The gradual realization that you need never again try to find yourself in your thoughts about yourself is like one day happily realizing that hitting yourself over the head was the cause and not the cure for your daily headaches. To your grateful amazement, you discover that the inner-pounding you so wished would go away finally came to a stop when you stopped pounding. This startling realiz...

Topics covered: I had a stressful experience at the hospital recently; What is the meaning of 'You cannot serve two masters for you will love one and despise the other'; Why do I feel pressure to act a certain way; I'm attached to my pain; What is your view on destiny; How do you 'will' physical pain; Learning that what I feel is not True I; Life begins and ends in mystery, and death makes no...

The meditative life is not limited to sitting down someplace quietly, nor is it limited to someplace in time where we can control conditions so that we can experience something of a quiet mind. It can be said that meditation is the active relationship that an individual has with the whole of his or her life. Indeed, if we were able to see clearly enough into our own life, we would see some...

Topics covered: When you are overwhelmed by multiple feelings at once, do you observe the feelings separately or collectively; Do you have plans to write a book on the deeper meanings of Christ's teachings; Can we turn around the negativity that has been perfecting itself within us; What do we do about feelings of superiority towards others; Can you tell us more about your background; How do I...

Topics covered: How do I deal with a pattern of anxiety and stress; What is Being; Why am I unable to act quickly on what I know I need to do; Our present nature is constantly in a dream; We don't see the pit coming because we're already in it. The consciousness itself is the pit; Dreaming in physical sleep versus dreaming in spiritual sleep; We dream because we want to escape what we are; Pai...

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

We cannot “make” things whole any more than the moon makes itself full by its own light. Rather our work is to serve as a witness to life’s ceaseless, concurrent appearance of fullness and emptiness and...

Topics covered:  The true interior path is about ceaseless exploration, not about coming to conclusions. We get stressed every time we come to a conclusion. Exploration stops when we come to a conclusion; The advanced spiritual life is already here in every moment, not in what you imagine the spiritual life is supposed to be; Nothing can grow without humility, because for anything to grow it must be in a position of receiving, yielding to what is above. No humility, no transformation.

Everyone can agree that no intelligent, conscious man or woman would ever intentionally hurt him- or herself. No one would choose to ache. Yet the fact remains that all of us do hurt ourselves every day when we harbor self-compromising thoughts and feelings like anger, stress, and resentment. Even at the simplest level, there is no doubt that fear and worry take an immense toll on our health and well-being.

Why is it that we will challenge and then work to change the world's opinions as they concern us, but we never question our own beliefs no matter how much personal pressure, stress and anxiety they may produce? For example, we wouldn't dream of diving for sunken treasure in our bathtub because we know that the best we can hope to find there are a few plastic pearls. And yet we still dive headl...

In nature, hurricanes occur when walls of thunderstorms are driven up the center, producing a vortex -- an "eye" -- where, while everything else is total turmoil in and around it, there is complete silence and stillness in the center.

Discontentment is a kind of psychic echo. In fact, whatever the unhappiness may be, it is only an inner echo that is "sounding" within us. As difficult as it may be to understand this at the present time, suffering only seems real. It has no real life. How is this possible? Our inner stress, strain, and pain feel real to us, for sure; but then, so do all of the fears we feel in the middle...