Show Notes:

Throughout human history there have been great prophets, sages, musicians, teachers, and artists who changed the world in one way or another. These rare individuals had an extraordinary energy seeded into them that was so powerful that the expression of their being radiated out and transcended time itself. One could say that these men and women who changed the world for the better had living...

Highlights:

Throughout human history there have been great prophets, sages, musicians, teachers, and artists who changed the world in one way or another. These rare individuals had an extraordinary energy seeded into them that was so powerful that the expression of their being radiated out and transcended time itself.

One could say that these men and women who changed the world for the better had living within them a certain kind of ""sun."" This sun, this celestial energy that was present within them, influenced and changed everything that came into contact with it. The truth is that we are all meant to have within us this sun from which this energy radiates and changes everything about the world in which we walk.

The fact is that we are already changing the world we live in every moment, but most of the time we are not aware of it. Everyone around us is always affected in some manner by the internal state that we are broadcasting, and we are created with the capacity to become profoundly aware of how our being affects everyone around us.

Within each and every one of us lives a tiny spark of a ""sun."" If we are willing to do what is necessary to see to it that this small spark ignites into a living flame, then nothing can stop us from changing the entire world. This is not in any way an exaggeration, even though it may be hard for our time-bound minds to see that it is so.

There is a very beautiful reciprocal relationship between what is acting upon us and how we act towards it. If we are present to what is acting upon us and within us in any given moment, then that awareness changes both what is acting upon us, and it changes us at the same time.

How does an ocean wave wash away a rock? One drop at a time. That same principle holds true with regard to how we change our relationship with the world. If hopelessness, anxiety, or any other kind of hardness ever comes over us, we change the world each time we come awake to that state and refuse to let it define us.

Real sacrifice has nothing whatsoever to do with making changes for the sake of pleasing our usual sense of self. Real sacrifice is an act of choosing to please what is true in us at the cost of ourselves. That is how we change the world. One small act at a time in which we understand that changing the world begins with ending our relationship with who we have been.

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Show Notes:

Every great journey begins in faith, not with facts. The great explorers throughout history never had facts about the new worlds they were about to discover before they set out on their journeys. New worlds were discovered because these explorers had faith that they existed. It is through the journeying itself that we find what we really need, not in the collecting and mulling over of intellec...

Highlights:

Every great journey begins in faith, not with facts. The great explorers throughout history never had facts about the new worlds they were about to discover before they set out on their journeys. New worlds were discovered because these explorers had faith that they existed. It is through the journeying itself that we find what we really need, not in the collecting and mulling over of intellectual facts.

The beauty of the human consciousness is that we are always on a journey. The higher journey is not about going somewhere, but about being in the place where life can move through us as it is intended. And the surprising discovery that we make is that everything is moving through us.

If we want to understand our lives aright, we must realize that presently nothing in us wants to set out on the journey without first having all of the facts about what will happen. As we are now, we want the facts, and then we will act. No one ever comes to true knowing who waits upon facts before they set out.

We each have within us a nascent faith that is the invitation to enter into a completely different world. We are not speaking about the so-called faith that comes from popular ideals, but about the kind of faith that comes from seeing, directly for ourselves, that what is true in one world must also be true in the next. But it is we who must deliberately takes that first step, not knowing anything about the world we will enter into nor what it will bring. Then and only then will faith turn into a living fact.

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Show Notes:

You can download this podcast here.

Visit our Web site to see all past podcasts.

Show Notes:

You can download this podcast here.

Visit our Web site to see all past podcasts.

Show Notes:

Why do we like music? We like music because it stirs something inside of us. This means that, in the sounding of the music, it brings by its very existence a request to the ears that hear it. What is the request that music makes? The request is for a response, and we cannot separate our response to the music from the change that takes place within us as we respond. The reason that we love mu...

Highlights:

Why do we like music? We like music because it stirs something inside of us. This means that, in the sounding of the music, it brings by its very existence a request to the ears that hear it. What is the request that music makes? The request is for a response, and we cannot separate our response to the music from the change that takes place within us as we respond.

The reason that we love music is because, through its ""touch"", we are consenting to be changed. The sound acts upon us in order to produce a pleasurable response, and for the love of that ""sound"" we are transformed for the moment. Similarly, life itself is request, response, and change. However, there is something that lives within us that, while it agrees to be changed by pleasant music, rejects anything that is stirred within us that it doesn't consider to be a pleasurable sensation.

Usually all we do is measure everything that takes place according to our personal demands. But if we can enter into a broader relationship with life for a moment, we can see that while something might happen to us that we would not prefer, that event may be exactly what someone else needs to have happen in order to learn about this process of request, response, and change.

What if, instead of rejecting moments that we do not like, we met them with the same open heart as we do the music that we love? What would happen to us? We would start to see that there is no sound that plays in us that is not part of a broader plan. It is this Divine sound that ultimately can perfect us if we would just let the music play.

