We must recognize the almost endless cycle of pressure, anxiety, anger, and regret that always appears with the promise that if we follow that branch of negativity, it will lead us back to the source of understanding where we'll be free at last. In fact, that branch we're tempted to follow belongs to something that can never complete itself, and that requires our energy to sustain it.

Topics Covered: Judgment is an unconscious reaction to an unwanted moment; Out of a disturbance can be born a new connection to the Divine that created that disturbance in the first place for the purpose of revelation; Reactions tell us what we should do to change the event that is unwanted by that reactionary nature; The work isn't about trying to become the new person that...

Classroom Talk: 8/29/2021 - Be wise. Stay attentive to all that you do, for there comes no second error that doesn't follow on the heels of a first.

Topic: The Karma-Free Path to Being Perfectly Complete (4/21/21 Classroom Talk)

Topics Covered:Real freedom cannot be shattered. What kind of freedom is it if it can be taken away?; The farther one travels, the less one knows; The outer world is not separate from the inner world in the usual way that we think; We usually think of karma in the sense of a painful consequence for having done something wrong. The word "karma" is more closely connected...

Classroom Talk: 4/21/2021 - Part 1: Every moment spent in the love of wisdom, accompanied by our wish to keep its company regardless the cost, helps us build an unseen but eternal bridge between the deepest and highest parts of ourselves. Part 2: The importance of working to develop our attention is found in the appearance of a new kind...

One of the sad reasons why so few men and women persist in the inner work necessary for higher self-discovery is because we have all become -- to one degree or another -- either an unwitting captive of, or willing participant in, what can only be described as a descending scale in the meaning of life. More simply stated, over time our values have been subtly shifting away from...

Topic: The Wisdom You Need to Surrender Useless Suffering (2/17/21 Classroom Talk)

Topics Covered: Everything is in the only place it can be in the moment. If we are struggling, then it is us who is in the wrong place; It is not really the same familiar day that we live over and over again. What we are really living over and over again is the familiar content of our own consciousness, which cannot be separated from the experience we have of life...

Classroom Talk: 2/17/2021 - In the end, the only thing we can truly be in charge of… is ourself. And yet, as paradoxical it seems, the cost of true self-command is the same as the conscious surrender of self.

Student Talks: 1/29/2021 - Key Lesson: Just as a those who climb mountains must, at times, reach above themselves to gain a grip on a narrow ledge, we too must dare to go beyond ourselves if we wish to reach, let alone change our destiny. To that end, we must never forget the following truth: There's no danger in self-ascent...

Topics Covered: To realize the truth of something means that there is a corresponding part of ourselves that resonates with it. Until we see the truth of something about ourselves, we are not going to change; Before we can change our destiny, we must wake up to the commands that are being given to us by a lower nature, sending us in circles. That lower nature loves...