End the Misery of Measuring Yourself
Talk summary: In this podcast, Guy Finley explains in detail how measuring yourself actually prevents any real change from taking place.
Talk notes: The only creatures that we know of that feel psychological fear are human beings. Psychological fear is impossible without negative imagination. We all live with a certain kind of fear that we consistently feed only because we presently lack proper understanding.
There is absolutely no value to any form of psychological measurement. There is value to practical measurement. If you are going to cook a good meal, then you will need to measure the ingredients; if you are going to build a new home, then you are going to have to take many measurements. However, if you examine why you measure yourself, then you will begin to understand why there is no value in it.
After an event of some kind, we often re-run the event in our minds in order to measure our performance. Basically we ask ourselves, "How did I do?" It seems as though this sort of measurement of my performance is for the purpose of improvement--to better myself--and presently this seems perfectly logical to the measuring mind.
In reality it is not "you" that measures yourself. The mind mechanically creates pictures about an event that takes place and then compares those pictures to its own imagined ideal. Your mind thinks that this mechanical process of measurement is the same thing as making a real change. But the fact is that either change takes place in the moment, or it does not take place at all.
Real change takes place when the light of awareness reveals the action of something that is incomplete or unaware of itself. The answer is not an "improved" continuation of the order of consciousness that measures itself. The real answer is the revelation that this old order of consciousness cannot go on as it has been because the light has revealed it to be incomplete. And there is no judgment in this action of awareness. Stop consenting to measuring yourself and you'll see a completely different kind of life.
