Compulsive Behavior

In this short talk, self-realization author Guy Finley talks about how we have been deceived into thinking that we need to control everything in our lives in order to meet the world's standards of success and happiness. But as Guy explains, if we feel a painful compulsion to control everything we see outside of us, then it is fear that is in control.

Any time we feign anything, we do so out of fear that without that "persona" to protect us--to make that impression we want--we won't get what we want. This whole way of thinking is secret self-sabotage. Your consideration of the two special insights that follow will start you down the path to a whole new kind of self-command.

Topics covered: We can have a completely different kind of life; Real joy is only found when we at last begin to suspect that the world's ideas of joy are conditional and subject to passing time; Experiences that we create for ourselves are based in a set of conditions that, under law, will change; What it means to experience creation itself and our role and place in this broader life.

Topic: Out with the "Old Addictive Self" and in with a New Dedication to be Free (Classroom Talk 1/4/23)

Topics covered: True exploration of your consciousness cannot be for the purpose of escaping from something, nor to confirm what you already know; The defintion of "insanity" is doing the same thing over and over again, and hoping for a different result. The same could be said about "addiction"; "Addiction" connotes the idea of unwilling service to something that is harmful.

Classroom Talk: 1/4/2023 - There is no such thing as a compulsive pleasure, let alone a contented "slave" that lives under its lash; and yet billions of human beings serve some form of addiction, willing to turn a blind eye to how much they suffer for the sake of a pleasure they cannot keep, a security that cannot be possessed.

Student Talks: 1/22/2021 - Key Lesson: Part 1: There is only one path that leads to a relationship with what is holy, and therefore to a Life (that is) already complete, and that is to see without flinching -- and finally without regret -- the following truth. All of the eye-catching paths we first imagine, and then rush to take...

Topics Covered: We are currently identified with an unconscious nature that is incapable of knowing anything real and permanent; We cannot be at peace with anything as long as we are identified with what we believe peace is; Our minds are always trying to take what we think is good and make it last forever. This level of mind makes an enemy out of anything in life that runs...

Featured Study Group Topic for the Week of August 20, 2018. Part 1: It's not the moment that's unsteady; it's our present level of self: a shack made of sticks that's shaken by any unexpected wind... and that fears its own shuddering.