Gradually I'm beginning to realize that my pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain are the opposites of a single thought. How do I back up and see the whole thing in its entirety, so as to be free from this unconscious duality? The understanding of the operation of the opposites is not an intellectual act. Using reason to try to escape the opposites, to negate them, is just the begi...
And I saw a vision of a gleaming white castle with a narrow footpath leading up to its great white gates. This walkway -- extending out from the gates as far as the eye could see -- was so worn that it appeared to the eye as a kind of cut-mark several feet deep. And when I asked a nearby angel as to the nature of this Bright Place -- and why the path leading up to it was so well-worn, she repl...
Our eyes and ears, thoughts and feelings, empower us to move freely through the extraordinary web of life of which we're a part. But these gifts of perception, as considerable as they may be, are more like a looking glass than they are the keys to that secret kingdom of freedom we seek. With their aid, we can almost see into, and so confirm, that innermost realm where our heart senses we belong.
The wish itself -- to be a higher person -- comes to you from a higher place and is received in its inner equivalent within you. This means there's already an existing connection between the you that you want to be and the you that you presently are; between the new destiny you would have, and the fortunes you've known. All you have to do is stay on the royal road that has brought you up to th...
Once we start to see, to know in our innermost heart, that life itself is already complete, we can let go of whatever -- or whoever -- would have us believe otherwise. Old attachments and their long-standing aches are now seen for being what they have always been: appendages of days gone by, worthless to the Higher Self we have agreed to become and by whose stillness we realize this need for a...
Special Insight: Never mind how much there may be to do, or how hard some task appears to be. Get one thing done and then, take that step again. Consciously brush aside any other concerns. Do what's in your power. Refuse to deal with what's not. Exercise and Instruction Have you ever had this experience? You're faced with so many things that have to be done in a timely manner...
You must do in life what you alone have been "created" to do, which doesn't mean that your fate is your destiny; because in fulfilling this responsibility -- of what you have been given to be -- you also realize the possibility of transcending the nature that accompanied you into this life, and whose essence constitutes the possibilities of your character at birth. Consider the seemingly disp...
There is a lower world where fears are real -- where all things, and everyone living in this world, are unknowing participants in the fear that's found there. In this darker realm, the thing feared is inseparable from the nature that fears it, so that any action taken by this nature to end the fear it feels becomes the seed of its next fearful state. For example, say that you're worried that...
No human being is a victim of any punishment outside of their own undeveloped life-level from which their inner reactions are seen as outer attacks.
The truth is that letting go is very simple and, above all, natural; as natural for you and I as it is for a tree to shed the heavy, sun-ripened fruit that clings to its branches. Why? Because both man and tree, in fact all living things, are created to drop what is no longer needed. For the tree, the falling fruit carries its matured seed to the ground. No unnatural force is necessary. In a similar fashion -- that is to say, under higher but equally exacting laws...
Whenever painful events happen, they tend to fall on only one of two sides of a person. The first side is the denial side. When turning this way, refusal rules. Regret, self-pity, and endless explanations generally follow. Or, the unwanted moment falls on the angry side, where the turning is to burning. Resentment rages. Hatred and feelings of betrayal mushroom into....
Think for a moment what your life would be like if you lived in a world where reality and your happiness were one and the same -- where everything that happened in your life was always just what you wanted. Imagine it! No event, no condition could do anything but contribute to your well-being. Every day, everyone and everything would work in your favor. And since your contentment in this new...