Wanting to punish others for the pain they "make" us feel is like tripping over our shoelaces and then jumping on our own toe to let the offending shoe know how displeased we are with it!
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Enlightening articles by Guy Finley on a wide range of topics address practical life issues and deepen your spiritual understanding.
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Enlightening articles by Guy Finley on a wide range of topics address practical life issues and deepen your spiritual understanding.
Short but powerful quotes by Guy Finley will inspire you throughout your day.
Heartfelt inner-life questions from people around the world, and Guy’s enlightening answers, will shed light on your own issues.
Read Guy’s newest insights as he jots them down, spontaneous and uncensored.
Watch or listen to the specific talk we will all be discussing during this week’s Online Study Group meeting.
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.
Hearing Guy interact with an interviewer is a delight. Listen as he makes deep spiritual principles easy to understand.
Be encouraged by hearing fellow members share their experiences and discoveries as they bring higher ideas into their daily lives.
The Life of Learning singers and instrumentalists perform beautiful music that will inspire and uplift you.
Join us for exclusive live broadcasts of select Guy Finley talks.
Start your day off right with a nugget of wisdom that can transform your experience with everything you do and everyone you meet.
Inner-life exercises and special writings deepen your understanding.
Longtime local members speak for 10 to 15 minutes on a special topic. Hear the explorations and discoveries of others on the inner journey.
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.
Catch Guy Finley’s weekly message that focuses on spiritual and personal breakthroughs. This is updated weekly and is available in video, audio and text.
Join a lively online discussion with other members each week of “This Week’s Topic” – a new Guy Finley talk selected for in-depth study.
You are not alone on the inner journey. Listen to lively, weekly online discussions between members.
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Shop eCoursesWanting to punish others for the pain they "make" us feel is like tripping over our shoelaces and then jumping on our own toe to let the offending shoe know how displeased we are with it!
As long as we have been on this planet, wise teachers have shared great truths about the real cause of the pain in our lives. And all of them pointed in exactly the opposite direction from where we've always tended to look. The enemy is not what we think it is. The real adversary in our lives, that proverbial thorn in our side that leaves us aching and angry, and then sends us looking for someone to blame, is not what we have always believed. It is not something "out there." It's something "in here": an intimate enemy.
We can each name a hundred things that we think is the enemy, but the enemy is not:
These things are all conditions that we must deal with. But the real enemy is much closer to home.
Everyone senses what that intimate enemy is as soon as he or she hears the expression. We all know that self-tormenting voice of defeat that rings within our own minds. No one is as critical of us as we are of ourselves. We all know how we are besieged by conflicting voices that send us first one way and then another, and finally make us doubt every decision. No one sabotages our plans and happiness as we, ourselves, do. No wonder none of our victories are permanent. Oh, we may have "fixed" that enemy for a time. Perhaps a heart-to-heart talk eased our anxiety about that relationship, or an especially good job done at the office made that employer finally take notice; however, "fixing" that person outside does nothing to fix the problem inside. The unhappy nature that created the first enemy will just create another. It has to, because the inner dissatisfaction that projected itself outward to identify that first enemy continues to rule from within.
A little story helps explain this. One day a man was walking around his property when a stone slipped unnoticed inside the sole of his shoe. The stone was just big enough to set the man slightly off balance, and as he walked across an uneven area of ground, he slipped. Annoyed, but confident of his actions, the man immediately "fixed" the problem by smoothing out the ground with a rake and shovel, but the stone lodged in his sole continued to cause him a great deal of pain. Proceeding with his walk, and squinting his eyes against the growing discomfort, he failed to see the low-hanging branch of a tree ahead of him. Sure enough, he walked right into it and bumped his nose! Greatly irritated, he "fixed" this new problem by cutting down the tree. More annoyed than ever, and unable to think clearly because of the now persistent pain, he got angry with his hired man for letting all these dangerous conditions exist in the first place. The obvious "fix" for this problem was to fire him!
It is clear to us as observers of this man's story that the way he perceived his situation ensured that there would never be an end to his problems and "fixes." Why? Because the problems he "fixed" were only secondary outcomes. He never addressed the real cause at all.
Similarly in our own lives, we've been working very hard to correct conditions that are really no more than secondary outcomes, and not the real problem at all. We fight a daily war to protect ourselves against enemies that, in fact, never are responsible for the pain we feel. The resolution of all our difficulties lies in correctly identifying and then eliminating the "stone in our sole." To do this, we must embark on a journey of self-discovery that examines many hidden reaches of our being, leaving no stone unturned! When the journey has been completed, we will never see ourselves or the world we live in the same way again, and our new understanding will give us an inner strength that can never be defeated -- for with each step of that journey, we walk farther away from the true source of every pain.
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Posted by Guy Finley in 459 Galice Road, Merlin, OR 97532 on , and updated on .
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