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...

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...

Topics covered:  What we see outside of ourselves as separate objects are connected and never not touching one another. Everything that exists affects everything else; All of creation is in constant labor, because there is never not something being born. Spiritually speaking, we don't generally understand the suffering that is inherent in the labor of birth; Pain is a mistaken love for something small that promises to love you back if you give yourself to it.

Topics covered:  There is something waiting to grow in you that you are responsible for and that requires your attention; There is a difference between a familiar reaction, and our awareness of it; A mirror reflects whatever is before it, no matter what the object is. Neither the mirror nor the object being reflected is aware of each other -- they do not know each other -- but we can be aware of both at the same time.

Sensation is but an echo -- a shadow cast by the Real. It belongs to life, yet it is not Life itself. Mistaking sensation for Life... is like mistaking a shadow for the sun whose light lends it form, and from which it has been cast.

It is a big mistake to believe that negative imagination requires we be present to its calculated organization in order to imprison us in what feels like some fearful, or angry sense of self; quite the opposite is true. Truth be known, our most familiar, if not dominant sense of "I" is thus manufactured, and our identification with the works of this dark machinery is the unseen source of most of our fear and sorrow.

Topics covered: A poet could write for decades about an impression, yet still not come close to the totality of the revelation; You are like the fish in the ocean seeking the water. You are already within what you long for; The more you give your attention to something, the more you discover about yourself through that relationship; The Vine is infinite relative to the branch, and the branch is infinite relative to the fruit.

Anytime you feel the need to stand in the healing Light of the Divine -- and then act to honor that wish -- you will realize a miracle: you'll see that you are already in it.