Consciousness

“The big factor regarding your on-going existence is to maintain a continuity of life force in the Universe and consciousness has this continuity by virtue of the continuity of your experience. If there were a problem with the Universe, it would be Its enormity and infinity. Anything that is infinite can never know Itself because it is forever infinitely aware of an infinite amount that never stops. The way the Universe finds Its elements is by giving the same quality of awareness to Its parts. Some of the parts in the Universe are called consciousness. The Universe does not store Its knowledge. Consciousness stores the parts, the knowledge, of the Universe since consciousness does not have a problem with volume. Consciousness is the historian, the recorder for the Universe.

Consciousness is the keeper of the will. Will presages action. You cannot have action without will initiating action. What is will? It is indefinable. It is the characteristic of the Universe that produces action and motion. It is an indefinable Universal energy that has infinite ramifications so there is no way of saying, “Will is……” Will stands on its own. It holds on to the ability to initiation action.

Consciousness sustains Universal Law. Consciousness, as a part, becomes the supporter of the whole in its out-workings.

Look at this unique thing that we truly are. Consciousness maintains continuity, its sustains action and it stores wisdom. It supports Univerversal Law. Consciousness is, in effect anything the Universe is, could be and would ever want to be.

What we have here on earth is a little encapsulation of the Universe living in only a small infinitesimal corner of the room. The very character of consciousness is magnificent! How could we even presume to let it encapsulate in a body (a very little place) compared to what it is? How can consciousness express all its wisdom? How can it carry on its continuity? How can it support Universal Law? How can it use its will? It is like entrapping a beautiful stallion into a space of half the size of the horse. Yet it is done.

We must not look at consciousness as if it does not belong here. Of course it belongs here and it is here willingly. It just has a different methodology in which to exist. It carries with it all the storage information it has. What it does not have is the arena in which it can use and put out all of this energy and knowledge. Consciousness sits with the body, watching, observing, and recording. Your strength and power come from your consciousness because you have always had the wisdom. You are adding to that wisdom from experience.” – Gregge Tiffen

Experience = Knowledge = Wisdom

“1. The way you feel about yourself physically, and what you do with your body indicates self love. However, the body is not a metaphysical unit. It is intended to be a vehicle for consciousness to get you through your experiences here. What we are dealing with on this plane is a physical body that belongs to the planet. That body is part of the animal kingdom. You pick it up when you are born and you leave it when you go. The body is on loan to you and its issue is survival. You cannot spiritualize your body. There is nothing you can do to the body that increases its metaphysical quality or awareness. The quality of survival is the foundation for our consciousness to work through the daily events and the experiences that it is going to have, and therefore gain knowledge that will then eventually be translated into wisdom. That is what the system is all about.

2. Now we turn to consciousness whose concern is the Universe. Consciousness is attached to the Universe and accesses all that is available from the Universal level. We are in the middle with one part of us looking up to the Universe saying, “This is what I want” and the other part of us looking down and saying “This is what I want.” What are we doing? The key is experience. If we do not get the experience here, we do not get knowledge. If we do not get knowledge, then when we leave this lifetime, we do not have any wisdom. If we do not have wisdom, the whole event of the Universe has been for naught. The middle road between consciousness and the physical body is having an experience.

3. You can never hear this enough. The difference between knowledge and wisdom: When you know how to do something but you do not know how you know how to do it, you are talking wisdom. However, if I come along and ask you how you know how to do something and you give me all the details about how to do it, you are talking knowledge. You bring a huge amount of wisdom from previous experience to every event that you are not even aware of, and as you proceed in this lifetime, you are acquiring knowledge through experience. If it is “good” knowledge, it will distill itself down, and when you die that distillation of your knowledge from experience will end up as a drop of wisdom to be stored in consciousness. That too is the system.

4. No event touches our life that does not have a use in our overall development. No experience lies beyond our ability to deal with what is set before us. There is value in every step we take to move onward and upward.” – Gregge Tiffen

Stress Management

“Stress can produce amazing glitches in the human psyche but none more disconcerting and devastating than that of compounding the elements of an event until they become larger than life and impossible to handle. The anatomy of confusion is the issue here.

Let us assume (tongue in cheek) that life is basically simple. That everything has logic and order and that we can move, rather easily from A to B to C. But then, along comes some outer force to upset this nice balance and we have a “crisis!”  Up to that point we have been traveling along nicely smelling the flowers and gazing at the sky but now all that has been taken away. Where there was simplicity and order there is now confusion and disorder. Where there was harmony there is a cacophony of discord.

