The Pathway Of Surrender Quotes

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next. Amen.

The crucial point is: by changing ourselves, we change the world. As we become more loving on the inside, healing occurs on the outside. Much like the rising of the sea level lifts all ships, so the radiance of unconditional love within a human heart lifts all of life.

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way

We have three major ways of handling feelings: suppression, expression, and escape.

Letting go is like the sudden cessation of an inner pressure or the dropping of a weight. It is accompanied by a sudden feeling of relief and lightness, with an increased happiness and freedom. It is an actual mechanism of the mind, and everyone has experienced it on occasion.

like attracts like.” Similarly, “love promotes love,” so that the person who has let go of a lot of inner negativity is surrounded by loving thoughts, loving events, loving people, and loving pets.

Chronic, unrecognized anger and resentment reemerge in our life as depression, which is anger directed against oneself. If pushed further into the unconscious, it can re-emerge as psychosomatic illnesses. Migraine headaches, arthritis, and hypertension are frequently cited examples of chronic suppressed anger.

The greater our attachment to that which is outside of ourselves, the greater is our overall level of fear and vulnerability to loss.

Because fear is the basis of all inhibitions, mastery over fear means the unblocking of whole avenues of life experience that previously had been avoided.

but our self with a small “s” actually enjoys an impoverished life and all the negativity that goes with it: feeling unworthy, being invalidated, judging others and ourselves, being inflated, always “winning” and being “right,” grieving the past, fearing the future, nursing our wounds, craving assurance, and seeking love instead of giving it.

One of the laws of consciousness is: We are only subject to a negative thought or belief if we consciously say that it applies to us. We are free to choose not to buy into a negative belief system.

The insecure person is fearful and prone to jealousy, clinging, possessiveness, and attachment in relationships, an approach that always brings frustration. The purpose of these feelings is to bind and tightly possess the other, to achieve security by preventing loss and, at times, to punish the other for our own fear of loss. Again, these attitudes tend to bring into manifestation the very thing that we are holding in mind. The other person, now feeling pressured by our energy of dependency and possessiveness, has an inner impulse to run for freedom, to withdraw, to detach and do the very thing that we fear the most. These attitudes lead to constantly wanting to influence others. Because people intuitively pick up our wish to control them, their response is to resist. So the only way to bring about relinquishment of their resisting us is to let go of wanting to influence them in the first place. This means letting go of the inner fears as they come up.

We have the opportunity to choose whether we want to hang on or let go of emotional upsets. We can look at the cost of hanging on to them. Do we want to pay the price? Are we willing to accept the feelings? We can look at the benefits of letting go of them. The choice we make will determine our future. What kind of a future do we want? Will we choose to be healed, or will we become one of the walking wounded?

When we are unable to change an event that has already been written in the stars, we are always presented the opportunity to surrender to the heart and find a new pathway to peace. Understanding Divine Reason allows us to honor God’s Divine Plan.

It is as though when we are in the proximity of the auras of people with certain capacities, some transfer of ability can take place. Simply put, we are either positively or negatively influenced by the company we keep. It is unlikely that we will overcome an inhibition if we choose to be in the company of others who have our same problem.

The mind would like us to think that there is such a thing as “justifiable anger,” which takes the form of moralistic indignation. If we look at moralistic indignation, we will see that it is propped up by vanity and pride. We like to think how right we are in a situation and how “wrong” the other persons are.

نحن نحافط على احترامنا لذواتنا على سبيل الاخرين، وهذا ما يؤدي بالنهاية إلى الإنهيار الإجتماعي

A feeling that is not resisted will disappear as the energy behind it dissipates.

If we suddenly become successful almost effortlessly, then people are envious. It really annoys them that we didn’t have to go through all kinds of anguish, pain, and suffering to get there. Their mind believes that such anguish is the cost that must be paid for success.

To overcome blame, it is necessary to look at the secret satisfaction and enjoyment we get out of self-pity, resentment, anger, and self-excuses, and to begin to surrender all of these little payoffs.

On the lower levels of consciousness, which are characterized by egotism, there is so much concern with self-gain that there is little energy or thought given to our effect on others. On the level of courage, we no longer identify solely with the small self. The world is no longer seen as the depriving or punishing bad parent. Instead, the world is seen as challenging and presenting opportunities for growth, development, and new experiences. Thus, this level is characterized by optimism and the feeling that with the correct facts, education, and orientation, sooner or later most problems can be worked out satisfactorily.

