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Enlightening articles by Guy Finley on a wide range of topics address practical life issues and deepen your spiritual understanding.
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Enlightening articles by Guy Finley on a wide range of topics address practical life issues and deepen your spiritual understanding.
Short but powerful quotes by Guy Finley will inspire you throughout your day.
Heartfelt inner-life questions from people around the world, and Guy’s enlightening answers, will shed light on your own issues.
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Watch or listen to the specific talk we will all be discussing during this week’s Online Study Group meeting.
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Be encouraged by hearing fellow members share their experiences and discoveries as they bring higher ideas into their daily lives.
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Join us for exclusive live broadcasts of select Guy Finley talks.
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Shop eCoursesGF: Welcome to our chat tonight. Before we begin, I want to give you some things to think upon that are vital to true self-victory. No one can hope to grow in Spirit who ignores the truths about to be told. We begin with a short story:
Two men who have worked for the same company for years, and who share an office, are having a conversation over lunch. They are in the company cafeteria with other workers around them also eating their meals. Bob watches his friend Joe reach into his briefcase and pull out a small bright blue bottle that he has seen a number of times now over the last ten days or so.
Joe seems content and is even humming to himself as he takes a fairly deep swig directly out of the bottle. Bob watches this and is moved to ask: "How is it going Joe? Are you feeling any better these days? You didn't say much last week after your doctor's appointment."
Joe finishes his swallow and smiles back at Bob: "Well, first I saw a few specialists who didn't know their heads from their elbows, so I walked one block down the street and went through a few more visits with some others. Then I found the greatest doctor in the world. He knew right away what I needed, and the whole thing was virtually painless!"
"That's good news," said Bob taking a bite of his sandwich. "He must have been something pretty special, because I have never seen you be so religious about doing anything, let alone taking medicine." Bob continued with a wry look coming over his face. He couldn't help his next tongue-in-cheek comment. "So, I guess his prescription must have been just what the doctor ordered?"
"To tell the truth, Bob," Joe lowered his voice and shook his head, even as he looked around the room to ensure no one would hear his confession, "I haven't seen much improvement, if any at all. I'm still in a lot of pain!"
Somewhat confused by this report, Bob whispered back, "But I've been watching you for over a week now and you haven't missed taking one dose of those drugs he prescribed. What are you doing with that stuff if it isn't helping you to get any better?" What he heard next just about knocked him out of his chair.
Joe leaned further forward onto his chair, looked down at the bottle still in his hand, and whispered through a strange smile, "Well, the truth is -- even though this prescription isn't helping to heal what hurts me, it does kind of mask the pain if I take enough of it. And," he leaned even further forward, "you would not believe how good this medicine tastes!"
As we will prove, human beings are a study in stupidity. Instead of being self-investigating (as we are created to be), we are self-deceiving. Instead of embracing the inner work of honest self-seeing, by whose Light alone we come upon the life-healing truths that heal us of self-ignorance, we will make a truce with the parts of ourselves that punish and pain us. Why?
The truth is simple. We have come to believe, through a host of social and cultural mandates, that whatever we suspect is wrong with us -- whatever character faults we suspect may be lurking in heart and mind -- must not only be hidden from the world around us, but kept from ourselves as well. Any such unconscious conclusion is a prescription for sickness by sickness.
Here is the real medicine: We are made to be self-correcting. Each real correction made in us is the same as elevating ourselves above the unknown nature whose dark influence we had lived under. Like moving from a hot desert climate to a cool mountain retreat, each discovery of what darkens our path through life is the same as walking in the Light towards a Higher, happier Ground.
There are many parts in all of us that do not want us to hear the following: The entire universe is working to help each of us become whole and "perfect in heaven." The conditions that we run from, wherein we feel as though our own weaknesses will overcome us, are themselves unique creations of a Great Intelligence that wants us to learn of its Timeless Strength.
