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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.
Guy's Blog
Read Guy’s newest insights as he jots them down, spontaneous and uncensored.
This Week's Topic
Watch or listen to the specific talk we will all be discussing during this week’s Online Study Group meeting.
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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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The Life of Learning singers and instrumentalists perform beautiful music that will inspire and uplift you.
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Join us for exclusive live broadcasts of select Guy Finley talks.
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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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Longtime local members speak for 10 to 15 minutes on a special topic. Hear the explorations and discoveries of others on the inner journey.
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Dive deep into a subject on your own! Work at your own pace with a series of talks by Guy on topics critical to your inner development.
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You are not alone on the inner journey. Listen to lively, weekly online discussions between members.
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Student Q&A with Guy on "How to Cultivate a Quiet Mind" (3/15/23)
Posted: Thursday, March 16, 2023
Meeting: Wednesday, March 15, 2023
Duration: 20min 9sec
Topics Covered
The mind names the moment, resists the very moment that it has named, and then tries to save itself from what it is resisting.
The mind endlessly talks to itself about what it must do to restore the peace that it believes it possessed before it was disturbed by life.
According to the comparative mind, being complete demands that others see us that way.
The task is not to seek for a quiet mind. The task is to observe all of the noise, all of the thinking, all of the interior chatter.
All of the self-talk that goes on and on is all about unfinished business with an unresolved past disturbance that we hope we will reconcile through the interior dialog.
We falsely believe it is our business to resolve the business of Life.
Resistance to the unwanted moment fuels the self-talk about what to do about the moment in order to turn it into something pleasurable.
In the promise of every pleasure is hidden pain. The consciousness that swings back and forth between pleasure and pain is not to be feared or avoided, but to be seen for what it is.
There is nothing in creation that doesn't belong to a set of greater forces and overriding will that sees to its natural reconciliation moment to moment.
Aside from the practical, the desire to control conditions is an attempt to keep a familiar self-image in place.
If you always feel compelled to speak, outwardly or inwardly, then to whom does that mouth and mind belong?
The practice of ZTL: "Zip The Lip." Understand the futility of trying to reconcile what is disturbing you through talking to yourself about it.
If you set the intention to zip the lip, but you find that your lips are still moving despite the intention, then there is now a new awareness that your own lips presently do not belong to you.
If you can't stop talking to yourself, then it is not you who is initiating the conversation.
You are not being shown unflattering things about yourself as a punishment, but in order to change your relationship with those things.
The assumption behind the struggle to be free is that you are a captive of what you are struggling against.
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