We're always trying, one way or the other, to grab and maintain something that will make us feel safe and whole forever. The pursuit of that wholeness, of that security, is through what we commonly call "powers." When we think of our security, we think of the powers that we must have to maintain it -- whether it's trying to please other people, trying to have, keep, and gain more possessions, or struggling to get some kind of control over a relationship or...

Topics covered: Wanting to feel unique and special; There are two types of attention -- that which is produced by desire and that which is born of humility; Why is there a general angst in us; If you don't run from Truth, it will run to you and give you everything you need; The only thing you truly control in your life is your attention and where you place it; People leave this work when their...

Featured Study Group Topic for the Week of July 11, 2016. Fear -- or any negative state that persists as a power to punish us -- is the inevitable result of believing that we are something that we are not. Once we see the definitive link between the fear, worry, or anger we feel, and the particular false sense of self that doesn't exist without these punishing states, our choice becomes clear:...

In this video, Guy Finley reveals that the solution to any disturbance is found right in the heart of the disturbance. It's not relief from our pain that we are after, but the full realization of this "denying self" that sets itself against life.

Know thy tendency. Struggle to be. Remember the 'I' that can see. Refuse the temptation to identify with resistance; it belongs to a lower level of self that can never be free.

Winning power, or achieving worldly influence can never make us feel whole, or deliver us from the irreconcilable loneliness -- and fear -- of feeling apart from others, or from life itself. Only through our consistent, persistent interior work to be whole can we hope to realize the power -- the presence of those higher influences -- without which it is impossible to overcome all that we would...

I really have a difficult time dealing with negative states. Do you have any suggestions for what I can do to escape these dark feelings that overtake me so often? One of the hardest things to understand about the spiritual path and the struggles along the Way is that the inner battle we fear losing has already been won for us . . . if we will choose the right side of the engagement. Our...

What we must learn to ask ourselves, not once or twice daily, but a hundred times and every time it strikes us to remember ourselves, is this question: Where is my attention right now, and what is my experience of the moment as a result of its placement? If we ever hope to taste some measure of true spiritual freedom, then we must work to awaken ourselves to this relationship that seems to be...

Nothing in the universe is 'bigger' than our ability to enter into it... And to know it, intimately, as a part of our very own being.

The smaller the world you live in, the bigger appear your fears.

This world we live in is filled with increasing conflict. And the question is, is there any way in which we as individuals can become something that is not a continuation of this suffering so that by our own work we begin to be a different kind of human being? The answer is most assuredly yes, but to do so, we must first work at new understanding.

What's the first thing we see when we hear news that runs counter to what we want? The evidence suggests we don't really "see" anything at all; instead, our attention is seized, absorbed by a familiar negative reaction whose only wish is that the unwanted moment just go away. This resistance acts within and upon our consciousness as a "blinding" and binding force, so all we can "see" is our own negativity over what we wish wasn't...