Immediately our minds lose the pattern of logic. Body cells receive an emergency panic message from the nervous system warning the that the system is under attack. Each cell immediately closes its water-tight doors, just like in a submarine and literally holds on to all the fluid it can. This water storage, used by the cells as a protective device dilutes the cells electrolyte, the necessary substance to spark the communication impulses between cells. Consequently, inter-body communication ceases and the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing, and worse, can’t find out. Meanwhile, the cells of the brain, also having heard the “dive” horn, is holding on to all the fluid it can thereby impairing more than 90% of the brain function in those areas normally used for analysis, logic, and decision. What little does occur has an impossible time communicating its messages to the rest of the body. At this point everything is disarray, disorder and disaster.

What can be done?  First, we must identify what we are trying to accomplish. That can be body harmony but you can’t have body harmony if all the inner and outer conditions are in explosion. No, what we need is SIMPLICITY. Simplicity, so that everything we see, hear, touch, taste, and smell is order and reduced to its simplest and clearest denominator.

If you find yourself dealing with more than one issue then simplify to one issue. If you find yourself dealing with more than one person, ignore the others and concentrate on one individual. If you find yourself running through ten game plans, twenty mental conversations and a half a dozen fears, then reduce each area to ONE!

The effect this has on the body systems is to signal an “all clear.” Through one or more of the five senses, the word gets to the brain that the “overwhelming” condition has been eliminated and that only one unsolved area remains. The brain then gives itself the message to “Un-stress” and begins to release its safety fluid. This allows it to think and eventually pass the message, through the nervous system, that all is O.K. That message, reaching the body cells then triggers the release of water and the restoration of cellular communication. In short, the body system is now thinking and communicating again giving it its full problem solving and decision making capabilities. With that, you are back on track and life becomes simple again. You feel mentally and physically relieved and more in control. Mission accomplished!” – Gregge Tiffen

The Law Of Positive Selfishness

“You can’t be around metaphysics for very long without hearing “if you can’t love yourself, you can’t love someone else.” That’s certainly a valid statement. But what is also true is “if you can’t give to yourself, you can’t really give to another.” Most of us have been brought up to feel that any act of self-giving is an act of selfishness. But what we haven’t been taught is that the Universe operates on a Law of Positive Selfishness. The outworking of that law is for us to serve our needs before serving the needs of others. It’s also another way of saying, “Straighten up your own mess before you start mucking about with someone else’s stuff.” – Gregge Tiffen

Until meeting Gregge, I sincerely didn’t know about the Law of Positive Selfishness or the premise of giving to, loving and putting myself first. Gregge taught it, lived it, and pounded this Law into every person he ever counseled. Only after an earnest commitment to the exploration and application of this law in my own life did my comprehension evolve into a profound realization of how essential it was to my personal self-development. He presented the Law of Positive Selfishness and then said “teach yourself.” This was a true gift of love!

As we approach the annual celebration of Valentine’s Day “teach yourself” to be active in positive selfishness. After all, you are, always have been, and always will be your own very best Valentine!

Control, Faith and Trust

“Getting control and keeping control seems to be a full time passion in our current lifestyle. We like to think that we are in charge, at least most of the time, and we are very reluctant to give up our controlling interests in any area of our activities. Yet, the most vital requisite for a complete and joyous life is the ability to share control with the Universe so that you can receive the support and opportunities that make life complete.


Let’s explore the issue of life control and cover the elements of when to have it and how to go about letting loose of it at the right time for maximum advantage.


To give up control is a threat to survival and means certain death because survival, according to the laws of the jungle, means staying in control. The physical body says, “As long as I am in control, I am going to live.” Its only interest is survival. However, you cannot give up control until you have it so let’s consider the meaning of control from a metaphysical and mystical vantage point. Control is the direct application of energy for the purpose of influencing destiny (destination) of a person or an event.


I am not in control over you unless I influence your destiny. That is true generally as well as individually. From the day you were born, parents schools, jobs and rules (wherever you go) have provided situations of control. Obviously, it is hard to regain your destiny and reverse the process of control after all these years in the making. But, of course it can be done. Begin with the recognition that you have been in situations of control from the very beginning of your life. Isn’t it time to give your body cells the option to make choices and decisions in a loving and caring way? What you are trying to do is gain control of yourself in order to stop fighting the habitual messages the cells have been giving you from, at the very least, this one lifetime of situations.


