It is a strange characteristic of most human beings that we would rather feel anxious and strained about things over which we have no power, than to do the one thing actually in our power -- for whose conscious practice we would know the very peace we claim to be seeking. And that is: to ground our attention in the fact of the moment where no worried or stressful feeling can enter.

The more we realize our higher purpose in creation is to atone for the difference between "what is" with "what has been" -- by surrendering any part of us that stands in the way of this reconciliation -- the more we see this sacrifice as inseparable from the ineffable peace that comes with being in the right place, at the right time, and doing the right thing for the right reason.

If you want to know the peace that passes all understanding, then you must learn to do two things at once: First, reject the false belief that what's taking place outside of you is responsible for your pain. Then, in that same moment, dare to see that the true source of your conflict -- including your sense of being held a captive by it -- is inseparable from your resistance to realizing t...

Eventually we reach the point where we start to realize that we are not going to find peace, contentment, happiness, strength, fearlessness -- all of the things that in our heart of hearts we wish we had -- outside of us.

Perfect peace is not found in some time to come; it has never not existed now. We are created to perfectly reflect this truth... and, in so doing, to realize its freedom...

Part 1 Before we can have a conscious relationship with what is Timeless, before we can know a "peace that passes all understanding," there must come a series of (conscious) shocks that prove the truth of the following to us: any imagined time, power, or possession to come -- by which we are forever set free from worry and fear...

Part 1 If the "grass is always greener on the other side of the hill"... Then it must be that neither side of that hill has the power to grant you the peace and prosperity that draws you to it... over and over again! Part 2 Ask not for possessions, or the powers they seem to grant, but rather ask for Wisdom; for powers and possessions come and go, but Wisdom... is forever.

If anxious thoughts and feelings had any power to help us reach some place in life where, finally, we would be released from the pain of always feeling rushed then . . . don't you think we'd have reached there by now!...

If each moment is the secret field of all possibilities, then our greatest potential for happiness is realized in the field itself, and not within any one particular flower that grows there.

Part 1: Any concern over what others may think of you is a secret form of captivity, an unseen prison cell created by the false and painful belief that you are real -- and your life worthwhile -- only if others say it's so! Part 2: The true individual is one who doesn't need the approval of others in order to know the peace of mind he finds in being just himself.

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.

A father once took his young daughter to a nearby old growth forest. He knew that the stillness and beauty of the massive trees would work their enchantment on her, as it had always done upon him. And he was right; her little heart was at home in the quiet depths of these ancient trees. All was well for the first several moments, but then something broke into the peace of the place. As they w...