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.

Classroom Talk: 8/15/2021 - 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."

Classroom Talk: 10/2/2019 What is the instant denial of any moment in life... other than an unconscious agreement to live under the dark thumb of some unseen, conflicted part of us that refuses to see itself as it is in reality.

Classroom Talk: 7/31/2019 The futility of ambition hides behind the pain of false pride... save for those inevitable, inescapable moments of seeing how we have labored for a "treasure chest" to come that was empty, barren in the same moment of its imagined conception.

Classroom Talk: 4/24/2019 The more we resist -- and suffer over -- any moment that proves we don't possess the strength we imagine ourselves as having -- the further removed we are from recognizing the real healing lesson these moments bring with them: the realization that the source of this suffering -- over our alleged "weakness"...

Topics Covered: Getting carried away by thought; "I" has a feeling to it that is instantly familiar; Consciously saying "I love you" requires presence; The world has become cheapened; Until you have your own attention, your life is not your own; Wrestling with the angel; Love doesn't hate, have an enemy, have a past, measure, compare, inflate, or self-stimulate; Throwing a toothpick in front o...