Welcome! I’m glad you’re here.
If you haven’t found my Who am I? or About sections, then let me say that my name is Jim Tolles.
I’m a spiritual teacher here to help you realize spiritual freedom.
I hope that all the free resources on this blog can help guide you out of your ego suffering to realize spiritual freedom. Also, if you haven’t found it yet, I have a YouTube channel as well, and you can find some of my videos in the Videos and Recordings category on this website.
This post can help you specifically to find answers.
How to Find Answers on this Spirituality Blog
Why are you on the spiritual path?
In my experience, there are four main goals for people with spirituality:
Safety
Happiness
Health/healing
Freedom from ego suffering
Many of the spiritual paths and religions that you are familiar with are concerned with safety, happiness, health, and/or healing (if you have lost health in some way, you want to get it back. Be sure to check out my healing section, btw.)
My teaching is focused on spiritual freedom—letting go of the ego. The other goals are understandable, but in life, we come to understand that safety will come and go.
Happiness will come and go.
Health will come and go.
We will suffer the changing nature of these things if we are attached to them.
Surrendering our attachments is at the heart of realizing spiritual freedom. In surrender, we learn to better appreciate things like happiness when it is here. But when the moment changes, we do not cling to it or resist different emotions that are now present. In this way, we do not suffer the loss of happiness. The same goes for safety and health/healing.
I should add that letting go of attachments often lead to the pleasant by-product that we tend to feel happier, feel safer, and focus on things that support our physical health. But we are not attached. They are not the goals. The goal is to release attachments and to surrender to life as it Is.
You can learn more about realizing spiritual freedom in the following resources:
How to Start Your Spiritual Journey
Do you feel like you had a spiritual awakening or a significant realization?
Click over to my awakening section.
Here are some of the many resources on this website to get you headed in the right direction. Also be sure to consider coming to an online class with me at some time.
Do You Really Want to Know You?
5 Benefits of a Long-term Spiritual Practice
How to Be More Spiritually Conscious
Do You Need a Spiritual Teacher?
Can a Spiritual Awakening Go Wrong?
The 2 Pillars of the Ego and the Human Animal Body
How Can I Connect to my Higher Self?
The First Spiritual Teacher for Most People and Going Beyond
Maintaining Your Spiritual Practice During Hard Times
The Spiritual Bypass: The Illusion of Avoiding Your Difficulties
Basic Tools to Get You Started Right
There’s a lot of spiritual tools now available thanks to the Internet and globalization. But it’s really only a few that you actually need.
And honestly, coming back to awareness and self-inquiry are probably the only two that you need.
Identify, Accept, Embrace, and Let Go
Adding Breathwork to the Spiritual Toolkit
Intuition isn’t actually a tool on the spiritual path, despite what I’ve written in countless posts. Instead, I point you towards the following link as well as Part 2 to understand how to consciously understand intuition.
Want to Awaken?
Giving up your ego is a lot of transformation, and if something truly lets go and starts awakening outside of your control, your whole life is about to be turned right side up (it is already upside down).
You need to be prepared.
These posts can help you start right.
Building a Mind Strong Enough for Awakening
Building a Heart Strong Enough for Awakening
Building a Body Strong Enough for Awakening
Hopefully all these resources help. Remember that there’s also a search function to help you find information amidst the more than 900 blog posts on this website.