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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.
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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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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.
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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 "Transform Old Negative Reactions into New Self-Understanding" (3/17/21)
Posted: Thursday, March 18, 2021
Meeting: Wednesday, March 17, 2021
Duration: 28min 53sec
Topics Covered
What is the nature of any limitation in ourselves? A limitation is anything that stands between us and our next highest possibility.
The reason that we don't usually transcend limitations is because of the excuse-making nature that perceives the limitation as a problem and therefore tries to avoid it.
Negative reactions block us from seeing that the images that we have of ourselves are false images.
An excuse deflects responsibility for the limitation that has been revealed.
Negative reactions misdirect our attention outward towards the condition that is blamed for the negative state.
The real reason that we resist any moment is not because of the outer condition, but because something in us doesn't like the experience of ourselves in that moment. What we are actually negative about in the moment is our own understanding of the moment. The so-called event is really the experience of ourselves.
We are not the captive of any moment or condition outside of ourselves. Instead we are already a captive, even before we enter the moment, of a conditioned consciousness and its content. The moment serves to help reveal the captivity and the content of the conditioned consciousness.
What we react to in any given moment is what we think we see. We cannot separate our experience of any moment from the consciousness that is perceiving the moment.
The event that we say we don't like is our own divided mind interpreting the moment and then reacting to its own perception of the moment. That level of consciousness creates the experience it doesn't want and then gets negative about the experience.
The event that we say we don't want is actually a gift of grace, the purpose of which is to reveal that the observer is the observed.
The way to change our experience of life is to use negative reactions instead of being used by them.
The more we try to free ourselves by listening to negative reactions, we become more identified with -- and more of a captive of -- the reaction itself. Our real hope and freedom is in the awareness of this dynamic taking place. A completely new perception of the moment is needed that is based in this self-knowledge.
Stop in the middle of the reaction, drop the reaction, and let the reaction die, along with the self involved in it.
Wanting your mind to be quiet is the mind talking to itself. But the awareness of that creates a separation from that level of consciousness.
No other person, nor even your own mind, can explain your pain to you. The explanation that we seek for our pain is the continuation of the pain.
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