Which would you rather have: a treasure room that is filled with an old potato, a worn-out shoe, and a dented can of Spam... or a room filled with precious stones, rare silks, and a chest of gold? It seems like a silly question, and yet... why do you choose a mind and heart filled with dark thoughts, anxiety, anger, and self-doubt when you could have a mind and heart...

Everything under the sun wants to be loved. Trees reach up for the sunlight that brings them life. Flowers need the touch of the bees that pollinate them. Babies cry out to be nourished and protected. We can state this same celestial principle in different words: Everything in existence seeks what it needs to complete itself... and this includes negative states like anger, resentment...

Topics covered: What does it mean to be fearless; Unwanted conditions work for the good of me; Real freedom in an awake life; Feeling inadequate is a mechanical response; There is no bad fact about me; All self-discovery is transformative; Events reveal what is already within us; Turn anger into compassion; What is in the way is part of the way; Negative imagination produces fear; The 'stop dr...

Topics covered: The only thing we know to do in unwanted moments is to reject them, and then listen for guidance from the part of us that responds in that way; In a disturbing moment, the resistance that comes up -- the onset of it -- is not yours; How many times are you going to struggle with fear, anxiety, depression, anger, and every other negative state?

To see that what makes unwanted moments feel so important to us can’t be separated from a powerful, but false sense of self provided by these same painful feelings... begins the process of separating ourselves from an unconscious self...

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...

Classroom Talk: 7/21/2024 - Until the peace and pleasure found within us is equal to - or greater than any consolation found outside of ourselves - then our power to be patient, loving, and profitable in every moment is, at best, conditional; nothing better serves to sustain anger, frustration, and fear than being identified with a level of self whose life is founded, at best, upon the sands of passing circumstances.

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

Featured Study Group Topic for the Week of March 28, 2016. Part 1: It is virtually impossible to consciously bear the unpleasant manifestation of any other human being until we have awakened to the same manifestation in ourselves, and learned to consciously suffer it. In other words, we can only bear in someone else what we have learned to bear in ourselves... which means none can be truly com...

We value negative states because of the strong sense of self we get from them. This may be very difficult for us to see, but a strong light will show us the freeing facts. No one wants to believe that he or she values things like self-pity, anger, and depression. We would insist we don't, and as evidence we point to the fact that we fight against them, but the struggle gives us a false sense of life and importance...

Topics covered: The only thing that sleeping human beings see are the reasons -- outside of themselves -- for their anxiety, anger, fear and negativity; It seems mandatory to have enemies because that nature feels as though everyone and everything is pressing-in on it; What we presently call love is dependent upon outside conditions giving us what we want; The real golden rule is: Don't do to others what you don't want done to you...

Topics covered: When you see the truth of something, there is no judgment or negativity in it. Real knowledge might have sorrow in it, but never anger or violence; Every time that you identify with a thought, you are actually praying for the experience that you don't want; You could not have so many things that you don't want without comparison; The only thing that you suffer over psychologically is what you know...