There is one question that has been on my mind for awhile. Since we are spiritual beings, don't we have the right to kill ourselves like King Saul in the Bible? Or are we imprisoned in the physical form until death desires to come? I desire death of the body now... can't I just do that? Since we do not belong in this world anyway, what is wrong with committing suicide? I'm afraid I will be swa...

Classroom Talk: 8/7/2002 - Part 1: No animal hides in shame for being itself. No tree bends to the opinion of others. No wind avoids the granite face before it; only human beings cultivate ways in which to cower before one another, and all for the sake of winning nothing other than a fleeting feeling that for their cunning they have either stayed the tide of something unwanted or have momentarily won the object of their desire.

Topics Covered: What do we all really need in this life? We need to be loved; Everything we do in this life, however mistaken or incomplete it may be, is for the sake of feeling loved. But there is an immense difference between feeling loved and being loved. Feeling loved is a desire; being loved is an action; In order to love you as myself I must first stop trying to make you into me.

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...

Topics covered: Tension is the outward expression of a psychological self; The full range of the nefesh is in a human being; It's the sun behind the beam of light that changes the human being; The more you understand yourself, the more you understand there's no one there; I'm a walking 'No!'; Right now our resistance is reconciled by negative states; Desire is yes and no at once; You have to b...

Topics covered: You are not whole inside; A new order of attention is born out of outgrowing the positive and negative stimuli of desire; The wish and the work that it takes to change yourself is incompatible with the wish to be comfortable; The pursuit of comfort is always born out of resistance; Real comfort is the absence of the opposites; Bible passage: The light dwelleth in the darkness a...

Featured Study Group Topic for the Week of April 18, 2016. The reason he's able to be present, quietly aware of and attentive to the movement of his own thoughts and feelings, is because he's not trying to go somewhere, get something, or become someone 'special.' He is without tension because he sees that identifying with whatever the flavor of desire may be in the moment is the same as allowi...

Surrender of self is not the beginning of something "better" to come; it does not set the stage for the gain of anything, but spells the end of that nature in ourselves that ever holds onto the hope of "saving" itself with what it can imagine.

Topics covered: Why is it so difficult to stay present; I wish to be in a relationship and feel powerless against that desire; I have so many questions about the work but when I get the opportunity to ask them I freeze up; I have a terminal illness and wish to use it for my spiritual growth; How do I bring my spiritual life together with my professional life; How can I be an effective mentor w...

Topics covered: Wanting to feel unique and special; There are two types of attention -- that which is produced by desire and that which is born of humility; Why is there a general angst in us; If you don't run from Truth, it will run to you and give you everything you need; The only thing you truly control in your life is your attention and where you place it; People leave this work when their...

Featured Study Group Topic for the Week of December 25, 2017. What I am -- whatever its nature in an unwanted moment -- is one and the same as that moment I don't want.

Given what we know about resistance, what does the biblical passage mean to "resist the devil and he will flee"?...