Dear Readers,
Dr. Carroll Wright, who you know as Dr. Joe, passed away on May 24th, 2015. Despite declining health over the past year, he continued to write and maintain a small psychotherapy practice because he felt so strongly that this work was at the core of his life’s mission.
Dr. Wright was born in Homeland, Georgia in 1928 and chose a spiritual service path early in life, after the death of his beloved sister Vivian at age 15. In his words, “My whole life was shattered and my search [for life’s meaning] became conscious.”
In the 1950s, Dr. Wright received a Bachelor of Divinity degree, a master’s in Pastoral Counseling and Psychology as well as a doctorate in Theology from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. He worked as a chaplain and pastoral counselor, later becoming and individual and family psychotherapist. He practiced for over 58 years in Kentucky, Michigan, California, and Virginia, and touched many lives with his wisdom and grace.
As readers of this website, you know that Dr. Wright developed a unique approach to therapy- “Spiritual Psychotherapy”- a method for alleviating symptoms of distress through an exploration of the spiritual enlightenment process. He has written 7 books and over 150 newsletters, and all of his written work will remain available here on this website.
His last written work is a list of over 150 ideas, which he called “enlightenment puzzles.” In the final week of his life we began posting the puzzles on the blog and we have now consolidated them below. We hope that you will enjoy reading these distillations of his lifetime of practice and reflection.
Enlightenment Puzzles from Dr. Joe:
- My job in this Hero’s Journey is to bug you until you are launched, which will take about a year. But 95% don’t’ make it and continue to suffer.
- There are at least 53 types of anxiety that serve to warn you! The most common are stress, grief, anger, guilt and mediocrity.
- The ego has no interest in enlightenment and will betray you every time.
- Awesomeness is the chief characteristic of the discovery of the Unlimited World.
- The goals of the ego are not your true goals because the ego is not you.
- If you do not observe the ego on a daily basis, you will be its victim. Note that I said to observe the ego, not condemn it.
- Understanding the ego is the only way to transcend it.
- You may well get off the path to enlightenment at any time. And then you will experience symptoms. These symptoms are the secret to getting back on the path again.
- The path to enlightenment is both universal and individual.
- You will move much faster if you learn the language of enlightenment as told by Thomas Hora. Without a master you will get stuck. Your master is your challenger–the only friend you really have. One day you too will be a master.
- The infinite good is all that exists.
- I am the voice of power. How may I empower you?
- I am the voice of your heroic journey. How may I guide you?
- I am the voice of inspiration. How can I awaken your unconditional love?
- I am the voice of reality. How may I enlighten you?
- Enlightenment cannot be defined or confined.
- A Course in Miracles, as far as it goes, is a true interpretation of the Enlightenment Process.
- Enlightenment is God’s metric, and Man’s as well.
- The yearning for more is the yearning for God.
- Man can never be satisfied with what he thinks he is, humanly speaking.
- “Not enough” is Man’s theme song: Not enough power. Not enough security. Not enough belonging. Not enough intelligence. Not enough music. Not enough of life itself. Never enough.
- Complaining kills people.
- Complaining makes us sick. Praising and appreciating makes us well.
- Fear kills. Love resurrects.
- Without the power of spirituality, we perish.
- Biologist Candice Pert proved that love heals through neurochemicals released in the brain.
- “Healthy, wealthy and wise” is only possible through God awareness.
- If we give glory to God, God shares his glory with us. If we honor the will of God, he honor’s our will.
- If no one bears witness to your perfection, you will never see it.
- Life happens not to us but for us, says Byron Katie.
- You will never get enough self-validation from others.
- The secret of the universe is it’s unlimited nature.
- Physicists can’t understand why the universe is speeding up instead of slowing down.
- David Hawkins says that if you are enlightened, you raise millions of people with you.
- This is the best time in human history to be enlightened.
- The drive for enlightenment is behind all of our passions.
- God is patient enough to give us plenty of lifetimes to choose enlightenment.
- Someday, everyone will reach their unlimited potential.
- We should be grateful to Buddha and Jesus for holding the planet together.
- If you pursue what God wants for you, you will have a thousand times more than what you could pursue for yourself.
- God never sleeps.
- There is no real “I”, only the real “We.”
- The Nation is no richer than it’s poorest person.
- You should ask yourself every day, what is The Secret of the universe?
- Prayer is not only talking to God, but listening.
- If you don’t know God, you don’t know yourself.
- Retirement is an opportunity for awakening.
- Be not ashamed of God, for he is not ashamed of you.
- There is but one father in the world.
- The ego creates itself.
- The ego creates it’s own self and pretends to be it’s own father.
- Everyone is seeking Good 24/7 whether they know it or not.
- The soul exists forever and ever.
- You can’t even give away enlightenment. The ego is not interested.
- No one can argue with reality and win. Nor would we want to.
- Understanding is our spiritual food.
- We overeat to feed our spiritual hunger.
- Miracles are events for which we have no explanation yet.
