 - Featured Study Group Topic for the Week of November 19, 2018. Anyone who rushes through life always finishes last! This is a truth unseen by the masses, but evident to those weary of going nowhere fast. You race as you do to escape the unhappiness you feel being where you are, running toward what you imagine will free you from that dissatisfaction. But such races are always lost before they be...