Resisting any unwanted or otherwise painful state guarantees its unseen cause that lies concealed within oneself will never be revealed. What remains concealed cannot be healed, which means its negative effect will never go away. Summary: self-revelation is the same as rising above whatever is pulling you down.

To see that the speed with which a part of you leaps up to blame others for your suffering... is directly proportionate to the pain you're in before you lash out... is the beginning of the end of having any enemies in your life.

Spiritually speaking, all relationships serve one purpose: self-knowledge. Self-knowledge serves one purpose: awakening to the truth of one's self. Awakening to the truth of oneself serves one purpose: dying to oneself. Dying to oneself serves one purpose: rebirth. And rebirth is... the purpose and fulfillment of all relationships.

The Mind sees. The Heart encounters. Thought takes and makes a picture. The self details and enlarges this image as... The body assumes its shape, taking on its character. This descent is so gradual it progresses almost unnoticed. Unattended, the predictable outcome is imprisonment by identification.

I have been trying so hard to meditate and to see myself as I truly am. I just can't help but wonder if I'm doing it right? I worry that I won't get it right before my body dies and then I won't be able to enter the kingdom. If God is a loving God then why would he make it so difficult to reach Him? What if I can't figure out what He wants of me? Do I go to hell because I didn't do what was ne...

There is only one path that leads to a relationship with what is holy, and therefore perfectly complete... And that is to see -- without flinching, and finally without regret -- that all of the (seemingly attractive) paths through this life always end right where they began: in a too-familiar, but terrible, sense of emptiness.

False helplessness brings only false help, as in the way moaning over finances attracts shady schemes and deceitful people to help you "get rich quick". Real helplessness draws real help to you... as in the way a new mother runs to lift her child who has just fallen upon taking his first steps.

Part 1 True silence doesn't have intelligence -- it is intelligence of an order, which a divided mind cannot comprehend. Its peace surpasses all understanding. Part 2 Only your work to patiently stand in the presence of a negative state can render it powerless and prove -- at the same time -- it's a pain pointless.

Psychologically speaking, what is true requires no protection, and never becomes negative when challenged. On the other hand, what is false almost never stops trying to protect itself, which it does by finding fault with whatever or whoever challenges the false image behind which it always hides.

Life is change; it is creation revealing itself. We can either realize our existence within its movement as a designated part of its divine design, or we can continue to struggle with unwanted moments in the false belief that our pain proves we know how the story of life is supposed to unfold.

We are not meant to keep our eye on some "tomorrow" from which we blindly borrow the false pleasure of what "might be." Such dreams serve nothing save the sleeping self, an imagined sense of "self" that always realizes, too late, that its "hope in things seen" is the same as tomorrow's sorrow.

The pressure behind the momentum inherent in any imaginary "train of thought" is never really obvious until reality "interferes" with, or derails that train. These collisions -- and the prerequisite "end of the line" for the self that is identified with its imagined destination -- are usually expressed in fits of anger, fear, disbelief, or depression.