The only thing most of us know to do when life takes an unwanted turn, bringing us what we don't want, is to take a turn for the negative ourselves. And when the circumstance in question really makes a wreck of things, not only do we summarily reject the event seen "at cause," but for good measure we often will turn our wrath upon our own lives, pronouncing them "not worth living"! Such flas...

One of the principal ways we can help others to achieve new inner growth is by outgrowing ourselves. To help us understand the wisdom in this new idea we must first consider another equally important idea. A great portion of the way we "see" ourselves -- images of ourselves from which we derive our sense of self -- is actually a provision of our relationships with friends and family. Conside...

There are two basic kinds of prayer. The first kind of prayer -- the one most commonly understood and practiced -- is when you are asking for what you want; when you are temporarily filled with -- and renewed by -- both the self making that request and the anticipation of what is requested. This is the only kind of prayer that most men and women ever know; when someone asks from himself for...

• It is difficult to accept correction from other people. How do we judge the quality of correction when someone offers advice or criticism? I look at the unhappy lives of many of the people giving input, and think that their advice isn't worth much if they have such difficulties. On the other hand, I might be missing some valuable correction. Any advice?

If we wish to find peace we must understand something of its life. Here are a few such facts: Peace is the natural radiation of a living Now; it is one with that Light whose life is the eternal present itself, even as the emanations of light and warmth are one with the sun from which they radiate. If our intuition can perceive that the above ideas are based in truth, then we should be naturall...

We are not created to resist anything... we are created to grow through everything. Resistance to life kills the process of spiritual development. When we resist what life would show us about ourselves, we effectively close the door on the Light that wants to help transform us by showing us the things we don't know we harbor in our soul.

The reason we resist virtually all endings in our life -- wherein we feel as though something has been wrongfully taken away from us -- is because these same unwanted moments leave us feeling terribly empty inside ourselves. In truth, it is this overwhelming sense of emptiness that we detest, and not the changing condition itself that we so habitually protest. So when things naturally come t...

This evening, while reading another's account of his longing for his one, true Love, I couldn't help but be struck that my love for you paled in comparison . . . and here was the shock: The impassioned heart, mine in this instance, believes itself to be incapable of any greater longing than itself can bear. But plainly there are greater hearts; hearts whose nature can not only endure greater...

At times it seems to me that the more I realize about the awesome nature of spiritual love, the more loneliness I feel in my current human relationships. I long to share my discoveries with others, but who do I turn to? A certain kind of loneliness, of feeling ourselves all alone, is a necessary portion of the path to the higher life. This sense of being alone comes out of realizing what...

The one who looks to me for strength, Is not without my own, The one who calls on me for peace, Finds quietude is sown, The one who reaches for my hand, Will never walk alone, The one who comes to me for love, His heart is made my Home.

And I saw a vision of a gleaming white castle with a narrow footpath leading up to its great white gates. This walkway -- extending out from the gates as far as the eye could see -- was so worn that it appeared to the eye as a kind of cut-mark several feet deep. And when I asked a nearby angel as to the nature of this Bright Place -- and why the path leading up to it was so well-worn, she repl...

When it comes to the possibility of spiritual rebirth, it isn't that God does not will this for all of his earth-clad children. Quite the contrary: In this world of ours the goodness of God's Will is always active through his Son. What nullifies the birth of this eternal Life within us is that we have yet to learn how to ask and receive it. What is freely offered to us goes unaccepted because...