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...

Have you ever had appear in your mind the image of someone who hurt you, or run a whole mental movie about something that didn't work out, so that in recalling the event you actually relived the sense of loss? How does such a painful image seem to stay in the mind, especially given the fact of how much we struggle to make it go away? We all know how it feels to try and "fix" such visitations,...

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...

At any given moment we always do what we know. This may seem obvious, but with closer examination, especially in light of the fact we wish to elevate ourselves and what we are getting from this life, we will discover something astounding. Read the next three sentences carefully. I have separated this trio of important ideas for ease of reading, but they are very much connected to each other. E...

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...

Unlike lesser-level creatures that are not conscious of their own nature -- and that cannot choose any other world of experience apart from the one they are drawn to by their own lower nature -- we, as human beings, are unique in creation. We are created to be self-conscious. In spiritual terms this means we may have an awareness of any of the infinite number of qualities that form the ch...

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...

Counter to popular opinion, real success is not measured by the amount of our possessions. Simply stated, the truth is that real success -- ultimately the only success -- is determined by how much we are in actual possession of ourselves. And by the light of this great fact of life, we can also see that the person who fears the loss of what he thinks is his success has not truly succeeded.