Are failures in life inevitable? Does the Higher Power, once attained, see to it that we only succeed? Try to understand the difference between living from something within yourself, whose nature is contentment itself, and living from those parts of yourself that are forever seeking contentment. For the man or woman who persists with the wish for Truth/God to be first in life, there reall...

It is an unthinkable spiritual paradox that before one can ever hope to be dressed for the marriage divine, one must first see how unsuited he or she is to know such a Love.

Topics explored in this dialogue: Real spiritual evolution is voluntary, it doesn't take place automatically through belief alone; You are given free will, and it is up to you to decide what to be in relationship with in this life; Every creature on this planet is experiencing a heightened type of energy, and it is up to us to meet these moments of accelerated energy...

Classroom Talk: 11/25/2001 - All who are asleep to themselves live in the same world of worry and woe, fear and frustration, regardless if they dwell in rambling shacks or richly appointed castles. The only difference between spiritually sleeping people is the temporary nature of the dream they dream from which they have no choice but to be painfully awakened.

Nothing seems harder to accept than some of the strange and often shocking spiritual facts to which we are awakening. After all, who would ever believe that we are responsible for so much of what proves to be unnecessary suffering? But with the help of honest self-investigation, we begin to learn that we must challenge this involuntary, often intractable refusal to consider such ideas. The tru...

Freedom, real freedom, does exist. But it is not a condition of events, nor is it found within another person's approval of us. Neither is real freedom ever a mere effect of circumstances, otherwise it is not freedom but merely a temporary pleasure we have mistaken for being the same as being free...

Topics covered: persisting, persistence, speaking your heart, from the heart, affirming what you know is true, nervous, spiritual warrior, courageous...

Key Lesson: Part 1: The divided mind -- driven as it is by unconscious desires -- is very similar to a dog that has learned to throw its own stick. It cannot come to a rest until it has exhausted itself, and even then it can’t let go of what it feels compelled to chase. Part 2: The cost of starting over spiritually is not what we pay to achieve some distant desire, but it is in our...

Topics covered: You live your life through the eyes and I's you see through; Reactions are memories; Thought is a form of ceaseless discontinuity; You live with a constant sense of being overwhelmed by life; Your life is not separate from all of life; You cannot grow as a true spiritual man or woman until you're willing to assume responsibility for the whole world; What to do with pain when yo...

Topics covered: The benefits of illustrating higher ideas using parables; How journaling helps to align us with higher parts; When does the real journey begin; We are the recipient's of conscious shocks and what they serve to show us; Fear always contains imaginings; Outgrowing desire as a sense of self; What is greed; Logos and the three forces; Spiritual evolution as a voluntary action; Real...

Topics covered: The purpose of your work at this stage of development is the continual realization that you're nothing; Your task is to see, not to be; Our tendency is to love the feeling of being absorbed; We are intended to be an experience; Personality is a machine; Your spiritual work gives you new things to remember and a new place within yourself to integrate them; It's the task of the a...

Many of us have perhaps had the experience of accidentally nodding off while driving on the freeway. After coming awake, we suddenly realize with tremendous alarm that we just fell asleep in a vehicle moving at 80 miles per hour. At that point we do whatever we have to do to make sure that we do not fall asleep again. Spiritually speaking,