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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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 eCoursesMy concerns for running a sound business and making a decent living for my family seem to prevent me from pursuing a spiritual life. The fear of not having enough drives my life. I am so confused about what my true purpose should be, and I long to strike a balance between worldly concerns and spiritual growth.
The issues you raise about how your business concerns seem to be in conflict with your wish for a progressive inner life are a source of confusion to many seekers. The only real confusion we face at any time is over what our purpose is here on this earth. Please don't think this an oversimplification of the problem. Whenever we are unsure about what this life is for, we invent images to supply this missing certainty. One of these images, and a more common one these days, may be to picture ourselves as "successful" businesspeople, or experts who are looked up to and held in high esteem by others. Living from this purpose, our sense of self is all wrapped up in making our enterprises succeed, for we believe our security -- in fact, in some ways our very "life" -- depends upon keeping the picture intact. So, our time and energies, physically and psychologically, are absorbed by this image and its intended goal. Our business now runs us. Unfortunately, this goal to "win" is powerless to produce what it promises, and actually serves to divide us -- a state that prohibits spiritual success. Now we find ourselves at odds with our own inventions. And while I realize this illustration may sound extreme to you, as your stated wish was to learn how to strike a balance between necessary worldly concerns and spiritual growth, nevertheless, the principle governing our inner success remains true here as well.
Imagine a man picking apples in his orchard, which happens to sit in the wilds somewhere. He must pick fruit to survive, and yet he knows that each time he ventures out into his orchards his life is in danger, for mountain lions roam the region. I ask you to tell me: Where would this man's attention be the whole time he was busy with his worldly duty? That's right. He would go to work each time with the understanding that his task in his world of trees is always a twofold one: the first to be awake for signs of danger, the second to enjoy the fruits his efforts may produce for him. In short, awareness of his true condition defines his purpose, and it is this purpose that sets, or tends to define, what are his genuine priorities.
Our efforts to do good, sound business do not have to be, as our false nature would have us believe, at the cost of being awake and enjoying the natural fruits of spiritual goodness. Let us each resolve, as many times as needed, to redefine what we really want from this life, and in the light of our renewed, higher purpose, place our attention to those areas of our inner life which this new purpose demands. When we live in this way, with Truth as our intention and truthfulness as our guide, there is no more conflict.
As far as what to do about those fears of not having enough to live the way you want to, ask yourself the following question: Can anything I am afraid to live without ever be the source of my fearlessness? The answer is obviously a resounding "No!" But what does this discovery teach us? What good is anything we may have if all it can do for us is make us frightened that one day we may not have enough of "it"... whatever that "it" may be -- money, approval, family, friends, etc.? We must get tired of being frightened that one day we may not have enough of what it is in our lives that has failed and is powerless to make us fearless human beings. Then, as it grows clear to us that our problem is fear itself, we will know exactly what to do each time we start to feel afraid. We will become consciously fearless. We will be aware of the fear, but no longer buy into what it wants us to do about it. Here begins the truly fearless life.
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