The only reason that any of us ever feel as though we are left out, alone, or otherwise cut off from Love and Life is because we have been deceived into believing and embracing those thoughts telling us that the only company there is to keep is that of our own. Awakening from this dark dream is to cancel the curse inherent in being spiritually asleep.

Welcome and good evening. Our chat will begin once I post these opening remarks on the nature of spiritual battle, and what is required of us to overcome the darkness that has (so far) overcome us. The true spiritual battle occurs in the "dark" of us, a contest between the light of our wish to be better than the bitterness in us, or higher than some heartache or hatred dragging us down. Whate...

Topics covered: There is a memory of a spiritual order that comes as a sword between you and the world; Discussion of Gautama Buddha; The spiritual journey starts with a disturbance; You are being brought into an awakening; Our work is about gradually entering into an order of understanding that goes before us to keep us from identifying with our own knowledge; The Divine speaks to the Divine...

Topics covered: What is the single greatest obstacle to awakening; There is a nature in you that wants you to forget everything vital to you; God never ceases to be present; The sign of 'spiritual dehydration' is not being able to think of anyone but yourself; There's a fine line between surrender and discipline; Your Father knows what you need before you do; A spiritual school is necessary be...

One of the most difficult aspects of true spiritual work is the gradual, but necessary realization of just how divided is one's own consciousness. Yes, it sounds good to be an inner-adventurer, to "boldly go where no one has gone before" . . . but in practice, it's another whole story. Our present sense of self is based, almost entirely, on a largely accidental mix of familiar thoughts and fe...

Topic: Build Your Own Spiritual Gymnasium (8/10/14 Classroom Talk)...

Life, in the broadest sense of it, both spiritually and materially, is an expression of an eternal descending and ascending set of forces: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" -- the principle of expansion and contraction, light and darkness, ascending and descending archetype ideas then brought into physical creation.

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...

Featured Study Group Topic for the Week of October 14, 2013. As long as we remain asleep to the unconscious opposites operating within us, the stronger becomes their authority over us, which means we become weaker. But, our interior work to illuminate these same opposites weakens their influence over us, because the Light of this wisdom is the same as the strength we need to shatter the bonds...

The ache of any dark moment -- of any pain that makes life feel pointless -- is best reconciled by this revelation, and its implied action: yours is always the right to exchange any form of discouragement for the realization that nothing about it -- neither its pain, nor its attending sense of despair belongs to who you really are.

Topics covered: There is no more important time for you to do your spiritual work than when you least want to do it; The whole of this work is being willing to remember, when you don't want to remember it, that you had set an intention to be a certain type of being now and not later; Spiritual work begins when the question dawns on you: Why are there so many things that can so easily make me negative?

Topics covered: Why is it so difficult to stay present; I wish to be in a relationship and feel powerless against that desire; I have so many questions about the work but when I get the opportunity to ask them I freeze up; I have a terminal illness and wish to use it for my spiritual growth; How do I bring my spiritual life together with my professional life; How can I be an effective mentor w...