Special Lessons

If regret is the act of a divided nature that keeps itself in place by regretting itself, then remorse is pain that nullifies this false sense of self. And that is why remorse is so rare -- and why it is so holy. It is written: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn for the sake of righteousness..."

The first challenge before any person who wants to find a way out of some hurtful codependent relationship is to see that while we do have the awareness required to interact with life -- and even to learn challenging new skills -- this level of awareness is not enough.

If there's one thing that should be more than evident to everyone on the planet, it's that the level of pain in it is increasing. Human beings are imbalanced, forever teetering. And how do we know that? Because if you just push them a little bit, down they go!

Any real intention we set for ourselves to rise above our present level of being is going to reveal a lower level of self that doesn't want to change. This is a powerful spiritual law that creates both challenge and opportunity at the same time. The challenge: agreeing to see how our unconscious nature -- encased and enchanted by its own negative reactions -- is incapable of doing anything other than resisting unwanted moments.

Our lives are nothing but a series of invitations, a series of moments in which we run into what we don't know. And in this experience of our own limitations, something good and natural takes place. In its constant stirring and seeking, life feeds back to us the boundaries determined by our present understanding.

The way the mind works now, it looks out and there's just this world with you that messes with it, and me that wants it right. It's all one world to me. But awakening is the sudden realization that somehow or other what I took to be the only world isn't the only world.

Everyone can agree that no intelligent, conscious man or woman would ever intentionally hurt him- or herself. No one would choose to ache. Yet the fact remains that all of us do hurt ourselves every day when we harbor self-compromising thoughts and feelings like anger, stress, and resentment. Even at the simplest level, there is no doubt that fear and worry take an immense toll on our health and well-being.

Stop being a victim of "Yesterday's News"! Calling on "what was" to deal with "what is"... is like being stranded on a deserted island, without any food, and hoping to make your growing hunger pains go away by reading and re-reading "Best Places to Dine Around Town"... the one magazine that washed up with you when you staggered onto shore.

What good is it to find a solution, some seeming strength, that doesn't really resolve your problem, but that is just another form of secret self-deception? Outside of its power to help you temporarily feel better about the weakness that just claimed you, what good is the "strength" of being able to endlessly explain yourself to yourself? Of being able to "intelligently" justify some deliberately hurtful act towards another?

When life falls apart, or threatens to come unglued, it seems almost natural to carry around some desperate, stressed, or depressed emotional state. But why cling to something that makes us ache? The answer is surprising, but evident, once we're aware of what's actually taking place within us.

Real success is a fearless state of being in a conscious relationship with an Intelligence that always achieves its ends despite ever-changing conditions. But, if we're honest, this order of spiritual success remains at a distance we've yet to traverse. At our present level of consciousness, our mind is always active, trying to figure out what we need to put together in our life to achieve its desired end.

The two great commandments -- that we should love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love our neighbor as ourselves -- are the necessary germinating forces that ultimately give flower to the potential for a human soul to not just reflect what the Divine has made, but to actually participate in the process.