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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.
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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.
Longtime local members speak for 10 to 15 minutes on a special topic. Hear the explorations and discoveries of others on the inner journey.
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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This member forum is where you can write in your observations and experiences, and receive feedback from fellow members. Read-only access for Free and Basic members. Full access for Premium & All Access members.
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.
Longtime local members speak for 10 to 15 minutes on a special topic. Hear the explorations and discoveries of others on the inner journey.
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.
Catch Guy Finley’s weekly message that focuses on spiritual and personal breakthroughs. This is updated weekly and is available in video, audio and text.
Join a lively online discussion with other members each week of “This Week’s Topic” – a new Guy Finley talk selected for in-depth study.
You are not alone on the inner journey. Listen to lively, weekly online discussions between members.
Every Saturday Guy leads an open discussion. Local members share their discoveries, and Guy’s comments deepen everyone’s understanding.
Guy regularly holds open Q&A sessions. Often members of our global community send in questions, or speak directly to Guy online.
Access to all our private Facebook updates, student Facebook discussions, and our LIVE Saturday lunch roundtable discussions.
This member forum is where you can write in your observations and experiences, and receive feedback from fellow members. Read-only access for Free and Basic members. Full access for Premium & All Access members.
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Sign up today!You can find softcover and hardcover books in our store. Many of Guy’s works are also available as eBooks.
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Shop eCoursesWatch a cat. It sits silent, unmoving, until something catches its eye: a movement in the grass, a flutter in a bush... and the cat comes to life. Its predator instinct is awakened and -- by an act of nature that moves through every fiber of its feline being -- it leaps into the continuing circle of life... and death.
All movements, by their very nature, share three characteristics or qualities in common: first, they are always circular.
Second, at our present level of development, all movement is registered only by our senses.
Last, all movements exist as they do, and remain so only for as long as does the force of their initial cause.
The force of these movements tends to set other forces in movement; they are stirred into action by a corresponding force of attraction -- or resistance -- to that original movement. By proxy, these movements, and our sensory registration of all the sensations they produce, create corresponding movements within us. In this manner, identification with the movement takes place; one is first attracted to, and then gradually becomes dependent on this source of exterior stimulation for the familiar "fix" of feelings that they provide. These sensations fill one's life, holding emptiness at bay, and always -- by their momentum -- provide the hope of something more promising to come.
Accordingly, as a part of this movement, a form of dependency on the sensations it brings with it grows and creates -- in another iteration of the same movement -- a derivative sense of self that feels it must protect itself from anything that challenges the direction in which it is being moved; any counter movement is perceived as a threat to its very existence. And so begins its search for power to neutralize anyone or anything seen as its enemy; it seeks power to elevate itself above whatever may oppose it, so as to proceed -- unimpeded -- in the advancement of what it falsely believes to be its cause.
It makes no difference how any such movement defines itself, regardless of how seemingly noble; for regardless of how well-intended may be its inception, all human movements -- by reason of the very nature that brought them into existence -- end where they begin: at the start of another cycle... save for one added characteristic: dependency upon that movement has grown relative to the length of its existence; and where there is dependency upon anything -- whether ideological or personal -- therein breeds the fear of loss, and such fear is always, inescapably, the seed of mistrust and eventual conflict.
So, if one thing should be clear, it is this: whether it's the movement of a single individual -- or that of a hundred million people -- whether for personal prosperity or for global peace -- all are secret war machines.
Movements for a more unified and tolerant humanity only create further isolation and dissent. There is not one piece of evidence in our own violent past that passing time doesn't prove true: wherever two or more gather in the name of a cause, conflict is inevitable with those who can't see the wisdom of that pursuit. All of which brings us to this point:
The wise do not engage in any form of violence, regardless of how subtly such conduct and conflict may be justified. No movement, no compulsory compliance with even the highest of virtues, can create anything good; for all those caught up in that movement are either complicit in the conflict needed to carry it forward, or have become unwitting victims of an unseen attraction and dependency on the sense of feeling superior to those they oppose.
These truths are self-evident. But the fact of them does not dispel the need of this world to change. The question is... what is to be the nature of this revolution? In many ways, these truths themselves point to the way, the only way in which such a transformation of our planet may take place: we can call this way "a revolution of one."
The true revolution struggles not to change the conditions of this world, but rather to change the level of consciousness responsible for its compromised estate. Any other form of change is merely the continuity of the original conflicted nature at the root of all false and failed rebellions.
Any religious, philosophical, or governmental movement that must be enforced -- by carrot or by stick -- always produces its opposite.
Compassion cannot be enforced.
Legislated kindness breeds resentment-fueled anarchy; when any unstoppable force meets an unmovable object war erupts; such is the conflicted destiny of any unconscious desire not reconciled by love. But love is not a movement; its peace has no direction, and therefore nothing to put on a compass, let alone be charted. It is perfectly still, even though it allows everything that moves through it the direction of its choice. Out of this stillness -- that is the unseen gateway of love -- comes true, unqualified compassion: the act of first being able to mirror the suffering of another and then, by power of that same stillness, to step into that consciousness, and to share its burden.
This one action, and the personal sacrifice it calls for, has always been both the seed of true revolution, as well as its flowering. No one can "join" this movement because it has no beginning... And this is its unseen power and beauty: the true revolution doesn't begin in opposition to anything, and its success is not in a time to come. It is one's agreement to die -- moment to moment -- to any movement of self that sets itself against any other, including itself.
Posted by Guy Finley in 459 Galice Road, Merlin, OR 97532 on , and updated on .
BEST-SELLING "LETTING GO" author Guy Finley's encouraging and accessible message is one of the true bright lights in our world today. His ideas go straight to the heart of our most important personal and social issues -- relationships, success, addiction, stress, peace, happiness, freedom -- and lead the way to a higher life.
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