Spiritual Growth

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...

Classroom Talk: 10/13/2019 - Part 1: It has long been said, and wisely so: "Birds of a feather flock together." But for those who seek higher Wisdom...let it also be known: this old proverb holds equally true when it comes to useless thoughts and feelings. Part 2: The answer as to what is the best use of one's life is found in being present enough with oneself...

Featured Study Group Topic for the Week of March 5, 2018. The unconscious "self" that lives in the dark of us has no shape or form of its own... other than the one it creates -- and then identifies with -- as it weighs and measures all that moves in and out of its temporary existence. Its false -- and always alternating sense of superiority and insecurity -- is the unnatural byproduct of an eq...

Classroom Talk: 12/17/2023 - Every once in a while, we have the great fortune of perceiving a moment of such astonishing beauty, or harmony, that we all but lose ourselves within it. But what is far more amazing than any such vision is this breathtaking fact: were it not for our mysterious capacity to perfectly reflect that moment -- to be one with it in heart, mind, and soul -- there would be no beauty or harmony to behold.

Classroom Talk: 4/4/2021 - Understood properly, the momentary awareness of any shortfall in our character is really a Divine intervention; where, by a Light that "dwells in a darkness that knows it not" we are given a glimpse of a truth that cannot be known otherwise. The acceptance of this intervention initiates a holy transformation...