The more fear we have on the inside, the more our perception of the world is changed to a fearful, guarded expectancy. To the fearful person, this world is a terrifying place. To the angry person, this world is a chaos of frustration and vexation. To the guilty person, it is a world of temptation and sin, which they see everywhere. What we are holding inside colors our world. If we let go of guilt, we will see innocence; however, a guilt-ridden person will see only evil. The basic rule is that we focus on what we have repressed.

In truth, blame is just another one of the negative programs that we have allowed our mind to buy because we never stopped to question it. Why must something always be someone’s “fault”? Why must the whole concept of “wrong” be introduced to the situation in the first place? Why must one of us be wrong, bad, or at fault? What seemed like a good idea at the time may not have turned out well. That’s all. Unfortunate events may have just happened

The mind, with its thoughts, is driven by feelings. Each feeling is the cumulative derivative of many thousands of thoughts. Because most people throughout their lives repress, suppress, and try to escape from their feelings, the suppressed energy accumulates and seeks expression through psychosomatic distress, bodily disorders, emotional illnesses, and disordered behavior in interpersonal relationships. The accumulated feelings block spiritual growth and awareness, as well as success in many areas of life.

Confusion is our salvation. For the confused, there is still hope. Hang on to your confusion. In the end it is your best friend, your best defense against the deathliness of others’ answers, against being raped by their ideas. If you are confused, you are still free.

Because all living things are connected on vibrational energy levels, our basic emotional state is picked up and reacted to by all life forms around us. It is well known that animals can instantly read a person’s basic emotional state. There are experiments demonstrating that even the growth of bacteria is affected by human emotions, and that plants register measurable reactions to our emotional state (Backster, 2003).

Because emotions emit a vibrational energy field, they affect and determine the people who are in our lives.

Letting go involves being aware of a feeling, letting it come up, staying with it, and letting it run its course without wanting to make it different or do anything about it.

When letting go, ignore all thoughts. Focus on the feeling itself, not on the thoughts.

Inside of us, but out of awareness, is the truth that “I already know everything I need to know.

Pride, like all the other negative emotions, engenders guilt. Guilt engenders fear. Fear means potential loss. Pride, therefore, always means a loss of peace of mind.

It is not thoughts or facts that are painful but the feelings that accompany them. Thoughts in and of themselves are painless, but not the feelings that underlie them!

The world can only see us as we see ourselves.

With courage, there is the willingness to take chances and to let go of former securities. There is the willingness to grow and benefit from new experiences. This involves the capacity to admit mistakes without indulging in guilt and self-recrimination. Our sense of self-worth is not diminished by looking at areas that need improvement. We are able to admit the presence of problems without being diminished. As a result, energy, time, and effort are put into self-improvement. On this level, statements of intention and purpose are much more powerful and envisioned results tend to manifest. We are much more enterprising and creative, because our energies are not drained by the constant preoccupation with emotional or physical survival. Because of greater flexibility, there is a willingness to examine issues with a view to changing overall meaning and context. There is a willingness to risk shifting paradigms.

One of the most common areas in which we see this emotional crippling is after divorce. All too often it is followed by bitterness and the impaired capacity to create a new loving relationship. The unwillingness to let go of the blame continues the emotional crippling, which can go on for years, or even a lifetime. When we come upon bitterness, what we have really discovered is an unhealed area in our own emotional makeup, and the effort that we put into healing it will bring enormous rewards. In any situation which involves suffering, we have to ask ourselves: “How long am I willing to pay the cost? What were the karmic propensities to begin with? How much blame is enough? Is there a time to call an end to it? How long will I hang on to it? How much sacrifice am I willing to pay to the other person for their wrongs, real or imaginary? How much guilt is enough? How much self-punishment is enough? When will I give up the secret pleasure of the self-punishment? When does the sentence come to an end?” When we really examine it, we will always find that we have been punishing ourselves for ignorance, naïveté, innocence, and lack of inner education.

