Deeper Learning

It's well known that storm-tossed waves often expose new treasures along the shoreline; there is unexpected wealth to be collected by those who know the secret value of rough seas. And yet, even though most of us have little tolerance for anything that "rocks our boat," the truth of the matter is self-evident...

Isn't it true in the moment when you look out and see a beautiful pink sky ablaze at sunset that it awakens the same beauty inside of you? When you see something timeless, when you see something beautiful, what you see is not outside of you. What you see outside of you is simply reminding you of something that you're asleep to in yourself. The beauty isn't out there in a pink moment. The intelligence isn't in a timeless thought or insight...

Can you count the number of times you have been present in a moment of your life and realized how much you wished you weren't you? That you hadn't done what you just did, and wished you would never do it again... loathing yourself for your weakness, despising yourself for your ambition that compromises you with every step you take, feeling frightened over some possession you've managed to acquire in the hope of some freedom it promised...

The seed of greatness is sown in an instant, but in this world of ours everything great takes time to grow. This means that patience, mingled with persistence, is the special nutriment that sustains all things great. Therefore, should we wish to win the great life, we need only add equal measures of quiet watchfulness to our spiritual willingness and a great goodness cannot help but flourish within us...

Any time we find ourselves sinking into some dark mood, getting more and more disturbed over some past unwanted moment, the first thing we need to see is the truth of the following: The reason we can't drop what's dragging us down is because we're connected -- in that same moment -- to a lower level of consciousness that likes to show us and give us good reasons to feel bad...

We can never hope to be free as long as any part of us struggles with, or suffers over what others are doing, have done, or won't do with their lives. Besides, if we could remain aware of the often-compromised state of our own character, that is, how we still do those things to others that we don't want to do, this awakened conscience would stir in us a new need. Rather than worrying about whether so-and-so gets his comeuppance for being the...

In a moment of crisis, would you say that you're easy-going? Are you wide-open and joyous to be with? Or, in a crisis, would you say you're about as tense as a human being could possibly be? Isn't that true? The more tense you are through resistance, the more negative you become. The more negative you become, the more resistance resists itself. And the more you resist yourself, the more tense you become. So you run left, you run right...

There is a story greater than ours, unfolding in each present moment, inviting us to embrace it as our own. Here is a true story to illustrate this idea. Under Paris is one of the largest catacombs in the world -- a hundred square miles of underground passages. Lamps for guided tours light up a small portion, while most of the rest remains in the dark. Two men got it into their heads that they wanted to go into the unexplored region of the catacombs...

Isn't it phenomenal that we spend our lives trying to produce powers for ourselves to protect and keep in place all the things that we believe are necessary for us to have a life with the least possible worry? And yet, our days are consumed with spending thought and emotional energy trying to figure out how this change affects that, and what that change means over here -- all the time trying to put back together a life we hope to finally have without...

The solution to all stress and tension is a mind that is made aware of itself as being the producer of that stress and tension. Stress and tension are products of an unaware, unawake mind wrestling with its own contents to free itself from struggle. Relief from that tension is not to struggle with more things or to become stronger than what stresses you, but to recognize the relationship between how you are involved in your own mind because of that...

In the following material, you will read the innermost thoughts and feelings of inspired seekers who have gone before you. Some names you may know; others you will be glad to meet! But, as you journey along with them, sharing in their discoveries and discouragements, one thing should grow increasingly clear: the spirit that called them -- that awakened their hearts, and quickened their minds -- so that they might have...

One of the things about the spiritual journey that is so difficult -- because of what it asks of a person -- is that we must reach the point where we look at our life as it is and realize that we cannot have what our heart longs for in our life such as it is. We come to a full recognition that we are indeed a house, and a spirit in a house, and that the house has had its way with the spirit but that the spirit was never intended to be commanded, dominated by the house...