Ask yourself, “How intense has the control been in every aspect of my life?” How long and how deep has it settled into the cells of my body?” How else can you increase or decrease your control if you do not know what you are dealing with from this point forward? It is the willingness at my point of faith that indicates to me if I am making a dogma, a person or my work a controlling factor. Are you in the drivers seat or not?


Once you have begun to gain control of control, you can act on faith, but faith in what? Faith in a government, a society, a person? What do we mean by faith? Faith is conviction that relinquishing control is in your best interest. What this all comes down to is letting go and letting go requires having possession of control. Without trust, many people appear to be letting go when all they are doing is shifting gears. What do we mean by trust? Trust is the act of conviction that faith will not harm you. Trust is an act of faith that your consciousness is operating by universal direction. At this point, it is essential to understand that the Universe will not show you anything more while an error is being made that needs to be corrected. The responsibility to make those corrections belongs to each of us in our own way. No progress is possible until the necessary corrections are made at your point of awareness because there is no forward motion without harmony.


Understand the Universe exerts pressure for the purpose of re-balancing, and that control never reverts to the Universe. Your consciousness is always aware of what constitutes advancement. Consciousness serves the ultimate purpose directed by the Universe.


The body has no destiny of its own. It is mundane. It is you who is designed to keep the flow of energy open between you and your body and between you and your consciousness. This takes focus and attention on your consciousness, with awareness about which is which. The flow occurs by you relinquishing and accepting, relinquishing and accepting ad infinitum.


Consciousness has no trouble relinquishing anything because it is the expansion of consciousness to determine its destiny through relinquishing and acceptance. Consciousness is destiny and has faith and trust as its Source.
– Gregge Tiffen

Awareness Is The New Wealth – Part 3 Of 3: The Spiritual Body

“The average person would read this and say, “You’re crazy. There’s no such thing as a spiritual body.” Yes, there is and it has a real consideration when you are looking at the over-all theme and value of an individual. The spiritual body is a direct constituent of the physical body. In metaphysics, we use the word “consciousness” pretty easily without stopping to understand what it is trying to represent. Consciousness can be interchanged with words such as spirit, soul and many other words meaning the same thing. The reason the word “conscious-ness” is metaphysically considered a better identifier is that it indicates awareness. Consciousness equals awareness. When you say “spirit” you are not necessarily indicating spiritual awareness, but the term consciousness implies awareness. I am that Universe, and I am in a state of intelligence. We know what is going on.

Since consciousness is an on-going experience, you need to look at it on two different levels. One level is that its actual existence is there because the Universe is there. Therefore, its existence is total to the Universe. The other level of consciousness is that its experience is on-going and infinitely expanding. The character of consciousness is complete. The experience of consciousness is on-going.

It’s not a question of consciousness being born. It has always existed as if it were one cell of a universal body. However, each individual consciousness is having an individualized experience. Metaphysically speaking, an experience is always new.
We are equal in character, but we are not equal in experience, and we will never be equal in experience. Every consciousness is having an experience true only unto itself, and it’s never having another consciousness’ experience, nor will it ever. Pretty amazing, isn’t it? You can’t tell me that we’re not dealing with a spiritual body. Of course we are. Consciousness is inside your physical body representing an energy form which is equal to and shaped as your physical body based on your frequency rate. This accounts for why some people can go through a horrendous experience and thrive while another person can go through a similar experience and not be able to tolerate it.

Consciousness doesn’t have any use for the body because its connection is to the Universe. But, it is locked inside the body in order to have a learning experience at this level. Consciousness realizes it’s never going to die and it knows that its character is complete but that its experience isn’t. However, it will embrace the experience as it understands the quality of the experience.

When you begin to enjoy life, you begin to learn, but you can’t learn under pressure or negativity. The only learning atmosphere is a joyful one. It behooves you to realize that anytime you’re not joyful about what you’re doing, you’re not learning. When you’re not learning, consciousness isn’t benefiting and it wants out of the body. This manifests as simply blocking out what is in front of you. However, when you begin to learn, you embrace the experience and consciousness says, “Hey, this is a lot of fun. This is great. Look at all these things I can do with this vehicle. I think I will stick around and do this.” If you’re going through a life experience that is a drag, that is consciousness saying, “This is a pain. Let’s get out of here. We’re not having any fun.”