Yet, simply to state these truths, as bright and liberating as they are, is not enough. To be transformed by any Truth we must see the living truth of it. In this instance, as it concerns the recurring stress and sorrow that runs through our relationships like the veins of a leaf, we need some new ideas. Here is one such insight to help open our eyes to the healing that awaits us: At present, what little awareness we have of what is wrong with us feels to us as though life is trying to punish us for what we are. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our awareness of those aspects of ourselves where we know we miss the mark is not life condemning us. We do this dark deed to ourselves. It is misunderstanding the Goodness of life that causes us to miss seeing it.
Each time we catch a glimpse of a character shortfall in us, we do so by the grace of a Living Light. And it invites us, asks us -- in the only form of a "dialogue" that we can share for now with this force for our perfection -- to see ourselves in its light. So it is not negative to see the negative since it is the Perfectly Positive that makes this kind of seeing into ourselves possible.
All this compassionate Intelligence asks is that we accept its corrective Presence in us, and then stand there, as conscious as we can be, within Its Light within ourselves. If we will receive what it reveals, we are released from that former darkness. The Light transforms it and we are equally changed in that moment.
Before the end of tonight's chat I will offer some special short insights into what each of us can do to strengthen the potential in this process of allowing the Light to transform us.
Now let's get to your questions and comments, but please work to remember that our task here on-line together is to address what is real and what leads us to authentic self-transformation. Let's talk over the issues you are working upon within yourself, which means let's not spend our time wandering through frivolous philosophical questions or otherwise imaginary religious ideas. What would you like to talk about tonight? Let's see what we can learn together.
Deepa: I feel as though I have read and thought enough. Nothing can help me anymore, and there is nothing more I can do. This makes my heart ache and at the same time I feel a kind of peace.
GF: The condition that you describe here is a necessary stage in your spiritual growth. When one begins to realize that true transformation is not a mental affair but a spiritual action, then this same person begins to reach the end of whatever sensations and experience his former thought-life could provide for him. Stay in this seeming emptiness. Something will bring you what you have been waiting for.
Rael: I have heard this term "emptiness" used many times, but seemingly have no experience of it. The field of my mind seems to be sufficiently full of me that there is no space left for this emptiness. The only thing I can relate to that seems to come close to what is called "depression," when life seemingly deals one a severe blow, and I really have no interest in going there. What is this emptiness of which you speak?
GF: Have you ever noticed that moment between a hope lost and a new one being formed? Have you ever sat at a party and didn't want to be there, but didn't want to be anywhere else? In such moments, there is a gap that exists in what is ordinarily a seamless string of desires. In this gap is the emptiness spoken of. It is not a negative quality.
kda: I have had moments, during meditation or watching myself, in which there seems to be "nothing there" (a quiet void). I sense this is part of what we are striving to find, the emptiness you speak of. I admit a slight fear of this. Please comment.
GF: The "fear" of this silent space is the creation of thought suddenly finding itself without an opposite by which to "know" itself. So the fear felt fills the space. See this reaction for what it is and it passes, leaving the silence golden.
SHADY: Do you believe in the saying, "Those who fail to plan, plan to fail"?
GF: No human being sets out to consciously defeat himself. What is truly conscious cannot and will not compromise itself. What this means is that there are parts in us that by their very nature must manifest a kind of failure for whatever they either attempt to do or refuse to do. It could be said that until a person understands his or her own mind and heart, they can't do anything but come to a failure.
Oneonta: What is the proper way to earn a living?
GF: Of course best of all, and certainly within everyone's reach, is to work at what one loves. Apart from the occasional circumstances where responsibilities negate this possibility, one should find a work in which they have no feeling of compromising themselves in what they do. Lastly, it really doesn't take much to live a simple life. When we are whole, it doesn't matter what we have or where our time is spent.
hasselhoff: If you can be happy at whatever you do or wherever you are, what is the point of leaving your house? Could you just sit in a dark room and be happy? This seems ridiculous, but it troubles me.
GF: What you don't understand yet is that there is a Living Intelligence, a True Love, a Timeless Light, and that these great forces have their own "plan" for each of us. Whoever these Friends find their way into never wonders about what he or she should be doing with their lives they are fully active.
Roy: Is simplifying your life -- like taking an easier job to allow more "alone" or study time -- the same as taking the path of least resistance? Or is this new desire one of our rewards for working on ourselves?
