Read

View as Grid List

12 of 37 Items

Page
per page
Set Ascending Direction
  1. Mar 01, 2024

    Realize the Fulfillment of the Purpose of Your Life

    The proof that every moment - including the most painful of them - is unlimited in its Divine possibility is that one soul perishes for the fear of them, while another (soul) is perfected, and liberated by the same.

    Simply put, that means that every single moment of our life holds within it, if you will, a kind of fork in the road. "I came upon a fork in the road and I took the one that was least traveled." Every moment of our life offers what we could call the possibility of either further realizing the fulfillment of the purpose of our life on this planet, or deepening the sense of futility most of us have all the time that we are not fulfilling the purpose of our existence. 

    This talk -- which is basically intended to help us cultivate this garden of the soul, this garden of faith -- is based in the idea that we know in our heart of hearts we're meant to live a more complete life. Or let's say it the other way around, as it most likely is experienced by us -- a life that isn't so full of conflict. 

    I don't know how adept you are at being able to see it, but most of what we call waiting for moments to take place - e.g. waiting for this chat to start, waiting for the meeting we need, waiting for the announcement about our finances or about our family -- most of those moments, if they're not filled with some form of expectation of a fearful kind, then there's a tension in them because we're hoping that what we want to take place will go down the way we want it to go down. And there's stress in that!

    It's almost incomprehensible to us that there is the possibility of a life where our familiar stress, fear, anxiety, or frustration, where all of those familiar states no longer serve as they've always served -- which is to provide the feeling that we're stuck in another situation that we have to struggle our way through -- and instead of that constant stress, there's the possibility of a completely different relationship with it. 

    There is no moment in life, whatever its nature, that isn't designed to be part of our preparation for discovering in ourselves this Divine ability to take whatever the moment brings to transcend it. And in transcending what that moment brings up in us, to realize the possibility of living in a relationship with every moment by which our proper understanding of it lifts us above that moment.

    What is the nature of these moments that disturb us? How many of you know that life is mostly disturbance, not delight? At least that's our perception of it. How constant is the disturbance... even getting ready to go out for a good time. I don't know if you've noticed it... packing to go someplace is full of anxiety! What is it in us that's so readily disturbed? Have you ever wondered about it? Or do we just take the reaction to be the proof that there's something in us that needs things to be other than they are? 

    What is disturbed in us is the past. You could call it expectations, but what are expectations other than identification with something we're hoping will happen, or hoping doesn't happen. Moments that we don't want, we don't want them because they disturb the past. And what is the past? The past is who and what we have been up until that moment. And I would add: not just who and what we have been -- not just what we are identified with and have brought forward with us into the present moment -- but when I say "who and what we have been" I'm talking about human consciousness. Because you and I do not exist, we do not have a consciousness outside of human consciousness. 

    That consciousness is so rooted in the past, so identified with the images that have given us and this human nature its identity - politically, religiously, financially, environmentally, socially, across the board - this body of thought which has been so crystallized. You and I are so formally locked into its rigidity that when something comes along in the present moment and brings into that crystallized consciousness anything that causes it to have a tremor - it does so because it's resisting whatever that moment is revealing. Why? Because it's not part of how things should be - meaning, not the way I have been and need things to continue being. 

    In that moment we discover that that moment that we ordinarily want to avoid, that disturbance, is actually a moment in which "when the student is ready, the teacher appears." What is the student? The student is the part of us that aspires to awaken and to become a truer, more kind human being. And what is the teacher other than the moment that shows up, that unfolds the way it does - and as it does, it brings to light within us the fact that the image we have of ourselves as being someone who is good and kind and loving is just that - an image, not the thing itself. It's a sensation of self that we delight in when nothing is challenging it.

    But the moment that any condition comes along that's contrary to this "consciousness" past, this body of thoughts and feelings, the moment they're triggered, everything that lies latent in them -- which is our identification and our dependency upon these images -- now suddenly it goes into the protective mode. It starts to push and pull in one way or another.

    In the moment of that revelation of who and what we have been, we can understand the reaction that we have to any moment we don't want is actually the revelation of the consciousness that doesn't want it. And any part of our consciousness that doesn't want what is present and acting upon us as part of the fulfillment and movement of life, any part of us that resists that obviously lives outside of that movement, and therefore is in constant conflict with any part of that movement. We don't see this because we're so instantly identified with this protective consciousness, trying to make sure that what it wants and believes it must have and possess is necessary to it. 

    As fleeting as that moment may be... and really it's an awakening, that I'm going to explain... I'm going to give you three particular steps to help develop this idea of nourishing the soul, of what it means to not just use the moment as it's given to us, but to use the moment to give ourselves a new life, because it is being given to us in that moment by another order of being. 

    Sometimes those moments come -- and I hope that you'll agree with me -- sometimes here comes a moment and I'm shocked right to my socks with what I see. Every once in a while, those moments of awakening come and they're so special we wish that time would stop. We see the beauty of that sunrise, we see the massive cloud formations, we see the child delighted with joy, dancing for no reason whatsoever, a puppy running in circles, some noble creature -- a deer, a horse -- running across the field. That's an awakening, isn't it? It's awakening to something that was latent within us that suddenly realizes it has some corresponding connection to that beauty, that strength, that nobility. We love that. There's no shock in that. We can't swallow it enough. 

    But what about those moments when, shockingly, we see -- as life does show us -- that within us there is something that we don't want to see at all? A split second of a revelation, where instantaneously that moment has brought up inside of us and is revealing through a reflection something we didn't realize is true about ourselves. I had no idea that I could be that angry, that I could be that hostile, that conflicted, that I could turn at the drop of a hat. That what I call this "love" I have for someone could turn in a heartbeat into something that's hideous. 

    How is that possible? We're describing it. All of this content lays buried within us, and all of it -- in order for us to transcend it -- must be revealed. That's what these moments that we don't want do, is they bring in a split second of a realization - that, I might add, marks either the beginning of a new kind of faith, or the strengthening of a fear. It's a certain realization about ourselves that either marks the beginning of a completely different order of faith, or crystallizes the fear.

    We realize in that moment, one way or the other, there is no self separate from the consciousness that is stirred, the sense of self that is brought up in that moment. In those moments, and every moment, is the sudden revelation of our own consciousness as being inseparable from what is being reflected in it. There is no me apart from you. There is no self outside of that situation. We realize the whole source of our suffering lies in this unconscious duality that this present consciousness is the keeper of.

