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Enlightening articles by Guy Finley on a wide range of topics address practical life issues and deepen your spiritual understanding.
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Enlightening articles by Guy Finley on a wide range of topics address practical life issues and deepen your spiritual understanding.
Short but powerful quotes by Guy Finley will inspire you throughout your day.
Heartfelt inner-life questions from people around the world, and Guy’s enlightening answers, will shed light on your own issues.
Read Guy’s newest insights as he jots them down, spontaneous and uncensored.
Watch or listen to the specific talk we will all be discussing during this week’s Online Study Group meeting.
If you have a few minutes, and want a burst of enlightenment, watch or listen to these brief talks by Guy, filled with concentrated wisdom.
Hearing Guy interact with an interviewer is a delight. Listen as he makes deep spiritual principles easy to understand.
Be encouraged by hearing fellow members share their experiences and discoveries as they bring higher ideas into their daily lives.
The Life of Learning singers and instrumentalists perform beautiful music that will inspire and uplift you.
Join us for exclusive live broadcasts of select Guy Finley talks.
Start your day off right with a nugget of wisdom that can transform your experience with everything you do and everyone you meet.
Inner-life exercises and special writings deepen your understanding.
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Dive deep into a subject on your own! Work at your own pace with a series of talks by Guy on topics critical to your inner development.
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Shop eCoursesGF: Welcome everyone. Let me open our meeting with some thoughts about what is required of us if we would realize a more awakened life. We will discuss some of these truths now, and just before the end of the chat I will lay out a set of easy-to-understand personal exercises that you can work with on a daily basis.
Now, let's begin at the beginning with an important point that ought to be more obvious to us than it is (at present): Consider for a moment a simple rosebush, or any tree or plant that blooms and fruits. Have you ever wondered at the miracle of a flower? From where does it come? What creates its delicate, fragrant petals, or in the case of a peach tree, the delicate and sweet tasting flesh of its fruit?
Think about these questions while you recall that these sweet and scented gifts of nature are the manifestations of nothing more than earth, water, and sunlight. And if you ever tasted any of these separate elements then you know there is nothing in them to account for this miracle of elemental transformation. But here's the point of these introductory remarks:
In exactly the same way that the fruit tree or the rose bush produces its crowning form -- and is given all that it needs in order to accomplish this miracle of life -- so too is everything provided for you and me to succeed in the flowering of our spiritual life. How could we be given less to succeed in fulfilling the purpose of our life than the tree or the rose?
Most of us never realize our true spiritual potential because we are too busy running around, trying to figure out how to flower! And the more a human being tries to flower by achieving the culturally, socially mandated dictums of success, the more thorns he or she grows. We say we want to be different, to be transformed, yet for our busy-ness no real flowering, no new fragrance is known.
To flower does not mean to momentarily feel spiritually good about ourselves. To have the fragrance of Truth in our life has nothing to do with being adept at spiritual sayings or the ability to impress others with our imagined grace. Spiritual flowering and fragrance means that we have with us, wherever we go, all that we need to be content.
This contentment is born out of the relationship that only Real Life has the power to grant us, that we have awakened into, and that for this awakening we are allowed to be compassionate, kind, and true. Only then do we stop hurting others in the name of achieving what we think we must have in order to feel ourselves a success in the way we envision it.
In this world, what we think of as the moment of our flowering comes in those times when things go right, or somebody says something nice to us, or the news is whatever it is that we've hoped for. In that moment we feel ourselves rising on the tide of these expectations now being fulfilled because events have occurred allowing this to happen.
But this level of life, one that is lifted by the events in the world, is the exact same level of life that crashes when the winds change. And as long as we believe that favorable conditions of life are required to line up so we can feel successful, we will spend the rest of our lives trying to control everyone and everything around us; and these actions are the bitter fruit of fear.
The flowering of spiritual understanding is the same as learning to live in a Higher world. And in our awareness of this higher life we are given everything: there is a fountain of new impressions, a flood of life-force. By a new kind of light breaking loose in us we see within ourselves all that must be done to succeed in fulfilling our life purpose.
And so, just as it is given to the rose or the tree, all that we need is also given to us; Real Life is pouring into each of us right now. Here is all this perfectly abundant energy and what happens to it? It's thrown away, wasted. And just as a flower fails to bloom that has been cut off from the elements it needs to blossom, most human beings wilt for this wastage of their vital forces.
