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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.
Read Guy’s newest insights as he jots them down, spontaneous and uncensored.
Watch or listen to the specific talk we will all be discussing during this week’s Online Study Group meeting.
If you have a few minutes, and want a burst of enlightenment, watch or listen to these brief talks by Guy, filled with concentrated wisdom.
Hearing Guy interact with an interviewer is a delight. Listen as he makes deep spiritual principles easy to understand.
Be encouraged by hearing fellow members share their experiences and discoveries as they bring higher ideas into their daily lives.
The Life of Learning singers and instrumentalists perform beautiful music that will inspire and uplift you.
Join us for exclusive live broadcasts of select Guy Finley talks.
Start your day off right with a nugget of wisdom that can transform your experience with everything you do and everyone you meet.
Inner-life exercises and special writings deepen your understanding.
Longtime local members speak for 10 to 15 minutes on a special topic. Hear the explorations and discoveries of others on the inner journey.
Dive deep into a subject on your own! Work at your own pace with a series of talks by Guy on topics critical to your inner development.
Catch Guy Finley’s weekly message that focuses on spiritual and personal breakthroughs. This is updated weekly and is available in video, audio and text.
Join a lively online discussion with other members each week of “This Week’s Topic” – a new Guy Finley talk selected for in-depth study.
You are not alone on the inner journey. Listen to lively, weekly online discussions between members.
Every Saturday Guy leads an open discussion. Local members share their discoveries, and Guy’s comments deepen everyone’s understanding.
Guy regularly holds open Q&A sessions. Often members of our global community send in questions, or speak directly to Guy online.
Access to all our private Facebook updates, student Facebook discussions, and our LIVE Saturday lunch roundtable discussions.
This member forum is where you can write in your observations and experiences, and receive feedback from fellow members. Read-only access for Free and Basic members. Full access for Premium & All Access members.
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Shop eCoursesGreat uncertainty surrounds the whole idea of self-realization. When it comes to the possibility of being in conscious relationship with what is Divine, what everyone wants to know is..."how?" From that point, it seems the confusion boils down to this single question:
Is there, or is there not a "plan" of some kind? Are there organized lessons of some order that one can follow all the way to everlasting freedom?
The answer is... No and Yes. And, in the end, the only person who succeeds in realizing the truth of Self is the one who will struggle to understand what only seems to be an irreconcilable contradiction.
St. Theophan the Recluse said that divine grace will not act within us if we don't make efforts to obtain it; and also that human efforts alone are incapable of producing anything spiritually stable or permanent within us. Therefore, the divine result, the fulfillment of our realization is, he says... "to be obtained by a combination of effort and grace." Here's what this means to those seeking the Kingdom within:
Effort -- any kind of "plan" -- without grace is useless. Grace -- unattended by effort, and its inherent humiliation -- produces illusion.
Just as there must be a marriage between the aspiring soul and the timeless Spirit that gives it life, so must there be a union between spiritual sweat, sacrifice, and the fruit of what that interior work reveals, accordingly.
To understand this requirement of self-realization is to recognize the absolute necessity of an authentic teacher and wisdom school. Without the new insights and access to the higher self-knowledge thus provided, the willing aspirant has no viable tools with which to work; nor does he or she receive the vital reminders -- and encouragements -- that are needed in order to renew the specialized work required to become self-realized.
Without the spirit that governs the dissemination and directed application of these specialized tools, they prove useless... Not unlike giving a book on calculus to a child who still plays with a ruler, imagining it as a seesaw. No one finds the true upper Way without true guidance. And yet... on the other hand, seemingly in direct opposition to all stated above, we have this beautiful fact of life:
Within the lowly acorn resides the "plan" for the great oak tree it is destined to become; in a manner of speaking, one could say that the oak tree is the acorn realized, assuming it's given the conditions it needs to succeed in fulfilling its plan. Which leads us to this highly encouraging fact as concerns life in all kingdoms, above and below: in every seed resides a living plan, placed within it at the same moment of its creation.
This means that hidden in the center of you is the seed of self-realization, the possibility of discovering that who you really are is... God's plan; love's plan, by whatever name you give it.
If you can remember the first time you fell in love, it's pretty much guaranteed that you didn't run around asking others, "Have you a plan for me? How do I make this person I love turn around and love me?"
Love itself was your guide, and the actions she prescribed moment-to-moment flowed into and through you; they were provided by a love that wanted nothing more from you than your willingness to be its instrument. The rest was literally done for you...
And there was never a question of how this love would turn out; no future fears clouded your original contentment; it was enough just to love and to be loved. That doesn't mean there weren't difficulties, but they were recognized as being a necessary part in the play of love perfecting itself.
Think of some great artist, any master you admire past or present; then consider, carefully, what it took for that individual to realize and then embody such an immense gift. Let me summarize the process of such perfection:
Love and sweat, sweat and love; sacrifice and insight, revelation and its requirements.
So, is there a plan for self-realization?
The answer is... Yes and No: and it all depends upon you.
Posted by Guy Finley in 459 Galice Road, Merlin, OR 97532 on , and updated on .
BEST-SELLING "LETTING GO" author Guy Finley's encouraging and accessible message is one of the true bright lights in our world today. His ideas go straight to the heart of our most important personal and social issues -- relationships, success, addiction, stress, peace, happiness, freedom -- and lead the way to a higher life.
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