    We have these moments -- but don't recognize them as being such -- of a sudden spiritual realization of a singularity that we are, where what the moment brings cannot be separated from what the moment reveals -- and what the moment reveals is the consciousness that came into that moment that was intended to be revealed by the action of that moment. 

    That moment shows us there is no self that exists apart from the moment to be in fear of it. Those revelations show us there is no self that lives outside of whatever it is that is being revealed within it. There is no self outside of what is being revealed within it. That is where our true hope lies, because in one respect it's unseen, but then suddenly it is given to us to see -- and it is what we do in these moments with what we're given to see that that determines everything for us. 

    When we face the devil in our mind, what we are to do is understand that whatever in us that fears the devil IS the devil feared. Whatever is in us that fears the devil IS the devil feared. Does the light fear the darkness? Does the sun go, "Oh, I'm not going to rise because look at those early shadows, there are so many of them." 

    We must understand that the dawning of this light of every moment -- which is the dawning of a certain kind of Light -- is a gift, an opportunity to explore and discover the completion and fulfillment of a consciousness that doesn't yet know its real role, its real place in life.


    Click here to watch the video excerpt of this talk on YouTube >>

    Premium & All Access Wisdom School members can watch the full replay of this talk by clicking the link below:

    Cultivate the Garden of Faith and Nourish the Soul

    Join Guy every Saturday at 8:00am PT / 11:00am ET for a FREE 45-minute livestreamed talk plus Q&A at: InsightTimer.com/guyfinley

    Sign up for our newsletter to get a reminder email before each livestream.

    Successfully added to My Favorites! Add to Favorites
  2. Feb 09, 2024

    Stop Doing This if You Want to Make Real Changes

    Any moment of real change is the past made perfect through the reconciliation of the will of Heaven acting upon the will of earth, and in that union creating the birth of a brand-new creature.

    Any moment of real change is the past made perfect. Not the past reconfigured, disguised as some new plan, but the past made perfect - and the past is made perfect in this intersection of what is perfectly celestial and timeless in its activity working upon what has been created in this world, in this earth called myself.

    In the reconciliation of the will of the earth with the will of heaven, a union brings forth a brand-new creature. A brand-new creature doesn't have to try to change. It is the expression of what is changeless in time itself.

    What is any moment of "now" that is in the world but not of it? That is, that which is created being acted on by what is the perfect creative force? What is any moment of that intersection other than an endless interaction, an endless relationship. You can see it - "as above, so below." There's no moment where change - meaning rebirth - isn't taking place. 

    Maybe that's the problem for us - that we don't really get this idea that when something is changed, it's changed. It hasn't become a better version of itself. It isn't some strange extension of what was almost okay and now it's nearer to that. Real change must be understood as being synonymous with becoming a new creature, a new creation in that moment. Because everything around us is, in fact, becoming reborn, remade moment to moment. 

    If that's true - and you can see that - then why in the name of God are you and I not changing? Why do we live outside of this celestial, harmonious relationship between what is timeless and what is in time? Between what is true and loving and that which is intended to be the reflection of that? 

    Evidence suggests that we don't see at all - not really. When a moment comes along and our attention is seized by it - and it always is - the reason our attention is seized by the moment is because this consciousness sees that moment as something that is set against itself. So I am literally, in that moment, looking only at a negative reaction to the moment, and the negative reaction is suggesting - as it always does - what I need to do to change the moment, what I have to do to make that moment just go away. 

    We don't really see at all, because this summary resistance - born of a conditioned consciousness that is looking for the confirmation and the continuation of itself through time - is a blinding force, and it is also a binding force. In those moments when we are filled with this resistance, all we see is what our negative reaction points to outside of us and then blames accordingly for the pain of our experience in that moment. 

    First and foremost: it is impossible to blame any moment for the pain we're in and be changed in that moment as well. If you blame a moment, there will never be any change in that moment. The change will only be what you see from the past as causing it, or the future you hope to reach where you're not in pain anymore. 

    If you want to change, you've got to get rid of the whole notion of blame. It has to go - it is a lie, it is a deceit. This blaming nature does not exist apart from the conditioning that measures the moment according to its expectation - and when the moment doesn't match how it is supposed to be, then this consciousness can't find fault with itself, so it blames the circumstance for not being the way it's supposed to be. Then it plans how to change it.

    Have you not heard the word, the expression, "the change of life?" Mostly it has to do I think with getting older, as in, "I'm going through a change of life." I want you to understand there is no change of life, in the highest sense of being changed into a new human being, without you and I being willing to go through the change of light

    The real change of life, at every level, requires that we go through a change in light that can only take place in that light - because, as I said, what is blame other than a conditioned manifestation of a mind that, looking out, wants "that" and doesn't want "that" - or doesn't want "that" and correspondingly wants something else. It is a mind that lives in a perpetual divided state, endlessly comparing and measuring each moment to what it expects it to be. And when it doesn't hit the mark, then everything's got to change about "you," everything's got to change about the world. 

    The last thing that we suspect is that the reason we keep meeting these same moments is because this consciousness blames the experience of the moment on the condition instead of its own conditioned state. 

    Just for grins, just for 24 hours, resolve to set an intention: anything that comes up in me that wants to blame him, her, this, or that for this rush of negativity, this anxiety, this fear - anything that comes up that wants to find something to blame - I absolutely under no circumstances will agree with it. I will become the observer of this consciousness that wants to blame, instead of serving it unconsciously and hoping that the changes it suggests I make will produce a change in the way I experience my life. We have the evidence in front of us all the time, it doesn't work.

    Can you see how futile it is to immediately identify with anything that wants to blame a circumstance for what, ostensibly, is this consciousness that's resisting anything that doesn't match its own image?

    If we can see that, then we should be able to see - given what we've described - that what we are really blind to is that we live from a mind that never stops resisting its own expectation. That never stops resisting anything that doesn't grant it what it has desired. 

    A consciousness like that is never in the light of the moment, but rather is always shining what it calls its light on the moment - and when that light reveals what it doesn't expect to see in that moment, it says the moment is dark. 

    No moment is dark. Every moment is a marriage of infinite divine forces, each and all interacting, blending, and bringing about endless new creations, of which you and I are intended to be a part, but are not yet.


    Watch the video excerpt of this talk below on YouTube:

    Premium & All Access Wisdom School members can watch the full replay of this talk by clicking the link below:

    3 New Choices to Help You Make Real Changes in Your Life

    Join Guy every Saturday at 8:00am PT / 11:00am ET for a FREE 45-minute livestreamed talk plus Q&A at: InsightTimer.com/guyfinley

    Sign up for our newsletter to get a reminder email before each livestream.

