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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.
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Shop eCoursesED: Hello. I'm Dr. Ellen Dickstein. Welcome to a fireside chat with best-selling inner life author, Guy Finley.
Today I thought we would talk about a topic that you actually gave a whole series of talks on, and something that you mention quite often: the "turning point." Now, most people when they use the expression "turning point," think of a unique moment in time when maybe they had to make a big decision or they saw something that changed them. But you use the expression in a much broader sense that has to do with the whole movement of life. So I thought a good place to begin would be to have you explain what you mean by the "turning point," and what the significance of that is.
GF: To begin with, when we sit down to think about such things, I recommend that we always place what we want to talk about in the context of something. Without context, meaning without a true background behind what it is that you are looking at, you can wander everywhere. It's the absence of having a background, a true context, that lets people fight.
As you said, most of us view turning points as those moments in our lives where either some crisis comes along that demands a change on our part, or something finally aligns itself with our wishes and we reach a turning point by which suddenly we think we're going up in life. So for us, the way we are now, we think of these turning points as being places that are demarcations where we're either headed down because we don't want what happened, or we're headed up because life has finally said that we're good to go.
The problem with a simple look like that is, what is it that produces these moments in our lives? Why is there a point in my life where suddenly I'm headed down or headed up? What is it that is going down, and what is it that is going up?
What I'm trying to say, as simply as I know how to say it, is that we have to begin to understand why we're alive, what the purpose of this life is, if I really want to understand how to make the best use of those seemingly critical, pivotal moments in my life when they come. Then, is there a way that I can use my life so that I don't have to wait for those moments where life knocks me down -- or for that matter, I finally feel that I'm headed up because things have gone well?
I was driving home today, and I saw a cloud. I'm 50-some years old, and I've watched clouds and loved them since I was a boy. I used to like to lie down on the grass, and if I could get as still as I could -- especially if it was a very quiet day -- I loved to see clouds move. Sometimes you can't see clouds moving, and the reason you can't (as a rule) is that inwardly you are moving too fast to recognize the movement. But the fact is, the clouds are basically always moving, and I have always loved to watch them.
Today when I was coming home, I saw a cloud that I've never seen before in my whole life. It was a rainbow cloud. That's the best way I can say it. It was as though Great Nature, God had taken this large cloud and poured all the colors of the rainbow in it, and then stirred it so that all the colors were in this cloud. I actually pulled over on the freeway because I thought to myself, "Are my eyes deceiving me?" It wasn't just fantastic in its appearance, but it was evocative, beautiful, a phenomenon. I sat there, safely off to the side of the freeway, and five hundred cars flew by. I have no idea what I was seeing other than it was a truly unique event, but I remember thinking as these cars went by: "Look what they're missing."
What does that have to do with a turning point in one's life? You don't know what you're missing. When an unwanted event comes, something that frightens you because it seems like it's going to take something away from you... do you know what you're missing in those moments?
Let's define turning point: a point at which I become different in my nature for the event that spun me vs. a turning point in which I'm simply made to turn by a reaction or a resistance to the unwanted moment. Most of our lives are spent absolutely being made to turn -- made to turn by negative reactions, negative thoughts and feelings, made to turn by desires that we have inside of us to escape the possibility of having a negative turning point. Such a life is wasted. It never gets to see the kinds of things that I'm talking about. And if it does, it is so rare that a person begins to think, "What I need to do is go make a lot of money so I can go on a vacation and see these things more frequently."
What if it was possible for us, on a moment to moment basis, as we work to be awake to ourselves... what if inwardly with our inner vision, with awareness, we were capable of watching not only clouds, but the sunrise, the sunsets, the storms coming and going -- all of that -- if we were witness to our own inner lives, Ellen? Then we would take our place in the very movement of all these things in a way in which instead of being moved by life, we would have life move through us. The true turning point would not be this idea of a downward or an upward movement, but it would be of an expansive kind of new awareness, new consciousness that a person is created to have, where they recognize that all of this movement that is going on is indeed a perpetual turning point of life itself, and that all these things that are moving through us are intended for their movement to produce new energies. Our relationship to all that moves inside of us is to be something that aides in the transformation of these energies as they go through these turnings -- and we don't do that. Instead, we ourselves are turned into things by these moments, and then spend our lives being against this or that instead of being open and fluid-like within ourselves and capable of relating to life at a completely different level.
The bottom line is that life is presently for us an odd moment here and there where life either knocks us down and we get up and think to ourselves that we did good, or it picks us up and gives us something good, and then we spend our lives trying to protect what we thought has made us better. Or (and everyone has had this), a turning point came where I realized I couldn't continue being the same kind of man I've been, or it was impossible to continue being the same kind of woman, and life showed it to me enough times that finally a true turning point took place so that it became a transformational point where I'm changed by life, in life. That is what we're after -- not accidentally, but in a moment-to-moment, day to day basis. That is the interior life of a true turning point.