Life crises, as we pass through them, confront us with polar opposites. Shall we hate or forgive that person? Shall we learn from this experience and grow, or resent it and become bitter? Do we choose to overlook the other person’s shortcomings and our own, or instead do we resent and mentally attack them? Shall we withdraw from a similar situation in the future with greater fear, or shall we transcend this crisis and master it once and for all? Do we choose hope or discouragement? Can we use the experience as an opportunity to learn how to share, or shall we withdraw into a shell of fear and bitterness? Every emotional experience is an opportunity to go up or down. Which do we choose? That is the confrontation.

The pressure of suppressed feelings is later felt as irritability, mood swings, tension in the muscles of the neck and back, headaches, cramps, menstrual disorders, colitis, indigestion, insomnia, hypertension, allergies, and other somatic conditions.

We can begin to look at our own inner areas of immaturity. Specifically, we need to examine: “Where am I looking to get love rather than to give it?” The more loving we are, the less vulnerable we are to grief and loss, and the less we need to seek attachments.

We can, in a prophylactic move, offset resentments by shifting what we have done for others from the level of sacrifice to the level of a loving gift. We can then acknowledge ourselves for this move and drop our expectations, which will dissolve the resistances in others.

On the level of courage, we are willing to take self-improvement courses, learn consciousness techniques, and risk the journey within to seek our own true Self, the inner reality. There is a willingness to experience uncertainty, periods of confusion, and temporary upset because, underneath the temporary discomfort, we have a long-term transcendent goal. The mind that is operating on the level of courage makes such statements as: “I can handle it”; “We’ll make it”; “The job will get done”; “We can see this through”; “All things shall pass.

Discouragement. Defeat. Impossible. Too hard. All alone. Give up. Isolated. Estranged. Withdrawn. Cut off. Desolate. Depressed. Depleted. Unfulfilling. Pessimistic. Careless. Humorless. Meaningless. Absurd. Pointless. Helpless. Failure. Too tired. Despair. Confused. Forgetful. Fatalistic. Too late. Too old. Too young. Mechanical. Doomed. Negative. Forlorn. Useless. Lost. Senseless. Bleak. Blasé.

effortlessly accomplish our real goals and purpose. When we are operating on the level of acceptance, enjoyment, warmth, gentleness, softness, trustingness, inner truth, and faith, the emotional purposes to which the other person responds are those of love, enjoyment, pleasure, harmony, peacefulness, understanding, and sharing. Their reaction to us will be one of acceptance, satisfaction, feeling “in tune,” feeling understood, and joy.

  Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;  courage to change the things I can;  and wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time;  enjoying one moment at a time;  accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;  taking this world as it is, not as I would have it;  trusting that all things will be made right if I surrender;  that I may be reasonably happy in this life; and supremely happy forever in the next. 

When the pressure of suppressed and repressed feelings exceeds the individual’s tolerance level, the mind will create an event “out there” upon which to vent and displace itself. Thus, the person with a lot of repressed grief will unconsciously create sad events in life. The fearful person precipitates frightening experiences; the angry person becomes surrounded by infuriating circumstances; and the prideful person is constantly being insulted.

One of the biggest blocks to overcome in getting out of depression and apathy is that of blame. Blame is a whole subject in itself. Looking into it is rewarding. To begin with, there are a lot of payoffs to blame. We get to be innocent; we get to enjoy self-pity; we get to be the martyr and the victim; and we get to be the recipients of sympathy. Perhaps the biggest payoff of blame is that we get to be the innocent victim and the other party is the bad one.

Part of the anger here arises from the pride of self-sacrifice. We have a certain secret vanity about what we are doing for others, and our pride of achievement makes us vulnerable to anger when our “sacrifice” is not recognized. The way to offset this anger is to acknowledge and relinquish the pride, surrender our desire for the pleasure of self-pity and, instead, view our efforts on behalf of others as gifts. We can experience the joy of being generous with others as its own reward.

In the beginning, if one is unfamiliar with the whole subject of feelings, it is often advisable to begin merely by observing them without any intention of doing anything about them. In this way, some clarification will occur about the relationship between feelings and thoughts. After there is more familiarity, some experimentation can then occur. For instance, certain areas of thoughts that tend to recur can be set aside and the feeling associated with them identified. The feeling can then be worked with by first accepting that it is there, without resisting it or condemning it. And then one begins to empty out the energy of the feeling directly by letting it be what it is until it runs out. Somewhat later, the former thoughts can now be looked at and their character will be observed to have changed. If the feeling has been totally surrendered and let go, usually all thoughts associated with it will have disappeared entirely and been replaced by a concluding thought which handles the matter quickly.