Instead of allowing our hope for a real life to be stolen from us by our unconscious involvement in what is stealing our life force, we must make a new action; we need to go to work inwardly and begin to catch all the ways in which certain parts of us are throwing away our chance to awaken.
Just before the end of our chat tonight I will give you a list of "12 Ways We Waste Our Vital Life Forces." Once we can see where we squander what we need to succeed in our wish for the Higher Life, nothing can interfere with our awakening to that same New World within us.
What do you feel like discussing tonight? What have you been working on within yourself, and how can we use this time together to grow in greater self-understanding? Remember, the more your questions are able to reflect the real discoveries you are making through your inner work, the more valuable this chat will be for everyone involved. What's on your mind?
ruthann: Is accepting all circumstances without judgment part of the process that you are discussing? Our expectations and desires seem to cause the most problems.
GF: In the end, we must see that all things in us that judge any condition in our life are themselves always reactions to the condition they judge. What this means is that the "I" that sits in judgement is nothing more than one's own past brought forward to act as a discerning power. Our past, by its very nature, judges not only the condition, but judges us as well at the same moment. The reason being for this is that each time we draw upon who we have been to know what to do, we are automatically held captive in the closed circle of our own consciousness.
Bonj: I appreciate your flower analogy. Can you explain what it means when a person loves to grow thorns? Do we purposefully hurt ourselves with our own thorns? This is hard for me to understand.
GF: It is hard for us to actually understand that there is within us a nature that cares not in the smallest way for what it does to us in exchange for the sense of self that it lends us as it drags us through its considerations. An example: One is sitting at home and thinks of a friend who betrayed him in high school: first just the thought, then comes a trail of associations, all brought up from a memory operating under its own power, calling upon relative negative emotions to sustain its push into the mind. That nature loves the negative state it actually creates, even as one may feel himself saying, "I wish I wasn't suffering from this recurring nightmare."
Bill: I'm in the midst of looking for a new home for my fiancée and myself, which I suppose could be thought of as trying to figure out how to flower. It is stressful at times and the choices are hard to make. In what spirit should one go about an endeavor like that?
GF: Everything depends on what a person is living for. If the only way we know ourselves is by the objects and possessions we surround ourselves with, then you can see how painful it would have to be to be looking for a new place to live. Under those conditions, one feels as though their very life depends upon finding the "perfect" place. If we want a life in God, in Truth, then it matters very little what we have or surround ourselves with, because our lives are being redirected to an interior world where perfection is not a condition to be sought after, but a state of higher consciousness.
augus: I spent a few years reading your books and Vernon Howard's, but about a year ago I started reading the "Commentaries" by Maurice Nicoll. Now I find myself absorbed in his "Commentaries" to the exclusion of everyone else. Is this a story you've heard before? As you know, it's hard to ride two horses at one time. Would you advise me to also include more reading of your works and of Vernon Howard's?
GF: You must understand that True understanding is in scale. What this means is that there is knowledge that one can take from books -- and to that end, Nicoll did indeed leave a brilliant legacy -- but for the individual sincerely interested in awakening, the knowledge taken from books (any books) is severely limited. There is an ancient saying that it takes a lighted candle to light a candle. It's been around as long as it has because it's true.
augus: I am doing this work on my own. The people I work with don't know I'm trying to do this work. With them (along with my family members) I am doing the second line of work. Is this enough, or do I have to join a Fourth Way group?
GF: I would never suggest to anyone arbitrarily finding a group to join simply because they call themselves this or that line of any work. There are very few True sources out there. In the meantime, continue your work the best you understand it with your family as you've described. Try to plan a visit out here to Oregon at the Life of Learning Foundation. You will find much food here.
Jilli: If I am doing the Work and don't have the opportunity to be at a foundation amongst other spiritual students, does that mean I can't grow as much as a student who is surrounded by truth?
GF: One must always remember one thing: This work, since time began, is about an individual's relationship with the Light of a Living Truth. It is that Light and Truth that determines what one receives from it, not what one insists or dreams they can otherwise acquire, regardless of their surroundings. Having said this, it is a great benefit to be in the atmosphere that a True working group provides, because within it there is not just knowledge available, but special conditions are provided for under which one's knowledge of the Truth is both tested and purified.
nadine: I find it so easy to obsessively fixate on "easy pleasures" like the joy of eating, for example. It seems like I have to use will to look beyond this fixated energy. This seems dependent on my own state of mind/sincerity of the moment. So, does daily "working at it" help to slowly ease it away? Why do I cling to passing pleasures as if this will finally make me happy... when I know intellectually that this is untrue?
