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  • 2008
    • July
      • A Single Lifelong Problem
        07/24/08
        We tend to run from difficult people and difficult situations. If we repeatedly find ourselves in such situations, we determine that we must be masochistic and enjoy playing the role of a victim.

        There is an entirely different possibility. It’s that difficult situations and difficult peop

      • Abuse and Victimhood
        07/23/08
        Said personal coach Jim Warner, “Solitude is often the hardest discipline, because none of us want to be with someone we don’t love, namely ourselves.”

        All the praise in the world can’t instill a love of ourselves. No one telling us how lovable we are makes a dime of difference after a fe

      • Ego and Midlife Crisis
        07/22/08
        Why do humans develop an ego? I am talking about that aspect of ourselves that we picture ourselves being, think of ourselves as, imagine ourselves to be. In other words, our self-image.

        This is quite distinct from being, which is a state in which we don’t picture or think about ourselves

      • Getting the Hang of Intuition
        07/21/08
        We each have an inner knower. It knows just the right thing to do at any given time in any set of circumstances.

        The common term for this is intuition.

        But there’s a problem with the word intuition. Many of us speak of our intuition guiding us, when in fact it isn’t our intuit

      • Do You Ever Screw Up? Here’s Why
        07/20/08
        Sometimes, consciousness aside, I screw up. How about you? My guess is that if we are honest, we all know we screw up at times. It can be costly to screw up, as you will see.

        I was driving to the airport about three weeks ago here in the Phoenix area where I’ve been for the last six month

      • The Importance of Mister Ego and the Bubble of Love
        07/19/08
        Some children are born with a lifetime of talent, such as Mozart, yet their pain body inflicts on them immense emotional suffering and a terribly dysfunctional way of relating that curtails their fulfillment. The movie Amadeus captures the triumph and tragedy of such a man as Mozart.

        Some

      • Out with the Old, In with the New
        07/18/08
        One of the great, early shocks in the novel The Pillars of the Earth is the death of Tom Builder’s wife, and the abandoning of the newborn baby he has no way to feed.

        What caught me even more by surprise is when Tom Builder, whom I assumed the novel was going to revolve around, since I kn

      • An Emerging Consciousness
        07/17/08
        Someone said to me the other day, “No one is fully there, no one fully gets it.”

        Consciousness is an emerging reality, as we discussed yesterday. In each moment, we are challenged by life situations to step up to the plate and embrace the newness of any given moment, which means that not

      • Some Insightful Definitions
        07/16/08
        Because so many of our readers have backgrounds in churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques, sometimes it can be helpful to take some of the key terminology of these religious paths and bring it into a modern day context. What do these terms mean for us, today? In this column, I want to do this wi

      • What Evil Really Is
        07/15/08
        Humans tend toward nostalgia. We know in our heart that the old deal doesn't work anymore, but we can't let go because we are emotionally, financially, and physically wedded to life as we have known it.

        This is sad, because it contradicts the fundamental nature of life, which is

      • Don’t Fossilize Your Life
        07/14/08
        Our culture teaches us to strive after goals and ideals, and to establish morals and values.

        What we are truly wanting—what our goals and ideals, our morals and values, are really all about—is the desire for a quality of life.

        We want each of the events in our life to be ri

      • Knowing What We Know
        07/13/08
        “All credit applications accepted” declares the sign outside a recreational vehicle dealership. So a person goes into the store imagining that their loan application will be approved.

        Of course, the sign doesn’t say that the loan will be approved. It only says they will take your applicat

      • What Nonattachment Really Means
        07/12/08
        People are like cars, they will always disappoint us. The reason to buy a warranty is that no one has yet built a car whose moving parts never fail. Well, people fail us.

        If we put our trust in people, we make a huge mistake. People are not trustworthy. If you go onto singles dating sites

      • The Real Meaning of Hell Fire
        07/11/08
        In The Pillars of the Earth, William Hamleigh is a person who epitomizes what Namaste authors Eckhart Tolle calls “the pain body” and Michael Brown speaks of as our “emotional charge.”

        We don’t easily give up our pain body. It is tenacious, and we get a certain sadistic and masochistic en

      • People Who Hate Themselves Hate Others
        07/10/08
        Self-loathing is the diving force of the pain body. To the degree we don’t recognize ourselves as the loving individuals we really are, we will be incapable of behaving in loving ways toward others.

        We will act out our pain instead of showing the people we care about how we really feel ab

      • How to Dissolve the Pain Body
        07/09/08
        The entity Eckhart Tolle calls “the pain body” is a very unpleasant thing. When it springs to life, we become someone almost unrecognizable, whether this takes the form of anger, jealousy, or sadness.

        About eighteen years ago, I was teaching my son keyboard. When he couldn’t get something

      • “Why on Earth Did I Do That?
        07/08/08
        Paul of Tarsus was incredibly insightful when it comes to understanding how what Eckhart Tolle calls the “pain body” functions, especially considering he was writing almost 2,000 years ago. He spoke of “sin that dwells in me, that is, in my members.”

        Of course, the language is different

      • The Transformative Power of Presence
        07/07/08
        There are ways in which, as human beings, we do ourselves in. For me, it’s when someone sets a box of chocolates in front of me.

        Now, you would think I could just enjoy one chocolate, maybe two.

        Dream on.

        The thing is, when I overindulge I always regret it because i

      • Seeing Ourselves in a Novel’s Characters
        07/06/08
        Is it ever possible to simply cease making choices that are bad for us? Can we actually end dysfunctional behavior? Or are we destined, in the wake of ending one form of messed up living, to continue finding new ways to mess up?

        It isn’t true that we “never learn.” We can and do learn. We

      • Tapping into Universal Consciousness as a Guide to Living
        07/05/08
        We are sitting in an Ontario pub enjoying English food and brew while editing a book. We come to a word we know is not quite right. It would serve the sentence just fine, but there is a better one that escapes us.

        How do we know there’s a “just right” word? We feel it, intuit it. A few m

      • Do You Listen to Yourself?
        07/04/08
        Hearing voices isn’t something most of us want to happen - although as Eckhart Tolle has shown, most humans talk to themselves much of the time with repetitive mental chatter.

        It’s terrific when we step into the Now and these voices in our head fall silent, so that we find ourselves full

      • The Primacy of Life’s “Yes!”
        07/03/08
        Jack had always been just a little boy to Aliena in the epic The Pillars of the Earth, but now she began to see him in an entirely new way. He had been gazing at her and she caught him doing so, which caused him to look away, embarrassed. In this moment, to Aliena he seemed like a new person, entire

      • As Real as We are to Ourselves
        07/02/08
        At a Midsummer’s Eve festival in Kingsbridge, Jack was seated beside Aliena. In the game of how-many bread, Jack passed the bread to Aliena and asked her how many years it would be until she married.

        The answer was that Aliena would marry in a year.

        But Aliena’s marriage would

      • A Month for Celebrating
        07/01/08
        When the cathedral at Kingsbridge is dedicated in The Pillars of the Earth, there is great celebration in the village. Human beings love to celebrate.

        Today is Canada Day, and it’s the first time I’ve ever been in Canada on this day. It’s the birthday of Canada, for readers around the wor

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