Just as the light of a candle can’t be moved by the shadows it casts, so is there within us a Light that can reveal and observe a reaction without being identified with it, let alone be moved by its shape or character.

While it's impossible to be entirely free of a psychological body -- including the elements inherent in the constant appearance of its deeply conditioned reactions -- we are free to change our relationship to that body...

There is no reward for love, let alone for being “loving.” Either love ITSELF is the reward, or it is not.

In many ways, true blessings often come disguised as the worst moments; and yet, those who are patient enough to live in the presence of what seems to be a loss, or painful limitation of some kind, will soon see...

It is a distinct stage in the development of the aspirant when -- rather than being easily distracted by some imagined consolation for his pain, or by concluding who is to blame for it -- his first and real preference...

There is a very strange feature as concerns most human beings: we would rather feel anxious thinking about unwanted moments over which we have no power, than to practice placing our attention in the fact of that moment...

The sooner we stop looking for, and finding fault with others, the sooner we will see -- and more urgent will become -- our emerging need to heal ourselves. Where, by the nature of this special work within -- and upon ourselves -- the brighter, gentler will the whole world be.

When we’ve seen that we can’t "prove" ourselves in this world without having first compared ourselves to it -- and that this endless comparison is the unseen root of conflict...

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...

Knowledge without spirit is like finding yourself on a cold night with all the wood in the world and not a flame with which to light it. Many are the false beliefs that create real pain...

As long as what others may, or may not do determines the choices we make -- including the corresponding course of action we take -- we are as a ship at sea with neither rudder nor compass, where our destination is determined by whatever turns out to be the prevailing current of the day.

What power has any painful moment over us save for having become unconsciously identified with our own negative reaction to it. Seen properly, this means the event we blame for our suffering is like looking in a mirror... and blaming the reflection for whatever we don’t want to see in it!