Spiritual Growth

How many of us have had moments in our lives where we have tried to escape certain qualities of ourselves by doing different things, only to find ourselves unable to escape the condition, unable to escape our present nature, so that finally the day comes where there's no escaping it, but there's no living with it either? And in the moment, we can no longer resist our own character based on the assumption that we ought not be that kind of human being.

Almost every day I receive a letter, an e-mail, or phone call from an aspirant who wants to know, essentially, the following: "What must I do to succeed spiritually?" Or, in a slight variation on that theme: "What's the right way to do what I must in order to awaken?"

The truth is that letting go is very simple and, above all, natural; as natural for you and I as it is for a tree to shed the heavy, sun-ripened fruit that clings to its branches. Why? Because both man and tree, in fact all living things, are created to drop what is no longer needed. For the tree, the falling fruit carries its matured seed to the ground. No unnatural force is necessary. In a similar fashion -- that is to say, under higher but equally exacting laws...

At some point, our appetite for a life that will satisfy or stimulate us can no longer be fulfilled by the life that we see around us. It just doesn't work anymore. We've tried and tried to find ways to feed ourselves, but what we have found (mostly) is that with all we've done from ourselves based on how we look at life, we never feel "I don't need anything more than this right now."

Letting go and spiritual growth are as rain is to a field of wildflowers: we blossom as beings only as we release ourselves from what is self-limiting. But why do this kind of work within ourselves? Even though it's obvious, it needs to be stated: we struggle with whatever we do -- with whatever personally compromises us or our contentment in life -- so that we might realize a greater...

There are these moments where a person is introduced to a great clarity that the world they have been looking in, in order to find themselves through, is incapable of revealing the worth they are looking for. This first shock (have you had it, by-the-way?) is when a person realizes, "Uh oh. This is a dead-end. Oh no." And when a person has enough of these moments..."

Any true self-aware state must include the presence of a humility that tempers the temptation inherent in all forms of self-evaluation; otherwise, what we might call self-awakening is really just a form of secret self-admiration.

Classroom Talk: 9/13/2023 - Trying to change any unwanted condition without first awakening to, and then realizing the nature of the consciousness responsible for creating it... is like blaming a mirror for what you don't like seeing (in it).

Classroom Talk: 11/23/2022 - No one has freedom of speech who -- for fear of being isolated, cast out and left alone -- feels unable to speak the truth they would, or to question what they see as false. And how much more so does the above hold true when it comes to the freedom to see oneself as one is... without endless self-judgment, and all of its painful justification...

Classroom Talk: 10/12/2022 - We are not lifted by spontaneous reactions; rather, we are chained to these momentary feelings by our identification with them. As long as our sense of self is a derivative of any temporary passion -- "high or low" -- our identity is nothing more than a by-product of the same... much in the same way as an ember owes its existence to the flame that gives it birth...

Classroom Talk: 1/5/2022 - Painful thoughts, feelings of regret, the fear of some dark tomorrow: all point to a "distant fire" as the source of our suffering, even as they blow smoke in our eyes to ensure we don't see that they are what's burning us in any troubling moment.

Classroom Talk: 5/19/2021 - How could we ever know even the smallest thing about the possibility of Unconditional Love -- that perfectly still, undivided Divine center-point from out of which creation itself comes into existence -- were it not for our gift of being able to bear witness to the union of the opposites within us...