Here's a special spiritual exercise designed to develop harmonious human relationships -- it's called the "You-I" Maneuver...
We cannot change, control, or be stronger than anything our mind says is outside of us. But we can be inwardly awake, conscious of the fact that we don't need to be stronger than what we see because we aren't really separate from what we see.
Between our known negative reactions towards those who we perceive to have offended us, and that healing unknown Love that restores us to the truth of each other, is hidden a kind of conscious changing ground... an inner realm whose entrance is gained by willing intention to Love, and whose sanctuary is won through self-sacrifice. Have you ever been so upset, so disturbed by someone, that i...
Letting go of who you think you are and making contact with the Secret Self are actually one and the same. But what is the Secret Self? We don't have to look upon this invisible part of ourselves as anything mysterious, for it is not. In fact, this sacred nature within wants only to reveal itself and to show those with eyes to see the wonders of their own hidden heavens. This is what our s...
I had an email today from a student saying that there are some things in her spiritual work that she can't agree to do because to do so would make her a hypocrite. Seems there are certain areas in her life where she "fails" miserably"...and to try and help someone else grow in this same area would be a "lie" as she feels so inadequate in the same. I had another email today...that arrived word...
Do you feel this tug in your heart to transcend yourself, to be free to journey into a place of infinite renewal? To discover what is unfound within and therein to know its Secret Founder? Good! Because what pulls on you from within in this way is trying to get you to let go of yourself. For the majority of us, what we consider being renewed has nothing to do with what is real renewal. Most...
Whenever we find ourselves in some "unwanted" part of ourselves, perhaps reliving an old heartache or caught in the throes of some irrepressible anger, old fear, or unyielding worry, part of this unwanted moment includes our certainty that we're trapped in this condition. And compounding our confusion over feeling ourselves captive in this way are all of the attending negative inner voices.
Real life is not by the numbers; it is impossible to "know" and grow at the same time. Yes, one can have a formula for a prescription drug, or a recipe for a good green salad; but there is no system of thought that can stand up to the ever-shifting changes of real life, let alone meet those same changes fearlessly. The self that knows itself through thought can never develop beyond the content of itself, any more than a math equation can suddenly outgrow...
Any time you are sitting at home and a thought comes and says, "What about this? What about them? What's going to happen if this?" you are burdened. You are carrying on your back, in your heart, in your mind, the weight of a set of thoughts and feelings you believe have the right to ride you to where they tell you to go... as if you were saddled by a donkey!
Every day we are attacked by a multitude of pains, so frequent and so familiar we don't even question them. In fact, we accept them as friends, as something to occupy us. These pains can range from petty irritations to the anxiety we feel every time we write a check and see our bank balance decrease, to concerns about our health. One of the major sources of pain involves other people and our relationships with them.
Whenever we can't understand the nature of some unwanted situation we fall, by default, into the hands of a nature whose answer to this ache is always the same: get negative and then try to protect ourselves from anything that can't be otherwise controlled. The rest takes place in us on automatic pilot:
The only thing that discouraged feelings do is to keep you busy doing nothing except feeling sorry for yourself, which is the perfect guarantee that your sorry situation will remain hopelessly the same. Enough is enough! You don't have to put up with one more discouraging moment, let alone a life filled with its darkness. That's right. There is another choice you can learn to make besides fa...