- The basic facts of the universe are that you never were born and you never die.
- The best name for enlightenment that I have found is awakening.
- The purpose of enlightenment is that we may enter God’s world and that he may enter ours.
- We have all been fooled into believing we are victims.
- Endarkenment does not exist.
- We are one soul with many bodies, many personalities, many lifetimes and many lessons.
- We are redefining Christianity. True Christianity is not exclusive. True Christianity did not exist after the fourth century. So we have all been false prophets. And false prophets cause suffering. Christianity has the potential to become the chief cause of enlightenment in the world.
- In what ways is Christianity not Christ-like?
- Everyone who listens to the ego, is set up to betray the self.
- Physicists estimate that only 4 one hundredths of the universe is matter.
- What is the universe made of, if not of love?
- If God is love, what makes fear seem to exist?
- What makes love appear to fail?
- Life appears to be mortal.
- All problems are psychological. All truths are spiritual.
- All things are possible.
- Why would anything need controlling if it was perfect?
- Who said the universe was perfect? -Genesis 1:30
- Perhaps perception is all that is imperfect.
- If God is the infinite good, where can evil be?
- How can a dark mind be enlightened? By awakening!
- Who can be a teacher of enlightenment? Only the enlightened.
- Only God exists. Everything else appears to exist.
- If you have not awakened spiritually, you are asleep.
- If you are not awake spiritually, you are trying to control the universe.
- If you are not awake spiritually, everything you attempt to do will ultimately fail
- If you are not awake spiritually, your mind will lack power.
- Reasonableness alone lacks power because it is polarized with unreasonableness.
- Religion may be enlightened or not.
- Science may be enlightened or not.
- We may be educated in ignorance.
- All wars have been religious wars, not spiritual wars.
- There is no such thing as a holy war.
- Reality is not in conflict with itself.
- Most of what we call “reality” is spelled with a small [r].
- Reality does not need to be controlled.
- Ego means, everything good is outside.
- Ego means edging God out.
- God is not a being, but being itself.
- Enlightened parents say a wise Yes, whenever possible.
- The bottom line of an enlightened business is not monetary.
- Spirituality does not exist according to general consensus.
- The spirit of man cannot be killed, only the body.
- The god who created 500 billion galaxies knows the number of hairs on my head.
- God expands but does not improve. Nothing that is perfect can be improved.
- God created the world so that he could have someone to play checkers with.
- Only enlightenment exists. Everything else only appears to exist.
- You are not a human being, you are a spiritual being.
- Man only appears to be ignorant, limited and imperfect.
- There are animals, humans and God. Which one are you?
- Only enlightenment exists. All else just appears to exist.
- Can we forgive God for when we blame him for what he did not do?
- How could a perfect god create an imperfect universe?
- How could an unlimited god create an unlimited universe?
- Since God does not judge, judgment is all ignorance.
- If you cannot tell the difference between ego and self, then you are stuck.
- Ego is pretend. Self is real.
- If the speaker is the ego, ignorance rules.
- Who is speaking right now, the ego or the true god?
- Had you rather be a host to god or a hostage to the ego?
- All symptoms are teachings, lessons, for the willing.
- The soul must learn all of it’s lessons before graduation.
- The soul cannot be killed.
- Only the ego can die.
- The ego pretends that the body is it’s home.
- Everyone must take the hero’s journey and discover The Self.
- Why do we take such joy in saying, “I’m only human”?
- Excuses are not reasons.
- Peace is not the mere absence of war.
- Whenever you observe without judgment, you are taking a step towards enlightenment.
- Joy is far beyond pleasure.
- You cannot be enlightened without being disturbed.
- Reactivity is worlds apart from activity.
- Without transformation and transcendence we are doomed to an ego-dominated life.
- Stress is not punishment.
- Self-medication does not cure.
- When Jesus was enlightened, he said, “Follow me.”
- Jesus taught that the light of the world is in you.
- Our main calling on this planet is to forgive everybody for everything.
- The ego has to forgive god for creating a perfect world.
- The ego likes to pretend that god doesn’t exist, or that it knows what god is. Everyone blames god unconsciously for their problems.
- When Jesus said, you are gods, he said, you are ALL gods.
- With the Holy Spirit, no one loses. -A Course in Miracles
- No one is excluded from Godhood.
- What is the difference between Satan’s lies and God’s truths?
- Who is Satan, if not the ego?
- Only God understands what your true goals are, because he gave them to you.
- If you listen to your ego, you will fall short of your goals.
- The ego always wants more.
- Your ambitions fall far short of God’s calling for you.
- If God does not judge me, how can I judge you?
- Enlightenment means there is only one of us.
- We are now 99% unconscious.
- We are on the hero’s journey from power struggles to everyone wins. We are on the hero’s journey from appearances to reality. We are on the hero’s journey from unconsciousness to consciousness. We are on the hero’s journey from lack to abundance. We are on the hero’s journey from the Limited World to the Unlimited World.