Part I: Those pointed negative states that jump out of us whenever we rush to blame someone else for our pain are always dead-end streets whose one-way signs deceptively read: This way out!

Part II: In a heated moment of a trial with someone else, instead of struggling in vain to get him or her to see the lesson in it for them, we should learn to ask ourselves, "What is the hidden lesson in this for me?" Then not only do we take the one True Action possible for us to make -- which is to invite the healing light of personal self-discovery -- but also we rightly enable that other person involved to learn his own unique lesson. Only our conscious refusal to continue playing the game of "who is right and who is wrong" can teach us that dark or fiery negative states are always wrong for everyone involved.

The faster we try to go with whatever it may be that we are doing incorrectly, whether it's hammering a nail or trying to nail down our happiness, the more and more frustrated we become for the unsatisfactory results. It is important to understand that we would never agree to give ourselves over to such mounting levels of frustration if we were not clinging to an unconscious certainty that things should not be going for us as they are. And so, being convinced that we know better than what our own experience is telling us -- and that we ought to be able to overcome what is overcoming us -- we then allow something unseen within us to urge us on to move even faster! Learning to see this contradiction in our own consciousness is how we learn to walk away from rushing through anything in life.

We are not held captive by anything in this life except for those relationships we consent to that are created out of our mistaken and unconscious belief that who we are -- our God-given being -- is not enough in itself. With this idea in mind here are three spiritual Laws that can help lead us to realize liberation from self-imposed limitations:

1. It is a Law that whatever truths we are willing to learn about ourselves will free us from the captivity of whatever mistaken ideas we have unknowingly agreed to live under.

2. It is a Law that there is always something Higher for us to see whose expanded view instantly grants us greater freedom, and that these successive new heights have their secret Home within us.

3. It is a Law that all things good come to those for whom the Good is all things, so that there can never be any real negative consequence to any positive effort that we make to grow beyond our present limitations.

Part I: You have a secret feature of yourself that cannot be dominated by a dark thought or fearful feeling any more than a crashing ocean wave can crush the life out of a ray of sunlight.

Part II: An Advanced Lesson in Letting Go Whenever our pain over some unwanted condition is unconsciously allowed to become the condition itself that we don't want, then we lose sight that this switch in our psychic system has taken place and we begin to resist our own negative reactions. The more we don't want to experience what amounts to our own unhappy feelings, the stronger grows this same experience that we don't want, as well as our conviction that its cause be attributed to and blamed upon something outside of us. To be able to see the truth of this unconscious circle-of-self is to free ourselves from its captivity.

Part I: Like a small child drags his or her cherished blanket along behind them where it is pulled through whatever it finds on the floor, so too do we drag along our unwanted moments in life... Comforted on the one hand by the familiarity of these lingering associations, even while the weight of these moments pulls us down punishing us with their painful refrains.

Part II: We would all realize many more happy endings in our lives if we agreed to do the one simple thing that it takes to ensure them: We must refuse to take part in unhappy beginnings! How can this be done?

To detect and then drop any dark thought (or feeling) as it sneaks in to define or otherwise direct us guarantees us the following peace of mind: Our precious time will not be wasted in the futile search for a way out of some unwanted sorrow, as we won't have made the mistake of getting involved with its sad life in the first place!

Part I: Until we learn how we can turn to our own purposes the many unwanted moments in our lives that we don't like, then at least half of our time spent on earth will be taken from us and used for purposes that Life wants... without us being able to derive anything of value for our pain and troubles.

Part II: Continuing frustrations with Life as it unfolds is simply a case of looking at the wrong thing at the wrong time and then relying upon the false conclusions that follow to help us straighten everything out. Ending frustration begins with bringing to an end the mistaken idea that we can put out a fire by fanning its flames.

Part III: A working definition of self-defeat: where the practice of ignorance perfects the punishment inherent in it!

Part I:

If we would spend as much time consciously exploring our own path through life as we do complaining about where we are upon it, or wishing we had the walk of another, we would soon know for ourselves this Great self-liberating Truth: The only real difference there is between the myriad paths that people must walk in their lives is never found in these paths themselves, but in a person's willingness to accept and then complete each leg of his or her appointed journey.

Part II:

When it comes to the order of events in this world, in our schools for instance, we first enlarge our understanding and then take a test of some kind to prove our wisdom. But in the spiritual realm we are tested first, and then, depending upon the honesty and willingness with which we respond, we are granted a greater Wisdom for our efforts only to find in this Gift our being itself stands enlarged.

Part I:
Unlike setting out to return home from some distant place removed from it, where one must close the distance daily by dedicated effort, the journey to your spiritual home is not a question of having to close some imagined distance between you and your True Heart, but of realizing that no such distance ever really existed to keep you and your God apart.

Part II:
What is our unconscious thinking but memory being mechanically played out by an undetected nature that revels in reliving itself through thought.

Part III:
If you will remember God and work to bring light and life to your faith, the day will dawn when God will remember you and His light become your living faith.

Part I:
Nothing is easier than to hate because one need only release himself into a surge of unconscious super-heated feelings. Nothing is more difficult than to not hate, as this requires bearing these same dark forces consciously instead of just mechanically flowing off in their terrible tide. To not hate is to begin to understand that God is Love and to do the work needed to awaken this Love in you.

Part II:
The first effect of shocks in life is to destroy what once "was" so that what "may be" has room (and food) to grow. But when the energy of any destructive impulse becomes mistaken for the new life it was intended to clear the way for, all that is created is a cycle of conflict with all of its inevitable pain.

Part I:
Each moment of this life is whole in its presentation. It is not for a treasure hunt but is a Treasure revealed. The self that searches for treasure is tormented by the unseen fact that it can never realize the reality it imagines because the dream always outruns the dreamer.

Part II:
Any attempt to change your sense of self-discontent by striving to increase possessions, or otherwise change your exterior conditions, is like hoping to cool down the temperature in a too warm room by throwing a bucket of blue paint into its air.

Part III:
The experience of self is the fruit of action, but the fruit of Understanding is freedom from the self that requires experience in order to know itself, in order to "be."

Part I: We cannot choose the upward path without first coming to stand at what amounts to a crossroads in our own conscience: That place within the aspiring soul where one's awareness of what is the lower way is also the Light -- and the invitation -- to choose the Higher Way.

Part II: As long as we remain unconscious -- and therefore unmindful -- of the unrelenting pull within us of what are the forces of darkness and Light, our lives represent not much more than does the rope that is stretched out between opposing sides. But once we awaken to realize that we can consciously work to take the side in our lives of what is the Light -- of what is Right for all -- Then do we end our painful role in this life as a mindless rope (rhymes with dope!). Then do we begin to walk the Upper Path of Real Life that comes with choosing the Light side of the battle to be.

Part I: The human spirit was never intended to be dominated by anything, as within Her dwells the Light that can discern the nature of any darkness regardless of whatever likeness it may assume. Our great weakness, and where this darkness has succeeded with its deception and domination of us, is that we think we are our thoughts... so that it is through their pervasive presence in us that we derive our habitual sense of self. But this level of self is a captive of the very thought-nature that creates it, and anyone willing to see that he or she is thought-dominated may be liberated by that same Spirit of Light that reveals this Truth to them.

Part II: The wish to wake up to oneself and the wish to have a God-centered life are one and the same wish because God already is the core of our existence. The only thing that prevents us from realizing this Truth that sets us free is that we are asleep within ourselves, held there as unconscious captives of a fitful dream life whose story-line, cast, and director is a production of our own habitual thinking about ourselves.