My dear friends...

There is a tendency to dismiss the experience of Self-Awareness if it is not both immediate and eternal.   In actual practice it is most often neither.  

One rarely finds one's way to Self-Awareness with the first step on the journey (this is not impossible, mind you, but it is rare), and one rarely remains in this place the first time one arrives there.   One wants to , but one rarely does.   So much is calling us back.   So much is pulling us,...

My dear friends...

Nearly every Holy Scripture of nearly every one of the world's exclusivist organized religions contains passages that describe a God of anger, of judgment, and of retribution.

Do you remember what happened to the Israelites who worshipped the golden calf? Were not 3,000 of them slaughtered by the Levites at God's command?   Did God not instruct you in Exodus   32:27 to "take every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp,...

My dear friends...

There will come a time in your movement through the process of Enlargement when the scale of stop/start, stop/start will be tipped.   You will begin to do more "starting" than "stopping."   This is a natural part of the process and at some point along the way nearly all of the stopping will stop.  

Your stopping stops when you finally become okay with all the previous stopping - and with whatever stopping is happening in the present.   It is your ...

My dear friends...

The world has an interesting mind-set about this business of talking with God. Most people believe that not only are conversations with God possible, but they have occurred. In fact, most religions are based on this assumption. What people cannot seem to agree on is when God stopped talking.

If God has never stopped talking, that complicates things, because most religions are based on God's direct revelations to a specific person or group. Those people and groups have no...

My dear friends...

While sentient Beings sense an impatience during the process of enlargement, it is not beneficial to allow that impatience to be translated into a lack of contentment.   The two are not the same, but one can, and often does, lead to another.

Enlargement that grows out of discontentment only enlarges the discontentment.   Expansion can only expand what is , it cannot expand what is not.   If you are not contented, you cannot expand your way to more...

My dear friends...

The Second Major Step on the Path to Self Awareness is Enlargement.   The 3 minor steps leading to Enlargement are: stopping, starting, and sustaining.

My experience has been that once Contentment is achieved, the soul yearns for more of that experience.   It wishes to have a larger encounter with, and a grander expression of, the True Self.

This feeling arises not out of a lack of contentment, but rather, out of an appreciation of it.   The word...

My dear friends...

Contentment is a great place to me.   Many people spend their entire lives seeking to be there.   And when--or if--they reach a place of "contentment", they are willing to let things rest right there.   Getting to Contentment is enough for one lifetime.   It is more than enough.   It is truly an extraordinary achievement, and, truth be told, most people do not make it.

So why go on?   Why--in a sense--not be "content" with Contentment?

Well, of...

My dear friends...

Contentment is most often reached by the five-step process of abandonment, requirement, resentment, argument and discernment that we have discussed here before.  

On the road to Contentment it is possible to stop at any step along the way, and to remain stuck there. When this happens, that is as far as a person journeys along the path of personal and spiritual development in this lifetime.  

Some people remain at the first step, Abandonment, and never even venture...

My dear friends...

There are four major steps on the Path to Self Awareness.   They are:

1. Contentment

2. Enlargement

3. Fulfillment

4. Attainment

That first step, Contentment, is not easy to reach.   Many people spend a lifetime trying to get there--and many never arrive.   Many people are simply never content with life.   No matter what's going on, there's something about it that's not okay.   No matter how much they have going for them, it's not quite enough....

My dear friends...

The desire to attain self-awareness has been discussed and explored for thousands of years, yet in all my reading on this subject I have never been able to find a simple process, approach, or formula that allowed the average person to easily understand what is involved in that experience.  

Perhaps that writing exists and I have simply not come across it.   That is entirely possible. On June 15, 2006, however, in a small cafe in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, my...