To acknowledge (or become aware of) a mental limitation is to go beyond it – to not acknowledge it is to live an illusion. If this sounds too easy, too simple, it isn’t – it isn’t easy at all because – unconsciously – we have…
We’re always chasing after ‘the goal’. When are we not chasing after the goal? We will say that this isn’t true of course, we might even be fairly indignant about it – we’ll say that we know how to switch off when the occasion calls…
Purposeful behaviour comes out of our thoughts and ideas and nowhere else – purposeful behaviour is thought therefore – no matter what we might believe to the contrary. As far as we are concerned however – in this rationally orientated world of ours – purposeful…
The thinking mind is ‘a machine for turning a profit’. It is there for solving problems, in other words. This is very useful at the same time as being (potentially) highly dangerous; it’s dangerous because unless there’s oversight with regard to the operation of this…
‘Eternity is the prize’, we might grandly say, speaking of the fruit of our inner work, our spiritual practices. This is misleading, however – if there is a prize then this means that there is ‘an attaining’ and if there is an attaining then there…
When we’re ‘thinking all the time’ this has the effect of making us fundamentally insincere – it makes us insincere with other people and it also makes us insincere with regards to life itself. It might seem a bit much to say this but when…
There is very odd fact about our existence that we don’t generally observe and this fact is that we can never just be in the world, we have to be in the world whilst thinking about being in the world and this business of ‘being…
One of the basic ideas in all anxiety management classes (and ‘anxiety management’ is not actually a very nice term) is that of challenging the avoidance of situations that provoke anxiety in us. This is fine as a far as it goes but we need…
When we force ourselves to do what we were going to do anyway – without any forcing – then we take the good out of it. We ourselves take the good out of it, no one else. The reason we force ourselves to do whatever…
Anyone who is seriously trying to come to grips with what is called ‘therapy’ is always going to come up against the same intractable problem. It’s only a matter of time – everyone is going to find themselves – sooner or later – in the…