    Successfully added to My Favorites! Add to Favorites
  3. Jan 23, 2024

    Journeying Within: Guy Finley and the Transformative Mission of Life of Learning Foundation

    Taking up a spiritual journey is often a deeply personal quest, yet it becomes extraordinary when shared with a community dedicated to self-discovery.

    In a recent interview with Guy Finley, founder and director of the Life of Learning Foundation, hosted by MysticMag, the roots of this transformative organization are unveiled. Guy's path to spiritual awakening, marked by encounters with enlightened mentors and a pivotal moment with Vernon Howard, led him to establish the Life of Learning Foundation in 1992.

    Today, the foundation stands as a beacon for sincere seekers worldwide, offering a unique approach to spiritual exploration characterized by interactivity and active participation. As we delve into Guy's insights, we'll discover the foundation's evolution, its commitment to truth-telling, and a poignant narrative illustrating the profound impact of the Life of Learning Foundation on an individual's spiritual journey.

    Can you share the inspiration behind establishing the Life of Learning Foundation and its mission in the realm of spiritual discovery?

    In a way, I think it was inevitable. From the time I was a child, I was called to a spiritual life and had a number of transformative experiences. As a young man, I left a successful music career to travel around the world seeking higher wisdom. I was fortunate to find an enlightened man, Vernon Howard, right here in the United States. I studied with him for 15 years. At one point Vernon told me I would one day have my own school.

    He gave me the responsibility of running the Southern California branch of his school. And he encouraged me to speak, and ultimately write my own book, which became my first best seller, The Secret of Letting Go.

    In 1992 Vernon died and I moved to Oregon to continue my work. I started giving talks in the area, and the Work grew. Ultimately, I founded the nonprofit Life of Learning Foundation, a Center for Spiritual Discovery.

    Our mission is to help sincere spiritual seekers realize a conscious relationship with the Divine. Life of Learning is a welcome harbor for anyone wishing to let go of harmful negative states such as stress, fear, and resentment in favor of a life filled with more love, compassion, and excellence.

    How has the foundation evolved since its inception, and what key milestones or achievements are you particularly proud of?

    When I first started to hold classes in southern Oregon, I didn't know what would happen, but I felt compelled to speak. At first, I spoke to a small group of students in a room provided by a local business. I continued to write books and distribute talks, at first on tape, and more and more people discovered our growing inner-life school.

    Eventually, we built our beautiful headquarters in Merlin, Oregon where people are encouraged to visit and take part in our live events. With advances in technology, we developed first a tape-of-the-month club, then a CD-of-the-month club.

    For a time, we held an online chat room. Now fast-forward 25 years. With the help of our volunteers, we now livestream all our talks. Twice-weekly Life of Learning talks are heard by hundreds of thousands of people worldwide through direct live-streaming via Go-to-Webinar, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook, as well as through replays that people can stream whenever they want. One of our programs I'm particularly happy with is our OneJourney.net site. This site was developed in conjunction with the publication of my book, The Seeker, The Search, The Sacred.

    The purpose of the book, and the site, is to show that across time and around the world all human beings have the same wish to have a relationship with the Divine. At our core, we all want the same thing. If we understood this, our relationships with one another would be based on compassion, not competition.

    The Living Book on the OneJourney.net site is an expansion of The Seeker book, using quotes from great sages from across time and cultures to show they all have the same message about human nature and what we are meant to become.

    In your perspective, what unique approach does the Life of Learning Foundation take towards spiritual exploration, and how does it differentiate itself in the field?

    One of the aspects of Life of Learning that makes it stand apart is its interactive nature. Students are told not to rely on the teacher, but to do their own work, make their own discoveries, and prove everything Guy says for themselves. At every class, students are encouraged to go up to the mic and share what they've seen about themselves.

    Long-time students are invited to lead online study groups where they give a 15-minute talk on what they've learned and take questions from the audience. This allows them to put the principles they've learned into practice and develop themselves in ways they wouldn't be able to without this extra level of work.

    Life of Learning is not just for listening to truthful ideas but for working with them daily. Giving students a chance to actively work with what they learn strengthens their understanding. It has long been said that we learn by teaching. We provide many opportunities for students to learn in this important way.

    As the Founder and Director, what challenges have you encountered in fostering a spiritual community, and how have you navigated those challenges?

    If one is to be a true teacher one has to first, not want anything from students, and second, be willing to tell people the truth about themselves. This doesn't mean one should be cruel, but it does mean not to sugarcoat matters and to help people become objective self-observers.

    Sometimes people who have a false idea of what spirituality is about are offended by hearing the truth. They want to be told that they're beams of light, that they're special. They don't want to hear that they are confused and self-centered and that the cause of their pain is not something they can blame outside of themselves but is due to a misunderstanding within themselves.

    Our lower nature doesn't want to hear that there's anything wrong with it. Many people find value in their old nature and are not ready to let it go. Any true teacher tries to help people see for themselves that there's another, higher nature they could be living from. But that means seeing through the misdirection of the lower nature, and many people close off as soon as they realize they have to point the arrow back at themselves. I don't try to navigate this challenge, and I refuse to dilute my message to please others. If people aren't ready to hear the truth about themselves, there's nothing anyone can do.

    But when a person is exposed to the truth, a seed is planted. It is hoped that one day, when, like the prodigal son, they wake up and find themselves eating husks, they'll remember they once heard something true, and they will seek out a true source again.

    Could you highlight a transformative story or experience that illustrates the impact of the Life of Learning Foundation on an individual's spiritual journey?

    Just the other day a long-time student shared an experience she had with her sister that was quite transformative. She said she's a bit of an outcast in her family, largely because she's in this Work instead of the church she was brought up in.

    Her sister especially holds a lot of resentment for her. Several years earlier when their father passed, the sister just sent a text message, and clearly didn't want to talk to her. Then recently this student received the first text from her sister since their father had died, to tell her their mother had a heart attack.

    Again, the student felt the sister didn't want to talk to her, but she thought this time she would do something different and call her. To her shock, the sister poured out all her hate and resentment on her. The student understood her sister was upset over their mother, and even though she couldn't help reacting herself, because of her work the student understood not to fuel the fire by returning anger for anger.