GF: It could be either. Only the one making such a decision knows what his heart actually is attempting. When a man or a woman begins in earnest -- because they have been touched by Truth in some way -- to long for a deeper relationship with that Truth that has touched them, there is very little that will stand in their way to make what changes this new longing is leading them to.
801: I've taken prescribed medicine to dull "something" since 1984. Since then other good doctors have taken me off of it from time to time only to put me back on. Some of these people condemn me for taking it. Maybe I should stop it, but find the alternative unworkable, meaning a long rehab that insurance companies hate. No money comes in because work is impossible.
GF: Each of us, in the long run, is responsible only for ourselves. By this I mean what others think or would have us do or be, has no real bearing on our own wish to be free and the path to freedom. There is no limitation to the action of Truth upon a person. It calls for and comes to whom it wills. If you want a real life, remember your aim, do what you can for it, and let what happens, happen.
lightseekers: How do we see the living truth of a despairing situation and get new insights when we keep getting failure from our attempts to just make a living? When employers deceive and then drop you, how do you find the light and learn the lesson to move on if the lesson of trusting the light to help you through the inability to provide for your family's need won't leave for years?
GF: There is no question that this is a world in which a kind of wickedness runs wild. There is also no question that we must provide for those we love, if that is our task. What we should all learn to question is what possible value there is to hating anyone or anything for the wickedness it does or brings. This is a waste of energy and the destruction of the possibility to be free from the "victim" mentality. Start over.
fidel: The further I go into my own spiritual growth, the more work I seem to need to do. I don't begrudge the labor -- I love it -- but it does seem strange that things get "harder" instead of easier.
GF: Real inner work appears to move in two directions at once, as you have stated your experience indicates. But we must be awake and aware of one special bit of understanding. As we become more aware and live in more internal light, the darkness seems greater because of the greater light. The darkness then decries, "Look how big I am!" and we are tricked into identifying with it rather than holding this in the developing light within us. Nothing can stand in the way of the one who loves Truth.
mast: First I would like to thank you and pay my respect for shedding light into the dark corners of our lives, and making us aware of one another and a clear way of living. Now, my question is, as I am trying more and more to understand myself, I see everyone around me also in deep pain of one form or another. I sometimes feel that it is my responsibility to take them out of their pain. What should I do?
GF: Try to see the following even though it's very subtle: One of the reasons that we are often "caught" up in the pain of others, and considering it as you have outlined, is that it allows us to be distracted from the content of our own conflict or unhappiness. Real understanding does not resist anyone else's pain or the pain realized within itself.
mast: But seeing others in pain makes me feel guilty and my mind tells me to stop my pursuit of awareness as at that point in time it seems selfish.
GF: The guilt you speak of is merely an opposite of an imagined power or possession you presently live with. Real seeing of others' pain does not drag the seer into that pain then seen. The one who sees another's pain understands that this sorrow is the illegitimate child of ignorance. He does not try to solve this pain, as any action towards it only confirms what is its non-reality.
suzannemly: How do we "know" what is real? I now realize that I'm not my job, my body, etc. I also realize that I'm not my mind, but I still struggle with letting go of my intellect because it's been such a huge part of my self-identity for so long.
GF: Learn to watch your life, your friends, your circumstances, your thoughts and feelings about these things without telling yourself what it is that you see moving before you. Thought is always trying to come to what is real without realizing all it can ever find are the forms and images brought forth from out of its own nature. What is real need not think about itself. Stay aware instead of slipping into questions about reality.
Rael: Through the years I have gone through periods of intense seeking, lasting three or four years, and then have run out of energy. It has been four years since I have entered this latest phase and I feel the intensity fading. I no longer have the enthusiasm to pick up the books that have been my comfort. I don't want to lose focus, but know it has happened before.
GF: There is a very definitive principle when it comes to one's wish and will to awaken. It is known as the law of discontinuity, and it has to do with the fact that under law, all vibrations have a tendency to diminish and ultimately turn back in the direction of their original impetus. You must understand this cycle and do what you must to provide yourself with a shock to restart your intention.
newhere: The law of discontinuity seems scary if it is in fact a real law. Will just understanding it get rid of it, such as in fear?
