Topics covered: The world's definition of peace is a state in which there is nothing interfering with what we want; One reason that we are drawn to nature is that everything in nature is in balance, everything is in its place as it should be; What you see as being out of place is not the problem. What is out of place is the level of consciousness itself that sees everything outside...

Topics covered: Real peace is beyond imagination because it transcends the self that imagines it; It is a person's ideas about the nature of peace that produce the conditions that are subsequently blamed for taking that imagined peace away; "The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword, are portions of eternity too great for the eye of man." -- William Blake

Topics covered: There is a peace that comes with any truthful impression that stands the test of time; "Wisdom is the principal thing. Therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting, get understanding." -- Proverbs, Old Testament; The source of every kind of psychological suffering is an individual's present level of understanding; The moment you do not understand is not something to fear...

Classroom Talk: 5/14/2004 - The best we can do for others, to help make their lives brighter, begins with the work of enlightening ourselves. In this manner -- from our first tentative steps toward a life in the Light, all the way to the summit of Higher Self-Understanding -- we agree to the task of never again allowing ourselves to darken the world of another.

To enter the true Now, where a timeless intelligence awaits, awake within itself, requires first that we align ourselves with the eternal principles that are its secret foundation. Let's look into one of the most fundamental of these empowering principles taught by every great teacher: We reap what we sow. In these so-called progressive times, this all but forgotten principle is as simple a...

Classroom Talk: 10/6/2019 - The more we awaken to realize our true role in life is to fill the gap between "what is" with "what has been" -- by agreeing to die to any part of us that would otherwise interfere with its atonement -- the more we see the truth that sets us free: our willingness to make this sacrifice aligns us, on the spot, with an ineffable peace...

Classroom Talk: 12/15/2021 - There are no shortcuts to stillness. There is no trying to be empty; with almost no exception, effort is ambition...and though it is full of becoming, it is empty of Being. The darkness of (spiritual) emptiness is inseparable from the Light of awareness by whose grace we are given to see the unthinkable: it is impossible to fill ourselves.

Classroom Talk: 9/29/2002 - Part 1: Self is a form of invisible psychic sludge; a residue imbued with certain mechanical forces that produces sensations of life without itself being alive. Part 2: The one true God is without a name; an Unknowable Nature whose Truth may be apprehended, but never comprehended. And our unknowable God lives in an equally unknowable Time: The Now; which is why only the Unknown may know itself!

The one who wants to 'get away from it all' -- to step out of the mad rush and enjoy some imagined 'well-earned rest' -- doesn't realize that the one who can't relax travels with him wherever he goes!...

Featured Study Group Topic for the Week of February 25, 2013. There is no greater, more reliable teacher of true self-knowledge than intentional patience and, when married to a willingness to observe oneself through the stillness and sacrifice that such patience demands, there exists no swifter, more sure path to self-realization.

There are parts of us that would rather be punished by unkind people than have to spend one minute being alone, because the only way these same parts in us can exist is if they have someone to resent or somehow fear. In this case we remain in these ruinous relationships because the fear or emptiness we feel in even considering leaving them seems to be too much to bear on our own. Here's the k...

Until you learn what it means to have your own life... it's owned by anyone and everything else from whom you want something.