Sacred Inquiry: Questions That Can Transform Your Life

1. Identify the exact thought and emotion that is occurring. As an example: judging thoughts and unworthy emotions. 2. Once the thought and emotion have been identified, remind yourself, This thought and this emotion are not me, nor are they other than me. It is simply the current emotional weather pattern that is occurring. 3. Notice that the current

As you know, each opening up of a new vista of our conscious being can bring up experiences of ever-deepening freedom and revelation, as well as experiences of fear and trepidation. All revelation opens new dimensions of the unconscious—dimensions of experience that themselves are seeking to be liberated from isolated separation and welcomed into t

The problem is that behind both of these masks lies not another or better or more spiritual mask, but the direct experience of no mask. And the direct experience of no mask is something that most people avoid with great resolve, because the familiar and morbid comfort of a known identity is preferable to being stripped down to our unknown radiance.

Stillness, in its most spontaneous and authentic sense, is a state of nonresistance. It is not stillness in the conventional sense of non-movement, but in the sense of non-interference by the ego-self.

It means to stop defending yourself against your own pain and allow your point of view—your narrative story about your suffering—to open up to new and unexpected perspectives. Holding your suffering in the felicity of love instead of the self-justifying or self-loathing narrative of ego protectionism is the key that unlocks the door to greater free

Each changing life situation is fluid and dynamic and therefore requires a fluid and dynamic quality of insight and understanding. In the deeper domain of spiritual insight, it is not any particular insight that is ultimately liberating; it is being at one with the dynamic flow of consciousness, life, and the moment that brings the greatest freedom

Whatever the core story is, it is the story (the conclusion) that colors all of our other stories. And like all stories, it covers up the void at the core of the ego structure, the void being our point of connection with the infinite. The ego sees this void as threatening because it provides the way out of the ego structure, which is terrifying to

We must be willing to suspend the compulsive drive of the ego for quick and convenient answers to our deepest questions and be willing to live in the creative tension between the known and the unknown.

As you say, the ego cannot make awakening or redeeming love happen, but you have never really been that small, limiting idea called ego. Relax into your being—that is the fundamental practice. Who are you beyond being worthy or unworthy? Let all self-image transform into loving presence.