GF: There's no truth that needs to be feared. Truths are always the friend of the man who seeks self-knowledge. The law of discontinuity is real. There is no getting around it. But within it exists a principle of a different order of continuity that has nothing to do with the continuation of self. See what you yourself told me is true of you, and that should start you on the right path.
Roy: Concerning the law of discontinuity, could the understanding of this law in itself be the "shock" that we need to continue our intentions, or must the "shocks" be external circumstances?
GF: Yes, it could be stated like this. Yet, while I know it is difficult to think on these things without imagining cause and effect scenarios, when we actually see the truth of something, untainted by self interest, this whole seeing restores us to our native Whole Being. Higher Consciousness will not compromise its own state.
Rael: Getting back to my earlier question, I realize it's more than that I am losing interest in seeking I have lost interest in everything that I formerly cherished, everything in this life. It is like there is a numbness in my brain whereby nothing generates the interest that it previously did. I am concerned about this. I feel like I could just fade away and become a nothing.
GF: This is a "horse of a different color." As one grows inwardly, in true self-knowledge, part of that real growth is reflected in an ending of the seeking of sensation through experience. The "numbness" you speak of is a sensation of thought considering its own diminishing importance brought about by the gradual dissolution of the opposites at work in you. All in all, all is well. Stay the course.
sayaloud: Sometimes what you are saying is so confusing. It is often like you are speaking in parables.
GF: What is true can never be said directly in any way that for having spoken it someone will change hearing it. This is why Christ spoke of the need for "ears to hear." We must learn to read or listen to truths with our intuition.
Bev: It seems the more that I become focused on bringing in the Light and becoming aware, the more that events conspire in my life very negatively. I know you say to talk to God through the storm, but how do I keep strong and focused when events keep piling up and knocking me off track?
GF: Your attention is your attention. The parts of you that pull your mind and heart to dwell upon whatever darkness they project have no power apart from what you grant them when you consider their sensational demands. Take your attention back. Live without these inner "bums." They will find a new place to live and you will be nearer the peace you long for.
steveb: Would you say that fulfillment comes more from sharing our light than from receiving more light?
GF: It just doesn't work that way. What real Light comes into a person cannot help but come out of that person. If it's any other way, then it's not real Light.
puppy: This week I attempted to help a severely injured deer who appeared in my garden... I have not been able to get the picture of that deer out of my head. I find it very difficult to deal with mean people, and I find it near impossible to deal with any kind of cruelty to animals. Why does such awful stuff exist in this world? What am I supposed to learn from this?
GF: Try to see the truth of the following: This pain that you are in over the pain you see in an animal is purely the product of negative identification. The animal itself may suffer a physical pain, but if you've ever watched such injured creatures, you know they do not suffer psychologically. Drop this identification and you will drop the despair it creates.
sayaloud: What does it mean to live more in the internal Light? Meditate, contemplate, read?
GF: Meditation, contemplation all of these acts help a person realize a part of himself that is not the same as his thinking nature. As the mind stills, awareness blossoms. As awareness expands, expanding with it is this "Living Light." Anything brought into this light of higher awareness is known by the self-working person in ways unavailable through other means.
RobF: Recently during meditation I find it hard to keep my mind from wandering to mundane thoughts. I need to listen to "The Lost Secrets of Prayer" again for inspiration. Any other suggestions?
GF: See the fact that your mind wanders. Then, bring it back. Watch the wandering, and watch the return. Stay with being a "watcher" of your own mind instead of considering yourself its guardian. Stillness comes when the mind understands its own operations in the opposites. Stillness cannot be forced upon the mind; it must be welcomed by a mind made receptive to it.
steveb: Do you have any experience with Kabbalah? I have heard of "holy" books from the Kabbalah tradition which are said to have a beneficial effect on ones who keep them close. Even if you do not study them, can such a thing be true?
