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Enlightening articles by Guy Finley on a wide range of topics address practical life issues and deepen your spiritual understanding.
Inspirational Quotes
Short but powerful quotes by Guy Finley will inspire you throughout your day.
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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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Student Q&A with Guy on "Turn Painful Reactions into Self-Liberating Action" (9/8/21)
Posted: Thursday, September 9, 2021
Meeting: Wednesday, September 8, 2021
Duration: 24min 12sec
Topics Covered
There is another, higher level of consciousness that is present for us in any moment that we are able to observe ourselves.
We as human beings are created with the capacity to be aware of the divided level of consciousness that reacts with fight or flight.
What we blame for our reaction cannot be separated from the consciousness that is having that reaction.
Negative states always appear simultaneously with a threat to take away what we believe we possess.
It is a lower level of consciousness that blames what is outside of itself for the pain of its reactions.
We can never really know innocence, kindness and compassion as long as our first movement in response to a disturbance is to identify with a reaction.
No one finds freedom who does not discover that he or she is the captive of a consciousness that thinks only of itself.
What we want is to change our relationship to reactions, not to change the content of those reactions. What we want is to be present to this reactive consciousness, not to be pushed around by it.
The world of reactions is an animal world that we are intended to outgrow.
All reactions are the revelation of two things at once: the revelation of an "influence" that is acting, and the "creature" that the influence is acting upon. The "creature" that is being acted upon is within, but it is not "you."
The illusion is that the "self" that is having the reaction is "you."
The moment of any reaction is the revelation of the influence that is acting and the part of us that is being acted upon by that influence.
There is no intelligence in a negative reaction.
It is not the unwanted moment that is painful. The pain is actually the result of a contraction in consciousness, where the observer tries to separate itself from the observed.
Trying to be someone special is the same as fighting with life.
We are not present to ourselves nor to the rest of the world as long as we are identified with a reaction.
All true teachings are a looking glass.
The default action of a negative reaction is to separate itself from what it views as the source of the pain.
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