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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.
Short Talks
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.
Interviews & Radio Shows
Hearing Guy interact with an interviewer is a delight. Listen as he makes deep spiritual principles easy to understand.
Student Reports
Be encouraged by hearing fellow members share their experiences and discoveries as they bring higher ideas into their daily lives.
Sacred Music
The Life of Learning singers and instrumentalists perform beautiful music that will inspire and uplift you.
Livestream Classes
Join us for exclusive live broadcasts of select Guy Finley talks.
Daily Meditation Emails
Start your day off right with a nugget of wisdom that can transform your experience with everything you do and everyone you meet.
Special Lessons
Inner-life exercises and special writings deepen your understanding.
Student Talks
Longtime local members speak for 10 to 15 minutes on a special topic. Hear the explorations and discoveries of others on the inner journey.
eCourses
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.
Advanced Inner Life Talks
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.
Online Study Group
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.
Study Group Recordings
You are not alone on the inner journey. Listen to lively, weekly online discussions between members.
Saturdays with Guy
Every Saturday Guy leads an open discussion. Local members share their discoveries, and Guy’s comments deepen everyone’s understanding.
Student Q&A with Guy
Guy regularly holds open Q&A sessions. Often members of our global community send in questions, or speak directly to Guy online.
Facebook Private Group
Access to all our private Facebook updates, student Facebook discussions, and our LIVE Saturday lunch roundtable discussions.
Discussion Forum
This member forum is where you can write in your observations and experiences, and receive feedback from fellow members. Read-only access for Free and Basic members. Full access for Premium & All Access members.
Our eCourses focus on specific topics, building your understanding through a series of related talks. Most eCourses include MP3 audio and MP4 video formats you can play online.
Student Q&A with Guy on "The Cost of Freedom" (7/23/23)
Posted: Monday, July 24, 2023
Meeting: Sunday, July 23, 2023
Duration: 26min 5sec
Topics Covered
The cost of freedom is letting go of the idea that there is a "you" that is going to find freedom in a time to come.
It is not life that is hard, but there is something in us that has hardened itself against life.
Your mind will never be able to take you past the point that it cannot go, but your mind can understand that fact.
Every desire has a corresponding identity attached to it.
The problem is never with what is seen outside of yourself. The problem is the nature of the seer. The observer is the observed.
The only problem that you have with life is what you want from it.
We believe wanting or not-wanting is the solution to our suffering, when in reality our suffering is caused by wanting and not-wanting. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want."
Freedom is the end of our present unconscious relationship with desires that imagine and pursue freedom. In the pursuit of imagined freedom, we are forever passed off from one desire to the next.
Not-wanting something cannot appear without a corresponding want.
Mountains disappear as being a problem when the mountain-maker disappears. The mountain-maker cannot see itself, but it can be seen by the awareness that understands it.
The divided consciousness produces the fear of the mountain it perceives, and at the same time it pursues freedom from the very fear it has produced.
Spiritually speaking, there is no such thing as a time to come. In reality there is only the awareness of the experience of yourself in the present moment.
"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started, and to know that place for the first time." -- T. S. Eliot
Oftentimes the evidence of having refused a lesson does not appear until years later. You just have to go through these stages.
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