GF: It is true that belief conditions experience. What is not true is that one can change their experience in a meaningful way while clinging to false beliefs. What this Work is about is changing the entire nature of one so that one does not have to believe in what is Real because its life has become one with his own.
steveb: Kabbalah teaches that we are all born full of light and come here to lose our "bread of shame" over only taking light from the creator, and we need to give of that light in this world so that we can be closer to the nature of the creator. Does this make any sense to you?
GF: Yes, it does.
newhere: What would you recommend to a close friend who has not yet chosen to see real life? I am having problems helping. They do not have much faith in God and seem to rather go through the emotional chaos. Can I walk away if I love them?
GF: Depending on the case and the degree of its direness, the question should be, "If you love them, how can't you walk away?" Sometimes, in the name of a false love that is secret identification and unconscious dependency, we enable those around us by consoling what we know is wrong within them. Be kind, be true, but above all, put the Truth first in this relationship.
Judy: When I meditate or otherwise get "wrapped up" in things spiritual, I tend to lose track of time, and then I feel guilty because I didn't accomplish what I could have or should have in my daily "to do" activities. There never seems to be enough time to tend to both. Any suggestions?
GF: Each of us does in our daily lives, one way or another, what suits us best. There's always a way to make time for silence and higher aspirations. Having said this, why do we have to separate out spiritual times from our "worldly life"? As we awaken, this division ends and we realize that apart from practical thought and its need, we can always be mindful and prayerful.
sayaloud: I want so much to live through Spirit 24 hours a day do I need to meditate and contemplate for extended periods daily to get this?
GF: Learn to listen to your heart, not to the mind that wants to acquire what it imagines will end the emptiness it creates in its unconscious (unwhole) state. It is a paradox. The desire for Truth destroys the newness needed to commune with it, yet the love for Truth is the ground upon which it grows.
Bev: I listen to your tapes almost every time I get in my car. Often my 4- and 6-year-old children are in the back seat and ask me, "Why does that man yell so much, mommy?" So, for them I ask you: Why do you "yell" so much when giving your talks?
puppy: I also ask you this about yelling because I find that I cannot HEAR you on the tapes when you sound like you are yelling! Are you aware of this?
GF: With all due respect to both of you, if you can't understand what you call "yelling" on the audiotapes, then you ought not listen to them.
Bev: Just to be clear I actually like your style of talking and explaining, and enjoy your approach very much. All of your tapes and stories are extremely helpful to me. It is my young children who describe you as "yelling."
GF: This answer is written as I edit the chat, something I do each Monday following the on-line meeting. It is then that I answer the remaining unanswered questions. Here is an additional thought in story form -- concerning the question of the way I speak, although my first answer stands: A conductor walked up to the podium and began conducting his newest piece. When he finished, someone walked up to him and said, "I loved most of what you presented, but somewhere in the middle of the concert you stopped gently waving your arms and became very animated and began strongly punctuating your movements. I didn't like that part at all! Why do you have to do it that way?" The conductor smiled and said, simply: "The music calls for it."
sayaloud: What does it mean to "flow"?
GF: Have you ever skied down a mountain? Perhaps you have ridden a bicycle and found a gentle path to glide along. One is in the flow of things when one is a part of the invisible laws that govern balance and other such factors. Spiritually the same would hold true. One is in the flow when one is not divided apart from life.
lightseekers: How do I help my husband to recognize a "devil" working on him when his fear of feeling victimized leads to anger? He is aware of the influence after the fact, and sometimes during a stressful situation. We both know that the anger will not help solve anything, but he was raised in a reactionary family, and is struggling to let go of that response.
GF: What could be better than having a mate with whom you can begin to watch and work upon these spiritual principles? It's all right that you catch these things after the fact for now. That's a lot better than not seeing the fact that such negative states are an invasion and compromise love in all its forms by their presence. Encourage one another. Work with one another. Truth will prevail for both of you.
mast: You say that life wants us to learn certain lessons which we have not realized, but is this the way to teach? There is so much fierce competition all around. Everyone (including me) seems to be fighting like dogs over a piece of bone. If we don't fight, we lose it, and if we keep on fighting we lose ourselves. What to do?