GF: The work you are doing as you have described it is valuable, but only part of the puzzle. The sleeping human being lives with a "hole" in his or her soul. This hole is a certain sense of being incomplete that always finds from our own past what it says we need in that moment to fill it. This hole is actually a set of unseen opposites that we must become conscious of to be free of what they drive us to in order to satisfy their essential insatiability.
nadine: I see the insatiability you mentioned coming from "the hole in the soul." I would really like it if you could explain further about this set of opposite forces that perpetuates this cycle.
GF: If you will go to the "Audio Tapes" page in our Book Store (on our website), there is a talk there entitled, "Let God Give You the End of All Your Wants" -- tape 238. This will provide valuable insight into what we've discussed. If you don't find help in it, you may return it with no questions for a full refund.
Leslie: Is my belief that Jesus is the Son of God -- and that He died on the cross to save us from sin -- going to limit me, in your opinion?
GF: In the long run, in the True Life of an individual who seeks to live in this Living Light that is often referred to as the Christ, there does come a time when all images and beliefs become self-limiting. The reason for this is that the spirit-filled life is not apart from the spirit that it is filled with. And, while we may for awhile have to relate to higher life through ideas and beliefs, the day must come -- and it will if we're sincere in our wish -- when we set aside "childish things."
Leslie: Are you referring to my belief in Jesus being the Son of God when you say we need to "set aside childish things"?
GF: No, I am referring to any beliefs that we must call upon in order to feel at peace within ourselves. Think for a moment what this means instead of throwing it away. As long as any relationship we have with God, with the Christ, depends upon anything conditional, to that extent we are ourselves subject to fear of loss. The moment conditions change or someone challenges the sense of peace we have derived from that belief, we are thrown into a negative or stressful state. Christ's life, the True Light, doesn't need anyone to believe in it, any more than you have to believe in the sun above you in order to receive its healing warmth and light.
Jilli: Does the Work enter your dreams? Lately I've had dreams in which I am self-aware of negative states.
GF: Yes, there's no question that at certain stages in a person's development, the interior work to be done is no longer limited to one's "waking hours." In fact, you would be surprised how rich the so-called invisible world is with all of the various lessons and teachers that we need to continue our development. Persist with your work and you will watch as increasingly you are guided in both worlds.
mikejb35: I too have had some dreams lately, but not the good kind. It seems that the evil forces are really going to work on me at night, not giving me a moment's rest. Any suggestions?
GF: First, I want you to understand that if you are sincerely working upon yourself, that no dark night -- regardless of what is dredged up in it -- has an ounce of power to keep you from realizing the truth of yourself. When you lay down tonight, meditate yourself to sleep the best you can and unemotionally, when you are quiet, say to yourself, "I wish to be protected while I sleep." Direct this to God as you understand Him and you will sleep better.
mikejb35: In my waking moments, I see so many lies around that it too is like a nightmare. I feel as though everything is crashing about me. Any suggestions about this?
GF: Yes, let everything fall apart. The self that wants to control the world around it projects positive outcomes, but does so from a secret base of fear that nothing will work out. Let the world that this self projects be detected and dropped, and God will see that you receive a new home that is genuinely unshakeable.
Slick: Every night I have a recurring dream about two guys I knew in high school. Is this dream just nonsense coming out of memory, or is it trying to tell me something about myself?
GF: There are really three orders to dreams. For now it's enough to say that most dreams for most people are just recycled garbage pushing its way back into the mind for reasons known only to whatever unconscious associations or impressions befell that person during the day. Other dreams provide us with a window into ourselves when we realize all characters and conditions in the dream are merely uninvestigated expressions of our own sleeping mind.
cyk1: How can we learn more about the dreams we have? I have many vivid, sometimes unexplainable dreams that can't be attributed to past thought or occurrences.
GF: How does one make discoveries about anything that he or she is drawn to? Enter the world you wish to explore. Start where you are, with what you can.
