"Father, forgive them: for they know not what they do." Guy Finley explains that real forgiveness is an act of realizing the similarity between yourself and those that have caused you suffering, because you understand they suffer in the exact same way that you do. The scripture "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do" points to this type of "immaculate compassion" towards others which...

Topic: How to Awaken and Practice Immaculate Compassion (Classroom Talk 1/25/23)

Topics covered: All true spiritual teachings have a singular purpose, and that is to call human beings into another world that already exists within them; An unconscious nature within us believes that it is superior to everything that it judges; The love that lifts a person above the loveless world of thought has an infinite capacity to recognize perfect similarity...

Classroom Talk: 1/25/2023 - Nothing makes us more common and unkind -- more like everyone else we judge -- than identifying with familiar painful negative reactions that seem to prove we're somehow different, superior to those whose character we hold in contempt.

In this brief answer to a viewer's question, Guy explains that honesty begins with seeing ourselves as we are, and that lying to ourselves is what leads to unkindness.

The power of being unconditionally kind towards those who unconsciously hurt us is just one of the gifts of higher love. In a way, it gives our heart "eyes" that can see what they were blind to before. For example, by its light we're able to see that the needs of others are really the same as our own, an insight that makes it impossible to mistake their pain as being somehow less...

Topics Covered:To "love thy neighbor as thyself" is impossible until we are conscious of ourselves; You cannot really love another human being and want something from them at the same time; The two principles of "love thy neighbor as thyself" and "the observer is the observed" are very closely related to each other, if not the same thing; No one that we know is the same person...

Classroom Talk: 12/20/2020 - Part 1: True compassion, unconditional kindness is our Divine, but largely unrealized capacity to "love our neighbor as our Self." These gifts of Grace are one and the same as (our) awakening to realize that, in reality, there is no separate self. Part 2: Any painful compulsion to teach someone else his or her...

Topic: The Gift of Gifts (12/22/19 Classroom Talk)

Topic: The Gift of Gifts (12/22/19 Classroom Talk)

Topic: The Gift of Gifts (12/22/19 Classroom Talk)

Classroom Talk: 12/22/2019 - Far better to see ourselves lacking the strength we need to be kind -- and to consciously suffer the humiliation of seeing we are without (that) character -- than it is to act out the unkindness of an unconscious nature that always finds fault with others in order to hide its inherent weakness.