Spiritual Work

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?"

I am always surprised by your strength -- by how happy I am to be too weak to do anything except completely accept you. What is this power of yours? How shall I understand it? 

Are you a Gathering Force? When you come, do you collect all the parts of me that have wandered off high and low looking for you... somehow drawing them all into one place wherein their deep peace is that they once again know that they need never look for anything...

Have you ever looked down at a sidewalk or parking lot and marveled at a single blade of grass that had somehow found the will and the way to break through the pavement and out into the fresh air and sunlight? When we think of a titanic struggle, we don't usually think of a little seed of grass buried in the darkness and fighting to get out in the light. And yet, even though we may...

Can we see how, in one form or another, everything in creation longs to touch and to be touched? Flowers and trees stretch their leaves and limbs up to the sun, just as it reaches down to touch them. After all, to what end the timeless nature of such radiance, if not to grant life to whatever forms it temporarily animates?

Classroom Talk: 4/24/2024 - Here's why truth teachings through the ages speak of our being "blind," as well as why -- if we hope to know the Divine -- we need new "eyes to see": As surely as the still waters of a mountain lake reflect the light of the moon, or that an injury starts to heal in the same moment incurred, the answer to the question "who am I?" is always in plain sight.

Classroom Talk: 12/9/2020 - Never forget the truth that follows, and freedom is nearer than you think: no real spiritual effort is ever in vain, even when we're given to see -- as result of our inner work -- some low estate into which we've temporarily fallen. In turn, always remember: the great ocean into which the waters of a river...

Classroom Talk: 11/18/2020 - Identifying with resistance to any moment the mind points to as a painful problem of some kind... is the only real problem there is in that moment. To see the fact of this -- which is the purpose of all true spiritual teachings -- is the end of looking for any kind of power to protect, or otherwise restore some paradise...