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.

We don't know that we walk around with our mind literally looking at the world around us through our eyes full of darkness. And the darkness that our eyes are full of is imagination and the self that it generates. Unattended imagination relies on what it imagines in order to bring into existence a simultaneously imagined self. It is the most dangerous force in the world, because anything that...

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.

Topics covered: To paraphrase the well-known koan: If a tree falls in the woods, and there's no one there wishing it didn't, does it create fear or suffering?; The very struggle to escape the captivity of the consciousness that you are born into is why you remain a captive of that consciousness; The task is not to save yourself. The task is to realize a relationship with a part of you that does not need to be...

Topics covered: What we have called our life up until now cannot possibly be the totality of our possibilities; The first person to feel any form of hatred or resentment is the one who holds it, protects it, and projects it; Unconscious choices are made in order to protect what that level of consciousness deems as being valuable; Truth is a pathless land and belongs to another order of being that is already in you...

Topics Covered: Being willing to see ourselves as we are is the practice of meditation; A relationship with the Divine doesn't require control or strength; None of us want to be without something to do; We must learn to see equally above and below, light and dark; You are free, the why is a lie; When you talk to yourself you are not the one talking and you are not the one who is...

Student Talks: 6/5/2020 - Key Lesson: Whenever we set out seeking any kind of power, be it social, financial, and including spiritual, we are under the power of that which has no power; and where, regardless of what it may seem we've obtained, we have become increasingly powerless.

Topics Covered: Our hope is not in things seen; Being the witness of useless suffering; Use the fear of the future to find the fearless heart; Accept the moment as it is given as an act of higher Will; We don't want to fix ourselves, we want to see ourselves; Dismissal of habitual reactions; Awareness of the play of creation; Replace the idea of "faster" with "more aware"...

Topics Covered: Re-experiencing, reliving a memory; Mind wanting to escape the sound of itself; Real love doesn't punish the one who loves; Love doesn't separate; Love doesn't suffer over what was; Agree to consciously suffer our own consciousness; Remain the witness of consciousness instead of trying to change it; Being in the crucible of the crisis; See that the promise of...