Relationships

According to our wish and willingness to give our love to another, there returns to us -- in greater measure than given -- the love we have given. It is, quite simply, the secret of the ages: Love rewards the lover. Isn't it true? The more we love someone, the more love we come upon in our own being; and the more we experience these elevated states in ourselves, the higher we long to go!...

Those with whom we assemble we will soon resemble, so the simple old saying goes. Yet it tells of a deep truth. It says that who we are -- the stuff of our soul at present -- is being transformed continuously by the nature of the company we keep; so that, in our essence we are always moving and evolving towards a kind of psychic oneness with whatever relationships we have revolving around us t...

**As a result of my deepening interest in truthful ideas, quite a few of my friends feel I have gone off the deep end, and I have noticed a growing separation between us as I work more and more for my own spiritual freedom. It is not that I don't care for them, but rather I am becoming less concerned about the things that have always driven all of us. My fear is they will eventually want to ha...

How many of us sometimes entertain thoughts and feelings that get us into trouble? We have all found ourselves compromised by thoughts and feelings that hurt us, but the truth is that nothing has access to our heart or mind without us inviting it into our life. When negative states knock on our psychological door, we cannot get into bad relationships with them unless we go outside of ourselves...

One of the most shocking and necessary discoveries along the path is that what we love does not love us. We are filled all the time with powerful feelings and emotions that seem to lift or otherwise provide purpose and self-worth. It is not too much to say that most of these inner states are lies -- hopelessly incomplete of themselves, and seeking completion in some secret opposite that they g...

There is a hidden part of you that knows, without thinking about it, how to always be perfectly relaxed, carefree, and in command. This higher intellectual and emotional intelligence is to your present thoughts and feelings as is the mighty oak to its own spreading branches. Once you come into contact with its perfect strength and power, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it. Great mas...

Have you ever said something to someone not knowing until much later that it hurt that person? Why didn't you know that you hurt that person in the moment that you said what you did? You have within you the possibility of being aware of the need of another. In that moment of interaction with another human being, you were given -- as a gift -- the capacity to resonate the state of the person t...

For the most part we treat everyone in our lives the same way every time that we meet them, completely ignoring the fact that everyone experiences seasons of the heart and changes of the mind. This means that when we interact with others, we are not really meeting them in true relationship at all. Then what is it that we are actually meeting if not the other person? The answer is that we are m...

Blaming conflict-filled feelings on any condition, or person, outside of yourself is like getting angry at your shoes for being laced too tight. So here is an effective inner life step designed to help you grow and develop greater spiritual strength: No matter what happens, never blame anyone -- or anything -- for the way you feel. Rising above the blame game is the same as learning how to be...

When faced with the prospect of living with an emptiness that seems capable of swallowing us whole, most of us elect to do the only thing we believe is possible under such dire circumstances. We start right away working out fresh ways to fill ourselves once more. The drill is familiar: find someone or something new with which to make another beginning. Do whatever is needed to bring an end to...

How many of us spend our precious time and energy fuming over what others may have done to us? Unseen in the steam of our heated emotions and churning thoughts is the one inescapable fact that we are the secret prisoner of anyone we wish to punish. And the more we would punish this person, the less freedom we have to be at peace with ourselves. Here's a beautiful lesson in invisible justice,...

There is at work in us an undetected nature that will not allow the cause of our pain to pass so that healing may take place. Can we see that we have parts of us that just won't let go of being angry with someone who got angry with us? But that's not all! Can we also see that these same smoldering parts of ourselves would have us believe that being on fire is the best way to get over being bu...