Classroom Talk: 7/10/2019 Part 1: There is nothing you can possess in this world of passing time that will not eventually prove itself worthless... And yet, as unwanted as this indisputable fact of life may be, that's its value! So then, why wait to see the truth of this when, by embracing it, you might just be set free. Part 2: Powers, possessions, all forms...

The Vine doesn't fear the passing of the branch; it was there before it. The Vine gives rise to the branch; it will be there long after the branch withers in winter winds, and falls away. The branch fears its own passing, knowing nothing of the Vine from out of which it has come... or that it will be born again come the light of spring. All is Vine for those who can see the branch for what it is.

Featured Study Group Topic for the Week of December 25, 2017. What I am -- whatever its nature in an unwanted moment -- is one and the same as that moment I don't want.

Topics Covered: Don't waste your life living the life of someone else; Do you want to be relaxed and content doing what you are doing at any given the moment? Or do you want to chase after psychological and physical possessions until you finally have enough? When is enough, enough?; Every human being is a captive of ambition of one form or another. Ambition can never be satisfied...

In truth, we are never more lost to ourselves, or to the hope of realizing our own unlimited potential, than we are when we give ourselves over to the fear of what may become of our lives... for whoever takes fear as his guide follows not just the blind, but is further deceived into believing that its blinding force is the same as some new and higher power of perception!...

Question: I have been having a bad problem with losing my love and ambition for listening and making music. Music is discipline and I have dedicated most of my life to it, but recently I have seen my ambition for it -from practicing my instrument to enjoyment of listening it - go to zero. I actually played a gig recently and found myself not enjoying what I was doing. Any advice on how to get the love back?

Topics Covered: Re-experiencing, reliving a memory; Mind wanting to escape the sound of itself; Real love doesn't punish the one who loves; Love doesn't separate; Love doesn't suffer over what was; Agree to consciously suffer our own consciousness; Remain the witness of consciousness instead of trying to change it; Being in the crucible of the crisis; See that the promise of...

goal, purpose, achievement, ambition, glory, stature, accomplishment, yield, surrender, serve, service, obedience...

There are three ways to get what one wants from life: industry, cunning, or love. Industry is good but at best conditional, for it is subject to the passage and ravages of time. The "crafty" inevitably trap themselves. Love, on the other hand, liberates those who seek its company, and it is timeless. When all is said and done, this order of love has the last word because it is its own reward: whatever we are willing to let it make of us, it fashions from itself.

We imagine the impossible for ourselves to temporarily look upon ourselves as doers of greatness. Work to do the possible by conquering our own self-created imaginings.

Topics Covered: What difference does it make what others think of you?; A coward dies a thousand deaths; Do what is in your power and refuse to do what is not; Outgrowing beliefs involves exposing the consciousness that holds it; We are made aware of the sleeping consciousness when it resists; Awareness is the beginning of enlightenment, and enlightenment...

Topics Covered: Spiritual life is a ceaseless series of departures; The antidote is in the venom; In my weakness is Thy strength made perfect; The nature that wants to fit in is in a prison; Eliminate the mechanical man or woman, and you eliminate what is maniacal; "Give me liberty or give me death" is a fact of spiritual life; The emptiness we fear doesn't exist without...