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Articles
Enlightening articles by Guy Finley on a wide range of topics address practical life issues and deepen your spiritual understanding.
Inspirational Quotes
Short but powerful quotes by Guy Finley will inspire you throughout your day.
Guy's Letters
Heartfelt inner-life questions from people around the world, and Guy’s enlightening answers, will shed light on your own issues.
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Hearing Guy interact with an interviewer is a delight. Listen as he makes deep spiritual principles easy to understand.
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Be encouraged by hearing fellow members share their experiences and discoveries as they bring higher ideas into their daily lives.
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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.
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Student Q&A with Guy on "The First Step Towards Making Better and Brighter Life Choices" (1/6/21)
Posted: Thursday, January 7, 2021
Meeting: Wednesday, January 6, 2021
Duration: 27min 55sec
Topics Covered
We are overtaken by the "will of the negative" anytime we go into imagination about what we have to do to escape from an unwanted moment.
All creatures in nature have a will that is not their own will, but belong to greater nature herself. We as human beings are also imbued with this same animal nature that mechanically sets itself against anything that challenges it. But living from this lower will is not our only possibility.
Negativity is always pointing outward at the perceived cause of itself, and it always suggests what must be done to eliminate the cause.
We are negative because we don't understand that we have the choice to not be.
Until we understand the nature of negative reactions, we will continue to serve them, to be their passive instrument, their patsy.
Negative reactions are not connected to real life at all. Rather, negative reactions signify the presence of a reactivated conditioned response, the reanimation of a self that is a conditioned body of thoughts and feelings.
Everything we have done to answer negativity has done nothing but strengthen the negativity and sense of captivity.
What are a few things "we" do to answer negative reactions to unwanted moments?: Make compromises. Deny the negativity by pretending to be positive. Make a plan to insulate ourselves from the perceived cause of the negativity. Fight or flight.
Not wanting to be negative is the passive response to the negativity handed to us by the negativity itself. We have a passive relationship to this negative will.
Attention is the first act of will. The task is to attend to the negativity instead of passively acting out its commands. Reclaim your attention so that you are no longer passive to the negative reaction.
Don't fight with nor resist negative reactions. We will never be free of the will of the negative by not wanting it. Instead, be the witness.
Freedom comes from self-knowledge, not from fighting against what is revealed.
With goodness on your side, better choices are effortless.
When we are negative, we are being consumed. Negativity seems to give life and make a person feel alive, but it actually drains us.
If you want to become a new human being, you have to do it alone.
The world is the way it is because we are the way we are.
The ending of the self is the beginning of true redemption. Redemption is not found through what the self says needs to be ended outside of itself so that it can save itself.
Attention is the highest action.
There is something in us that never wants to leave behind the comfort of the known, even if it is the comfort of a familiar and painful negative state.
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