Temptation

In this short talk, bestselling "letting go" author Guy Finley talks about what it means to wake up from spiritual sleep, which does not include comparing ourselves to what the world says it means to live an awakened life.

Whenever there is an unconscious inner dialog going on in our heads, we are actually looking in a mirror that we don't know is a mirror. And what we see in our mind's eye talks to us about what we must make ourselves into so that we might finally find rest and be at peace. Freedom from the dark inner dialog begins by seeing that the "self" that is talking to us only exists as long as we...

The depth to which we see something is directly proportionate to the consciousness that is attending to what is being presented in the moment. As we are now our lives are very superficial. But we're meant to be in relationship with life at a much deeper level.

Topic: Start Thinking for Yourself and Stop Sinking into Painful Thoughts and Feelings (Remastered Classic Talk) (Classroom Talk 5/27/26)

Student Talks: 02/06/2026 - Giving yourself empty things to do can't fill the emptiness you feel inside, so…risk leaving that space empty; allow it to be filled with something you can't give yourself: freedom from the fear of feeling empty.

Remastered Classic Talk: 11/4/15 - Here is the obvious, but rarely acknowledged reason why we must dig in and do the difficult inner work needed for real self-transformation: if we don't change, we gradually come to wholly embody the very weaknesses whose destructive nature we wish weren't (living) within us. The courage to see the truth of this inevitable outcome gives us the reason, the will and the courage we need to succeed in our quest to regain command over our own heart, mind, and soul.

Student Talks: 07/25/2025 - Our true nature is not discovered by acquiring new knowledge, but by awakening to what has always been present: the light of a living awareness, waiting to be awakened, and realized as being inseparable from one’s True Self.  

Student Talks: 05/30/2025 - It’s not by accident that we reach interim points of mounting resistance in our work to be free, any more than we accidentally meet the challenge of some uncertain, unstable ground that waits to be gained the nearer we come to the summit of a mountain.

Classroom Talk: 11/20/2024 - Whenever we kneel to the temptation of some consoling indulgence, or struggle to acquire a power to protect us from a fear...we yield to, and serve the pleasure of a darkened desire that has promised, once again, to save us from (our) pain.

Student Talks: 3/10/2023 - Key Lesson: Allowing any part of self to act in such a way as to deny yourself a new awareness of yourself -- whatever its quality -- is the same as refusing your right to realize the limitless depth and breadth of your true Self.

Student Talks: 11/18/2022 - Key Lesson: The past does not give birth to the future, any more than we might think to look for the living in a graveyard.