Barry: How does one stay awake, so to speak, in the dream world of sleep? A major part of our life is spent sleeping in bed.
GF: As you awaken to yourself in this world, the energies that permit this new consciousness begin to "work" their way into subtler places in the structure of self.
Right-Now: You have discussed many times about our thought nature having its own agenda so to speak. Does that mean that there is an intelligence behind it that we are unaware of?
GF: You may be sure of your question. Within all of us there is a continual upwelling of certain unconscious, dark energies whose very passage through the psychic system stimulates the intellectual and emotional centers. As these movements are registered, our own conditioned thoughts and feelings wrap themselves around these states, and not only tell us the nature of these states, but define us by them at the same time.
Slick: I experience crippling anxiety and am unable to take practical action. How can I get past this terrible place?
GF: Do the best you can to see the following: The energy of anxiety is really only half the story behind the suffering you describe. These states in their various forms appear within us. What is in our power is to withdraw our attention from these negative states wherein we are instantly resisting the conflicted condition, so that we bring an end to our own identification with what amounts to our reaction to our own negative reaction to these states. Ponder this is and you will get help in letting go.
james: I am often troubled by strong feelings of nostalgia. The focus of the nostalgia can be anything, such as some traveling I have done, a person I met (or even ridiculously, have not met). My mind just goes to these places without warning and always leaves me with heavy, longing, sad feelings. Can you help me understand please?
GF: Our present level of self only knows itself through the sensations it gives to itself as it considers images that it generates within itself. What this means is that one's mind will drag up an idea or an image of someone or something, and in the instant that it does, appears with it a certain sense of our self that now longs to know more about that image. This is where imagination kicks in and we supply ourselves with all manner of sensations, nostalgic reactions notwithstanding. It's all an illusion, and can be seen as such once one awakens to the process by which these thoughts steal one's life in exchange for a sensation of living.
seeker: Is it possible to be perfect, or is this the wrong question?
GF: Until we can understand that when we think of the idea of perfection, we always approach it through something imagined, then we will never realize the inherent limitation in any and all such images, as they are always expressions of a mind limited by thought and time. It is when we finally expire, not the wish to be perfect, but the self that seeks this perfection through its own estimations of how to reach it, that we begin at last to know something of our own original nature that lives in a world unaffected by the limitations of trying to assess itself by measuring "this against that."
james: Why do I feel the need to impress certain people I meet?
GF: All forms of desire to impress others are rooted in a secret form of fear that floods the mind when thought tries to measure itself by evaluating others. Until a person recognizes two things, they will never be free of this fear and that compulsive need to win approval. First, no one on this earth has the power to grant you the peace your heart longs for. No one! Second, and to the same point, the people that you wish to impress so that they will like you, secretly cannot stand themselves. And when you see this, you will begin to be free of wanting anything from anyone.
Jilli: Does an aim have multi purposes? If I have an aim one day not to express negativity, I not only see how hard it is not to be negative, but it seems to show me many negative states. It seems if I don't have that aim, I don't notice as much.
GF: One must have an aim, moment-to-moment, day-to-day. No intention of ours is ever any better or stronger than our ability to remember it. When we have an aim, we are no longer merely the unconscious creature of our own self-serving consciousness. Our mind has been seeded with an intention based in a higher form of will, whose wish it is -- within us and for us -- to see the Truth about us according to that intention. Never mind any so-called negative effects of working diligently with higher intentions.
Jilli: What is the difference between depression and conscious suffering? Identification?
GF: At the root of all negative states that hold one captive there is always one's unconscious consent to embrace the state in question. This embracing can be in the form of either resisting it or welcoming it; it matters not. This is what it means to identify -- where one's sense of self is derived from the energetic condition it is in relationship with. Conscious suffering is the deliberate detachment, not from the state one suffers from, but from the self that ordinarily unconsciously identifies with it.
cyk1: I have been having serious difficulties conveying my true self and abilities towards others regarding business matters. I believe they do not have the potential to truly see due to their own lack of trueness. How can I make sure I am not doing something wrong inwardly that causes me to repel what I believe to be good? Or am I "barking up the wrong tree"? I think persistence is good, but is it?