People are desperate to stay unconscious. We observe how often people flick on the television set the minute they enter a room and then walk around in a dream-like state, constantly being programmed by the data poured into them. People are terrified of facing themselves. They dread even a moment of aloneness. Thus the constant frantic activities: the endless socializing, talking, texting, reading, music playing, working, traveling, sightseeing, shopping, overeating, gambling, movie-going, pill-taking, drug-using, and cocktail-partying.

Many of us have been raised to correlate worldly and even spiritual accomplishment with “hard work,” “keeping our nose to the grindstone,” “living by the sweat of our brow,” and other self-stringent axioms inherited from a culture steeped in the Protestant ethic. According to this view, success requires suffering, toil, and effort: “no pain, no gain.” But where has all the effort and pain gotten us? Are we truly, deeply at peace? No. There is still the inner guilt, the vulnerability to someone’s criticism, the wanting to be assured, and the resentments that fester.

Grief is time-limited. This fact gives us the courage and willingness to face grief. If we don’t resist the feeling of grief and totally surrender to it, it will run out in about 10–20 minutes; then it will stop for variable lengths of time. If we keep surrendering to it every time it comes up, then it will eventually run out. We just allow ourselves to experience it fully. We only have to tolerate an overwhelming grief for 10–20 minutes, and then all of a sudden it will disappear. If we resist the grief, then it will go on and on. Suppressed grief can go on for years.

Let’s say, for instance, that a friend’s birthday is coming up and we are feeling resentful and stingy; therefore, we just can’t seem to get out to shop for a present, and the day is getting closer. The exact opposite feelings are those of forgiveness and generosity. We just start looking for the feeling of forgiveness within ourselves and stop resisting it. As we keep letting go of our resistance to being a forgiving person, it is often surprising that it will come up with a surge. We will begin to recognize that part of our nature has always been willing and wanting to forgive, but we didn’t dare chance it. We thought we might appear foolish. We thought we were punishing the other person by holding the resentment, but we have actually been suppressing love.

Jung also said that in the unconscious there was an aspect of ourselves called the “shadow.” The shadow is all the repressed thoughts, feelings and concepts about ourselves that we do not want to face. One benefit of a crisis is that it often brings us into familiarity with our shadow. It makes us more human and more whole to realize what we share with all of humanity. All the stuff that we thought “they” were guilty of is equally in ourselves. Thus, when it is brought up to conscious awareness, acknowledged, and surrendered, it no longer unconsciously runs us. Once the shadow has been acknowledged, it loses its power. All that is necessary is merely to recognize that we have certain forbidden impulses, thoughts, and feelings. Now, they can be handled with a “So what?

Letting go involves being aware of a feeling, letting it come up, staying with it, and letting it run its course without wanting to make it different or do anything about it. It means simply to let the feeling be there and to focus on letting out the energy behind it. The first step is to allow yourself to have the feeling without resisting it, venting it, fearing it, condemning it, or moralizing about it. It means to drop judgment and to see that it is just a feeling. The technique is to be with the feeling and surrender all efforts to modify it in any way. Let go of wanting to resist the feeling. It is resistance that keeps the feeling going. When you give up resisting or trying to modify the feeling, it will shift to the next feeling and be accompanied by a lighter sensation. A feeling that is not resisted will disappear as the energy behind it dissipates.

Anger is binding, not freeing. It connects us to another person and holds them in our life pattern. We are stuck in the negative pattern until we let go of the energy of anger and its little payoffs of righteous indignation, feeling wronged, and the desire for revenge. It may not be exactly the same person who constantly recurs in our life. If not that person, then others will appear who have the same quality that triggers our anger and resentment. This will keep recurring until we finally handle our inner angriness. Then, suddenly, people with that quality disappear from our life. Therefore, anger may force someone to be physically distant from us, but psychically it binds them to us more closely, until we fully relinquish the anger and resentment. Relinquishing anger brings us many benefits. We are free to experience emotional comfort and ease, gratitude for the daily opportunities to grow and heal, mutual caring with another without subtle “strings attached,” improvement in health, and more life energy.