GF: The day will come, if you will persist with your wish to be free, where you will understand that the only thing that fights over bones or crumbs or table scraps is the dog nature in a human being. We are not created to snarl and snap at each other or life in the hope of snatching from some other creature what it falsely believes is comfort and reality. There is no substitute for such self-seeing and knowledge. As far as what to do when one doesn't know what to do, there is a passage something like, "He whose mind is stilled in me do I grant Peace." I also like the 23rd Psalm.
Diojeneez: Lao-Tse says there is no one to teach because there is no self or other. I think I might be missing something, so I ask, why do you teach?
GF: What Lao-Tse says is true. But what is true in one world for the man who lives there is seen as a riddle, and often a confusion, to someone living in a world where self and other both seem to exist simultaneously. Without someone to tell you that life is in levels and can only be understood through this awareness of them, you would not understand the True Teachings, regardless of who presents them.
Diojeneez: Lao-Tse is too deep for me. He also says that if we "abolished knowledge and wisdom, the people would profit a hundredfold." What does that mean?
GF: The truths of any great awakened being cannot be grasped with thought. These ideas, their insights, reflect upon and express the existence of a world that is not divided up into opposites. As we grow and become more whole, the Truths these wise ones have passed down are found to be living within us and not apart from us as in "knowledge."
Diojeneez: OK, I almost see the light, but not quite! So how exactly do you abolish the ideas of self and other? This is too revolutionary. This changes everything! When self and other are gone, what's left? How can I honestly walk into this chatroom and say "shady, mast, you, etc. are not really here, because there is no self and no other"? Or am I still missing something?
GF: It isn't that one "abolishes" the ideas of self, or of others, as such an approach is yet just another dead-end. We must discover within ourselves the truth of ourselves; this alone changes "how" we perceive the world because only such true self-knowledge transforms the perceiver. Our thought nature, which is but a small part of our total Being, dwells -- meets life -- in the opposites; it must have a "you" distinct from "me." True, separate bodies and names do exist, but the consciousness in these forms is one energy.
newhere: After I learned from your "finding purpose" talk that we need to rid ourselves of false purpose, I have had more peace and happiness. I do not believe I have found my "purpose" as of yet, but I Love this work and understanding. Is this my purpose, or something after I understand where I go wrong?
GF: This is a fine beginning. Love always leads to Love. Love always purifies the lover it leads to itself. Stay with this wish for Truth and your growing love of it. It will be returned to you in ways unimaginable.
danbo: I've recently discovered how entrenched I am in identifying with the image of myself as a "husband." Now this image is being threatened to be uprooted and I find myself caught up in periods of severe depression and obsession with the "memory" that is contained with this image. Help please.
GF: No one visits a dark and dank cell deliberately. It's unpleasant there, even dangerous. See that there are parts of you that want to drag you off into these memories and the images that support them. As you catch yourself about to be made a captive, realize there is no true imperative that you dwell in the darkness presented before you. Your awareness of this dynamic will defeat the visiting darkness.
danbo: I realize that as I am identified with the image of being a husband, that I feel utter terror about being "alone." I know being alone is the place to really be awake, but at the same time it is a part of me that feels total terror at the possibility of this situation ending in my being alone. I hope this make sense and you can offer insight again.
GF: We must see that fear of something can never protect us from what we fear; it (the state) only offers us ways to prolong a feared outcome by avoiding or otherwise distracting us from the fear itself.
trying: For years I've done spiritual books, tapes, talks, etc. I'm grateful for the growth I've achieved, but now instead of non-spiritual things, I'm thinking spiritual things, with the added aspect of judging others for their lost-ness. Is self-observation really enough?
GF: There is a difference between self-observation and being unconsciously absorbed in the self that thinks it is seeing. All forms of judging others belongs to a divided self. When we are really watching, we see both what is before us and our judgment of it at the same time. Seeing these opposites without identifying with them is self-observation.
newhere: Please explain "opposites." I thought they were one in the same.
GF: They are, but not to the self whose only existence is the desire to either obtain or avoid what is an opposite created by thought.
sayaloud: Often you give information that makes a lot of sense, as with dropping identification and dropping despair. What is it that interferes with the truth and sensibility of this being initiated and maintained?
