Gems

We may periodically have the universal dream of either riding on a train or being about to take a train, anxious that we may miss it, have missed it, or are getting off the train. So, do we follow the movement of the train, or do we stay behind? We have choices.

We may not always make choices consciously, but we do always choose intentionally. For instance, if we choose to go on a path of self-searching, hop...

The swing of the pendulum alternates between emphasizing individual and group consciousness. It has been in motion since mankind first set foot on planet Earth. During each phase, we move to a higher level of development, leveraging what we have learned from the previous phase.

Over the past few hundred years, the emphasis has been on the individual. We were learning certain lessons related to individual rig...

As we humpty dumpty our way down the road of personal healing, we will increasingly come to believe that it’s possible to resolve our inner problems; we can put ourselves back together again…Our own heretofore-unheard-of successes fortify us with courage to go even deeper, exploring inner nooks and crannies where evil lurks. Level by level we go, traversing a spiral configuration until the circles become so sma...

It’s important not to push away our fears and longing when they surface; we’ll need to screw up the courage to feel the pain of our problems and turn toward facing our deepest fear. To be honest, that’s not what we usually do. We turn away and go on and on, one incarnation after another, dragging karmic ballast along with us. At some point, we’ve got to stop and face the music…

Let’s see what it would mean f...

Balance doesn’t come by way of a mathematical formula; it’s not a fifty-fifty deal. There are no simple rules. For example, what’s the right balance between sleep and being awake? While this will vary somewhat from person to person, nobody needs twelve hours of sleep a day. So it may outwardly seem out of balance to get eight hours of sleep followed by sixteen hours of activity. But in terms of inner balance, t...

If we hindered the cycles of physical change by somehow constricting space for physical expansion, atrophy and finally death would occur. We would destroy life. The unseen aspects of an organism—the psychic, spiritual, mental and emotional levels—are no different. Yet humans carry with them a mass image—or a collective hidden belief. It says we should fear change, which then saddles us with overcoming fear of d...

The pain of injustice contains much more than can be expressed by this word “injustice.” Because our pain is not just about injustice that is happening to us in the here-and-now. It includes a fear that we live in a world where destruction can happen—and there are no safety valves.

It’s the fear that there’s no rhyme or reason to anything, and that nothing we do—good, bad or otherwise—will have any effect on...

The more we ramp up our commitment—and really mean it—and make an effort every day to find our blocks and distortions, the more energy and excitement we will feel. But if we focus on selfish ends, we’ll be more insecure, battling a frightening sense that life is meaningless. Here’s the vicious circle: life is meaningless, we push selfishly for minor fulfillments, we feel divorced from Christ, and life feels mor...

Awareness doesn’t just show up, served to us on a silver platter; we have to fight for it. It won’t come easy or cheap. But sticking with the isolated ego state is no picnic either. What stops us are the tricks of the ego used to keep its me-Tarzan mojo going…

For starters, the ego will trot out every conceivable negativity known to humankind…We can bundle all these ugly traits under the triumvirate of pride...

There is a rich, nougat filling at our core. The work for each one of us is to know that, underneath it all, this is who we are…What we’re looking for is a very specific feeling that is outside our usual rainbow of feelings that tops out at love…It’s so rare, it has no name. For lack of something better, we could call it ‘that cosmic feeling’…

Just imagine what it would be like to have the total absence of f...

We often think of finding faith as having a blind belief in something we have no way of knowing…And indeed, if that’s what faith’s about, it would be right to discard it. For who wants to be stupid and believe in something that has no grounding in reality and can never be experienced as truth?...

This perspective keeps us perched on a platform from which the only things that are real are what we can see, tou...

What about the soul movement of desire—positive or negative?…Eastern philosophies are big fans of the notion that desirelessness is ideal, postulating that having desires hinders ones spirituality. And this is true. But it’s only half-true…Because it’s impossible to create if there is an absence of desire. Creation requires our ability to visualize a new state of being, and for that we must have a desire to hav...

When we embark on a spiritual path, our growth and expansion propels us toward new experiences and higher states of consciousness and unity. This is an abundant snowball that turns out smiley faces…

One essential aspect of our creative process is visualization. Because if we can’t envision the state of unity we want to grow into, it will be hard to ever get there. We need to see the prototype provided by som...

People on a spiritual path of self-knowing like to use the word “surrender”. Those of us who aren’t capable of surrendering aren’t going to have much luck finding the core of our being—our divine nature. We won’t be able to love or truly learn and grow. We’ll be stiff and defended and closed off…

One thing we need surrendering to is God’s will, because without that, we’re SOL…And let’s be clear, truth and Go...

To our way of seeing things, we have been put into a world that is an objective, fixed place; everything is ready-made for struggle. Submitting to this version of reality, false though it may be, seems to make the most sense…To a degree, this assessment is correct. We must struggle to accept the world the way we find it and deal with it on its terms…At the same time we have a new vision of things rising up from...