    So, she worked to stay present to herself, and she saw something she had never seen before. She realized for most of her life she had bought into the view her family had of her, that she was a horrible person who deserved to be punished. But now she saw that nature was not who she truly was, and she didn't have to judge herself or feel sorry for herself, or try to gain the approval of others. To the point of your question, she said, it's in these moments of awareness that a new choice can be made and we can be transformed.

    She added, that what feels like an ending is really the ground of a new beginning, and doing this work does change us. This is a small example, but it illustrates the moments of self-revelation that change us if we will continue on the path to self-discovery.

    ——————

    Guy Finley is an internationally renowned spiritual teacher and bestselling author.  He is the Founder and Director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit center for spiritual self-study located in Merlin, Oregon. He is the best-selling author of The Secret of Letting Go and 45 other books and audio programs that have sold over 2 million copies, in 30 languages.

    Guy offers online classes every Wednesday evening and Sunday morning. These classes are free to all and have been attended by thousands of students throughout the world.

    Successfully added to My Favorites! Add to Favorites
  4. Apr 13, 2015
  5. Nov 07, 2007

    Solving the Mystery of Letting Go

    Sometimes the greatest truths are laid right before our eyes, in the simplest of things, and yet we just can't see them. Take for instance our own hands: what a miracle they are. If we consider for even a moment all they are capable of doing, it's evident that a great wisdom sits hidden behind their incomparable design. But, with this thought in mind, permit me to add one other to help us see another part of their special purpose that lies "hidden" in plain sight.

    What good would our hands be to us or, for that matter, to the world they are made to help shape, if all they could do was close down around something and cling to it? How stale and old everything would soon be for us if the act of "holding on" to things were all our hands had the power to do? Just imagine what life would be like if we were unable to touch anything new.

    To be able to touch and appreciate what is new, our hands are also created to open up -- and, as needed -- to let go of whatever is in them that is no longer useful.

    This same basic truth applies, even more so, when it comes to our need to release those old feelings and worn out thoughts that first clog up, and then compromise our heart and mind. These tiresome states of ourselves have become "stuck" within us because we haven't learned how to release them.

    Once we understand that letting go is the missing half of the whole happiness our heart longs for -- that it is a necessary and full partner in the power to discover and complete our True Self -- everything about our life grows easier. Old regrets dry up and blow away. We awaken to a quiet kind of faith that fears nothing. New possibilities for us appear almost moment to moment because we've hung an "open for business" sign on the door of our life. And, as our contentment grows with who we are -- within ourselves -- we stop compromising ourselves in order to win the approval of the world around us.

    And best of all, as a result of our growing discoveries about the secret of letting go, we find ourselves on the threshold of solving the greatest mystery on earth: who are we? Why are we here? And what is our true role in this world? For as we start to see reality -- as it is -- in its timeless expression of creating life, perfecting it, and then letting it go, only to start all over again, we realize that we ourselves are an integral part of this Great Endless Story. And if the whole of Life is being made new in each and every moment -- and we ourselves are a part of its never-ending process of perfection -- then letting go isn't some distant and difficult faculty to be acquired. To the contrary: letting go is an effortless state of our own consciousness; it is a natural power of ours needing only to be actualized in order for us to realize the freedom that it alone can grant.

    Successfully added to My Favorites! Add to Favorites
  6. Nov 26, 2004

    A Special Holiday Message About How to Make the Season Bright

    We're coming into a time of the year when certain conditions of the human consciousness glare. This time of the year is intended to be the happiest time of the year according to popular culture, but for most it's not only not the happiest time of the year, it's often the most conflicted time of the year. All of the unattended-to things relative to family and friends -- all of the shortcomings that one has lived out for eleven months -- suddenly pop up to the forefront when it's time to make amends, buy gifts, have family meals, and enjoy the happy tidings. If you're going to become a different kind of human being, gradually you will need to see what I'm going to speak of.

    There are all kinds of movements. This room -- as relatively still as it is -- is filled with movements, but they're invisible movements. There is the movement of the person sitting next to you, however subtle that may be; there is the movement of the air around us caused by breathing, caused by the fireplace; there is the movement of thoughts and feelings, and the movement of invisible energies that these thoughts and feelings produce that emanate, radiate from the body; and there is the interaction of those radiations of two different people sitting next to each other and having the experience of whatever it is that energy brings out. But all of these movements, by and large, are almost completely ignored. They're ignored, not because we choose to ignore them, but because we live from a nature that is isolated, cut off from any awareness of these movements. Not only are we not aware of these movements, we're not aware of the movements inside of ourselves.

    If I was to ask how many of you have been aware three times in the last ten minutes of the movement of your own thoughts and feelings, I can virtually guarantee that a small number of you might raise your hands, and amongst those, maybe one or two actually saw the movement of something. Being identified with something is not seeing the movement of something.

    There are levels and scale of movement in this room, even as I'm talking with you, even as my words may move you one way or the other. There is the movement of the world, and there is the movement of spirit. They are two different things. One precludes the possibility of a human being ever understanding anything about compassion, about love, and the latter (the movement of spirit) is itself the embodiment of things that are compassionate, true, good, and loving.

    The world that you are in now -- when you're not aware of the movement of virtually anything -- is the world in which you are part and parcel, fully a part of the movement of the world. The movement of this world is completely governed by the movement of desires that have nothing that oversees them except for whatever dominates the particular individual in whom that desire manifests itself in the moment.

    Therefore, a person is virtually blind, deaf, and dumb relative to the degree to which he or she is identified with these movements inside of themselves, and cannot see at large the movement of themselves in the world because they are the world that is moving. Now, maybe that doesn't mean much to you, but I'll tell you something about it -- something that I saw recently.

    My wife and I had gone to Costco [a giant warehouse store] in order to pick up some supplies for the Foundation. Costco is a perfect microcosm of the human brain. It is loaded with more things than one needs, set out in attractive aisles for the purpose of catching one's eye (just as thoughts, desires, and feelings are), and it's filled with individuals -- not one of whom even knows they're in the store, who knows the movement of their own thoughts and feelings.

    Relative to that picture, imagine all of these thoughts and feelings running around the mind (just like in Costco), trying to get their hands on what they want to get their hands on -- lots of discounted deals, lots of bright things for the future to make one happier -- with thoughts bumping into each other, carts running each other over. Someone sees something and you see it at the same time, and you want the pasta before they get it. Have you ever run into your own thought?

    Here are a thousand people in a giant store, and the purpose of that store (of desire) is to bring one to the desired object. If the store wants something to stand out, someone must actually make it stand out, so (particularly at this time of year) there are always a half a dozen or so people standing in front of little carts with microwaves and skillets, preparing tasty morsels for human beings to sample.

