Nothing is more discontented than our lower nature, the false self. It is always unhappy with one thing or another. If there is one weed in a field of roses, you can bet that is what it will see. Since it has no real life of its own, it must endlessly create stimulating thoughts and feelings of one kind or another in order to give it the sensations of being alive.

Everyone wonders whether or not there is one great secret for truly successful living. There is. And it is not a secret. It has been quietly, steadily telling itself right in front of us all along. We just couldn't hear it over the clatter and chatter of our own secret demands.

We're often led to act against ourselves by an undetected weakness that goes before us -- trying to pass itself off to others -- as a strength. This is secret self-sabotage. It sinks us in our personal and business relationships as surely as a torpedo wrecks the ship it strikes.

Count the number of ways in which we have acted to protect a fear -- as in fawning before others for fear of falling out of their good graces -- and we also know the exact number of times we have been the fool of fear.

Any human being who has to hold himself together is someone who is ready to fall apart. Trying to hold yourself together is a terrible way to go through life... The fears of falling apart can never be quieted by adding more pieces to your self, such as success or the hopes of success.

I can think of no greater encouragement than the self-evident Truth that there dwells in each of us the opportunity to explore and know the Extraordinary Life.

Yet, something in us knows that there will never be an end to battling storms on an island that sits directly in the surge of their path. There are higher parts of us that sense there is something outside of the storm.

What causes these dark inner dialogues?  Resentment. So, here’s a key thought to help you release this self wrecking inner state: Holding on to some hurt, or hatred -- over what someone may have done to you in the past -- makes you that person’s slave in the here and Now.

The fall of fear begins with our heightened awareness of fear's presence. Out of this higher level of self-consciousness comes something as mysterious as it is grand: the spiritual intolerance of fear.

We must no longer allow ourselves to identify with any negative state, regardless of why that state tells us we must embrace its painful presence. That is to say, we must become as ruthless in detecting and rejecting these dark thoughts and feelings as they have been ruthless in wrecking our lives.