Most people pounce on others as they do -- when they do -- not because they want to cause pain, but because they're afraid of being hurt. To see this truth is to realize that the real enemy of relationship is fear itself; for this dark state that dwells in the unenlightened heart knows that the best way to protect itself is by being first to find fault with another.

Student Talks: 05/16/2025 - The only thing good about any negative reaction is the revelation of how useless is that (level of) suffering to change anything about our present nature, let alone the condition it convinces us to blame for its pain.

Remastered Classic Talk: 3/02/16 - It makes no difference to whom, or at what we point the finger of pain as the figure to blame for our suffering, because until we are aware of our own hand in these same unwanted moments... nothing can change.

It is impossible to change the relationship that you have with the world around you without changing the relationship that you have in yourself, with yourself. This is the secret teaching of the ages, including being the root of Christ's teaching, as it directly relates to the necessity of a new mind. Our task, if we want to be free human beings -- if we want a life in which we no longer...

The failure to reconcile what disturbs you about the world around you, while averting your eyes from the world within you, is very much like continuing to overeat... and then blaming your stomach for getting upset.

In this short talk, bestselling "letting go" author Guy Finley talks about how we can understand painful tension in a new way so that, instead of being tormented by it, we use it as a source of revelation and release from the false self that blames everything outside of itself for its pain.

Classroom Talk: 2/19/2003 - The one who lives in spiritual slavery earns a slave's wages, but blames his poverty upon the master that uses him instead of acknowledging that his unwanted condition in life is born out of giving his consent to live in such a wrongful relationship.

There are no enemies without someone, or something to blame for our pain; whereas, when we will be consciously aware of our suffering – without resisting it – then, is humility born; and where there is this order of humility there abides within it a love that will bear no enemy.

The sky can't fall from its heights. The ocean can't move against itself. Your true nature is as the sky and sea to all that passes through it.

There is no new resistance; regardless how “fresh” the nature of a negative state -- be it fear, anger, frustration or regret...

The real reason for being impatient with ourselves, or with others, has nothing to do with the condition we blame it on: impatience -- along with its dark twin, frustration -- is born of our refusal to accept the revelation of a present limitation, and to remain conscious of it until it’s transformed.

There is only one reason why any of us ever do wrong to another, blame someone else for our sorrow, forget to be thankful for what we have, or go through our entire day without remembering our God...and that's because we have forgotten - once again -- our own interior wretchedness.