    The human beings standing there, waiting to get their tasty morsel, are irritated by the fact that they have to wait in line to get it, or that the woman preparing it is too slow – because they're part of a movement that can't see anything except for the desire in front of their own eyes. They can't see that 75-year-old woman, skin like tissue, thin and worn, hands old, eyes bleached (from the same kind of life that we've lived, I might add, that we've all been a part of). Hardly anyone says "thank you." Not one person there thinks to themselves, "How is it that I'm in relationship with this poor old woman, irritating me because she's not giving me my pleasure fast enough?"

    There is a monster at large. It is in our body. There is a monster at large that doesn't care about anything other than what it needs in order to feel about itself what it has named as being primary for that moment. That's all.

    There is in me -- just as there is in all human beings -- a nature who has a vested interest in keeping out any impression whatsoever that makes me see that the world I am walking through is how it is because of what that nature is. No one wants to suffer the fact that the world they see is what it is because of the way they are. Why? Because then I'm going to have to meet this thing that doesn't see but just wants. I have to meet this thing that doesn't consider anything outside of itself other than what is necessary to support whatever it is feeling about itself in the moment.

    Here is all of this movement, and part of that body of human beings is all moving towards a poor old woman who is moving to satisfy that movement, and not one part of any of that movement has consciousness of any other part. That's what it means to be dead and blind.

    Until a person begins to separate from this incessant movement in themselves, there's no chance for them to ever know a life that isn't part of the denigration of the spirit because of that incessant movement. It's impossible.

    But what a suffering is involved. I have to stop feeding myself. I have to stop having enemies. I have to stop thinking about people. And most important, I have to stop putting myself at the center of the universe because all the things I think about, even those I think I care about, still put me at the center of the universe.

    All of this movement that I'm talking about, which we absolutely don't see because we're swept away in it, precludes us from seeing anything else that's in that movement.

    To be blinded means to be out of relationship with what's around you. And the point of spirit, as opposed to the movement of the world, is that spirit (what is true) is always in relationship with what is around it. It's never not conscious of its relationship to life because gradually a human being begins to recognize that it's mandatory to become still. Without stillness there is no hope for transformation.

    You have to examine yourself and see how stimulated you are by movement that you come up with that has to do with the plans by which your spiritual works are going to change you. All your plans and knowledge, your gabbing and convincing one another of what you have and how things ought to be, doesn't change anything – it just makes you part of the "Costco consciousness" of spiritual beings.

    True spirituality has its root in a very, very dear payment that begins with an individual becoming conscious of himself, in the world, as he is, and as the word is. Then because of that, by the very consciousness that he has of the condition inside of himself and its relationship to the world that condition has produced as a result of his unconsciousness of it, then change becomes necessary. It's not a question anymore that a person wants to change. They're staggered by the fact of what they are. You're not staggered at all by what you are. You're quite pleased with what you are because presently what you are is filled with your plans to become something different. All plans to become something different are garbage. If you have a spiritual future, you have nothing but the repetition of what you have been.

    Be different this year by being different now. Try to see past the movement of your own mind. The only way to see past the movement that is generated by desire and the mind is for there to be something still in you. If there is nothing still in you, then you are part of all of that movement.

    You go out to the supermarket, the shopping centers, the mall. By and large you waste your money, trying to find a way to feel good about what you've been and done over the year by making it up to someone at this time. You want to know how to make it up to someone? Don't hurt them. Don't take from them. Don't stand in front of them and wait for them to give you what you want so that your appetite can be satisfied. Give them something. Give them your attention. Find out where you can be a little bit of light instead of a stone around somebody's neck.

    I know that it doesn't sound like much, but I can assure you that one person standing in a crowd of five, ten, or fifteen people, recognizing the fact and the actuality of the condition they're in, coming wide awake and bearing some of the pain that's inherent wherever human beings are gathered for the purpose of satisfying themselves, that such a tiny act not only changes that moment but changes the whole of the world that you and I have been a part of.

    This is what the holidays are about, as far as I'm concerned: Where is it possible for me to step out of the worldly movement and into the stillness of spirit that can be a part of the world but is not in it in the way that I am when I am part of that blind movement to satisfy myself?

    When the shoe fits, change the foot... it's not easy to change one's foot, meaning to change one's psychology, but I can assure you, if you don't do that work, you will be part of a blind force that is consumed by a blind force, and that ends in a blind force.

    On the other hand, this time of the year, you do what you can, wherever you can, and suffer what you must consciously. Cease to be a part of what is destroying this earth and the soul inside of you, and you become part of the creation of a new world that begins within you and is finally expressed in a Light that dawns and is born upon the earth.

    Successfully added to My Favorites! Add to Favorites
  7. Sep 19, 2004

    Break Through the Barrier Between You and Real Peace

    If we wish to find peace we must understand something of its life. Here are a few such facts: Peace is the natural radiation of a living Now; it is one with that Light whose life is the eternal present itself, even as the emanations of light and warmth are one with the sun from which they radiate. If our intuition can perceive that the above ideas are based in truth, then we should be naturally moved to ask the following question: If this peace we long for is inherent in this perfectly present moment we call the "Now," what is it that keeps us from knowing the fulfillment of its promise within us? Let's look.

    Through even casual observation, we can see that the primary governing body of our present self seems to be a mental and emotional construct whose sole occupation in life seems to be an ongoing consideration of what was and what will be. This activity amounts to what we experiences as an endless weighing of our past and subsequent planning of our future. Stated in another way, our lives are currently made up of what we name for ourselves as being good days or bad days. Of course these "good" and "bad" days are labeled as such based on how they measure up to our desired expectations. Good days "happen" when we get what we desire, and bad days are... well, you know!

    Now, one of the strange features about this present nature of ours is that even on "good" days -- when we manage to achieve what we desire and feel a sense of satisfaction -- this conditional peace often turns against us; triumph becomes a kind of torment as we end up fearing we will lose the thing just gained. Poof goes our peace! There is no profit in it, and its promises are equally empty.

    We have another nature, one whose life and whose peace are the same character. This order of Self, and the Now that is the backdrop of its being, are as the branch is to the life-giving vine. No true peace can survive apart from this relationship. Any other form of peace is its earthly expression. But to make the point: No order, no peace. Order is peace.