Let’s look again at the example of someone’s birthday that is approaching quickly. Because of things that have happened in the past, we have resentments and feel unwilling to do anything for the birthday. Somehow, it just seems impossible to get out and shop for a birthday present. We resent having to spend the money. The mind conjures up all kinds of justifications: “I don’t have time to shop”; “I can’t forget how mean she was”; “She should apologize to me first.” In this case, two things are operating: clinging to the negative and the smallness in ourselves, and resisting the positive and the greatness in ourselves. The way out of apathy is to see, first of all, that “I can’t” is an “I won’t.” In looking at the “I won’t,” we see that it is there because of negative feelings and, as they come up, they can be acknowledged and let go. It is also apparent that we are resisting positive feelings. These feelings of love, generosity, and forgiveness can be looked at one by one. We can sit down and imagine the quality of generosity and let go resisting it. Is there something generous within ourselves? In this case, we may not be willing to apply it to the birthday person in the beginning. What we can begin to see is the existence of such a quality as generosity within our consciousness. We begin to see that, as we let go resisting the feeling of generosity, there is generosity. We do, in fact, enjoy giving to others under certain circumstances. We begin to remember the positive flood of feeling that comes upon us when we express gratitude and acknowledge the gifts that others have given us. We see that we have really been suppressing a desire to forgive and, as we let go of the resistance to being forgiving, there emerges the willingness to let go of the grievance. As we do this, we stop identifying with our small self and become consciously aware that there is something in us that is greater. It is always there but hidden from view.

do not find our own Center; it finds us. The body is in the soul. It is both the place of contact and the place of surrender.

God, grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference; living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardship as a pathway to peace; taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that you will make all things right if I surrender to your will, so that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy

The real payoff we get is when we let go of our negativity and choose to be loving; we are the ones who benefit. We are the ones who gain from the real payoff. With this increased awareness of who we really are comes the progressive invulnerability to pain. Once we compassionately accept our own humanness and that of others, we are no longer subject to humiliation, for true humility is a part of greatness.

Since in reality, we are very capable beings, most “I can’ts” are really “I won’ts.” Behind the “I can’ts” or the “I won’ts” is frequently a fear. Then, when we look at the truth of what is behind the feeling, we have already moved up the scale from apathy to fear. Fear is a higher energy state than apathy. Fear at least begins to motivate us into action and, in that action, we can again surrender fear and move up to anger or pride or courage, all of which are higher states than apathy.

There was a famous example of this in New York City many years ago. A public conveyance accident occurred. People poured out of the front door of the vehicle, then gathered in a small crowd, furnishing their names and addresses for future financial benefit. Bystanders quickly caught on to the game and secretly climbed into the back of the vehicle, so that they could then emerge from the front as injured, “innocent victims.” They hadn’t even been in the accident, but they were going to collect a reward! Blame is the world’s greatest excuse. It enables us to remain limited and small without feeling guilty.

The many faces of fear are familiar to us all. We have felt free-floating anxiety and panic. We have been paralyzed and frozen by fear, with its accompanying palpitations and apprehension. Worries are chronic fears. Paranoia is its extreme. In milder forms of fear, we are merely uneasy. When it is more severe, we become scared, cautious, blocked, tense, shy, speechless, superstitious, defensive, distrustful, threatened, insecure, dreading, suspicious, timid, trapped, guilty, and full of stage fright.

If we find ourselves in the state of apathy, we can discover the underlying program by asking ourselves what we are trying to prove. Are we trying to prove that life is rotten? That this is a hopeless world? That it wasn’t our fault? That one can’t find love? That happiness is impossible? What are we trying to justify? How much are we willing to pay to be “right”? As we acknowledge and let go of the feelings that arise in response to these questions, the answers begin to appear.

When we let go of a lot of grief we have been holding over the years, our friends and family will notice a change in our facial expression. Our step will be lighter and we will look younger.

