Student Talks: 11/08/2024 - Key Lesson: Persistence – without our awareness of the parts of us that steadily insist there’s no further we can go – is a recipe for frustration; this painful sense of self slowly morphs from simple despair into an unholy cynicism that, in turn, serves to confirm what we see as our own unwanted, but unavoidable conclusion: we’ve no other choice but to give up our wish to transcend whatever limitation we’d been called to outgrow.

Most people want very much to be strong, but they do not seem to be able to find the real strength they yearn for. Instead, they find qualities that pass themselves off as strength, but secretly leave them feeling weak. Here are some examples of false strength: * lashing out in anger when frustrated * demanding that we are right * blaming someone else for causing the problem * being loud and...

All unconscious negative reactions -- with others, events, or with ourselves -- deflect this one crucial revelation: as long as we meet life with any compulsive demand or unseen craving, we can’t help but be painfully remanded into the hands of one self-punishing reaction after another...

One way or another, we all suffer over things that we can't stop doing to ourselves or to others. Adding to the conflict inherent in self-compromising behaviors is the fact that it's frustrating beyond belief since most of us (in some way) have built a business, worked, and succeeded in some place - won accolades, impressed our friends - and we've weathered storms.

More often than not, aspirants fail to see the following truth that -- only as realized -- sets the stage for a new and unimaginable spiritual order of freedom: spiritual facts, left to themselves -- regardless how elevated or sublime -- morph into an unseen psychological trap: a literal web of soul-entangling concepts that, when not consciously acted on...

The real reason for being impatient with ourselves, or with others, has nothing to do with the condition we blame it on...

Whatever storms you are given to face on your long journey back home, work to remember this truth... and be assured the day will dawn when you will know the unconditional freedom you seek: Your struggle is with yourself, and yourself only.

The real reason for impatience with ourselves, or with any other... has nothing to do with what, or who is blamed for it...

The ever-anxious feeling that life owes us something -- that we’re entitled to have our demands met -- creates two problems at once...

Hoping that a memory from “days gone-by” can show you the way out of any unwanted moment -- and into a safer time to come -- is like finding yourself lost in a dark canyon, and following the echo of your own plaintive voice...

If the power, and all the resources we have at hand to physically comfort ourselves could provide peace of heart and mind... then individual and global conflict would’ve ceased long ago. But exactly the opposite is true...

The next time you feel yourself starting to become frustrated, angry or scared, do your best to confirm this vital insight: Negative emotions cannot exist without having something to blame for their punishing presence. The clearer for yourself you can make this spiritual fact -- about the dualistic nature of spiritual weakness -- the better prepared you'll be to take your next step toward hig...