Classroom Talk: 9/19/2004 - The price of possessing ourselves, of being empowered to live with a calm mind and a compassionate heart, begins with the conscious act of letting go of our "tomorrows" so that we may know ourselves in and through each and every moment of our day.

Topics covered: A New Year, a New Life, a New You; We are made to be renewed, and have to learn to live where renewal is unfolding; What is a rut other than yesterday's dream?; To be a new human being doesn't mean something I do to myself; We are endowed with the capacity to explore our own consciousness; Remodeling the world around me is not the same as being in a relationship with the Divine...

To live in the true "here and now" it follows that you must be aware of where you are each moment; and to be "where" you are, you must be fully aware of what you are as well Because where you are and what you are can no more be separated from one another than a great oak tree can survive and thrive apart from the ground out of which it grows.

Classroom Talk: 10/28/2004 - No one lets go who refuses to see that what is hurting him and what he is holding onto are one and the same.

It is in the acceptance of life as it is - as it is given to us in each moment - that we find the wholeness, the holiness that is the one true center of this storm called "life".

God's ever-present life pours into the soul willing to let go of what it has been for the sake of His Love.

The real reason for our impatience is not the condition upon which we blame it: impatience -- along with its dark fraternal twin, frustration -- is born of our refusal to realize some present limitation and to remain conscious of it until it can be outgrown and transformed.

Question: Many paths emphasize the importance of balance and alignment. Can you comment on what it means to be "aligned"? Answer: Real alignment would be the ability of an individual to participate in life as it's happening. We have a mindset that starts falsely from a comparative basis. So when we hear the word "alignment" we think to ourselves as a positive outcome, in the flow. And when we...

The principle longing we have as human beings is to be ourselves. But this essential longing is always interfered with by something. Here is the essence of the problem: you can never be yourself and protect yourself at the same time. Why? Personality has two principle functions: procurement, which is getting what I desire, and protection, which involves keeping things away from me that threat...

The practice of anchoring our attention in the present moment helps dissolve the suffering born of revisiting any painful moment...

If I were to leave a single message to the world, it would be quite simple: Your life, with all its unique experiences on this earth, is part of a much greater story. Yes, we can create, manifest pretty much what we will, but we are first and foremost creations ourselves, a vital convergence of celestial and earthly forces that are ceaselessly being expressed in what I call the "Presence moment."

Meeting life with the pretense that we already know what it's all about keeps us from discovering what we are all about.