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Show Notes:

What is the nature of true love? Real spiritual love has nothing to do with anything that we can give to ourselves. True love is not something that we create. This lower nature that we presently identify with and derive a sense of self from is not the thing that is going to awaken and become loving. The reality is that this is God's Life, and if we want to know true love, then we must let go o...

Highlights:

What is the nature of true love? Real spiritual love has nothing to do with anything that we can give to ourselves. True love is not something that we create. This lower nature that we presently identify with and derive a sense of self from is not the thing that is going to awaken and become loving. The reality is that this is God's Life, and if we want to know true love, then we must let go of everything that we think we know about love for the sake of that life that God would give us.

The spiritual journey is a journey of giving oneself up for something greater than can possibly be imagined by the mind. When we are finally willing to let go and give ourselves to something higher, we do not do it because we are wise or strong or right; we do it because we have seen what is true. It is Love itself that wants us to learn what is true about ourselves so that we can begin to put what is true before all things.

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Show Notes:

It is a mistake for us to think in terms of spiritual "success." We are not here to succeed as we currently believe; we are here to change. If we wanted to use words, we could say that real success lies in genuinely knowing and living our part in life. However, the problem is that we have unknowingly named for ourselves what our part is. If we truly want a new life, it will come at a great co...

Highlights:

It is a mistake for us to think in terms of spiritual ""success."" We are not here to succeed as we currently believe; we are here to change. If we wanted to use words, we could say that real success lies in genuinely knowing and living our part in life. However, the problem is that we have unknowingly named for ourselves what our part is.

If we truly want a new life, it will come at a great cost. Where did we ever get the idea that taking our life back from the nature that presently possesses it was going to be an easy task? We have to grow up and begin to understand that, just as there are celestial forces that are always active in our favor, there also exists forces that are set against our spiritual growth. What becomes of us all depends upon what we want in our heart of hearts.

There is no true spiritual fulfillment apart from being what we are in the moment. In our daily efforts to meet ourselves as we actually are, we are going to get knocked down again and again. But strangely enough, the harder we get knocked down, the better it is because it begins to shatter the immature illusion that somehow we are going to master this wild 'self' by ourselves. This lower nature is mastered when the room is made for the Master to come into our lives. The real nature of success is in letting God change us.

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Show Notes:

You can download this podcast here.

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Show Notes:

When you go outside on a beautiful day and step into the sunlight, do you have to try to enjoy the warmth? Or is the warmth of the sun just part of what is there, and you are a part of it? Similarly, real meditation is effortless. It is the fulfillment of natural relationship, not the attempt on our part to create relationship. Your being itself is meditating, as it is a natural part of the wh...

Highlights:

When you go outside on a beautiful day and step into the sunlight, do you have to try to enjoy the warmth? Or is the warmth of the sun just part of what is there, and you are a part of it? Similarly, real meditation is effortless. It is the fulfillment of natural relationship, not the attempt on our part to create relationship. Your being itself is meditating, as it is a natural part of the whole.

The day will come when you will understand that if you are just present to your own body, you need not do anything more. The catch is that it takes a long time to realize that, for all of your efforts, you have done nothing except produce the sensation of having accomplished something. Authentic meditation could simply be described as a moment in which it is enough to be what I am.

The essential pain in our lives is born out of the idea that we can take something from the moment to complete ourselves. This action actually separates us from the moment, and keeps us from being present to the beautiful, quiet energy that naturally occupies the body. When you are in relationship with this natural energy, you will see how unnatural it is for you to take something from the moment in order to make yourself feel whole. Everything that you have always wanted is always being given to you, and meditation is the enjoyment of the gift.

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Show Notes:

There is a part of us that is always trying to figure out what we have to do to be with what we love, instead of seeing that what we love is always with us now. If what we love is not with us now, then it is never with us. The sensation of longing has nothing to do with the love for which we long. Part of spiritual maturity is gradually outgrowing the need we have to be identified with things...

Highlights:

There is a part of us that is always trying to figure out what we have to do to be with what we love, instead of seeing that what we love is always with us now. If what we love is not with us now, then it is never with us. The sensation of longing has nothing to do with the love for which we long. Part of spiritual maturity is gradually outgrowing the need we have to be identified with things outside of ourselves that lend us a sense of self.

Longing for the presence of God is like standing on the beach and wishing that we could be nearer to the ocean. One of the great paradoxes of the true spiritual life is that trying to answer this tremendous longing from ourselves is actually what keeps us from being present to this moment in which God makes Himself known.

In an orchestra each instrument serves to create a certain kind of tone; a sound is formed by it that is a limited reflection of some aspect of the ""music of the spheres"". It is our longing to share in these celestial vibrations that lead us to create musical instruments in the first place. This heavenly music is endlessly being played out in everything that we see. The problem is that we have selective hearing, partial seeing. Could it be that the reason we ignore the sounds that human beings make is because we are not interested in dealing with anything other than the notes that we want to hear in us? If we really want a life that is free of painful longing, then we need to learn what it means to let everything within the present moment sound in us. If we will let the moment sound purely, as it is intended, within that sound is the One who writes all the music.

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