Can you see the advantage to invest some of your quality time in consideration of all of this? The returns are an awareness of what joy really means. Consciousness sees everything as joy and harmony.” – Gregge Tiffen

Awareness Is The New Wealth – Part 2 Of 3: The Mental Body

“Before we transition into the worth of the mental body, I want to reinforce that the physical body is your big issue as long as your vehicle is needed. And it is! If we were to weigh the value of your body,  the physical value would be ninety-percent while you are in an incarnated form on Planet Earth. The worth of your mental body is five-percent, and the worth of your spiritual body is five-percent.

Now we are getting into what gets to be interesting, metaphysical and exciting. This opens up vistas that I have not known anyone else to touch upon. The average person would say that if you are talking “mental”, you’re not talking about a body. However, you do have a mental body and it plays a very strong role as an interconnection between your physical and spiritual body. These are not disconnected units. The health of the mental and spiritual body has a definitive effect upon the way the physical body may or may not take in and process information. How does this work? You can understand this visually if you draw an outline of a physical body and within that outline trace another body outline to indicate a mental body. The one thing it has that you don’t have yet is experience, which you are hopefully gaining now.

Let’s get metaphysically practical. In energy form, there’s encompassed inside your physical body another living body. It is your background life body. It is now in the mental form as energy, but it is there. You have it in size, shape, function and experience. It is the background life residual mental energy in your body that has already had its experience. Isn’t this becoming interesting? You had a previous life experience. This means that you had and used a physical body. You are now dealing with current events as learning opportunities in a different physical body. Common sense tells us that the health of the background body must be included as residual. Is that part of your physical make-up? No, residual energy is not part of your physical make-up.

The stored residual energy is the foundation of your mental body because the background body doesn’t exist anymore. Residual is in a non-physical energy form, which you translate through your body cells, mix up with your current experience, and manifest. The manifestation includes your residual form, but it is not a physical reality. It is a residual mental reality that has been carried through from your background life. Therefore, it is there, but it doesn’t have any substance. Residual is there by energy vibration.

The mental body form pushes its way to the fore and becomes a real part of what you are trying to do. Is the current body equal in size to your background life body? Not necessarily. If you’re six foot six inches tall in your background life, you would not necessarily be six foot six inches tall in this lifetime. If you were male in your background life, you are not necessarily a male now. Of course, that is one of the huge changes. It’s as if a different person lives inside of you in a non-physical form, but it is you as a result of your connection to it. Why is the background residual body a mental thing? That is the only place it exists. The background physical body is already gone, but the residual mental body is laid into your cells in an energy form. In your day-to-day reality, you show that mental body energy form a lot. You show it as a result of its mental energy impress within your physical body.

If your body was masculine and it’s now feminine, you will start showing a lot of that specific aggressive masculine strength. One of the things you will try to do is get your body to develop that kind of masculine strength, which is all wrong. That is getting back to what you shouldn’t be, just as being in a state of regret if that background body is something you liked. I run into this situation all the time: an individual had a male life in the background life and had a very interesting, active, aggressive and successful masculine life. Now in this lifetime as a result of a balancing experience, the individual incarnates as a female. That female really doesn’t like her body at all. She sees it as something is wrong. She looks at her arm and can’t find the muscles. She stands up and sees she is five foot five inches, but she thinks she should be six foot six. The pain of that mental body that she is attached to can be enormous. Another example is the individual who’s background life body suffered a great deal. Such an individual wants to go back to that mental body because it was taken care of and that meant a form of security. Individuals most often refuse to let go of their mental bodies.

If the mental body doesn’t like it then the physical body isn’t going to like it much better. However, like it or not, it’s the body the mental body has had and it is very demanding. You do not get anything positive out of the mental body because it was the body that was there to set up the vehicle which set up the learning lesson. Do not take this to mean that the mental body is bad. The point is that you don’t want any of that residual mental body energy impinging upon your current life. It’s insidious and seeps its way into everything in your life, and it’s not going to go away on its own. The more aware you are, the more you can see, sense and tell what that energy is trying to tell you in terms of affecting your current physical body and experience. The mental body aways grabs a hold of you if you are not dealing with your physical body. The mental body says, “I am you.” – Gregge Tiffen

Awareness Is The New Wealth – Part 1 Of 3: The Physical Body

“No matter how much energy you use, you can’t use it up, nor can you add anything to it. This doesn’t make you more of what you are, but it does make you more aware of your worth. Awareness is a new wealth. When you’re aware, you find that there are hidden works in what you discover which include the worth of your physical body. First and foremost, it’s your vehicle for consciousness on this planet, and it’s something you have to live with comfortably during your sojourn here. If you haven’t already discovered this, it’s your body that does a lot of hollering and screaming when you don’t pay attention to it. The need is to invest yourself in understanding your body’s distinct requirements. Invest in the search at your own pace and reap the benefits.

