Student Talks: 3/14/2025 - We can't change others – or, for that matter, the purpose of any given moment as it unfolds – but we can work to place one less demand on both. Only in this action can we hope to find the freedom for which we seek, because the only thing that imprisons us – in the end – is our resistance to whatever runs against our deeply seated demands.

Topics covered: There is a deeper life to experience if we can be in the presence of that life; If the Kingdom of Heaven is within, then where in the world are you going?; The appearance of resistance is telling us something about ourselves; In reality there is nothing missing in your life because there is no puzzle to solve. To understand that there is no puzzle to solve is enlightenment...

Topics covered: Without being able to see the big picture, we are lost. And negativity can only see its particular enemy of the moment; The divided consciousness derives a strong identity through resistance and its attending negativity; We have learned to live with unconscious suffering to a large extent, until the pain reaches a level at which it can no longer be denied; Negative identification is the unconscious...

Topics covered: The way you walk out of dark moments is that you stop walking into them. So-called dark moments cannot be separated from who and what you think you are in those moments; We cannot separate a dark moment from the unconscious resistance to that moment; What we call a dark moment cannot be separated from the level of consciousness that meets and reacts to that moment...

Topics Covered: Genuine change is not something that we can imagine. "Our hopes must not be in things seen"; What we imagine will bring an end to our tension is in fact inseparable from the cause of it. The things that we imagine will free us from stress turn out to be prisons; All psychologically rooted tension has its beginning in resistance; The real root of continual, chronic tension...

Topics covered: Our understanding is always somewhat incomplete; Limitation is an invitation to transcend resistance to what's unfolding within and around us; We are a race of beings that have lost our way; Our environment is meant to be used as a mirror for revealing my attachments; The purpose of life is to be in relationship with that which created us; We're intended to be so present that t...

Topics covered: Resistance belongs to and is inseparable from what I am identified with; You must never lose sight of your interior environment; Being attached to the idea of control; The struggle of the magicians; A wave is a single movement; The true meaning of the word temptation is consenting to do the evil I don't want to do; There is a nature that exists only to be opposed to everything.

Topics covered: Most people go through life fighting with their enemies and spending time with their friends; You are invited to do spiritual battle; You have to learn how to suffer yourself; Patterns are created when resistance meets the moment and deflects it; Don't take the easy way; Inside of you is something that has no love at all; No authentic work begins in your spiritual life until yo...

Topics covered: The inner path is lined with trials and pitfalls; False guidance versus true inner guidance; Resistance and denial of an event causes patterns to repeat; We don't know the true meaning of events; Consolation is a buffer; Life is a school for our higher education; Your true nature is created to be changed; A fear seed grows a fear tree; Stress and suffering are there to show you...

Nothing makes less of us than trying to be more than whatever the present moment asks us to be... regardless of its nature.

When an unwanted moment comes along - there's a stress, a strain, somebody's definitely being negative -- aren't you positive that the reason you're in pain and resisting the condition is because of "what they are"? I'm telling you, that's not the case. They are revealing to you something in your consciousness that you don't know is there! And the only way it stays there, and hidden from you...

Our spiritual possibilities in this life are as endless as is our willingness to intentionally meet, and then consciously work through whatever limitations we may discover along the Way...