    This peace confounds the lower level of mind that only knows stillness by what it imagines its qualities to be. The mind asleep to itself -- and hence to the reality of the stillness spoken of earlier upon which life is seen dancing -- cannot conceive how its own images of winning in life deny it the victory over life for which it longs. In order to know peace and its promise, we must release ourselves from this sleeping self that is always struggling to put pieces of peace together in the vain hope they will stay united!

    We have all tried sewing pieces of peace together, thinking through what we must do to rid ourselves of whatever nags at us. You know the dialogue one is ever having with oneself.

    "Hopefully this career change will make things better; maybe going to the gym will get my love life going; once I make him understand my point of view..." "As soon as" becomes the chant and the source of our confidence. We all know how this goes. The chattering is as endless as one's fear of feeling empty. And the more of these "pieces of peace" we juggle, the more anxious we become, all the while hoping that life won't break up what we would assemble. Even through this approach has proven itself fruitless, still we cling to the hope that next time things will be different. What we must see is that our lives cannot change until we do -- from the inside out.

    To succeed in our quest, we need a new and higher understanding of our own being. For this peace that we seek resides within us; it is not to be found anywhere else, which leads us to the next step in our search. To enter the silent world of peace requires that we learn the secret of being still. We must discover and enter into our own still being.

    The task before us is not an easy one, and anyone who tells you differently lies; but we are not asked to make this journey without a guide. Before us goes the Light of Truth. It reveals the Way by opening our eyes to see among other truths, that the peace we seek is not a thing created by us. We learn that admission into its celestial kingdom is by mutual consent only, even though this peace agrees to no terms other than its own. It makes the rules, not us. Yet we are eventually made grateful for these unyielding laws, for whatever soul agrees to bend its will to these terms of eternal peace not only finds God's peace revealed, but also that this providence has now become a permanent presence within his or her heart.

    Successfully added to My Favorites! Add to Favorites
  8. Jul 17, 2004

    Bill of Lights (adapted from Liberation of Consciousness)

    We who aspire to a life of Truth . . . in order to unite ourselves within the guiding Light of its silent providence, and to secure the blessings of a freedom that only its presence can provide, hereby establish within and amongst ourselves, for all of posterity, these Articles of Higher Consciousness as set forth in this Bill of Lights.

    Article I
    You have the Light to detect, dismiss, and to transcend the limiting influences of painful negative states such as doubt, worry, hatred, anger, and fear.

    Article II
    You have the Light to do your unique part in perfecting any moment within which you are willing to come awake to yourself.

    Article III
    You have the Light to help each person you meet realize that he or she has the inalienable right to live within and from the same Bill of Lights as do you.

    Article IV
    You have the Light to live in a peaceful world within yourself that is spontaneously creative and quietly confident at all times.

    Article V
    You have the Light to act with compassion towards all other beings regardless of how challenging your personal circumstances may be in any given moment.

    Article VI
    You have the Light to always remember that the Goodness responsible for your creation wants only what is true and good for you.

    Article VII
    You have the Light to realize that all things pass except for that Light living within you by whose eternal presence alone it becomes possible to see the soul-consoling beauty of this Truth.

    Successfully added to My Favorites! Add to Favorites
  9. Jul 07, 2003

    A Spiritual Declaration of Independence

    These five special insights present the case for -- as well as the cost of -- true Spiritual Independence. Welcome them into your mind and watch how their secret instructions lead you to the unconditional freedom that your heart longs for.

    To weigh the value of what this world can reward you with -- you need only to remove the scales from your eyes; for were you willing to measure how many times you have fallen victim to a world that promises you victory, then you would know just how hollow is the hope of finding treasure in a trash basket.

    If common social convention -- with all is contrivance and hypocrisy -- has one redeeming value, it is this: The happy day may come when we realize that our lives have been spent dining with devils, conversing with thieves, making plans with liars, and promises to people incapable of even a single act of integrity. This day of our awakening is the same as the delightful date of our departure from a bankrupt world filled with beggars dressed as kings and queens.

    Billions give their lives away for a moment's pleasure, for the promise of approval, or in the hope of acquiring some power by which to make their world a prettier place in the face of all the ugliness that these same pursuits create. The few and the true also give their lives away, but only in acts of quiet selflessness that naturally follow in the footsteps of the one who follows the Upward Path.

    For those with "ears to hear" there is but one question and one answer: Will we wait patiently for a single moment of relationship with what is Eternal and Real, wherein for the touch of something Timeless all the moments of our life are forever changed, or do we waste the few moments of our life chasing the pleasure of an imagined time to come that forever recedes from our grasp in the same instant that we reach for it?

    No one can say "No" to this world who is afraid to walk through it alone. The unseen cost of this baseless fear is not to just keep the company of cowards, but to lose one's possibility of ever coming to know the company of the Divine.

    Successfully added to My Favorites! Add to Favorites
  10. Apr 16, 2003

    Discover Your Power of Higher Choice (Transcript)

    I want you to remember for the rest of your life on this earth that you were never created to be the slave of any negative thought or feeling, that you were never created to be the subject of some limitation.

    The only way you'll ever know the truth of that statement is when, through what is ultimately a long process in this education of the soul, you begin at last to experience the dawning of a new light inside of you. This light is born out of your love of the Light. Your love of Truth is what gives birth to the truth in you that you love. It's always been that way. There's nowhere to go, there's nothing to do. There's only this willingness on the part of the soul who wants to learn the lessons that he or she is presented with all the time. There's only the willingness on that nascent soul's part to discover the unclaimed territory of itself, which currently has been claimed by something quite foreign to the purpose of that soul.

    Part of that education and discovery is the following idea that I want you to remember, and I'll show you how it works: There is nothing that can stay in your mind, there is nothing that can stay in your heart, that you do not willingly remember. What does that mean? It means that when there is a painful, fearful, anxious, or hateful thought or feeling in your mind -- so that you look out and see a world that is painful, hateful, or fearful -- that thought or feeling remains in your mind because you are under the spell of a nature inside of you whose will is exactly the same as the negative state that you are identified with.

    You were created to be the sovereign governor, the one within who decides what remains within you. Nothing can be held in the mind that isn't remembered there.

    Have you ever had in your mind the image of someone who hurt you, or the image of something that didn't work out ten years ago or ten minutes ago? How does it stay in your mind? You fight with it, you try to fix it, you try to do something with it. You remember it. No image can stay in the mind, no sensation can stay in the heart that is not remembered there. Whatever it is in you that wants to remember that pain doesn't remember it for the purpose of freeing you from it -- even though this is what it seems to promise -- but does so because it keeps you a captive of that desire, of that nature.

