When you become so determined that you want to feel good - you have become as your Inner Being is, in such a pure place of Positive Energy - then that which is 'negative energy' simply can't mix with you. It defies Law. If you are very strong and clear about your positive wanting, and feeling it, then 'bad' things simply cannot get in. Colds can't get in, car accidents can't get in, anything that you are not wanting cannot be your personal experience.
But one wants the idea of Death, you know, as something large and unknowable, something that allows a person to stretch himself out. Especially one wants it if one is tired. Or perhaps what one wants is simply a release from sensation, from all consciousness for ever.
And here is one choice that our Father wants us to understand as Christians – and I believe this is the choice of our age: Do we want to be brave or safe? Gently, lovingly, our heavenly Father wants us to know that we simply can’t be both.
When I was ten years old, I would get up at 5 in the morning, cycle to the swimming baths, do an hour-and-a-half session, then cycle to school, do a day at school, then cycle back to the baths after.
You can't ever get everything you want. It is impossible. Luckily, there is another option: You can learn to control your mind, to step outside of the endless cycle of desire and aversion.
The endless cycle of idea and action, / Endless invention, endless experiment, / Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness; / Knowledge of speech, but not of silence; / Knowledge of words, and ignorance of The Word.
I'm the kind of person who likes to focus on one thing at a time. I'll focus on my skiing and then when I get to the bottom of my run and the cameras are on me, I'll focus on what I need to say, and then I'll focus that night on recovering and getting ready for the next day.
The more successful you become, the more the demands of your ego will increase. In the beginning, you simply want to succeed, but your ego will not be satisfied. When you become a little more successful your ego wants to kill your competition. And when you become even more successful, it wants to make you the universal king. There's no telling what ego wants because our desire doesn't have any limit; therefore, its demands continually increase.
Optimists focus on the place they are going. Pessimists focus on the obstacles along the route. To become an optimist simply look ahead.
This sound meditation is gentle and subtle, but its benefits are extensive, in that it allows you to gently release tension that arises from your present circumstances, and if you choose to work with it further it can help release negativity from your past.
You want to get to the top of the cliff. But that's not what you focus on immediately. You focus on the next ledge just beyond your reach, because you need to do one clever thing to get up there. And then, once you get there, you do it again. A lot of this is rather boring and not very glamorous. But you can't jump cliffs in a single bound.
Within an atom there can be a billion kingdoms, endless. But all of them are bound by the cycle of birth and death. They all come into being for a while and then vanish.
Want ever so gently. Invite your desires to you like you call a cat. Any aggressive move toward your goals will chase them away.
I think television is about the characters you want to see again, and so you want to invite these people into your home. And certainly, seeing them get into bad situations and then watching them have to get themselves out, that's always super satisfying.
The burden you are carrying around is the burden of self. You seek release from that. You want to let it all go. You want to forget who you are and what you are. You wish to be the whole universe, infinite, endless.
Grace-driven effort wants to get to the bottom of behavior, not just manage behavior. If you're simply managing behavior but not removing the roots of that behavior, then the weeds simply sprout up in another place.