GF: If you are trying to convey what you are calling your "true self" to others, then it does not surprise me that you are receiving different forms of resistance from them. Does an oak tree stand there and say, "Look at my mighty limbs, would you like to climb upon them?" Does the moon claim, "See how softly I shine?" One's true nature expresses itself without effort. Our task is to catch the part of ourselves that wants to be seen in any light whatsoever by anyone. That work of watching ourselves produces natural humility, a beautiful feature of your own True Nature.
cyk1: With all due respect, an oak tree does not need to keep a 40-50 hour per week job to help get out of past debt from when it was an acorn, while keeping current on basic overhead for himself and the acorns he is growing.
GF: As long as any man or woman believes that it is necessary to live in this world according to the socially mandated ideas of what it means to succeed, he will always find himself a day late and a dollar short. Even if he has the money, he sacrifices the fulfillment of his soul for the passing satisfaction of being seen as someone special in this lost world.
cyk1: This oak tree is in this harsh world as are we, but is not subject to other oaks trying to limit its natural ability and is not surrounded by scum. This is why I asked if you thought I may be pursuing wrong directions if I am not gaining in this practical manner.
GF: You have to ask yourself what it is that you believe you're gaining. Until you understand that your present purpose in life is being dictated to you by your wish to fulfill purposes inculcated in you by a world that knows nothing about contentment, you must chase empty ends.
AJ: Putting all New Age ideas about reincarnation aside, will our "true self" survive after our physical body dies and is gone?
GF: Who you really are was never born and cannot die.
c: Who you really are was never born and cannot die? Does this mean that I will suffer forever if I don't "wake up" once my physical body dies? I suppose this rules out suicide as a way to escape.
GF: While I wouldn't say that your conclusion here is correct, neither are you far from the mark. Nothing about our soul (and its destructive tendencies) changes just because we shed our mortal coil. And suicide is not an escape; it is an entrance into a condition worse than the one thought to be escaped.
AJ: Cryonic suspension (freezing the body after death to preserve it) is gaining popularity. The belief is the "astral self" needs an "anchor" on this world in order to continue to live. What do you think is the root of this fear?
GF: There is no end to the insanity of a world driven insane by the pain of not knowing what it's for. So it goes with the world, so with its peoples. Do your inner work; let this crazy, psychopathic planet go where it wishes to go. Don't go with it.
Slick: I get bored with most things almost immediately. How can I cope with feelings of monotony in my daily life?
GF: The only thing that is monotonous about one's own life is his own recurring thoughts and feelings about it. See the truth of this and work to drop the feelings you have of being bored, that are born out of reliving all that you don't want.
james: When speaking to a crowd or certain people, something always happens inside me that makes me want them to look away so that I can bury my head. Can you please help me understand this?
GF: This is deep, but if you'll consider it, you will begin to walk away from what now punishes you in front of other people. The only thing that troubles us or pains us in any way about any other human being is what we secretly want from him or her. And when you realize through your work that no one can grant you the fearless life you long for by their approval, you will at last begin to detach yourself from caring what others think about you.
sandy: I tell myself everyday that life is bad. Is this all right?
GF: If you mean that you tell yourself that life is "hard," here's something to help you get over this stone in your soul. The only thing that is hard about this life (for any of us) is that we are still ignorant of its purpose for us. Once we realize what we are meant to do with our lives, everything that happens serves our new understanding, including the so-called "hard times."
ruthann: I have had a severe insomnia problem since I was seven years old. Every once in awhile (while I wait, hoping I'll go to sleep), I sense that I am actually afraid to fall asleep. It is 48 years since I was seven, and I have found no solutions that help me fall asleep. Do you have any suggestions?
GF: As best you can understand this idea, work at it: So much of one's insomnia is born out of resisting the fact that one can't fall asleep. The mind sits and says: "When will I drift off? Will I be up all night?" Don't think about your condition; bring it fully into your awareness of yourself lying in bed. Meditate instead of cogitate. You will drift off once you stop resisting your own interior state.
cyk1: My typically long fuse is running short with my so-called friends/associates regarding their lack of consciousness, consideration and choosing to live a life of self-centeredness and fear. I was always good at letting go and being kind, even before I heard you phrase it that way. Why am I seemingly regressing in this department? I wish for like-minded people and situations, but keep getting bad people around me lies and more lies and inconsideration any suggestions?
