Part 1: Each moment of life is only as precious as our ability to be in it. Part 2: We know life by its movement -- by its parade of passing things, and by our thoughts about them that lend us a ceaseless sensation of ourselves. But to know our True Self, to dwell in its timeless sanctuary through which all the forms of life come and go -- then we must know stillness....

Guy Finley explains that the real reason for practicing ceaseless prayer is so that we can see that we are ceaselessly distracted. Our intention must be to see with greater and greater clarity that currently we do not possess the self-command that we imagine.

We resist not what we see as being fearful, but rather what fear sees whenever we look at our life through its eyes. And the reason this fearful nature trembles, as it does, resisting its own dark vision, is so that it can feel unsuited to meet the very situation that it has imagined.

The present moment is the canvas of creation: our perception, a palette of primary colors; our actions, brush strokes -- while thought provides both background and texture. To know these things is the beginning of the artful life.

The wish -- and the work it takes to make real and lasting changes (in your life) -- is incompatible with wanting to be comfortable.

Only by working to be wholly aware of ourselves can we hope to detect and dismiss those dark elements within us that want to pull us apart.

To live in the true "here and now" it follows that you must be aware of where you are each moment; and to be "where" you are, you must be fully aware of what you are as well Because where you are and what you are can no more be separated from one another than a great oak tree can survive and thrive apart from the ground out of which it grows.

The more willing we are to see the truth of ourselves as revealed in each passing moment, and then do our level best to attend to its silent instruction, the more truth seems to "follow us around," making straight the Way.

The present moment is the canvas of creation: our perception, a palette of primary colors; our actions, brush strokes -- while thought provides both background and texture. To know these things is the beginning of the artful life.

There is not a person on earth that does not suffer from what something inside of him or her loves. A man who is addicted to a drug suffers over what something within him loves, at the cost of his own mortality. A woman with a gambling addiction suffers because of what something within her loves, at the cost of her finances, relationships, and integrity. We spend our time doing what we love.

Classroom talks given by Students of Guy Finley at Life of Learning Foundation on 2/11/1. Persist with your wish to know the truth of yourself, and from out of this wish will grow -- as does the mighty Oak from a lowly acorn -- something made to stand the test of time.

A true aspirant waits in the present moment for what the moment reveals to the aspirant about him- or herself. And since that is never-ending and always changing, so is the aspirant's interior life. You have more going on in you than can be described, but you must work to be fully here, fully open, in a conscious remembrance of the whole of yourself.