GF: There are parts in all of us that can only continue to dwell and dominate us as long as we remain unconscious or unaware of their presence in us. These "creatures" -- the content of our own past -- have a vested interest in seeing that we remain unseeing, but they are powerless in the Light.
BarryF: Can you comment on the idea of "hope"? I wonder if having hope about some future event is inherently self-defeating. Do you address this in any of your books? Is there any context in which hope is appropriate and self-healing?
GF: There is a beautiful passage by the apostle Paul. It says, "Our hopes must be in things unseen, for who hopes for things seen?" What this means is that whatever the mind can hope for is already a part of it. We hope for the possession of things seen, believing that the new sensation we have while in this hope is the same as finding true newness in ourselves. It is not. In some ways, we can have "hope" in things unseen when in the deepest parts of ourselves we are able to see or otherwise directly realize the Goodness of God, of the Living Light, and its intention for our fulfillment in it. As far as product, you might e-mail Chris at the Foundation and request the "Secret Teachings of the Sacred Testaments."
hasselhoff: I am at a college of 20,000 people and I feel that I don't have anything in common with anyone anymore. My false self is pretty lonely. We all seem like programmed robots, yet I feel like I am going in a direction that they have never suspected. What is the difference between a need for companionship and loneliness?
GF: The need for companionship can be a natural expression of the need for a certain level of communion, or it can be that one is merely trying to escape his fear of being alone. Only you can discern the state that "speaks" to you about such matters.
mast: There are times when I feel surprised, as in how I start dancing or make certain gestures without my will while at the same time knowing it's under my control. Does it have any significance in the spiritual path?
GF: If you are acting out any state without being conscious of its press before you express that, you are not in control of anything including the one feeding you these explanations for why you do what you do.
Bev: Why is this work to "watch and come awake" so simple to understand yet so difficult to implement consistently? I've found having the knowledge about what to do doesn't even begin to scratch the surface when it comes to actually living it.
GF: Such discoveries are real and required for the aspiring person to uncover. These truths (about what we can and cannot do) set the stage for real transformation.
mikayla: Did you post the answers to the questions that you didn't get to during the "Talks in The Pines"?
GF: I believe these did get posted in the chat that followed in July. Also, the question and answer session was included as part of "The Heart and Soul of Freedom" tape or CD album which is available through this website. Otherwise, please feel free to submit your question again at our next chat.
SHADY: In today's world, education is very important and is put before everything else. How does education affect our finding ourselves?
GF: What passes today for education is more inculcation than true learning. The further conditioned one becomes, the more difficult to awaken from the dream.
newhere: I have found striking similarities in the Chinese zodiac. I do not believe in astrology, but wonder why these similarities exist and if there is anything real to them?
GF: What is True is True anywhere, everywhere, and across Time.
jill: If I hang on to a relationship that I know is not good for me, is it because I am somehow getting a sense of self through that relationship?
GF: Why else would one cling to what compromises the good in life?
fse: Do you feel that truth is a universal?
GF: If you mean one and whole for everyone everywhere, then "yes."
Lara: I have to let go of some big attachments. I'm much better at not buying into thought. My life is more peaceful and quiet, however there is another feeling of emptiness. Is this just another something to let go of or is it an actual stage?
GF: Learn to watch everything, and a kind of natural letting go handles whatever may be "sticky" in the mind. In the end, all falls out of one's hands because one learns there is no one there (as imagined) needed to hold onto to anything (imagined). Stay watchful.
Lenny: I expected that once I finally found the ideal partner that temptations of infidelity would cease (I know it was naive). Can you give me some encouragement that this can be resolved through self-awakening, or better yet, a specific insight for me?
GF: Our problems originate in the "dark" of us, the unseen aspects that assert themselves over us to fill their desires. These parts cannot be controlled, or at least not for long. What is required is their transformation. Self-knowledge through self-awareness brings truth to bear upon these features. This relationship doesn't resolve the problem, it ends it.