GF: Vernon Howard, a great man I worked with for many years, often told his students, "If you can take it, you can make it." Here's how this applies to what you've said: A dove does not instantly grow a sharp beak and talons. A lamb does not run with wolves. Seeing where we have deceived ourselves about our own interior life and its quality is the first step in being where it's possible for these genuine changes to occur, and the subsequent inflow of grace that comes with it.
james: I have recently finished reading Paul Brunton's A Search in Secret India, and found it very inspiring. I know you also have experience of India. Do you still think it is a worthwhile journey to make for spiritual growth?
GF: Come here.
Bonj: I realize that I do bad, but I also do good. Does the good that I do cancel out the bad that I do?
GF: In a word, no.
Bonj: Can you explain further? Doesn't light cancel out darkness?
GF: In terms of Truth, the Light does not cancel the darkness; it transforms and fulfills its potential.
jss: In the morning, just before I fully wake up, I get caught up in a whirlpool of thoughts for about 5 to 10 minutes. Now that I have become aware of this, how can I work on it?
GF: The moment you open your eyes in the morning, do not lay in bed waiting for these waves of thoughts to drag you into their unconscious whirlpool. Sit up on the edge of your bed and come as fully awake to yourself as you know how to do.
cyk1: Do we really have "chakras" in our physical body? I ask because I read an article about some sort of "power novas" they just discovered in space that they believe are pure, dense energy masses that provide energy for the rest of the universe. This sounds exactly like the idea of the "chakras" in us that are the source for our "prana" that circulates.
GF: The short answer is that there are indeed energetic centers in the body, and that our body -- with all of its energetic forms -- is a microcosm of the universe.
Jon: I wish to end my anger that seems to flare itself at a moment's notice. I wouldn't say that I am an angry person, but there are times when I cannot control it. I know this anger lives deep within and I want to go deeply to remove it.
GF: The solution that you hope for does exist -- if you're willing to do the interior work it takes. Not coincidentally, just last Friday I gave a special talk on how to end the unconscious ache of being a captive of anger. Let me strongly suggest you order the tape from this talk by contacting Chris here at the Foundation. Just go to the "Contact Us" section of the website and you'll be able to reach her.
augus: Whenever I have feelings of resentment or anger towards someone, I find myself more and more witnessing a definite change in the person towards me if I inwardly acknowledge their divinity.
GF: Better than seeing what you call the divinity of another -- something largely imagined to begin with -- is to see yourself as you are in the moment. Our awareness of bitterness or blackness of spirit is what changes not only the atmosphere around us with others, but our self is changed as well; and this is good for everyone.
Jilli: Can you change another person's angry reaction, by, in that moment, acting from truth rather than old reaction? Will it change the person who is not working? Will it change their anger by seeing you react differently?
GF: This is a good, meaningful question. The answer is "yes"; what you have described is not only possible, but (in many ways) such a conscious action on your part may be the only chance that person ever has to "taste" his own nature -- and all because you have not answered his bitterness with a bitterness.
Barry: John Trudell said on a tape it's OK to be angry at what's going on in our country. If someone is not, don't trust them. What would you say to John? Part of me agreed with him. Why do you say that anger is totally wrong for us humans? We are animals, correct? When my cat gets angry at another cat for invading its territory, is that wrong or just natural instinct?
GF: For your cat, it's instinct and natural. We are another story. Each of us is created with animal natures (all these natures within us), but we are also created to transcend (or die to) these creatures whose only answer is to meet the challenges they face with violent force. We may -- if we have it in our hearts to choose so -- be so much more than mere dumb animals. We may be divine.
Jason: I have noticed so many things that need work in my life. At times it feels overwhelming. I had an intimation this week that if I just would work on one thing, it would affect everything. Am I on the right track?
GF: Yes. Never forget this following truth: The only thing in us that ever becomes discouraged over what we discover living out its life in the dark of us is the darkness itself that we have discovered there. Its only power is the deception of discouragement. Remember the Light. Let it fight for you, and the sense of defeat inherent in discouraging thoughts will melt away in it. You have Truth's promise.
DebbiE: I have said the 23rd Psalm to my child in order to help him fall asleep. Despite the section about "the valley of the shadow of death," it seemed to help him for he wanted me to repeat it on another scary night. I know that it has a much deeper message than appears on the surface, but it's nice to know that scripture can help him.
