Some days the hits just keep coming...and some days just hit harder than others! But then - just when you least expect it - and always when you feel least prepared, there comes a moment that completely overwhelms you; in an instant you're upside down, head under water, with nothing to grab onto but your own frantic thoughts...
Outgrowing the problems created in the way we think begins with realizing the need to not only understand the nature of these invisible building blocks known as our thoughts, but to be able to peer into the structure of the invisible world these same thoughts create.
We are a peculiar race of beings. On one hand, each of us professes to be concerned with growing and self-developing while, on the other hand, none of us ever wants to be wrong. This is a paralyzing contradiction...
What is the source of the "blues," and what is the most effective way to begin shaking it? When I find myself feeling depressed -- in the dumps so to speak -- I tend to see myself as the victim of whatever situation is at hand. Then the more I find reasons to justify being the victim, the longer I tend to stay at my personal pity party. What would it take to snap myself out of this sad stupor...
Our lives are nothing but a series of invitations, a series of moments in which we run into what we don't know. And in this experience of our own limitations, something good and natural takes place. In its constant stirring and seeking, life feeds back to us the boundaries determined by our present understanding.
If you've ever been in a condition where you've found yourself in a rut -- maybe you can't stop thinking about something, maybe there's a problem that you wish you could just get past but the conditions of your life won't allow you to do it, or maybe you want to make a real change but you look at your life and say, "It's impossible, the situation I'm in" -- in such moments, apart from natural responsibility (should you have that) to those who are dependent...
We are born into a universe of exchange, always bathing in a host of light, vibration, and sound, produced by an exchange of infinite bodies that are a part of our reality, both visible and invisible. But how aware am I -- in my body, in my life -- that everything exists as it does for me, even my very breath, because there's an exchange taking place?
Living from our present life-level, we are almost always nervous about what's going on around us. Why? Because we still live with the mistaken notion that who we are is somehow affected or determined by what happens to us. Events may happen to you, but you are not the event. Just as clouds are not the sky, you are not what moves through you. You are not who you think you are.
Have you ever noticed that when you're under the cloud of some negative state, what you do to try to "make things better" actually makes the situation worse? Struggling to free yourself from your own negative reactions is a bit like throwing gasoline onto a fire, isn't it? Recognizing that you get trapped in this pattern of taking action that neither relieves nor rescues you from...
If we were to take the whole human race and try to see its nature as being one creature, what kind of animal comes to mind for you? For me, the answer is evident: humankind most resembles an ostrich. When a disturbance comes along this creature sticks its head in the sand so as not to see what's taking place. This is not unlike closing our eyes in the hope that an approaching...
What many of us have yet to understand is that dark, negative reactions to unwanted events do nothing to cure them. In fact, these painful impulses have just the opposite effect. They actually "cement" things -- fixing both themselves and the false sense of self through which they then are empowered to run their unhappy course.
There is one power of a free mind you already possess which can not only build a ladder that reaches from one life level to the next, but this same power helps you climb that ladder so you may enter each successive realm. What is this secret strength at the source of self-elevation? You can learn. These three words -- I can learn -- are the most powerful three words in any language. Not...