Student Talks: 8/23/2024 - Key Lesson: When, before our inner eyes, we always have someplace better to be, or find ourselves struggling to "add a cubit to our stature," we miss seeing two great liberating truths: First, all imagined destinations are dreams whose promised fulfillment fades the nearer we draw to them... And secondly, blinded as we are by our hope in this "tomorrow" that never comes, we miss seeing -- and realizing -- that our True Self...

Student Talks: 4/19/2024 - Key Lesson: If -- by the light of remembering and considering what is Timeless, Holy, and True -- the heart is warmed and gradually enflamed, then the following must be true, even if yet to be seen: within us must dwell some sort of celestial kindling; what else can explain how such a flame is created, let alone serve as a light in the darkness of the soul... uniting the twain, making of them as one.

Topics covered:  You can't know with your mind what is calling you to make the interior journey that saints and sages have spoken about; "Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing there is a field. I’ll meet you there." -- Jalal al-Din Rumi -- "For he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." -- New Testament -- These two passages are essentially saying the same thing; Part of the interior journey is to enter into another order of being that allows for the opposites to pass through its field of awareness, but is never defined by those opposites.

Classroom Talk: 4/21/2024 - A tree has many leaves, and -- in one way or another -- the wind touches all of them; some shake, some quiver, some hardly move at all. And, yes: it may be said the tree "knows" their trembling; but neither the wind, nor the leaves it stirs are the tree that feels their passing touch. Thoughts and feelings are like leaves; learning to watch them move is much better than being carried away with every breeze.

Student Talks: 6/7/2024 - Key Lesson: It's well known that storm-tossed waves often expose new treasures along the shoreline... and there is unexpected wealth to be collected by those who know the secret value of rough seas. And yet, even though most of us have little tolerance for anything that "rocks our boat," the truth of the matter is self-evident: Unwanted moments introduce us to dark parts of ourselves that would otherwise never be...

Classroom Talk: 11/13/2024 - How desire always imagines a solution to whatever our painful problem may be, often seeming to arrive at what feels like the perfect answer. But, desire itself is imperfect, because it is the incomplete work of an incomplete nature... trying to perfect itself as it imagines it must in order to be free. And yet, as paradoxical as it may seem, it is only through our awareness of imperfection that the light of the Divine reveals...

Classroom Talk: 2/25/2024 - Just as the eyes that see the sun cannot understand its light by which they behold the shape and beauty of all things, neither can the heart understand the love that calls it to know and encompass all things. Eye and heart are creatures in time, but Light and Love are not. Even so, all meet; and to be a silent witness to their inexpressible union... is to realize the pathless journey to the indwelling Divine.

Topics covered:  The interior path does not necessarily change what you do with your life, but it will change the reason why you do it; "'Master, which is the great commandment in the law?' Jesus said unto him, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.'" -- New Testament; Every law that is made to resolve a conflict creates more conflict, which then requires the creation of more laws to replace the law that did not work.

Topics covered:  "Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." -- New Testament; Everyday you make choices that are given to you by something that is stealing your life; You believe that you are making an intelligent choice when you are afraid. You believe that the fear will deliver you from fear, that the anxiety will deliver you from anxiety, that the doubt will deliver you from doubt, etc.

Classroom Talk: 6/22/2024 - We have yet to see the following truth, let alone realize the immensity of its implication: Whenever we identify with any negative reaction born of some unwanted moment, all we can see is what we don't want to be! So that the more we resist the conflict inherent in moments such as these, the more we fall under the authority of an unconscious nature that keeps struggling, in vain, to escape the unwanted experience of itself.

Student Talks: 4/26/2024 - Key Lesson: A tree has many leaves, and -- in one way or another -- the wind touches all of them; some shake, some quiver, some hardly move at all. And, yes: it may be said the tree "knows" their trembling; but neither the wind, nor the leaves it stirs are the tree that feels their passing touch. Thoughts and feelings are like leaves; learning to watch them move is much better than being carried away with every breeze.

Student Talks: 3/1/2024 - Key Lesson: Just as the eyes that see the sun cannot understand its light by which they behold the shape and beauty of all things, neither can the heart understand the love that calls it to know and encompass all things. Eye and heart are creatures in time, but Light and Love are not. Even so, all meet; and to be a silent witness to their inexpressible union... is to realize the pathless journey to the indwelling Divine.