    So I don't have to remember anything I don't want to. Now I'll say it to you positively: I can remember whatever I want to.

    Throughout time, the saints, sages, and wise ones have talked about what it means to remember God, what it means to remember yourself. I am telling you the interior meaning of what it means to remember yourself, to remember God, to remember the Light. In the moment in which you first discover that something in you is holding in your mind and heart a bitter picture, a bitter thought, an angry feeling, a regret, self-pity, whatever it may be, you must realize in that moment that you're remembering it willingly. But you don't know you're remembering it because you're a captive of what it's showing you as being the cause of that pain. This keeps you from seeing that the real cause is that you are agreeing to it. You are saying "I" to the will that whips you, because the will that whips you promises you relief from the whip if you will just chase what it shows you to chase.

    I am given by my Creator the ability to remember what I want to. In other words, I am given the ability to no longer have to remember the things that have been imposed upon me by the will of my past – the will of what I have been, the will of what I didn't get, the will of what they did to me. And when I start to understand that, then in the moment where that pressure comes over me -- where I begin to see a dark world filled with dark people doing dark things towards me (whatever it may be that the individual uneducated soul sees) -- I can let that all go. I let it go by first seeing the fact of it. I don't have to hold anything in this house that I don't want in it. And what I don't want anymore is to feel as though life is against me. I don't want to feel anymore like I've got to straighten out the whole universe.

    Then, instead of the partial, you remember the Whole. You withdraw your attention – which is an extension of your will – from the partial. You withdraw your attention from the object that the dark will is calling the dark problem. You withdraw your attention from the partial and you put your attention on the Whole. You remember the Whole as best you understand it. You remember the Light that has no burden, as opposed to identifying with the burden of bitterness that comes through blaming someone else for your pain. You come awake to yourself and you move from something that is isolated and separated through an unconscious action of a dark will inside of you, into something that has surrendered its small will to a greater will.

    And listen to what happens: When you will remember the Whole, when you will remember God, when you will remember Love… you will begin to irritate the heck out of the devil – the darkness. When you're feeling anger and enmity, see that what you're feeling is because you have been made to remember something painful, and then caused to identify with the sensations both of the pain and the promise of being relieved from that pain. And instead of remembering hatred, remember Love. Instead of remembering your tiny little life, remember God's eternal life. You bring into your present painful understanding the higher understanding that you are growing into and that is growing into you.

    The dark will of desire is what occupies the soul at present, because it promises the soul that it can find outside of itself something that will bring an end to the pain of the desire. And when the remembrance of the Light is brought into that dark will of desire, in that moment when a man or woman will remember the Whole, remember God, remember themselves and their wish, that dark will of desire is rendered powerless. It is suddenly captured and made into something greater that benefits the soul, even though prior to that moment, it would have hated anything that revealed its own limited, dead-end life. And in that moment when the Light enters into it, the same dark will of desire realizes that it was always the ground in which, and upon which, everything it ever wanted already existed. But it had to have the Light to cancel the opposites. It needed the Light to reveal this fact to itself. So the Light enters into the darkness that doesn't comprehend it, and the darkness is changed by the entrance of that Light into something that is greater than it was before.

    Remember what I'm telling you. You were given by God, by Truth, by the Living Light, the ability to choose what is in your mind. You were given the right to determine whose will you live from. Your task is not to will the greater; it is to surrender the lesser into the greater – to change your understanding of your relationship in this world so that you no longer struggle to overcome something, but instead see that all you need to do is give up the nature that lives to fight with what overcomes it.

    You must see it, over and over again, and then right in the middle of the darkest moment – right in the middle of that punishing thought or feeling that's come over you -- you remember what you have been told, and then you work at it. You find something that is broader, greater, bigger, kinder, truer, more loving, more wide, more deep inside of yourself… because it's there. In your uneducated, unenlightened soul dwells the whole of the kingdom with all of the mansions, and the punishment of the soul is the deception that the only house it has is the little one that now holds it captive – the one it must now fight to tear down. Don't fight to tear down anything. See through the deception. You see through it by an act of being willing to give yourself up.

    You have to give up this little will, the one that fills you with the powerful and fiery thoughts and feelings when it's captured by something. You have to give it up, but you don't just give it up in the sense of "I'm throwing this away." Instead, you turn it over. You let it go through the natural process of remembering its relationship with the Greater Light that gave it life, and then it gives itself to that Light, and then that Light gives it Real Life.

    Successfully added to My Favorites! Add to Favorites
  11. Mar 12, 2003

    Start Sowing the Seeds of a New Life

    I live on top of a small mountain in southern Oregon where each morning, from a chair seated next to a large window in my small house, I sit quietly and watch the world turn. Right outside, usually less than ten to twelve feet away from where I am seated, it is as though Mother Nature mounts a wildlife parade just for me.

    Deer, wild turkey, gray tree squirrels, rabbits, and more than a dozen species of birds all congregate and then move through an area just beneath a cluster of spreading oak trees. The birds come for the seed I provide in a number of stations, and the turkeys come for their table scraps. Why the rest appear as they do is anyone's guess. Maybe they just enjoy the party!

    At any rate, come early March, signs of spring appear and this change means many things to my visiting friends. For most birds, mating season begins in earnest. This usually means lots of singing, posturing, and aggressive, territorial behavior, while for some of the other creatures, this time heralds a season for giving birth to young conceived some months before.

    But regardless of these varying conditions, one thing remains in common to one and all; and it is apparent to anyone watching with an eye willing to observe and learn: these creatures are constantly active. They are as alert and as sensitive to life going on around them as is a silk spider web responsive to the slightest summer's breeze.

    And along with this natural feature of all wild creatures, in fact very much at the root of what enables them to expend so much vital energy, is another highly noticeable behavior: their lives are a never-ending search for food. Apart from propagating their own species, feeding themselves is their principle work on this earth.

    The silent turning of the seasons, the latent desire of all creatures to fulfill the purpose for their being, the invisible hand that ensures that necessary supplies of food stuffs will be there for them at the right moment; these elements, their balance and concert with one another all speak of what the Wise have called (and still do) the "Invisible Eternals."

    These Invisible Eternals are the unseen Timeless Principles that sit behind the expression of our physical world, and that are to its existence as is the sun to the shadows that pay silent witness to their creator. To be able to see these Eternal Forces as the true backdrop of a greater reality is to become a witness to an Intelligent Universe at work.