Since the physical vehicle is going to be our main concern in Part One of this three part series, it’s obviously wise to begin with a metaphysical definition of health: Health is the state of natural harmony producing optimum performance. The first consideration out of this definition is the word “natural”. Natural is a big issue in our day and age, but it can be overworked and become very confusing. Simply put, natural is what would belong to the body under an absorbable circumstance. A drug produced by a laboratory isn’t natural because a drug insinuates itself on the body. It forces a reaction that is not in the natural state of the body. An herb may produce the same results, but an herb is natural because the body absorbs it, and it doesn’t have to force its way into the blood stream or organs.

Natural then, in this definition of natural harmony, is whatever the body is willing to absorb. Natural is a very distinct, identifiable condition for each individual. It will be different for everyone. The key is what your body will absorb. You eat a cheeseburger and your body may see that as very natural. I may eat a cheeseburger and be sick for the next twenty-four hours because my body does not see that particular input as particularly natural. Therefore, natural is whatever your body is willing to absorb with it being forced fed. Doesn’t that change the whole picture of what natural is to you? We are not talking about a standard but rather an individual condition which is terrific. This whole idea of natural should give you the sense that if it feels good to you, your body must be in a state of absorbing it.

The next consideration out of the definition is the word “harmony” which modifies “natural”. Harmony is anything that doesn’t disrupt the body’s individual flow. I don’t mean normal function. I mean individual flow. Flow in this case is everything; internal organ flow, blood system flow, coordination. It’s those things that allow for the natural movement and function of your body, whatever that may be. Natural and harmony obviously work together, but you need to understand the modification in the word “natural” before you can really understand harmony. In metaphysics, these words are bandied around way too much. What’s harmony? Harmony is really a matter of flow and not a matter of balance because you can have flow and not necessarily have a balance.

The next key word is “optimum”. As far as we are concerned, optimum is the same as natural. Optimum is what optimum is for you. Every individual has a different level of strength and a different set of health equations that they are going to use. In our society, we have attached optimum to standards. If an individual cannot run as fast, leap as high, or have perfect 36-24-36 measurements, they don’t have the right body. This is a disaster. You’ll never find any two people with the same optimum condition in their bodies.

The next word in the definition is “performance”. Unfortunately, the word performance has been used for too long to try to indicate some definitive task, and usually one in which the body has a physical commitment that has to show a result. Taking a day off and lying on the beach while enjoying the sun and air may be just as much a performance as sitting in the office, painting a picture, or doing tasks in your garden. Performance does not necessarily mean running a race. Performance means anything that your body has committed itself to doing.

Let’s look at the meaning of health once again. Health is the state of natural harmony producing optimum performance. That’s it!  If you can say that you are in a state of natural harmony producing optimum performance, then as far as you are concerned you are healthy. Maintaining the wealth of a healthy body over an extended period of time is a tough job. However, if you understand this definition and you understand the break-down meaning, it can relieve a tremendous amount of pressure for you. One of the things you can do when you are feeling out-of-sorts is to stop and ask yourself four questions out of this definition.

1. Is something unnatural?
2. Is something dis-harmonious?
3. Is something way below your optimum? Or, in some cases, you may be pushing yourself way beyond your optimum.
4. Am I in a performance level that I want to commit to?

If you answer these questions, even in a generalized form, you will become very aware of what you need to do to take corrective action. This is important because there are many situations that can be upsetting. However, regardless of the circumstances around you, you can immediately identify what you need to do to adjust and bring yourself back to that level of functioning health that is worthy of your body.

If you distill all of the options you have in life, I mean all of the things you can think of in life, it all comes back to this: The body is the only thing you own. It’s the only thing you have a total right to work on. It’s the only thing that will bring you absolute results without any other outside addition. There’s nothing else that you can name that will do that. The learning experience that brought you to the point of incarnation has to operate through the physical vehicle and knowledge is part of the body experience. You are missing the point if you wonder what the point of all this is since we die and leave the body behind. The body is the method by which you learn The issue is how far you advanced with it while you were here because when you come back (and you probably will come back) you want to come back in a more refined vehicle with greater opportunities to expand beyond where you are now.

