Picture a man who just heard that one of his closest friends has betrayed him. How does he respond? What's his first answer to this ordeal? Anger that includes plans for revenge. Imagine a woman who suddenly realizes she's going to be late for an important appointment. There's no way to make it on time. How does she meet the pressure of this moment? What's her first answer to running out o...

Properly understood, everything in life that now disturbs us is intended to lead us to a world in which who we are lives as one with all that takes place within it.

We must recognize the almost endless cycle of pressure, anxiety, anger, and regret that always appears with the promise that if we follow that branch of negativity, it will lead us back to the source of understanding where we'll be free at last. In fact, that branch we're tempted to follow belongs to something that can never complete itself, and that requires our energy to sustain it.

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...

Topics Covered: We realize what is timeless by dying to the nature that is in time; Thought is time; Timelessness holds all of us; Reactions belong to a part of us, but are not the whole of us; If you change, all of consciousness changes; The right to be present cannot be stolen from you; Remembering is entering into an order of memory that already exists; True helplessness is seeing...

Topics Covered: Trying to change yourself; Wishing that I wasn't that; Attention is taken by the reaction; Not my will but Thy will be done; Sit in the light of awareness of my powerlessness; Of myself I can do nothing; It isn't "your" consciousness, it is our consciousness; Thy will is to see and reveal my will; Who you really are doesn't need a future; Joy is discovering that...

Identifying with a negative state -- and resenting someone else for how you feel -- is like bumping your elbow on your own bedroom door and blaming your next-door neighbor for the pain you're in!...

When it comes to your sense of being a captive in life, held helpless there by conditions beyond your control, you may take heart in this spiritual fact -- but only if you follow it all the way to your freedom: a deep illusion has no more reality to it than does a shallow one!

As difficult as it may be to see, always strive to remember the following truth: The way you feel about any given moment is because of what you think you know about that moment. In other words, while it may seem that you're frustrated because you want to understand your experience, the truth is, it's your present level of being that's creating your frustration as well as the..."

The last thing we want to learn is that no fight of ours can ever end in a victory -- unless it's born of our struggle to die to what wages war within us.

Yours is also the right to effortlessly recognize and release anger and frustration, to be able to see them for exactly what they are -- false powers disguised as helpful guides in times of duress.

Topic: Anchor Yourself in the World Above Anger, Fear, and Worry (Classroom Talk 7/19/23)