    For the one who would become consciously aware of these Invisible Eternals, the same is brought into a whole new order of reality where intelligence, action and harmony are as one thing; herein the Light shines upon and animates all creatures alike. Even conflict serves something greater than its lesser causes.

    This journey of awareness between one's first glimpse of this Higher Reality, and one's realization of it as the ground of one's own being, is the true spiritual path and task of those who would know and be known by Truth. And we are created to enter this Higher World, to know this heaven and its Love while we dwell on earth. Make no mistake about this.

    All Scripture, the Wisdom teachings regardless of origin, confer this same truth. To take one example, the great Christian mystic Boehme points out that Christ taught, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give them the eternal life." Here Christ did not say, "You may know life eternal in a time to come (i.e., after death)," but now, in this life.

    If anyone has "eyes to see" these Invisible Eternals -- where the celestial is hidden in the common -- and "ears to hear" the truths about themselves and their relationship to these everlasting Principles, then such a person is ready to begin the inner work required for the next step to make this change in their being. Yes, it takes work; and any who teach otherwise mislead.

    What is the nature of this inner work that we must do, and how can we be sure it is required of us? When is this work to be done, and who or what determines all of the above? These are the questions that seekers have been asking since time began.

    Our need to discover and realize these Invisible Eternals cannot be over-stated because, the truth is, we are their embodiment. It is this same fact that makes it possible for us to awaken to their existence, align ourselves with their will, and to realize our oneness with them. Now let's take one of these Timeless Principles and see how exploring its Wisdom increases our own.

    One Timeless Principle that is evidenced throughout creation is that all things "lesser" have their origin in something "greater." For instance, the branch owes its being to the vine from which it originates; the rivers run back to the seas that give them birth. And so it is when it comes to these Invisible Eternals; amongst them are found "greater" and "lesser" Truths.

    With these insights to guide us, let's look into one of the greatest of these Principles taught by every great teacher since time began. In these so-called progressive times, this all but forgotten Principle is as simple as it is prophetic: "We reap what we sow." Share this fact with someone who hates his life and he will hate you for the truth you tell about why he feels as he does!

    Everywhere you look today people are only concerned with getting what they want, when they want it, and as fast as possible. The fires that fuel their appetite (for this envisioned success) create so much smoke that they lose sight of the fact that all they reap for their insistent sowing is one regret after another. And of course when things go badly, there is always someone to blame.

    If we are ever to realize our Timeless True Self, if we long for heaven on earth while we live here, then we must sow the seeds that help bring that Higher Life into fruition. One cannot expect to reap what one does not sow, and imagining or hoping for a higher life is not the sowing of true spiritual seeds any more than dreaming about climbing a mountain is the same as reaching its top.

    To sow spiritual seeds means that we do spiritual work. Spiritual work is always interior work first, even if, as a matter of course, this work becomes manifested through some outer or social action. What is this interior work by which we sow the seeds of the celestial within us? Following are four ways to work at sowing the seeds of a Higher Life.

    1. We must learn not to burden others or ourselves with our disappointments, fearful future visions, or past regrets even as, in the same moment, we learn to ask Truth for more insight into those unseen aspects of our present nature that is, at once, reaping its regrets even as it sows more of the same dark seeds.

    2. We must learn to sit quietly with ourselves and wait patiently for the Light of God's Peace to replace those dark, noisy thoughts and feelings telling us we have too much old baggage to make the Journey Home. Each time we sow these seeds through some quiet meditation, we reap the strength that comes with realizing that this Silence that comes to us is our real Home.

    3. We must learn to remember our intention to start our whole life over every moment we awaken to find ourselves reliving some past conflict. To sow these seeds of a refreshed outlook born of remembering that our True Life is always New, is to let go of who we have been and to begin reaping a life free of anger and fear.

    4. We must learn to look our fears, our weariness, our anxiety, directly in the eye and, instead of seeing what is impossible (according to their view of life), sow the seeds of a whole new possibility by consciously daring to doubt their dark view of things. Our refusal to identify with self-limiting negative states reaps us the reward of realizing ever-new and higher realities.

    The key lesson here is that it is not enough to just sow seeds in this physical life, regardless of how sublime they may seem when we set them out. Even those seeds that "succeed" in rewarding us for our effort can only grow forms that must fall in time. If we wish Heaven, Wholeness, Love, and Light to fill our lives, then we must sow their Eternal Seeds within us. That is the Work.

    Make your own list of ways to work at sowing the seeds of a New Life, being careful to remember the infallible Principle behind another of the Invisible Eternals: the inner determines the outer. Set yourself to the task of being an inwardly awake person and watch how you begin to reap the awareness that makes all things possible.

    Successfully added to My Favorites! Add to Favorites
  12. Feb 22, 2003

    10 Small Steps to Real Self-Knowledge

    Volunteer for deliberate spiritual growth by daring to venture into the unknown. It may surprise you to discover that the circumstances necessary just for you, and for your continuing inner development are much closer than you think! For instance, start with the following "10 Small Steps to Real Self-Knowledge." Agree to step into these unknown moments and then step back... And watch how new confidence, unshakable courage, and higher intuition make their way into your life changing it... and you, forever.

    You Venture Into the Unknown Each Time You Agree To:

    1. Be alone when you don't feel comfortable being with, or by, yourself.

    2. Stay quiet without any distractions of one kind or another.

    3. Get up in the morning when you wake up, even when there's "nothing to do."

    4. Leave the dining table while still feeling a little hungry.

    5. Refuse to run pleasing mental movies about a hoped-for brighter future when facing those boring reruns of your present life.

    6. Ask nothing of God but for Himself.

    7. Dare not to tell someone else how he or she failed to live up to your expectations.

    8. Leave at least 24 hours between your wish to correct someone who has angered you and that moment when you decide to confront him or her.

    9. Agree to assume more responsibility than you think it's possible for you to handle.

    10. Answer the moment the way you really want to... Without explaining to anyone why you answered it in the way that you did.

    For additional spiritual benefit you're encouraged to work with the following exercise:

    Each day, at a point and time designated by you, go on a one hour retreat with nothing. Find a place where you can be by yourself and meet the hour alone and unknown. Spend this personal time without bringing anything known into it with you. Just be you, whatever that brings with it. And it bears mentioning that you can't fail at this exercise. To attempt it is to venture into the unknown. If you'll do this much, the Truth will take care of the rest.

    Successfully added to My Favorites! Add to Favorites
View as Grid List

12 of 37 Items

Page
per page
Set Ascending Direction