Classroom Talk: 11/15/2002 - Unseen by us, but with real enough effect upon us, is that our constant internal commentary about the conditions going on around us surrounds us; wrapping us up as in a blanket (of thought) that seems comforting to us for its familiar weave and pattern, but whose ever-shrinking fabric secretly covers up and smothers all that might be seen anew about life.

Classroom Talk: 9/11/2002 - Part 1: The reason that you give to yourself for the suffering that has come over you is, itself, a secret part of the suffering that overcomes you! Part 2: The only reason that your inner enemies, those dark negative states, have so much say over your life is because you are so willing to stand there and listen!

When we will be present to ourselves, quietly watchful of the relationship that is always unfolding in the Presence moment, then we have no more need to prepare for what life will bring to us than a newly opened rose needs ready itself for the warmth of the sun that comes to release its fragrance.

The quiet awareness of true stillness tells an untold story of a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Topics covered: Every time we have a rude awakening, the realization is quickly covered up with a new dream; There is something in you that lives to make sure that you forget what you need to remember; The problem with our model by which we will achieve endless happiness, is that the model does not stand the test of time; Until you experience for yourself the fact that nothing dies, you will always be afraid of death.

Topics covered: Our struggles to find freedom have not done anything other than set up the next series of conditions that we will find ourselves struggling against; Freedom has nothing to do with overcoming the conditions that we blame our pain on. What we must overcome is the level of consciousness that feels itself to be apart from the conditions that it perceives to be outside of itself; Useless struggle is battling with conditions that seem contrary...

We can't change others -- or the purpose of any given moment as it unfolds -- but we can work to place one less demand upon both.

Classroom Talk: 1/19/2003 - Just as winter yields to the onset of spring, as surely does the moon submit to the sun, so too are we created to give ourselves to that Greater Life that alone can make us evergreen and fill us with life-giving Light.

The key to the kingdom of heaven is never farther away from us than what each present moment reveals to us; for in truth "purity of heart" is inseparable from our willingness to see that things are the way they are because of the way we are.

Life -- this moment and every moment -- is a school for the education of the soul. At its heart is an invisible core curriculum, a kind of celestial "program" with one great purpose: to help us realize that behind each of the life-lessons that comes our way dwells a divine, just, and loving Intelligence that wants us to be one with its life.

Everything moves in ITS time, as are we intended to within that same movement. Learning what it means to be in this accord with Life, doing what it gives us (to do and to be) in the moment appointed is our path, gradually leading us to a kind of perfection without pride even as it fulfills our purpose at the same time.

We can't change others -- or the purpose of any given moment as it unfolds; but we can work to place one less demand upon both. Only in this action can we hope to find the freedom for which we seek, because the only thing that imprisons us -- in the end -- is our resistance to whatever runs against our deeply seated demands.