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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.
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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.
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Shop eCoursesED: Hello. I'm Dr. Ellen Dickstein. Welcome to a Fireside Chat with bestselling inner life author, Guy Finley. I thought that for this chat we would talk about one of those negative emotions that so many people seem to be subject to, and that is depression. But, before we get into that specifically, some people might wonder why we are always talking about negative things. It's important to do so because we have to see how things are before they can become better. We don't want to go into imagination about happy things if what we're experiencing is actually sadness. We have to understand the depression, the fear, the anger, so that we can ultimately be free of it.
GF: What is it that we call "negative"? In your own life, Ellen, what is a negative moment for you?
ED: It's an unwanted moment that causes me to feel pain.
GF: So, the idea of a negative moment, a negative feeling, always rises out of something that is being resisted -- one way or another. Now, can I resist something that I don't have an idea, ahead of time, of what I wanted? In other words, life comes along, and it starts to take something from me, and I get negative. Can I get negative without having an idea of what I need in order to be a happy human being?
ED: No.
GF: So there's a relationship between this negativity that I experience and my certainty of what I need in order to be happy and positive.
ED: Right. There is always a comparison.
GF: The question we have to ask ourselves is: Does my life change by only addressing half of the spectrum? There is nothing wrong with having ideas about what I want. We grow up, we go through certain changes, and we get in our heads that we would like this or that. Then out of that comes the education where we see, "Well, this didn't work out," and we get negative, and all the rest of that. Or, we get what we wanted, and then find out we're still unhappy.
The fact of the matter is that essentially the reason that we talk about negative states is because they are half of what we have to work with, and unless we address the whole of the human being, then we can't possibly make any changes in the whole of us. And more than that, what we call negative states only exist for us in the relationship we have with them because we get lost in them, believing that the energy of not wanting a moment to go down the way it does has something positive to do with changing what has happened. These are the unknown, unseen, dark states of ourselves.
Where on earth did we get the idea that a negative state in ourselves is something that we have to hate, or resist, or not want? Where is it written that because I feel a pain come over me, because I see something wrong in myself, because I catch a depressed feeling, or I fall down and I get into some strange, anxious state, that seeing myself like that, I must turn away and pretend as though I don't have that, or it isn't real, or it's not right for me? Where do ideas like that come from?
ED: I don't know.
GF: Most of us aren't willing to look at any of this. Here I am, and I am as empty as a man can be. I am as angry as a woman can be. I am as frightened, depressed, nervous --you name whatever the particular negative state is -- and I'm fully immersed in it. Please tell me where the idea came from that one should never talk about this condition, never admit it, never look at it. We never consider the fact of a negative state because we don't want to meet the moment of ourselves as we are. I'm asking you, where did that idea come from? I'm asking you to ask yourself. Our whole cultures says: "Never let them see you sweat."
The point is, Ellen, the reason why people say, "Why do you want to talk about negative things?" is because they live with the negative and hide it from themselves, and they fear it in themselves, and they think that somehow if it's just kept out of sight, it doesn't exist. The only way that a man or a woman can become a whole human being, in God, in Truth, in the Light, awake, realized (whatever word you want to use) is when at last the light and the darkness in the human being have found the relationship that God placed in them in the beginning. Then the human being does what he is supposed to do, and he is the grateful witness and the one who receives the fulfillment that takes place when life itself fulfills itself. This only happens though when a man or woman finally says, "You know what? Bring it on. I would rather learn about this emptiness and this aching than protect myself from it." Then they begin to transcend not only the fear they have of themselves, but the limitation that fear produces as they go through their lives with one eye closed.
ED: What you're saying is that it's possible for a person to see certain negative things going through them without becoming negative over them?
GF: Negativity is only painful because of identification. If I said that there is a blue rhino passing through your ear right now, it wouldn't mean anything to you, right? You know there's no blue rhino passing through your ear. But if thought says to you, "Oh, oh. I said something stupid. What are people going to think of me?" -- a thought like that comes through us and instantly we identify with it, and then it's not part of the image that we hold of ourselves of how we're supposed to be and how others are supposed to see us. In that instant, identification produces conflict, and conflict is abhorrent. Literally, we don't want it, so we try to find ways to get rid of the conflict, never understanding that the conflict is rooted in a mistaken identity. The conflict is rooted in a mistaken idea about life. It doesn't sound like much to say that, but this means that the only reason that we're negative and suffer the way we do is because we do not understand who we are, what we're on this earth for, and how we are to fulfill ourselves.
