Special Lessons

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...

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...

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...

What is this power that can show us the truth behind the mystery of who and what we are - even as it gives us everything we need to know? A few examples from the history of human discovery prove helpful in our inquiry...

We all want the comfort of knowing that there are things we can count on, that there is something in this life permanent. Yet, everything seems to slip away from us; people, places, and events all change. And as they go so does our sense of security, leaving us once again seeking something to give us a permanent sense of well-being. There is a cure for this seemingly endless longing. It is a spiritual one...

We have in us -- built over time as part of the construct of our personality - a literal host of demands. Things that over time have been thought over and over and over again until the construction of those thoughts becomes an unconscious attitude. For instance, if you think enough times, "Why are they doing this? I shouldn't be treated like this!" Gradually, you walk around with a chip on your shoulder, but you don't know it's a chip on your shoulder...

We are created and each of us is intended to discover the truth of ourselves within ourselves; no authorities are needed. Our lives -- and all of our relationships as revealed in the present moment -- are the ground we must plow. These soils, rendered receptive through conscious humiliation, are seeded with our intention to be kind and true to one another, to give up our selfish ways, and to willingly embrace whatever life lessons we need to further...

I'm going to give you five ways to make the most out of every moment of your life. They're very simple ones. Then I'm going to explain each simple one. These actually are presented to you in a specific order because there's a broader story. Whenever I order principles, there's a broader story that's told in the collective understanding of them.

You can be self-enlightened instead of self-frightened. You have a choice. This discovery that you can always choose in favor of yourself is real excitement. You do not have to accept your present life-level. Life-level is what determines whether you sail through this life or sink in it. At present, it may seem to you as if there are times when you don't have much choice in your own life. I want you to know that this is a lie...

There is a part of us that summarily rejects the moments when we see -- by a light that we would rather not see -- our actual condition. And in that moment of helplessness, we have a choice to recognize that were it not given to us in that moment by something greater than what we don't want to see, we would never be able to see it... and never have the opportunity to transcend ourselves...

There isn't one thing, in every moment of our life, that isn't a mirror. Not one. Only we've never been taught that there is an invisible, eternal, incorruptible intelligence that is literally both that which we see and ourselves seeing it.

We're always trying, one way or the other, to grab and maintain something that will make us feel safe and whole forever. The pursuit of that wholeness, of that security, is through what we commonly call "powers." When we think of our security, we think of the powers that we must have to maintain it -- whether it's trying to please other people, trying to have, keep, and gain more possessions, or struggling to get some kind of control over a relationship or...