Sense Of Self

In this answer to a viewer's question, "letting go" author Guy Finley explains that liberation from any addiction begins with seeing the dual nature of the divided mind that claims to not want the pain of the addiction, while at the same time being attracted to the sensations that come with getting the next fix.

In this answer to a viewer's question, "letting go" author Guy Finley talks about how there is a part of our consciousness that will seek to derive a false sense of self out of anything, even if it means going into pain over something that is unwanted.

In this answer to a caller's question, Guy explains that the true purpose of interior storms, trials and challenges is to shake us loose from the painful illusions and sense of self that we unknowingly cling to.

In this short video, Guy talks about being self-conscious: thinking about how you should look a certain way or be a certain kind of person. Becoming aware of the pain inherent in thinking about yourself is the first step to freeing yourself from it.

Key Lesson: Learn to let your love of exploring new and open spaces replace all of the ever-diminishing pleasures... found in all the old familiar places.

Remastered Classic Talk: 5/17/17 - 

Part 1: We are told that life is everlasting -- but see that nothing lasts! We are taught there is no death, and yet we see it everywhere around us! We dwell in the middle of an immense contradiction wherein one part of us feels the possibility of a life eternal, but that sees, and fears -- in the same moment -- only the inevitability of the opposite.

Part 2: The Great and Timeless Teaching -- that which can't be taught -- can only be learned through humility.

Remastered Classic Talk: 11/30/16 - The compulsive "need" to be constantly on the move -- ceaselessly occupied, either outwardly -- or inwardly, in some useless consideration -- is how the lower nature fills itself with the nothingness it needs to keep itself from seeing its own emptiness.

Sensation is but an echo -- a shadow cast by the Real. It belongs to life, yet it is not Life itself. Mistaking sensation for Life... is like mistaking a shadow for the sun whose light lends it form, and from which it has been cast.

Remastered Classic Talk: 8/17/16 - Part 1: You can neither control, nor change any anxious thought or emotion that rushes in and sweeps you off of your feet because this "I" -- this sense of yourself suddenly in a struggle to escape a psychological storm -- is itself a part of the squall it now so vigorously resists.

Part 2: Every thought, a blockage. Every emotion, a limitation. Every movement, a hindrance to Thee.

Remastered Classic Talk: 06/01/16 - 

Emergency! Then urgency!
Oh my... such an important me.
In this blindness, it's unkindness
Too late I see... the insensitivity
Of unseen self-captivity.

It is a big mistake to believe that negative imagination requires we be present to its calculated organization in order to imprison us in what feels like some fearful, or angry sense of self; quite the opposite is true. Truth be known, our most familiar, if not dominant sense of "I" is thus manufactured, and our identification with the works of this dark machinery is the unseen source of most of our fear and sorrow.

Classroom Talk: 4/10/2024 - It's impossible to see, let alone walk the indefinable path of the presence moment until we realize we've been deceived into looking at virtually every moment of life through the 'I's of the past.