[[You came forth to live happily ever after. 1]] [[Knowing, being aware or awareness itself is never truly obscured by experience, just as the screen is never veiled by a movie.]] [[Perhaps you do not yet fully realize just what holding grievances does to your mind. It seems to split you off from your source and make you unlike him.]] [[Too bad! Same old story! Once you’ve finished building your house you notice you’ve accidentally learned something that you really should have known—before you started.]] [[There is absolutely nothing in ordinary human experience to compare with the joy of the presence of the Love of God. No sacrifice is too great nor effort too much in order to realize that Presence.]] [[The readiness to initiate the journey cannot be forced nor can people be faulted if it has not occurred in them as yet. The level of consciousness has to have advanced to the stage where such an intention would be meaningful and attractive.]] [[Commitment to the highest spiritual goals tends to bring up the ego’s defects, which is to be expected.]] [[The seeking of Enlightenment is a very major commitment, and is, in fact, the most difficult of human pursuits. It can be alternately arduous or exhilarating, exciting or tedious, demanding or inspiring.]] [[The inspiration to evolve spiritually is already a manifestation of the presence of God within, and it’s certainly indicative of good karma.]] [[Life is how you perceive it. The meaning of it is what you project out there. In and of itself, it doesn’t mean anything.]] [[It is helpful to understand that if one is not happy with present circumstances, the chances are that happiness will still be elusive when conditions change to meet one’s current desire. 1]] [[Desire is fueled by the illusion of lack and that the source of happiness is outside oneself and therefore has to be pursued or acquired. 2]] [[“People hate me” stems from one’s own inner hatreds. “People don’t care about me” stems from one’s narcissistic absorption with one’s happiness and gain instead of others. “I don’t get enough love” stems from not giving love to others.]] [[There is a great joy in the realization that one does not actually need anything at all to be happy ... at an advanced level the awareness of existence itself is sufficient.]] [[You need to be right, you need to make money, you need to be successful – it’s the neediness that’s the problem. Instead, become that which attracts those things.]] [[In the spiritual world, the basic dictum is there are no justified resentments. This statement is abhorred by the ego. Oh yeah, it says, but what about so and so.]] [[To let go of the known for the unknown requires great commitment, willingness, and devotion to surrendering one’s faith to God.]] [[The constant awareness of one’s existence as “I” is the ever present expression of the innate divinity of the Self ... The truth of this identity is obscured by the duality created by perception and disappears when all positionalities are relinquished”]] [[The attachment to love is really the trap (not love itself) and the barrier to enlightenment. In Reality, love is freedom, but attachment to love is a limitation.]] [[Q How do I best care for my alcoholic sister]] [[Ego is the persistence of animal instinct from an earlier part of the brain. The frontal cortex emerged later and allows thinking.]] [[Never underestimate the ego’s wily strategies. The more realistic position is to respect its capacities and compassionately heal it. Once the ego is docile it is much more amenable to evaporating into the sunshine.]] [[the ego has to be first accepted as though it is a reality in order to be dealt with before it can be transcended.]] [[Man is addicted to the payoffs of being right, blaming others, twisting the knife. ...Most would rather enjoy hating someone than to give it all up.]] [[The ego gets a grim pleasure and satisfaction from suffering and all the non-integrous levels of pride, anger, desire, guilt, shame, and grief.]] [[Everyone gets a secret pleasure from resentments, from being the martyr or the victim, and from feeling misunderstood, unappreciated, etc.]] [[It’s willful to even insist that you’re going to be enlightened. Who wants to be enlightened]] [[A useful approach is to let the love for God replace the willfulness that is driving the seeking.]] [[There is one basic saying in zen that one can rely on completely Walk through all fear no matter what, committed to spiritual truth, no matter what.]] [[Dear God, on this day I ask to be a servant of the Lord, a vehicle of Divine Love and a channel of God’s will.]] [[It is only the illusion of individuality that is the origin of all suffering.]] [[Full acceptance ... does not mean becoming an apologist for grossly negative, destructive behavior. A bull may misperceive a bystander as a potential enemy, but that does not mean that one thereby allows oneself to be needlessly gored.]] [[A common spiritual error is made by holding God as the author of human suffering, which is actually the collective negative impact of the ego itself.]] [[With humility comes the willingness to stop trying to control or change other people or life situations or events ostensibly ‘for their own good’.]] [[The road to enlightenment is not for bleating sheep. To be offended signifies that one is defended, which, in itself, signifies the clinging to untruth. Truth needs no defense and therefore is not defensive; truth has nothing to prove.]] [[Write down all your faults. Write down all the faults others think you have, even if you think they’re liars.]] [[The next core problem is the difficulty of letting go of emotional love – not because of the love itself but because of the attachment to that which is loved.]] [[Non-attachment is not the same as indifference, withdrawal or detachment....In contrast, non-attachment allows full participation in life without trying to control outcomes.]] [[The ego, or more accurately, the belief that one is the ego, obscures the Realization of the Reality of the Self as the Oneness of All That is. The dissolution of the ego results in liberation from the bondage of the illusions that create suffering.]] [[Not knowing the highest good in a situation pray about something, not for something.]] [[Supplication is an act of humility. To lower levels of consciousness, prayer is an attempt to get something for self or others, such as a new car, a job, recovery from an illness, or special favors.]] [[If you look at God as a great Father or great Mother, than S He would delight in your enlightenment. God experiences the joy of His own Divinity, is both the pathway and the destination, both the traveler and the destination.]] [[To understand the nature of God, it is necessary only to know the nature of love itself. To truly know love is to know and understand God; and to know God is to understand love.]] [[To surrender what one thinks they are to God does not leave one as ‘nothing’, but quite the contrary .... Every identification is a limitation.]] [[Any self-designation or description is illusory. Even the statement “to be enlightened” is misleading and not a reality. The state is beyond ‘being’ anything and there is no one to ‘be’ that condition.]] [[If all actions are taking place spontaneously and not being caused by an inner doer, then the emergence of the ego is a spontaneous and impersonal phenomenon.]] [[The advance of truth doesn’t necessarily bring tranquil waters. In fact, it can disturb things for a while. You now have a new paradigm, and inherent in it is the downfall of the old.]] [[Don’t call it anything, don’t label it anything. Keep your mind silent. You stay in touch with whatever you are experiencing, and you let go of resisting it.]] [[The willingness to forgive others is reflected in our own capacity for self-forgiveness and acceptance.]] [[Compassion and forgiveness do not mean approval.]] [[True asceticism means stringent adherence to truth, and it means of the spirit and not the body. To become a pious, ragged, semi-starved, skin-and-bones entity is a self-indulgence and has nothing to do with Reality.]] [[It is rewarding to give up the attachment to the glamour of ‘being spiritual’, ‘holy’, or ‘special’. Truth has no trappings.”]] [[In its broadest and most basic sense, renunciation means the discarding of illusion and the obstruction to the realization of truth and the Reality of God.]] [[You came forth to live happily ever after. 1]]