The psychological basis of all grief and mourning is attachment. Attachment and dependence occur because we feel incomplete within ourselves; therefore, we seek objects, people, relationships, places, and concepts to fulfill inner needs. Because they are unconsciously utilized to fulfill an inner need, they come to be identified as “mine.” As more energy is poured into them, there is a transition from identifying with the external objects as “mine” to being an actual extension of “me.” Loss of the object or person is experienced as a loss of our own self and an important part of our emotional economy. Loss is experienced as a diminution of the quality of ourselves, which the object or person represented. The more emotional energy invested in the object or person, the greater will be the feeling of loss and the greater the pain associated with the undoing of the bonds of dependence. Attachment creates a dependency, and dependency, because of its nature, intrinsically carries with it a fear of loss.

To handle the fear of loss, we have to look at what purpose the external person or object serves in our life. What emotional need is being fulfilled? What emotions would arise were we to lose the object or the person? Loss can be anticipated, and we can handle the various fears associated with the sense of loss by disassembling the emotional complexes that they represent, and letting go of the individual component feelings.

Behind all of the “I can’ts” are merely “I won’ts.” The “I won’ts” mean “I am afraid to” or “I am ashamed to” or “I have too much pride to try, for fear I might fail.” Behind that is anger at ourselves and circumstances engendered by pride. Acknowledging and letting go of these feelings brings us up to courage and, with that, finally acceptance and an inner peacefulness, at least as it regards the area which has been surmounted.

When letting go, ignore all thoughts. Focus on the feeling itself, not on the thoughts. Thoughts are endless and self-reinforcing, and they only breed more thoughts. Thoughts are merely rationalizations of the mind to try and explain the presence of the feeling. The real reason for the feeling is the accumulated pressure behind the feeling that is forcing it to come up in the moment. The thoughts or external events are only an excuse made up by the mind.

life and death are two wings on the same bird.”9 You cannot truly fly your life with only one wing. Living without dying is not a real life. Dying without living is not a real life either. Letting be both our drive to live and our necessity to die is a surrender to our profound consciousness

Chronic, unrecognized anger and resentment reemerge in our life as depression, which is anger directed against oneself.

anger attracts angry thoughts.

Letting go involves being aware of a feeling, letting it come up, staying with it, and letting it run its course without wanting to make it different or do anything about

Many stress-reduction programs offered today often miss the essential point. They try to relieve the after-effects of stress rather than remove the cause of the stress itself, or they concentrate on external events. This is like trying to reduce the fever without correcting the infection. For instance, muscle tension is the aftermath of anxiety, fear, anger, and guilt. A course in the techniques of muscle relaxation is going to be of very limited benefit. It would be far more effective, instead, to remove the source of the underlying tension, which is the repressed and suppressed anger, fear, guilt, or other negative feelings.

Once we see pride for what it is, it is one of the easier emotions to surrender. To begin with, we can ask ourselves: “What is the purpose of pride? What is its payoff? Why do I seek it? For what does it compensate? What do I have to realize about my true nature in order to let pride go without a feeling of loss?” The answer is rather obvious. The smaller we feel within, the more we have to compensate for an inner sense of inadequacy, unimportance, and valuelessness by the substitution of the emotion of pride.

Gratitude is one of the antidotes of pride. If we happen to be born with a high IQ, we can be grateful for it rather than take pride in it. It’s not an accomplishment; we were born with it. If we are grateful for what has been given us and for what has been fulfilled through our God-given talents and endeavors, then we are in a peaceful state of mind and invulnerable to pain.

If we constantly follow this procedure, we will come to the awareness that everyone in our life is acting as a mirror. They are really reflecting back to us what we have failed to acknowledge within ourselves. They are forcing us to look at what needs to be addressed. What aspect of our smaller self needs to be relinquished? This means that we have to constantly let go of our pride in order to undo anger, so that we can be grateful for the continual opportunities of growth with which we are presented in the course of everyday experience.

One way we force ourselves out of unsatisfactory situations is by making ourselves or the situation “wrong.” Instead of merely choosing to find a better job, for instance, our smaller self makes the job, the boss, and fellow workers “wrong.” Because of the picture of wrongness, the situation now becomes intolerable, and we are forced to change it. How much easier it would have been had we just simply chosen to move on to a better situation. However, because of our sense of obligation, guilt is very often the block to this simpler way. In other words, because of what has benefited us in a situation, we feel guilty about leaving it. So the unconscious ingeniously has created the whole mechanism of wrongness to force us out of dead-end situations. This often happens in interpersonal relationships where we feel that we have to make the other person “wrong” in order to justify leaving them. Resorting to the mechanism of wrongness is simply a denial of our own freedom to choose.