GF: Of course it's nice to teach what truths we can to those we love. Far better than reading scripture is awakening to the Light and the Life that that scripture describes. As you work and do more to awaken, your very atmosphere will sooth the frightened beasts in your children.
MikeD: I am struggling with the paradox of ownership versus attachment. For example, I own my debts (i.e., the responsibility for them), but I realize that I should not be attached to them. The same goes for ownership in terms of manifesting the success. But how do I avoid being attached to either?
GF: Asking how one avoids being attached to something is like asking how do I let go of the anchor I'm holding onto that just fell off the boat. When we understand, when we're able to see that no attachment exists without dependency, and that no dependency lives without fear behind it, then we no longer have to ask ourselves how we shall detach ourselves from what we know is hurting us. The seeing is the freeing.
Jilli: Are our relationships with other people always a mirror of ourselves?
GF: In a word, yes. We meet ourselves everywhere we go through the life that reveals -- or that reflects back to us -- what we have brought with us (in our nature) into that moment.
seeker: Why am I content with who/what I am? I do not commit crimes. Isn't this enough?
GF: If you are content with what and who you are, as you are, what's the problem?
Jilli: When I feel negative toward someone, is that always something I need to see about myself?
GF: Yes, this is an accurate way of meeting negative manifestations that come up in us when we meet others -- regardless of their character.
Jilli: What is an example of positive behavior that is false?
GF: It's not the behavior itself at question; it is always the interior motive behind our actions that determines not just "truthfulness," but what we receive for our efforts.
Bonj: I appreciate the time you spend with us monthly. I wish it could be twice a month. I really am helped by everyone's questions and your answers. Have you considered expanding our meetings?
GF: A number of students do have an ongoing discussion group, or at least the forum for this, in our Community Zero set up. This is a special web address for any Tape Club person who wishes to join. The site also has other benefits not found on the our website available to the public. You can e-mail Chris or Tim through the usual web link on the Homepage if you want more information.
alex: Somewhere growing up I was instilled with the idea to always do your best in all things. I have been gifted with many above average accomplishments but never anything major (this includes spirituality). In every way I am attached to people happy being STUCK in their problems (while I try my best to meet life and respond accordingly), and to top it all, they are outwardly prospering more than me. I can't seem to achieve my independence.
GF: We should strive always to be and do the best we can. What others do or don't do is of relatively little importance to our true success. And real independence is spiritual, not physical. Nothing in the world can keep you from realizing this truth nothing.
Barry: Is expressing emotions -- as in rock 'n roll -- not right for the soul? What if it's negative hard rhythms with spiritual lyrics? Nature is not always peaceful (hurricanes volcanoes, etc.).
GF: As we grow, we become increasingly awake to what is good for us and what is not. The more you can be present to yourself, and not caught up in the "pulse" of what you are living in, the clearer you will see what serves you and what does not.
GM: I have a neighbor who is always looking at me very strangely, and if I greet her, she will answer and then turn around and just stare at me. She might make some off-the-wall comment about me. Also when she comes near, I can tell because I feel a very hot feeling go over my face. I don't understand it. Maybe I'm psychic or something? I get these hot feelings when one of my kids are going to call me or when my husband is coming home from work. I'm trying to figure out if this is normal.
GF: These things are normal, and we should be careful not to make too much of them. Human beings -- by in large -- are completely undiscovered territory. Our task is to bring into this darkness (of our own hearts and minds, with all their sleeping potential) the living Light that awakens us to all that we are. Then, by the way, we no longer are concerned with how others behave towards us.
GF: Our time together on-line has nearly run its course, so now I wish to give you the remaining notes that I promised to post before we sign off.
As we discussed before the chat, all creatures in life are created to reach their natural fruition. The Great Life generously provides all of them with everything they need to fulfill their promise. This same abundance holds true for our spiritual awakening as well. Everything we need to succeed is forever raining down upon and within us.
The spiritually awakened life is not something that one achieves, like an award for fine art or some other measured performance. The true Higher Life comes to us naturally and reveals and expresses itself in anyone who realizes that, like the sun above us, this Living Light within us is always present.
It is we who are absent from this eternally indwelling Life, not because these vital forces are withheld from us, but because we waste them. Following are 12 Ways We Waste our Vital Life Forces, and for whose loss we remain sound asleep spiritually. Study these thieves closely and catch them in the act of stealing your chances for Higher Life as they drain away your vital life forces.
