These stories of virgin birth refer to the birth of that which is born without the coming together of opposites. Our human birth is the birth of opposites. It’s the coming together of male and female, and that produces a human being.

Essentially, we fall into grace. By that I mean that a certain mysterious quality reveals itself and cradles us within an intimacy with all of existence.

Within this consciousness, within this space of stillness, many thoughts can and do appear. Many emotions can and do appear, many ways that we could imagine in our minds that we know. But really, it’s all imagination. How do we know it’s all imagination? Because when we stop imagining, it disappears.

There’s something about you now that’s the same as it ever was.

When we armor ourselves, when we close from natural openness and vulnerability, what is it that we’re protecting? Are we protecting something that’s actually here, or are we merely protecting an idea of ourselves, held in memory?

When we begin to surrender our demand that life change, that life alter itself to suit our ideas, then everything opens. We begin to awaken from this dream of separateness and struggle, and we realize that the grace we were always seeking is actually right there at the center of our own existence. This is the heart of spiritual awakening: to

It is when you listen in this way that you can see that it is only your mind that has the capacity to make you suffer. Only your mind has the capacity to convince you to struggle. Only your mind, nothing else.

As I often tell my students, the person you’ll have the hardest time opening to and truly loving without reserve is yourself. Once you can do that, you can love the whole universe unconditionally. But it all starts with you.

Instead of being uncaring, we actually come into a deeper and more intimate relationship with what’s happening. We become very deeply connected. We find ourselves able, in the moment of someone’s actual pain or in the middle of our own suffering, to connect very intimately, very purely, without any resistance. This opens up a door within us for an