When an unwanted moment comes along - there's a stress, a strain, somebody's definitely being negative -- aren't you positive that the reason you're in pain and resisting the condition is because of "what they are"? I'm telling you, that's not the case. They are revealing to you something in your consciousness that you don't know is there! And the only way it stays there, and hidden from you...

When in a fight of any kind, over anything, we look over at the other person and "see" - almost magically - exactly what's wrong with him or her in that moment. So confident are we in our conclusion as to the nature of their problem - that the following has almost no chance to dawn on us: We can't see that person is looking at us in this exact same kind of "light"... that is not a light at all...

In the highest parts of our consciousness, there is a living relationship whose meaning is inseparable from the world that it sees and experiences. There is no need to "take thought" in order to know that we are alive. To think for ourselves properly means to be aware of our reactions to the world, and to not allow those reactions to run wild on their own...

Real reactions are wordless, soundless, and even without familiar content. They are just the expression of something timeless touching something in time. The mind talks to itself in order to define these reactions for its own purposes, using its own past content in a vain attempt to reconcile the moment. The true reconciliation of any reaction is built into the very moment of the appearance of it...

We each have, and operate from, a false nature that is a jumble of our memories, conditioning, and temperamental qualities. It is this unsuspected false nature that meets the world each day, responding to and interpreting each and every one of life's fluctuations. It is very important for us to begin to understand that of themselves these ever-changing conditions in life are neutral, but the false...

Classroom Talk: 3/1/2019 - The only way to defeat those dark states within you that forever bully you around is to realize that in the Higher Reality of your True Nature there is no rule that says push must lead to shove!

Question: How do you integrate and apply the principle that "I am bigger than this moment" when your mind is programmed otherwise? How do you practice stopping reacting? Answer: You don't practice stopping reacting, you see that you can't stop reacting.

We don't usually think to ourselves that we're asleep and that our entire identity is the moment to moment fabrication of what we are reacting to in that instant. Until there is something that rides the waves of these reactions and sees them crest and fall, we will appear and disappear with every last wave. In watching the waves we will not mistake ourselves for being the waves.

Student Talks: 5/5/2023 - Key Lesson: The witness to experience is not bound by it, any more than a clear sky can be captured by a passing cloud, or a sound can seize the ear that hears it.

Topics covered:There is no struggle in seeing. The struggle is in trying to get life to conform to what something in you wants to see, and avoid what it doesn't want to see; The problem is not what is seen. What creates the problem is the nature that is seeing; Within the sleeping human consciousness, there is something that is already awake, and its presence in that consciousness produces momentary glimpses...

Topic: How to Release Yourself from Any Negative Reaction (Classroom Talk 2/22/23)