Doesn’t it ever grab your attention that when we talk about a creative Universe we are not just talking about creating celestial bodies? Creating a celestial body isn’t that much different than creating an individual physical body. Common sense tells you that bodies must have some important significance if that very same Intelligence went through such a systems to develop these physical vehicles, which are extremely intricate and amazing. If it’s that important, how can we ignore it? Your physical vehicle is the big issue of your life.” – Gregge Tiffen

Nothing In The Universe Renews

“This is the time of year when most of us look to Nature and see everything in a state of reawakening. We think of spring as a time of renewal. However, the word “renewal” is a contradiction in terms. If something is new, it cannot be re-newed. New is that which has not been produced before, yet renewal is simply the act of remaking a condition that has existed before. In metaphysics, repetition is considered one of the most negative of conditions. The reason is simple and obvious if one were to watch Nature and the surrounding Universe. On close inspection, it becomes apparent that the Universe does not renew.

Nature is always moving forward and manifesting that which is truly new! The blossoms on the peach tree are not the blossoms of a year ago. The grass on the lawn comes up and overs the yard, but each blade is completely different from the grass of last year. Everything begins its own life in in own place with its own purpose. Within this truth is a great metaphysical lesson. Humans are creatures of habit. Repetition is not only a major characteristic of our make-up, but we even strive to follow previous patterns. We are experts at staying within the lines and therein lies our downfall. By failing to make an experience new, we recycle ourselves into stunted growth patterns. By making such choices, we fall out of synchronicity with the Universe and produce boredom instead of development. A marketing survey taken some years ago revealed that the two most effective words in advertising were “new” and “free.” This should not be so surprising since “new” is the very word that automatically unlocks our basic Universal longing for improvement and development.

Springtime. It is the season to shake out the metaphysical carpet and throw off the heavy winter blankets that may still seem so cozy even as the fresh breeze calls us outside. It is time to let our mind and spirit, still groggy with winter stories and pictures, move out to embrace the fun of spiritual adventure and inner blossoming. If you are in a rut, sit down in some quiet place. Start saying, “new” over and over again. Watch what happens. Doesn’t your body feel as if you have thrown off constriction? Is there not a sense of expansion? You are most likely going to feel lighter, happier and more anticipatory.

Life seems to fail us because we do not make new space for ourselves. This is a pattern that affects relationships, health and most certainly, creative output. We seem to worship at the altar of, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” A wise thought to be sure, however life is a continuum of things being “broke.” Unless you are willing to take a new stance, walk a new path, find a new answer, develop a new character, build a new body, express in new terms, and see through new eyes, everything will remain the same. Go forth. Look for something to do and seek out a truly NEW approach feeling confident that a positive pathway is in front of you!” – Gregge Tiffen

You Being You

“Maturity is an enormously important element in metaphysics. The change from where you are non-metaphysically to metaphysically is a matter of maturity. Take responsibility and realize that this is totally your life from beginning to end. Once you get into that, your life can change dramatically. Happiness becomes a commonplace thing in your life beyond what you have yet to experience.

It becomes a value in life to have an identification of individual direction. That will never stay the same because changes occur event to event. Although I like to talk in terms of the ultimate, there are bad days. My panacea for that is to stay in bed, pull the covers over your head, and forget it. Tomorrow, start all over again. The idea to go around and think you are goin to change the world when you are having a bad day is ridiculous. You are just having a bad day. You made a mistake. So what? That is not the end of the world. What you have to understand is that, for the most part, you are focusing and trying. That is all that really counts. You are not, by any stretch of the imagination, supposed to be a saint.

You show me anybody who makes a grand effort to focus and give only to other people, and I will show you a bell without a clapper. Their life is practically worthless. They try to build their life on the basis of other people’s response to them, and that is how they live. They haven’t got much in the way of their own life. The bell is there. The clapper isn’t.

You don’t go out and push the darkness back. You glow, and the darkness pulls back. If you are good as individuals, everybody close to you benefits and responds to that. They use that as they see fit, and you are very happy in letting them use it because you didn’t really give. It was just YOU being YOU.” – Gregge Tiffen