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The Sincerity of Awakening in our Relationships"I want to emphasize this. If you avoid those aspects of your life that are not in harmony, those aspects of your life where you may still be in denial, that kind of avoidance is going to hinder your spiritual awakening. In the early stages it may not have much of an effect. But later, as we get into the more mature opening of realization, there is no more room for denial. This is something that a lot of people don't count on. A lot of us think that somehow enlightenment is going to allow us to avoid dealing with those things in ourselves that we find uncomfortable.
Awakening can be the ground from which we meet every person and situation. It can be the ground from which we relate to all the circumstances of our life. But this takes a lot of courage and a lot of fearlessness. It also takes something I continue to emphasize: a very simple sincerity. This kind of sincerity arises from that which loves truth and sees that truth is the greatest good.
To be anything less than real, to be in avoidance of anything at all, diminishes our experience of who we are. As I often say to my students, to be less than truthful with the people and situations in your life is to withhold the expression of who you are. In the end we must come to see that truth itself is the highest good, that truth itself is the greatest expression and manifestation of love. Ultimately, love and truth are identical; they are like two sides of the same coin. You can't have truth without love, and you can't have love without truth..."
"Start to face it. Start to see it. In the simple willingness to see yourself, in simple sincerity, the truth starts to reveal itself to itself. It's not necessarily a technique orientated endeavor here. The technique is sincerity; we need to really want the truth. We need to want the truth even more than we want to experience the truth. This sincerity isn't something we can impose; it's inherent within reality itself."