Our willingness to see the difference between real and false strength brings about an inner change that puts us in an entirely new relationship with life.
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...
A spiritual risk is any action we will take based upon our willingness to challenge our own certainty that our present state of consciousness represents the full measure of life's possibility. Here is one simple example: Maybe we feel as though no one understands our situation or that no one is being sensitive to the pressure we're under. During these times most of us feel the strong need to c...
In this world, it's possible for you to find physical gold, but without winning the war within yourself, this wealth could not do anything for you other than perhaps produce a more comfortable place in which to continue your struggle with old conflicts. However, there is an inner gold you can find whose possession fulfills you, regardless of your external circumstances. We can call this inner...
If you watch animals in the wild, one thing is obvious: The nature of an animal and its natural experience of life are indivisibly related. For example, deer attract biting flies. In the high heat of summer you won't see one without the other, and I have seen deer driven nearly crazy by these pests. They have no choice but to suffer this seasonal torment. An animal's nature attracts to it the...
Happiness, love, peace, compassion, and contentment are timeless states of being in the Now. In their original principle they are without form, having no beginning or end. These forces of the Living Light exist in themselves and have no cause apart from their celestial source, much as the sun exists apart from the life-giving light that radiates from the surface of its hydrogen heart. But for...
We each live -- moment to moment -- in a world the size of our understanding. This means many encouraging things, beginning with this important discovery: When we feel small, of no consequence, or emotionally powerless to rise above some pressing pain, it's because we are living in and from unconscious parts of ourselves that are, in themselves, narrow and cut off from the bright and broad f...
Our lives are meant to be bright, noble, and ever ascending. This promise of our true potential is made good in us by fulfilling our possibilities and not through the interminable struggle of trying to prove what is impossible. Most of our sorrows are the stressful offspring of trying to be something we have no real need to be; they are born for attempting to do...
What we must always remember is that the only work we do of lasting value is the work that we do for ourselves within ourselves. We have a definite conditioned dependency to think of things as worthwhile only if someone else recognizes their value. This painful kind of thinking not only leaves us tied to trying to please others, but it also discourages us from embarking upon the exciting journ...
We are a peculiar race of beings. On one hand, each of us professes to be concerned with growing and self-developing while, on the other hand, none of us ever wants to be wrong. This is a paralyzing contradiction. If we are always right, or at least afraid of being wrong, what have we to learn? Couched in our hidden attitude is that we already know everything. This is a serious problem if we a...
The key to leaving behind our self-created and self-limited world is to be found in our willingness to keep going even when it "feels" like something bad is happening to us or that we're going "nowhere fast." The idea of quitting or turning back is the unfortunate option that occurs only when we have an incomplete understanding of any given situation. This is where Higher Knowledge becomes s...
Within each of us there is an expansive world of thoughts and feelings whose movements determine how we perceive and experience the world outside of us. While this inner-world of thoughts and feelings may not directly bring us what we see, it does profoundly influence how we see our world of relationships and events. In other words, we are seeing the exterior but experiencing the interior. One...