Reality is very different from our distorted ideas about it. For instance, there are many parts of us that are secretly afraid that should we earnestly reexamine our ideas about life we'd just stir up some things better left alone. However, if we don't stir them up, we'll never find out that these things we're afraid of are nothing more than "ghosts" created by our own minds. The following sto...
No one succeeds in life who lives in fear. Fearlessness is first the will to proceed in spite of conditions, and then it becomes a consciousness fixed in us that is beyond conditions. Real success is a fearless state of being in a conscious relationship with an Intelligence that always achieves its ends in spite of changing conditions. The success that our present nature looks for is to try...
A young woman once decided that her best chance of getting hired by a company doing geological survey work in the Alaskan wilderness was to earn a private license to fly twin-engine planes. A few days later she began taking lessons from a wise old bush pilot, highly respected throughout the region for his cool and collected ways of dealing with the worst possible situations. After the mandato...
Have you ever wondered why you're so easily upset by the unexpected? It's not really you who feels shaky when situations shift without warning. It's who you think you are that feels threatened -- but you don't have to go on feeling afraid. Beginning right now, with some patient self-investigation and the aid of a few higher facts, you will discover that you are not who you think you are. T...
The following may shock you, and I hope it comes as just that. Everyone practices prayer twenty-four hours a day . . . only neither do they know they're praying, nor do they know (and this is the real problem) what it is they're praying for! And this fact of life includes those people who say, "But I don't believe in prayer. I don't have a spiritual practice." A moment's consideration of the...
There was once a little creature, and it was on the branch of a mighty oak. This great oak was the father of the forest. The little creature was sitting there sighing, and from time to time crying a little bit, and finally the old oak couldn't take it anymore. "Little creature, what is wrong with you?" The little creature was surprised. He said, "Well, I'm not sure. I just can't make it all co...
How many times have you found yourself thinking you'd like to develop a new skill or sharpen an old one? Maybe you've wanted to learn another language or play a musical instrument; further your education; or get up out of your easy chair and do some catch-up on that correspondence you've been putting off for weeks! But in each, or at least most, of these instances, before you can even get sta...
Unlike lesser-level creatures that are not conscious of their own nature -- and that cannot choose any other world of experience apart from the one they are drawn to by their own lower nature -- we, as human beings, are unique in creation. We are created to be self-conscious. In spiritual terms this means we may have an awareness of any of the infinite number of qualities that form the ch...
There can be no starting place in our lives any truer than what our own awareness of the present moment permits. This friendly fact tells us that our life direction, our actual destiny, is determined by the level of our awareness that attends the full range of each step we take. The next two examples prove this insight beyond the calling of any logic. No one consciously takes a step in haste...