The more I think I know about true spirituality, the more I become easily aggravated by the behavior of others, especially when I hear someone make an obviously false (spiritually) statement, or I observe inconsistent behavior. I sense that part of my anger is seeing the inconsistency and false behavior in myself. What is the right way for me to handle these moments?...

ED: Hello. I'm Dr. Ellen Dickstein. Welcome to a Fireside Chat with best-selling inner life author, Guy Finley. Guy, in your new book, Let Go and Live in the Now, you relate a special idea that really deserves deeper attention. You tell a short story whose moral is expressed by this short poem: "The feel is real, but the why is a lie." So many of us would say we feel the pain of suffering, bu...

The way the mind works now, it looks out and there's just this world with you that messes with it, and me that wants it right. It's all one world to me. But awakening is the sudden realization that somehow or other what I took to be the only world isn't the only world.

There is one incorruptible law, a cornerstone truth in the foundation of all relationships, that must be realized as being true for each of us if we wish to help ourselves and others grow in what is good for all. And since this law represents principle, there is no escaping its perfect justice. The wise person comes to love this law because through it he is granted freedom from wanting to hurt...

I am pregnant and I've already felt the strong precious being inside of me. Especially when I am praying I feel the Spirit in my child. What words of direction can you give to me about being a mother who nurtures and never crushes or hinders a child's awareness of the Truth? I desire for my child to be truly free from the inside out. I'm confused about whether or not to help my children learn...

We live in a stream of a living light that never stops pouring down upon us, even as it ceaselessly wells up from within us. The first part of this opening comment is obvious: sunlight streams down moment to moment upon our earth, vitalizing and nourishing all that it touches. And while this order of light allows us to see all the marvelous forms and colors that our physical eyes behold...

Long before it's possible for us to be spiritually reborn, we must first awaken to ourselves. Awakening is the sudden realization that somehow or other what I took to be the only world isn't the only world. Because the way the mind works now, it looks out and there's just this world with you that messes with it and me that wants it right. It's all one world to me.

Most of us, if we have one shred of decency, have tried to do stuff about the stuff that we don't want to know about in ourselves, and certainly that we don't want others to know -- "the dirty little secret" -- how there's a certain party or character that given the right conditions, will appear and absolutely not only corrupt you but anyone and anything that it touches. How about this?...

We are made to be self-correcting, so that each real correction effected in us elevates us above the dark and limiting influences we have been living under all our lives. Like moving from a hot desert to a cool mountain retreat, each discovery of what darkens our path in life moves us toward higher, happier ground. And though we may not yet understand how this works in us, each time we catch a...

Real hope for the world begins with discovering what it takes to become a new human being, because when you are no longer who you were, but rather the new person that you have been meant to be all of your life, then all of those things that were connected with who and what you once were, cease to be the whole of you. Which means that every single one of your relationships has changed, even if...

In days long past, seekers of Truth spoke of a mysterious "lost chord." Perhaps you are familiar with this timeless spiritual idea? Roughly speaking, the search for this lost chord centered on an idea not too dissimilar from the one that drove seekers to try to find the legendary philosopher's stone. If someone could discover, group, and then intone certain musical notes together -- at the rig...

Unlike lesser-level creatures that are not conscious of their own nature -- and that cannot choose any other world of experience apart from the one they are drawn to by their own lower nature -- we, as human beings, are unique in creation. We are created to be self-conscious. In spiritual terms this means we may have an awareness of any of the infinite number of qualities that form the ch...