It is at the bottom where we find grace; for like water, grace seeks the lowest place and there it pools up.

If you try to assert wisdom before people have themselves walked it, be prepared for much resistance, denial, push-back, and verbal debate.

Nature religions, for example, speak of summer, fall, winter, and spring. They see the downward path as the necessary prelude to any kind of upward path again. Our vocabulary is different. We Christians speak of the death and resurrection of Jesus. But unfortunately, we've projected it all onto Jesus and it didn't become a life agenda for the rest of us.

The fears that assault us are mostly simple anxieties about social skills, about intimacy, about likeableness, or about performance. We need not give emotional food or charge to these fears or become attached to them. We don’t even have to shame ourselves for having these fears. Simply ask your fears, “What are you trying to teach me?” Some say that FEAR is merely an acronym for “False Evidence Appearing Real.” From Everything Belongs, p. 143

I think most human beings are dualistic thinkers. It gets them through the day. It gives them a sense of superiority and security - that's what the ego wants.

Much of what is called Christianity has more to do with disguising the ego behind the screen of religion and culture than any real movement toward a God beyond the small self, and a new self in God.

Who is telling us about the false self today? Who is even equipped tell us? Many clergy have not figured this out for themselves, since even ministry can be a career decision or an attraction to "religion" more than the result of an encounter with God or themselves. Formal religious status can maintain the false self rather effectively, especially if there are a lot of social payoffs like special respect, titles, salaries, a good self image, or nice costumes. It is no accident that the religious "Pharisees" became the symbolic bad guys in the Jesus story.