1. All forms of useless talking: Useless talking is a plague. Not only does it waste your life forces, but it also drains the force of any hapless soul you corner to bend his ear. Besides, most idle gabbing serves only one thing: a false sense of self. Useless talking wastes our vital energy, and until we stop wasting it, we will never hear what Real Life would have us learn.
2. Being wrongly involved in the lives of others: We get all wrapped up in the life of everyone else around us -- even commenting to ourselves about how strangers dress -- because we have no life of our own. Until we can stay out of other people's lives, we will never know the pleasure or the power of what it means to be ourselves!
3. Daydreams of any nature, past or future: It makes no difference whether our daydreams are filled with pain or with pleasure. Daydreams always rob from us because in exchange for them we are paid only in the coin of our own past sensations. And in exchange for these false fulfillments we throw away the possibility of receiving new impressions that are Real Life themselves.
4. Using excessive emotions: Do you know people who are always on the edge emotionally? Everything is a big deal, a crisis. When we live like this, not only do we drain ourselves by allowing our centers to be pumped up and then drained mechanically, but we also tend to drain everyone else we meet with these same unconscious actions.
5. Useless thinking, such as speculating "why?": When we ask, "Why did this happen?" in that very moment we throw away what we need to change the nature that caused the conflict we question. "Why?" is after the fact; it is only in the middle of the fact, only when a person is present and awake to himself, that he can catch the parts of himself that compromise him. Stop useless thinking.
6. Being identified with anything: To be identified with something means to merge yourself with it psychologically. We never identify with anything other than what are our own images about people and events. When we are identified like this we are connected to something beneath us, because thought is a lower aspect of our being, not its Divine character. In this way, we pour ourselves out of ourselves.
7. Overindulging ourselves: Overeating, smoking, drinking, over-anything is a killer. It is the result of an imbalanced nature seeking balance in what it claims will bring it the comfort it needs. When we overindulge in something, no matter what it is -- whether it's emotion or Eskimo Pie -- we are at that moment costing ourselves our spiritual lives, not to mention our physical well-being.
8. Being concerned with how others see you: Why do we care what human beings think of us? Because our present level of self derives its sense of being by thinking about what others are thinking about it; and the more this self can feel that the picture it holds of how others see it is a good one, the better this pathetic self feels about itself! What a lie. What a waste!
9. Puttering around in order to keep yourself feeling productive: Do you want to know what it would be to be productive? It would be to be awake to yourself right now. Then you wouldn't have to try to figure out ways to busy yourself so you feel like you're doing something with your life, because God's life itself would be busy doing with you what you are intended to have done with you.
10. Rushing through or to anything: Rushing about is a way of life on this planet! Why is this? We feel incomplete; we don't have what we think we should to be happy and whole, so we rush to get "there" -- to what is imagined as missing. Why do we feel this way? We have holes in our souls. And the more we rush, the more we drain ourselves of the only thing that can make us whole in our soul.
11. Becoming frustrated, impatient, or angry: When we're frustrated, we think we're frustrated with something. We are never frustrated with anything other than our own understanding, period. All impatience and anger is an act of lashing out at what our present nature calls the object of our pain, when our own unenlightened state is the cause of our conflict. Want more light? Stop wasting fuel!
12. Wrestling with anxious feelings and trying to think our way out of pain: We wrestle with anxious thoughts and confused feelings, trying to pin them down. To us, it feels like this struggle is mandatory to be free of their pain. This is a lie. The more we wrestle with what is wrecking us, the more we get wrecked for our relationship with them, so that we lose both the fight and our vital forces.
For extra benefit I highly recommend that you make your own list of the ways in which you are letting your life be stolen. Everything we do to discover where our vital life forces are being drained out of us ensures we will have that much more Real Life of our own.
Our time has run out. Remember, your wish to awaken must be supported by your inner work to that end. The Truth wants us to succeed in becoming whole and higher human beings. Let it help you by helping yourself to a sincere study of these ideas. Persist with your wish to be free.
See you next month on September 4. Until then, remember yourself and keep the Light with you at all times. Good night.
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12 Ways We Waste Our Vital Life Forces
Posted by Guy Finley in 459 Galice Road, Merlin, OR 97532 on , and updated on .
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