Serafìn: Children don't seem to be based in knowledge in order to learn, at least at the beginning of life. Amazement and high perception seem to be the learning factors. The problem with us is that we are full of habits, bad habits, mental and physical. We fall into sleep and get negative. How to break certain mental and physical habits seems to be my problem. I usually fall into them. Even knowledge of all kinds can become a habit. I want to live fully
GF: Well said, but as with the above answer, let us learn that resistance to a problem only distances us from it by directing our attention and awareness away from the unseen. It is into the unseen we must see to be free.
sayaloud: What is the root of compulsive, impulsive, and obsessive behaviors?
GF: The wish to escape the emptiness that is born of desire.
GF: I wish to give you the remaining notes on Higher Self-Correction that I promised to post before we sign off.
No one can be free who refuses to see what actually lives within him or her. And as we proved in the opening remarks of our chat tonight, authentic self-healing must begin with Truthful self-seeing. There is no other order, no other way. If we will only consider the following facts, the rest of our discoveries become as easy as they are delightful.
Consciousness of any unwanted condition in us must precede its correction, just as the rising sun dismisses any of our fears imagined hidden in the darkness of night. This is why we must learn that anything in us that does not want us to see the truth about our actual unenlightened condition is itself a part of what is punishing us. We can learn to do much better!
"The medicine is bitter, but it heals," said the late great author Vernon Howard, when it comes to seeing the truth of our lives. If we would heal the hidden hurt in us, then we must learn that the initial bitterness of discovering the truth about ourselves is actually the front-runner of our ultimate spiritual victory over what has been defeating us.
Our work is to concede to the bright prescription of Higher Self-Honesty regardless of how it "tastes" to us in those unwanted moments of seeing that we are nothing like the pleasing images we hold of ourselves. Here now are five eye-opening facts about areas in our lives where, if we would be free, we must choose to see what we have thus far refused to see!
We close our eyes to the fact that the imaginary value we have placed upon our life only holds up for as long as others don't disturb our dreams. The conscious detection of the fear that follows us around wherever we go is the rejection of this imaginary life with all of its misery. Choose to see and be free.
We close our eyes to the fact that wherever we go, and regardless of whom we meet, we still seem to run into the same conflicts and experience the same negativities. Our awareness of this mad mess begins the end of that constant distress that seems to follow us everywhere we go.
We close our eyes to the fact that in spite of all of the pain it causes us (and others), we still believe that we know what it means to be a "winner" in life. Unconscious suffering is not just a "loser's" reward; it is his or her just desserts. Learn to be self-correcting, not self-defeated. Self-Victory is assured!
We close our eyes to the fact that just because we have mastered hiding some character fault of ours doesn't mean that it has stopped hurting those around us who cannot avoid being subjected to it. Our awareness of our inner aching is the front-runner to a new kind of freedom that comes with learning that we no longer have to pretend to be anything!
We close our eyes to the fact that crying for ourselves out of self-pity doesn't change one thing about the nature of the self (in us) that is the secret source of all these tears. Only fools feel sorry for themselves, but not before they have been fooled into believing that an uncorrected sorrow has the power to help them escape their sadness! Be self-seeing, not so believing!
For extra swift healing, return often to study these friendly guides with the intention of welcoming their light. Remember that whenever we see something in us needful of correction, this sudden "vision" of some interior division in us is a secret invitation to be healed by Wholeness Itself.
Our work in these moments is not to condemn ourselves, or otherwise fear or find fault with what we have been shown. Blaming others or ourselves for our suffering is always an act of self-deception that immediately negates the possibility of our freedom. Our sole task is to see ourselves through the eyes of Truth and then leave Truth to take care of the rest.
Our time has run out. Remember that any time you see something in yourself that seems dark, the answer you must give to it is not to fall into darkness over what you have seen. Choose the Higher Path. The Light never shows us anything in ourselves that it hasn't already started to change for us -- if we will only let It! Do persist with your inner work. And now, Good night.
Guy's Monthly Chatroom Classroom - October 2002
Posted by Guy Finley in 459 Galice Road, Merlin, OR 97532 on , and updated on .
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