When we talk about making changes in ourselves, it could be said that it's like climbing a mountain. Why is the mountain a metaphor for spiritual change? There's a certain kind of effort necessary for climbing, isn't there? Also, the mountain represents a higher view. Because as you ascend the mountain, not only does the atmosphere change in terms of becoming more rarified, but every step higher up the mountain produces...
If we want new answers to old self-defeating questions such as "Why me?" -- we're going to have to use our mind in a new way. If we want new answers, real answers, we need new questions. First, we must realize that our stressful experiences are not caused by people or events. They are caused by our reactions to them. I know this is different than most of us feel, and yet, we can see that we have changed the people and even the events in our...
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In this answer to a viewer's question, "letting go" author Guy Finley dives deeply into the concepts of "joy and happiness," noting the important distinction between imagined "joy" and the kind of joy that is the natural outcome of life's authentic wholeness. Imagined joy turns into painful resistance to anything that interferes with the image. Seeing this with more and more clarity is freedom from the stressful compulsion to pursue an imagined happiness.
There is nothing that takes place in life, including all the ugliness in it, that isn't part of our preparation for discovering within ourselves the eternal ability to transcend what has been disturbed. And the way in which the eternal process of transcending what is disturbed takes place through an act of Love.
The mind that wants to know the truth of something, and that's willing to do the work required for such a discovery, will inevitably find that for which it is searching; our highest aspirations are reflections of unrealized possibilities. All scripture, from the east to the West, confirms this timeless truth: We need only ask, and it shall be given.
Ask yourself: how many times have I won the object of my desire, only to find out that it wasn't enough? How familiar do the following statements seem to you? "This is the greatest thing that's ever happened... but what if..." "I love you... but..." "This moment is almost perfect... all it needs is..." The prize won, whatever its name, doesn't end the feeling we have of needing...
The anticipation of something desirable is always sweet in conception, which would be great if it weren't for a certain fact about the nature of longing itself: it appears within us, at first, by itself, bringing with it the promise of just what we need to make everything right. But appearances are not always what they seem; for standing directly behind it, as it were...
The attempt to "save" ourselves -- to rescue and release the troubled "me" -- without first understanding just who and what this nature is that would save itself from its suffering, is the first real threshold over which the sincere aspirant must pass... since the presumption on the part of the seeker here is that he or she knows what's wrong with their life...
What if timeless ideas like the following were introduced to the whole world in such a way as to reveal their secret story? Could the light of these truths -- the hope and promise they hold about our own latent higher possibilities -- help liberate us from the host of fears that hold our consciousness hostage? Imagine the end of all forms of fanaticism born of imagined differences...
The "healing" we need, the sense of wholeness for which we search, has nothing to do with adding anything to ourselves. This needed healing comes from recognizing that the pain we have -- along with the suffering inherent in being negative over this pain -- is born out of participating in a series of illusions that have been handed down from generation to generation!...
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..."
The peace of the perfectly present moment, in which dwells the kingdom of heaven, is what our heart of hearts longs to know.