All we know to do is to answer these moments where negativity comes in us with new answers, new purposes by which to define ourselves. We never see that each time we come up with a new definition of ourselves, we invite a negative condition into our life, because anything that we name ourselves by is going to come undone, and we're going to say, "Oh no, oh no, oh no!" And we'll sink into the very condition that we tried to escape from by that thought.
ED: It's really related to the level on which we're living our lives. The negativity is something that is supposed to be a lesson, a message that we're supposed to work with on a higher level, but we get down on the level with the negativity and try to deal with it.
GF: That's sort of it. Look. What if I said to you: All day tomorrow, you may only use your right hand, your right foot, your right ear, your right eye, and the right side of your mouth? You can't use anything else than that. You would say you couldn't possibly function like that, wouldn't you?
ED: I would probably get negative!
GF: That is literally the way a person ties himself or herself up who sits and unconsciously tries to push away their own unhappiness by coming up with a new desire. Rather than understand that the condition that they resist is nothing to be feared or resisted, they will build a whole life around trying to isolate and protect themselves from the condition.
This chair wouldn't exist, Ellen, I wouldn't have hands to talk to you with, I couldn't see you if there weren't negative energy. But negative energy is not the same thing as a negative state. Negative states exist because human beings become identified with conditions that run contrary to what they believe are positive things in their lives... never knowing for a minute that what we call positive, by and large, we didn't even dream up ourselves! We don't know where we got the idea of what we need to be happy. We don't have a clue where that came from! The happiest times any of us ever had in our lives, there was no such idea of something that I owned, had to do, get to, change, fix. A human being says, "Great... I love this," and then a thought comes in and says, "What about Bill?" or "Where is that money going to come from?" or "Guy, did you see yourself in the mirror this morning?" Bit by bit, these thoughts steal into our lives.
ED: What is the basis of depression?
GF: Self-love. It is absolute, pure egotism. What is depression other than a raging spirit towards life that has somehow denied me my happiness? And when I start to feel that depression, what answer do I get for it? Does anything ever say to me: I wonder what would happen if instead of answering this state with what it is telling me is true about myself, and life, and why I feel the way I do, I just became a participant in its movement? If I just watched it? It never says that. It says this: Get something. Do something. Fix something. Blame something.
The onset of that state instantaneously divides itself up into a me that feels this state and what I have to do to free myself from it. And the moment that our mind gets captured by the object that has been projected by this divided mind as necessary or at fault for this, I have no chance of going through the transformation that the state would naturally go through.
Ellen, nothing is fixed. When you get negative, you're pretty sure that the thing is written in concrete, that it will never be any different than this. Things will always support this. "I don't have the resources. I will never get out of it. Besides which, it's all been leading to this anyway." That cacophony, that litany of voices that lash at a human being come up when you get negative.
I want you to understand something. There is no such thing as a negative state that has the authority or the power to remain in a human consciousness without the consent of that person being unwittingly tempted into identifying with it and what it calls as being its cause. There is nothing in life that is not in flux. Everything changes. It is a law of God. There is nothing that isn't going through change.
Our relationship to negative states is to freeze the negative state by identifying it and its cause. Once the negative state is frozen, meaning I've come up with an image that I can call upon to know it and myself by, at that point nothing changes because I've literally isolated myself from the changing of life.
Do you know what a "cut off low" is? Sometimes when big storms come in off the Pacific coast, there will be a "cut off low," which is a weather phenomenon. Here is a big low pressure system that is part of these massive high and low pressure systems, balancing themselves throughout the world, and a "cut off low" is a system that decides, "I'm just going to do this on my own for awhile," and it has to spend itself because it's not being moved along by natural forces.
When we're depressed or negative, we have become identified with a "cut off low" system, and we believe that we can do something to free ourselves from this "cut off low" by doing a rain dance, or whatever it is that we do in order to get rid of it. Do nothing. Let it pass. Then the next time a certain low pressure passes through, it's going to form what it wants to form. Let it form what it wants to form, and then let the next pressure system move the thing out. Then you can sit there and say, "Nice day." You know why? Because you're not connected to high pressure or low pressure systems.
ED: I think one of the reasons why we hang on to that "cut off low" and don't let it pass is, in a very strange way, we actually love it... and I can see why it's self-love, because you never feel yourself so strongly as when you're negative.
GF: "Look at me."
ED: "I'm the center of the universe."
GF: I'm literally in the center of the "cut off low."
ED: Which we think is the universe.
