I spent this last weekend (of June) in Stockbridge, MA., presenting a 3-day intensive workshop at the Kripalu Institute. During one of the talks, I spoke about a particuilar set of special ideas that struck a note with many of the people there, and I was asked to provide them with a hard copy of those ideas...for reference and as something to later ponder. The piece that follows is developed...

Higher inner awareness grants you patience and new forms of consideration, because now you realize just how much pain everyone is really in.

I know I should not worry about certain things in life; however, what am I to do when loved ones have chosen things that are not in keeping with the things that they have learned? What can I do to keep them safe and to guide them back on the right road? Inner work is not about trying not to worry. It is about seeing that worry doesn't work. How can a person who gives away his or her own lif...

Have you ever gotten angry at a knot? Maybe you couldn't get your shoelace undone, or clear that fishing line. A knot in a thin gold or silver neck chain can be especially difficult. When you fight with a knot you feel frustration. Now, if you think about it logically, clearly the knot has no intelligence of its own with which to thwart your intentions or make you feel angry. Yet when you figh...

Taking a conscious risk involves making a choice to do what's true, in spite of what that choice may cost you.

Have you ever noticed how the more negative you get, the more difficult everything about your life becomes, including being able to do the simplest things? It's like suddenly sinking into dark molasses, where not only can't you move, but everything you don't want seems stuck to you!...

We work very hard to correct conditions that are really no more than secondary outcomes, and not the real problem at all. We fight a daily war to protect ourselves against enemies that, in fact, never are responsible for the pain we feel. The unhappiness we feel is the bitter fruit of a lack of self-understanding. In our confusion we do many things that are self-harming. We do not deliberatel...

What we put first, the choices we make in life are a direct reflection of what we value. What this means is that our experience of life -- for its pain or pleasure, darkness or brightness -- is a perfect reflection of what we want most in that same moment. Prove this truth to yourself, and you will put yourself on the road to putting truth before all else. We all have to drive places... work,...

Whenever someone says something cruel, or otherwise does the unthinkable to us, our position towards this hurtful event is "calculated" right within our ensuing reaction to it -- a reaction that describes to us the nature of the perceived attack even as it formulates a response to it. But our red-seeing reactions read only the content of their own right to exist. Their report, all based upon t...

In order to have a sunny life on a moment-to-moment basis, you must be willing to let something new happen to you. No one sincerely asks for a new life until they are thoroughly dissatisfied with the old one. Letting go of the old ideas is the only way to really invite something new. Let's look at one example of how our new self-knowledge can turn a painful and repetitive unhappiness into a...

Our relationships, but especially with those we love, are a kind of "magic mirror." Our partner helps bring us into an awareness of qualities and characters that otherwise we'd never see as dwelling within us.

Until the peace and pleasure found within yourself is equal to or greater than any consolation found outside of yourself, then your power to be patient, loving, and profitable in every moment is, at best, conditional.