Self-Observation

Topics covered: Real self-transformation requires self-knowledge; Certainty is nothing but masked uncertainty that is really the wish to be secure; Be more interested in observing your reactions than you are interested in what those reactions say you need to do in order to be free from the disturbance. See what reactions tell you is true about the moment; Challenging the mystery of your reactions is the same as challenging the mystery of yourself...

Topics covered: We are not as afraid of what we discovery about ourselves when we realize that we are not the only ones who experience this same conditioned consciousness; No one who is dishonest with themselves will ever know of anything that is Divine. Honesty and clarity are requirements for self-realization; You cannot be something other than what you are. The fact that you do not want to be what you are... does not change the fact that you are...

Classroom Talk: 2/14/2024 - Part 1: The witness to experience is not bound by it. Part 2: It's impossible to enjoy any moment in life, while fearfully trying to control it at the same time... that is, unless your idea of pleasure is the pain of making impossible demands on "others," not to mention upon yourself.

Topics covered: There is a deeper life to experience if we can be in the presence of that life; If the Kingdom of Heaven is within, then where in the world are you going?; The appearance of resistance is telling us something about ourselves; In reality there is nothing missing in your life because there is no puzzle to solve. To understand that there is no puzzle to solve is enlightenment...

Classroom Talk: 10/11/2023 - Part 1: We can't hope to change what comes out of any given moment until we change the one within whom it appears. Part 2: The task is not to be perfect as imagined, an illusion supported by the pain of unrelenting self-judgment; rather the real task is to do the interior work of seeing ourselves as perfectly as we can regardless of how much we would rather not.

Topics covered: "I am" when I can see; "We do not obtain the most precious gifts by going in search of them, but by waiting for them." -- Simone Weil; Everything outside of us seems separate because we presently we through eyes that either want or don't want what they see; "The flapping of the wings of a butterfly can be felt on the other side of the world." -- Chinese Proverb

Topics covered: The hope of this world rests in innocence. No innocence, no goodness. No goodness, nothing good, and when there's nothing good there's only that which pretends to be good; It is inevitable that there will be suffering each time you try to hide from the truth of yourself; A real man or woman never blames anything or anyone else for his or her experience of life.

Classroom Talk: 4/26/2023 - Praying to change the world around us is pointless until we see that the world around us is the way it is because we are the way we are; only in the realization of this truth -- and in our agreement to make the sacrifices inherent in its revelation -- is there hope for the world, and for us, as well.

Topics covered: Our task as spiritual aspirants is to explore. And whatever qualities we discover within ourselves are neither good nor bad of themselves, but thinking makes them so; When you discover something about yourself, the revelation of that discovery has its own corresponding action; Punchline of the story about the professional actor: He does not know anymore when he is on stage...

Classroom Talk: 3/8/2023 - Only in a world turned upside-down could someone actually believe that his daily dose of stress, anxiety, and despair somehow proves he is as special as he imagines himself to be.

Topics covered: There is no such thing as a bad fact about yourself; What do we do when we don't want to see something about ourselves? The consciousness that resists immediately formulates a lie in order to protect itself from what it has just been shown about itself; "The unexamined life is not worth living." ~ Socrates...

Classroom Talk: 5/25/2022 - It is impossible to resist a revelation, and serve its Divine purpose at the same time.