Remastered Classic Talk: 11/25/15 - 

Part 1: If it is our wish to touch what is whole, to be touched by what is holy... then we must stop "reaching" (for it) and start being the seeing that is already the whole of us.

Part 2: We cannot "make" things whole any more than the moon makes itself full by its own light. Rather our work is to serve as a witness to life's ceaseless, concurrent appearance of fullness and emptiness and, by so doing, to unite (within us) the awareness of Timeless consciousness with the experience of its own creations living in time.

To see what is true is not the same as being true to what you see, let alone working to embody it. Not yet. It's the beginning of it, because it's the invitation from truth. It touches you. It says, "Will you see this?" And then you either agree to see what the truth has requested you to see or you turn your eyes from it. And may God have mercy on the souls of the individuals who turn their eyes from what truth wants to show them...

A wild stallion was captured and put in a wood-fenced compound bordering the open country in which he once ran free. His first week in captivity he showed all the wildness of a once-free creature now penned; but in the weeks that followed, even the dried grasses once refused as food became not only tolerable but even agreeable.

In nature, hurricanes occur when walls of thunderstorms are driven up the center, producing a vortex -- an "eye" -- where, while everything else is total turmoil in and around it, there is complete silence and stillness in the center.

You and I live from a black and white mentality. That means, we live from a mind that, in its divided state, is entirely the captive of opposites. For us, this idea of good and bad, black and white, means that "I know." I was told what was good. And by the way, how were you told what was good? Here's your parent saying, "Don't you be like that. You told a fib. You white-lied. Oh, hell is coming to you, it is. Hell's coming to you because you never should lie.

You can't separate the meaning of this life from who you are and your relationship to it. They are inseparable. The kingdom of heaven is within. What do you think that means? Some lost horizon that one day you're going to arrive at? No, it means that this very moment is the expression of the kingdom and everything in the kingdom is present to you if you will be present to it.

If we mistakenly give any negative reaction its "life" -- then the opposite must hold true: we can consciously withdraw that same life any time we so choose!

How many of us have had moments in our lives where we have tried to escape certain qualities of ourselves by doing different things, only to find ourselves unable to escape the condition, unable to escape our present nature, so that finally the day comes where there's no escaping it, but there's no living with it either? And in the moment, we can no longer resist our own character based on the assumption that we ought not be that kind of human being.

If we can't give the whole of our attention to someone -- or, for that matter, to any moment -- then we can't listen. If we can't listen, we can't possibly hear the whole story...

Can we agree that our fearful conclusions about our life experiences are born of an incomplete perception? That when I see something wholly, there is a different quality to the event than when I look at something and it formulates for me my sense of identity? And then the next thing I know, I feel isolated. And when I'm isolated, strangely enough, I'm still overwhelmed with fear!

When this sensory mind of ours perceives life, it mistakenly sees things as happening to it from the outside in. How does this error in perception affect us? It means that we perceive life as a series of things coming at us. Everything about us is oriented outwardly, and it appears to us that our lives are being determined from the outside in.

Unconscious desire is the root of corruption. What I desire, what you desire -- whatever it may be -- we can find a way, as surely as the sun will rise, to justify what we want. And because we can justify what we want, it means, at any given point in time, the end will justify the means. "I need this because I was treated like this when I was growing up;" "I need this because I'm not as attractive as someone else;" "I have to have this because I'm getting older"...