Sense Of Self

We value negative states because of the strong sense of self we get from them. This may be very difficult for us to see, but a strong light will show us the freeing facts. No one wants to believe that he or she values things like self-pity, anger, and depression. We would insist we don't, and as evidence we point to the fact that we fight against them, but the struggle gives us a false sense of life and importance...

Have you ever noticed how the more negative you get, the more difficult everything about your life becomes, including being able to do the simplest things? It's like suddenly sinking into dark molasses, where not only can't you move, but everything you don't want seems stuck to you!...

What's the first thing that any of us do when trouble comes? The first thing that happens when we get into trouble is that we start thinking. Our little think machine just gets geared up, and it starts to go. And it goes. Now, what is it thinking about? It's thinking about the trouble it's in and it's thinking about ways in which to get out of trouble...

Living within us dwells an order of being that knows, without thinking about it, what is authentically good for us. The problem isn't that this higher level of being--with its natural, calm command--is actually missing just when we need it most. The real problem is that we forget it!

Just as our bodies grow healthy or not, according to what we take into our mouths, so too do we grow into wisdom, strength, or grace according to what we attend to with our mind. Our thoughts, like all energetic life forms, attract to themselves natures like themselves. The thoughts of a fellow not only flock together, but seek and are sought out by similar invisible creatures...

Everything under the sun wants to be loved. Trees reach up for the sunlight that brings them life. Flowers need the touch of the bees that pollinate them. Babies cry out to be nourished and protected. We can state this same celestial principle in different words: Everything in existence seeks what it needs to complete itself... and this includes negative states like anger, resentment...

Topics covered: Real existence is being rooted in an awareness that doesn't pursue anything because it is already a part of everything; There is no addiction that doesn't begin with a sense of self that feels incomplete; In order to win the approval of others, we have to sell ourselves. Our sense of self is dependent upon exterior conditions; There is no fear without the fear of disappearing, without the fear of losing myself...

Remastered Classic Talk: 5/17/17 - 

Part 1: We are told that life is everlasting -- but see that nothing lasts! We are taught there is no death, and yet we see it everywhere around us! We dwell in the middle of an immense contradiction wherein one part of us feels the possibility of a life eternal, but that sees, and fears -- in the same moment -- only the inevitability of the opposite.

Part 2: The Great and Timeless Teaching -- that which can't be taught -- can only be learned through humility.

Remastered Classic Talk: 11/30/16 - The compulsive "need" to be constantly on the move -- ceaselessly occupied, either outwardly -- or inwardly, in some useless consideration -- is how the lower nature fills itself with the nothingness it needs to keep itself from seeing its own emptiness.

Remastered Classic Talk: 8/17/16 - Part 1: You can neither control, nor change any anxious thought or emotion that rushes in and sweeps you off of your feet because this "I" -- this sense of yourself suddenly in a struggle to escape a psychological storm -- is itself a part of the squall it now so vigorously resists.

Part 2: Every thought, a blockage. Every emotion, a limitation. Every movement, a hindrance to Thee.

Remastered Classic Talk: 06/01/16 - 

Emergency! Then urgency!
Oh my... such an important me.
In this blindness, it's unkindness
Too late I see... the insensitivity
Of unseen self-captivity.