Each of us grows physically without any real inner struggle on our part. Our bodies mature; we learn to tie our shoes, and dance, and do gymnastics. Social skills develop naturally. We grow in our mental abilities as well: we learn a new language, expand our knowledge to grasp a scientific theory, or learn a set of mathematical axioms. This, too, is natural. However, inwardly, emotionally for...

What we put first, the choices we make in life are a direct reflection of what we value. What this means is that our experience of life -- for its pain or pleasure, darkness or brightness -- is a perfect reflection of what we want most in that same moment. Prove this truth to yourself, and you will put yourself on the road to putting truth before all else. We all have to drive places... work,...

You break free of unhappy thoughts and emotions by seeing that, even though it may feel that way at the moment, you are not owned by them.

If anxious thoughts and feelings had any power to help us reach some place in life where, finally, we'd be released from the pain of always feeling rushed... don't you think we'd have reached there by now!...

As long as we live within the darkened mansion of these lower-level thoughts and feelings, we must remain captives of their imperfect perspective.

When attention is directed, it has the ability to invest an idea with energy and life. Wherever you place your attention, you give life to that seed of thought. We've all experienced how the power of attention almost seems to have a magnetic pull. This power can be used for good or bad. When we use it for practical work, or for honest self-observation, we use it to our own benefit. However, w...

We frequently feel ourselves to be under the power of things. We feel we are the victims of an unfair social system, economic upheavals, painful relationships -- even a lawn chair that won't unfold right. We fight these conditions, feeling ourselves to be under their "dark" influence. The fact is, however, these events do not exist as negative events except for our perception of them. The only...

Once higher self-understanding is restored to us, the painful problems that are caused by its absence effortlessly disappear.

It's vital to understand that angels and devils exist and are always hard at work around us. This fact is no cause for fear, for while their subtle bodies are invisible, their activities are not. The forces of good and evil can easily be seen working their ways in and through human beings; for it is within us that these levels of light and darkness mold life on earth in their image. Angelic...

There is a hidden part of you that knows, without thinking about it, how to always be perfectly relaxed, carefree, and in command. This higher intellectual and emotional intelligence is to your present thoughts and feelings as is the mighty oak to its own spreading branches. Once you come into contact with its perfect strength and power, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it. Great mas...

The chief cause of why our lives so often wind up in the hands of others is not that they are superior or that the world is too strong for us, but that we don't want to face the uncertainty and aloneness we think we are too weak to bear. ~~~ The conscious refusal to go along with what your weakness wants you to do to escape its uncertainty is what invokes and finally delivers real inner co...

Whenever someone hurts us with a pointed remark, what we see isn't whether or not there's truth in their words; all we "see" is our wish they hadn't said anything at all! In such moments we are absorbed by a familiar negative reaction whose one desire is that the unwanted event just go away. This resistance acts within and upon our consciousness as a "blinding" and binding force, so all we can...