Conscious Suffering

In this answer to a viewer's question, Guy talks about how we suffer uselessly every time we attempt to be seen as someone special, which is the same as avoiding awareness of ourselves as we are.

At our current level of consciousness, we experience ourselves as beings who have a certain emotional state of energy come into us, which defines and shapes our individuality. But the fact of the matter is that there is no such self. Not really. There are just these states of energy and the fleeting sense of self that their undetected possession produces...

We already have all the pain that we need to change, but none of it is conscious. Until it becomes conscious, it is impossible to change. We live in illusion, perpetuate the pain, and even add more to it whenever we avoid seeing our actual condition in the present moment.

Guy describes an important, pivotal point in an aspirant's work, when you consciously die to the part of you that is afraid of rocking the boat with family and friends and you instead choose to not go along with the actions of others that you know are not in anyone's best interests. This is what it means to die for what you love.

Topics covered: As long as you are afraid of life, you have not accomplished anything, despite how much you believe you have accomplished; It is a nightmare to believe that you have to endlessly prove yourself, over and over again; There is an immense difference between trying to prove yourself, and trying to be yourself. We have mistaken "proving yourself" for "being yourself." The world does not know anything about what it means to "be yourself."

Topics covered: As goes my attention, so comes my experience. As comes my experience, so comes my sense of self. If my sense of self has fallen into what I don't want, then I AM what I don't want; Negative reactions kill all other possibilities. Negative reactions collapse one's experience into a very limited field; "Divinity is our birthright. God nods to God from behind each of us. But let us remember, divinity is behind our failures and follies also"...

Topics covered: Everything that a human being imagines as being liberation is imagination. The truth cannot be captured in thought; You can only understand what is in you and what you have seen as part of yourself; The mind is in a constant struggle to reorganize the world it sees into what it imagines; You can't struggle to regain balance unless something in you believes it has been thrown off balance.

Topics covered: If you believe that you can lose your freedom, then you never had it to begin with; We are that which is used by the Divine, or we are not. If not, then there will always be an anxious attempt to achieve what freedom is imagined to be; Conflict in nature strengthens the whole of nature so that it comes out it more complete. Conflict for human beings always leads to more conflict and weakness...

Topics covered: Individuals who understand the futility of trying to save their own life -- through thought -- will gain their life; We must learn to use the presence of psychological pain as an invitation to not just question the things we believe are valuable, but to launch an investigation into how we ever came to that conclusion; Whatever we have become identified with over the...