Another thing that dissipates anger is our mere willingness to relinquish it. Willingness is our overall decision to find a better way, to stop relying on anger, and to move up to courage and acceptance. This willingness already starts the process of relinquishing anger.

The prideful person is constantly on the defensive because of the vulnerability of inflation and denial. Conversely, the humble person cannot be humiliated for they are immune to vulnerability, having let go of pride. In its place, they have an inner security and self-esteem.

Is pride really the loftiest of human emotions? The very fact that it is characterized by defensiveness proves otherwise. When we have pride in our possessions or in some organizations with which we identify, we feel obligated to defend them. Pride in our ideas and opinions leads to endless arguments, conflict, and woe.

Another way is to surrender the feelings we have about what we want from the other person, and let go of the pressures we are putting on them in the form of expectation and desire.

That which we want, desire, and insist upon from another person is felt by them as pressure. They will, therefore, unconsciously resist.

The inner-actions between human beings are determined by the configurations of the vibrational energies that their emotions are radiating into space. The energy of the vibration, and the thought form with which it is associated, create a readable record.

We stumble down dark byways into cul-de-sacs and blind alleys; we get exploited and taken, disillusioned, fed up, and we keep on trying.

We become much less vulnerable if we put our thoughts, ideas, and beliefs, which are all opinions, into a different context. We can view them as ideas that we like or dislike. Some thoughts give us pleasure, and so we like them. Just because we like them today doesn’t mean we have to go to war over them. We like a concept so long as it serves us and we are getting enjoyment out of it. Of course, we discard it quite readily when it is no longer a source of pleasure. When we look at our opinions, we will see that it is primarily our emotions that are giving them any value in the first place.

We are all connected at the energetic level, and a higher vibration (such as love) has a powerful effect on a lower vibration (such as fear).

Positive feelings flow naturally when negative feelings are not in action. Nothing needs to be done to acquire positive feelings, as they are part and parcel of our natural state.

You lose nothing when you loosen your grip on what is not yours to change. Sometimes releasing the desire for control is the only way to win.

Thoughts are like gold fish in a bowl; the real Self is like the water. The real Self is the space between the thoughts, or more exactly, the field of silent awareness underneath all thoughts.

In the moments when time seems to stand still, we get a glimpse of what is possible. These moments are so rewarding that they are treasured for a lifetime. When they occur, something is experienced that is very impressive. Could it be that, beyond the turbulence of the world and our own mind, there is silence? A realm of peace that is always waiting?

The mind doesn’t like to hear it, but in reality most “I can’ts” are “I won’ts.

Pride prevents us from recognizing our own limitations and accepting the help we need to overcome them. Our pridefulness isolates us.

God grant me the SERENITY to accept the things I cannot change; COURAGE to change the things I can; and WISDOM to know the difference—living one day at a time; accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him forever in the next. Amen.

There is one thing the world does not want us to find out and that is the truth about ourselves. Why? Because then we will become free. We can no longer be controlled, manipulated, exploited, drained, enslaved, imprisoned, vilified, or disempowered.

God, Grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the Courage to change the things I can, and the Wisdom to know the difference.

Willingness (310): This energy subserves survival by virtue of a positive attitude that welcomes all expressions of life. It is friendly, helpful, wants to assist, and seeks to be of service.

Neutrality (250): This is a way of life that is comfortable, pragmatic, and relatively free of emotionality. “It’s okay either way.” It is free of rigid positions, nonjudgmental, and noncompetitive.

man who lost his job, after some time had passed, he looked back and saw that his former job was stunting, that he had been in a rut. Frankly, the job had given him an ulcer.

Blame is the world’s greatest excuse. It enables us to remain limited and small without feeling guilty. But there is a cost—the loss of our freedom.

life events are opportunities to grow, expand, experience, and develop.

Courage (200): This energy says, “I can do it.” It is determined, excited about life, productive, independent, and self-empowered. Effective action is possible.