Shadows are forms without substance that create contrast; thoughts are shadows whose substance -- when identified with -- seduce us into seeing a dark world filled with useless solutions to imagined fears.

Spiritually speaking, all relationships serve one purpose: self-knowledge. And self-knowledge, in turn, serves a single purpose: discovering the truth of oneself: an inner awakening that serves still a higher purpose: rebirth...the reconciliation, and fulfillment of all relationships.

No negative reaction has the power to release you from what it blames for your pain in that moment, any more than pulling on the tail of a lion has the power to release you from its mouth!

It should be obvious, but it's not: we can't protect our heart and keep it open at the same time, any more than it's possible to be covered by a shadow, and feel the caress of a sunbeam touching our face.

We can no more separate the way we experience any given moment from the level of consciousness involved in the way it unfolds than we can separate waves of water from the ocean that gives rise to them.

One of the hardest things to understand about the true spiritual path, and the struggles along the Way, is that the inner struggle we fear losing has already been won for us... if we will only (remember to) take our rightful place in the midst of that engagement...

There lives nothing real in our past -- regardless of how disappointing or painful it may have been -- that can grab us and make us its captive, any more than dark shadows have the power to keep us from walking into the sunlight.

Part 1: If we mistakenly give any negative reaction its "life" -- then the opposite must hold true: we can consciously withdraw that same life any time we so choose! Part 2: Starve a cold, feed a fever. Starve a reaction, feed your freedom!

It's impossible to die to the pain of our past... as long as we remain identified with an unconscious nature that can't seem to go through a day without reliving some dark memory it then summarily resists.

Any experience we don't want cannot be separated from our negative reaction to it; in truth, what we are actually disturbed by is being caught in the middle of an unseen conflict born of not wanting to experience our own unconscious reaction.

Anytime you feel the need to stand in the healing Light of the Divine -- and then act to honor that wish -- you will realize a miracle: you'll see that you are already in it.

The (Light of) Love never makes a mistake... but, in fact, never fails to "remake" the heart of whoever not only agrees to embrace the truth it reveals (about him or her), but who will then allow that revelation to lead him wherever it will.