GF: And to finish the metaphor: What is it that is whirling around me? All of the reasons and justification for why life is the way it is and why I'm like I am. That "I," that sense of oneself in the middle of that depressed or negative state does not exist without a justification for itself, and when you see that you're supplying the justification for your own pain, then the thing has to come to an end!
Can you not see that? Here I am and I feel bad. Now, why do I feel bad? I've got a lot of reasons to feel bad, don't you? I have my own reasons for why I feel the way I do. Now, does that make sense to you that I should sit and talk to myself and convince myself, and go along with the conflict that drives this great machine that leaves me at the center, feeling pummeled? When the sense of myself and the machine that is producing it are one thing, and I see it clearly, the whole thing evaporates. Then a new system moves in, a new energy moves in.
ED: A character in a novel once said that depression is "turning your back on God." Something you said earlier really explained why that is so. The world that we're given to live in is for our learning, our growth, to be part of everything. If I'm saying that I don't like this or I don't want that because I want it to be my way, then I'm saying to God: "I don't like the life you gave me. I know better what I need, and I'm just going to sulk if you don't give me what I want."
GF: Essentially that's right, Ellen. There is a mystery -- and that's the best word I can use for it -- that sits at the root of a human being's life, and honestly, most of us spend our lives fruitlessly because we never investigate the mystery. We have all the evidence of the mystery. I've given myself everything. I do everything for myself. At every opportunity, I find ways to please myself. In spite of all that I do, I'm not pleased, I'm discontent, and for the most part I am battling with life even though I have my moments and I'm the first to admit it. Sure, if things go well, everybody has a good day, but this mystery that sits at the root of it is that eventually a person has to recognize that they're always attempting to fill themselves, and that what we're unhappy about is either that we can't get what we want to fill ourselves with or we've filled ourselves and we're still unhappy.
When a person starts to recognize this strange mystery that the more I fill myself with what I say I have to have in order to be content, and strong, and come off wise (or whatever it is a person imagines will make them happy), the person at that point says: I know for sure what happens when I fill myself. I know for a fact the outcome of that. Now I'm going to find out what happens if I don't fill myself. What will transpire if when I start to feel this pain, this sorrow, this negativity, this regret beginning to build that low pressure system -- when suddenly the whole world is like some kind of black hole -- my mind starts to see all the reasons for that. And instead of participating with the mechanical movement of my own unconscious mind, supplying me good reasons for why I'm suffering, I make the decision -- I choose to understand -- I'm going to step outside this self-system, this system of myself that has within it what I call my happiness and that is also the source of my unhappiness. I can see the fact of it. Therefore, I'm going to find out for myself this great mystery: Would God allow a human being, would Life let a man or a woman see the fact that something doesn't work (and can't) unless there were a condition, that by the very discovery of that condition in his own consciousness, proved that there existed something that was completely different than that system?
So a person comes by reason, direct experience, and conscious suffering to see the futility of something like that, and then gradually -- not because he is wise, or strong, or brave -- he begins to go through it. What happens if I bring nothing of myself into this? I call on nothing, other than (personally speaking) I remember myself, I remember God.
But even that has no place in this, Ellen. When a person is truly awake and working on themselves, they don't have to call on God; they are in God. God is in them. That Intelligence is working its mastery and its mystery, and the human being is the recipient of the whole of that movement. He doesn't have to think about God. There's a passage that says: "Have I not said that ye are Gods?" (I think it was in the New Testament when Christ was talking to his disciples. ) This didn't mean what psychopathic New Age nonsense says today... "I can create, I can manifest, and I'm something"... that's not what it meant! "Ye are Gods" means that you can participate in God's life. That's different. To participate in God's life is to participate in the whole of that movement -- dark and light alike -- because obviously, these two forces have to come from some source that is greater than themselves in a unified state. Our position is learning about that through participation, and as we do, we fulfill the promise of ourselves.
ED: You used an expression that I think is critical for us to understand: "conscious suffering." Isn't that really the key?
GF: Yes. I'll say it again. Nothing in the universe can take a man or woman over that he or she doesn't willingly embrace. When a person can learn to consciously embrace the whole of life -- not fear it, but be interested; not try to prove themselves, but discover themselves in it -- if a person has a relationship like that, they begin to enter into a world that is greater than this little self-filling self and the obvious conditions that it produces for itself with what it pursues.
ED: Thank you, Guy. This has been a Fireside Chat with bestselling inner life author, Guy Finley. I'm Dr. Ellen Dickstein. Thank you for joining us.
The Wisdom to Walk Away From Depression
Posted by Guy Finley in 459 Galice Road, Merlin, OR 97532 on , and updated on .
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