Wisdom

Remastered Classic Talk: 2/1/17 - 

Part 1: Between a reaction and our response (to it), we must find the will to repose. Without being able to enter into the timeless space between what stirs us, and what it reveals within us, it's likely that what we see as a wise choice (in that moment) will prove itself an action born of some ignorance yet to be realized.

Part 2: Knowledge doesn't exist without the past, while Wisdom has no past.

Topics covered: It is Grace that shows us our limitations and weaknesses, even as almost nothing in us wants to know about them; We have been deceived into protecting something in ourselves that lives to ruin our own lives, and by extension the lives of others; Is anger a strength or a weakness? Anger deceives us into believing it is a strength, but it is a weakness, a limitation that resists the moment and limits our possibilities.

Topics covered:  The last thing that human beings want to give up is their suffering; The root of every ongoing, painful psychological struggle is the attempt to avoid suffering; None of the chronic psychological pains that we experience in our lives exist without the corresponding things outside of ourselves that we blame them on.

Classroom Talk: 10/9/2024 - Anyone who refuses to face their fears will never know the true nature of faith, let alone its power to dispel any form of worry, confusion, or painful self-doubt.

Only as we run out of ways to explain our pain to ourselves do we come to realize the true source of that suffering; a revelation that includes the shocking fact that whatever keeps giving us the reasons for this pain... is inseparable from its unwanted, yet unabated continuation.

Student Talks: 5/17/2024 - Key Lesson: There is no out-running any unwanted sense of self...any more than the dark shadows of a wind-swept tree in the late-afternoon sun can escape its own branches that first creates them, and then casts them out into the world.

Student Talks: 5/13/2022 - Key Lesson: As long as our reactions are seen as choices, and the "voices" that support them as thoughts of our own, it doesn't matter what we call our life... any more than calling a circle a straight line changes the fact that all it does is go round and round.

Topics covered: The last thing that occurs to you when you are negative is doubt about the reasons for the negativity. Doubt should be the first thing that occurs to you; Honesty and genuine humility are directly connected to each other; The possibilities of a negative reaction are limited to the content of the consciousness that is embroiled in the reaction; A negative reaction comes...

Topic: Uncover the Divine Treasure Hidden in Every Moment (Classroom Talk 1/19/22)

Topics covered: We cannot add anything to what we already are by pursuing what we want; There can be nothing more upside-down than people being unable to see that their life is being given to them; "Hope in things seen" is the same as hope in a time to come. Wanting (and not wanting) is always in time; There is a wisdom that transcends desire; Whatever state you find yourself in...

Classroom Talk: 1/19/2022 - Divine wisdom refreshes the soul by renewing (its) faith... but not faith in the hope of a time to come; rather the willing soul flourishes in the Light of its timeless relationship with revelation... and the consequent realization it has already been given all that is Good, True, and Everlasting.