Special Lessons

At some point in our lives we have all dealt with uncomfortable moments where an unexpected or unwanted change in one near to us brings up some unpleasant reaction in us. Of course we are usually very quick to find fault with this person, but here is the real, invisible story. The reason we fall under the rule of these reaction-driven dark states, and then find ourselves trying to dictate the life direction of the "offending" person, is that something...

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...

Love exists. She is never not present although her life-giving presence is rarely perceived, much in the same way as we breathe in air moment to moment barely noticing the gift of life it sustains. Nothing exists without Love. She is the secret Heart of all. These are not just words. They are an introduction to an Invitation created when Time began. To what are we invited? To know that we are already a measure of Love's Timeless Life...

What if you actually understood there is no death? Think for a moment what your life would be like. And I'm not just talking about the incessant human fear of their mortality. I'm talking about those moments in which it feels like you're dying because something has happened to you that you don't like, and how you struggle to keep alive the very thing caught in that crisis -- that nature struggling, suffering instead of understanding that the moment has come...

Almost every day I receive a letter, an e-mail, or phone call from an aspirant who wants to know, essentially, the following: "What must I do to succeed spiritually?" Or, in a slight variation on that theme: "What's the right way to do what I must in order to awaken?"

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.

Within each of us lives a tireless, latent longing to touch -- and be touched by -- life's invisible celestial forces. For instance, whenever we stand as a silent witness to the endless expanse of a dark night sky, we are inwardly moved by this outer display of timelessness spread out above us...

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...