ED: I noticed the clouds today as well because they were spectacular, and you always say to "see the celestial in the common." Everywhere we look we see proofs and examples of what goes on at different levels, and I think one of the things that makes clouds and their movement so wonderful is that they seem to embody constant movement; they're always changing. In the past when you've talked about the turning point, you also talked about life constantly moving, and that we don't notice the movement. We only see life in distinct moments of "now this has happened" and "now that has happened." So while things are constantly turning and we're meant to turn with them, instead we get caught by these sudden happenings. We don't understand where they came from; we don't know how to handle them. We're shocked by things all the time.
GF: Part of our education as men and women who have in their hearts at least the hope of becoming a different order of human being includes the gradual realization through self-knowledge and self-observation -- learning to watch ourselves just like we've been talking about -- that my mind and sense of self that is derived from that mind is only really comfortable, only knows itself when it sets itself up as being apart from what it's looking at. So we are basically always in a process of measuring ourselves by what is going on around us. When people go out in life and try to be successful, they never think to themselves how strange it is that their success can be wiped out just by the casual glance or the snarl someone gives them. And the reason for that is very simple, Ellen. We are all the time measuring who we are by comparing ourselves to the world around which we see ourselves, and when we do that, I must create something by which I can compare myself.
If I'm looking out at an audience of people, my usual mind will fashion an idea of what it would mean to be a successful person in this moment. Having fashioned that idea, it will find a parallel of associated thought and images in itself by which it would say, "A successful person in this moment is one that has the people sitting on the edge of their chairs." And the mind that develops that idea is separating me out from the people that I'm speaking to or with. The stronger the impression becomes of what it means to be successful, the more one is moved to try to accomplish what that image has said it means to be successful. This is across the board in everything: the more one is moved to try to accomplish that, the more one is troubled by what is going on, and then anxiety sets in.
We could talk about a whole trip-lever series of things that takes place, but the bottom line is that the real success we want has nothing to do with trying to find ourselves as successful in the world outside of us. Real success is a kind of conscious participation in a life that is already successful in itself. Call that life what you want -- God's life, the Light, Living Light, Intelligence, Conscious Energy -- it is present in this room while I'm talking to you. A person either participates in that success that gives you all the substantiation that you need, that never leaves you afraid of being without it, or you try to find substantiation from the people or places around you to confirm yourself as you think you are.
So look at what is happening: In order to be confirmed, I have to have a confirming party. To have a confirming party, there is always a process of my own mind, my own imagination. The more I set up what I need to confirm me, the more afraid I am that it won't. So there's this endless separation between myself and what my mind generates as being the world. The more I'm separated from it, the more I'm dependent and frightened at the same time. That can't go anywhere. So the bottom line is that the person starts to recognize that this is how my present mind works: It separates me. There is something in me that is always producing in myself these feelings, thoughts, images that are always trying to find safety.
I don't have to find safety, Ellen. I'm already safe. But not as long as I'm identified with the turning of my mind and the turning of the emotions that come and substantiate those thoughts. One has to see the fact of something like this and let the world turn as it will. It doesn't mean that my mind doesn't generate thoughts or feelings. It just means that a person starts to live in a world in which all that turning is going on, but he is not being turned. One is not really the center of these things. One is all of these things, and yet none of them are really who he is. There's an immense sense of well-being inside of that, because nothing can touch you, and yet, you are touching everything.
ED: We want so much to feel safe, and we feel ourselves being turned, and we don't like that. So we try to fix certain things -- like looking for somebody's approval -- and then that person or relationship must never change. Yet, in the universe around us, we can see that change is the essence of it. We get pictures back from the Hubble telescope of the universe, of one galaxy eating another galaxy. Things are always moving and changing. We want to be fixed, and so we make an enemy of life.
GF: Again though, why? One must understand what it is inside me that doesn't want people to change. What I want is things to change only according to how I want them to change. That kind of change is OK. Change that is not part of what I want is not OK-change. Why? Because I exist in my mind relative to what I'm holding in my mind. So if I think the only way I'm a good person is if someone looks at me as if I'm a good person, I'm going to sell my soul to them to make them look at me like that. I'm afraid they won't look at me like that. Until a person sees very clearly that all I've done my whole life is a fancy dance to try to make life stay in place according to my best ideas of what my purpose and happiness is -- until I see that doesn't work, I can't do anything. That's where what we talk abut comes in because the true turning point is the recognition that who we are is not dependent on these things outside of ourselves.
Words are so cheap, Ellen. This planet is packed with people who can espouse these lofty principles. But show me someone who recognizes the truth of something and then will work at the truth of it. Show me someone who says, "That's right. We should be part of the movement of all things and not caught up and isolated in being identified." Show me someone who spends their days working to understand that better instead of just learning to say that better in order to impress people, then I'll show you something that's special. It's so easy to be a spiritual know-it-all. It's very tough to take the smallest step outside of yourself, to risk in the smallest way this automated chain of thoughts and feelings that drive a person and try to produce for them contentment, security, and safety. Show me one person who is willing to do as Vernon Howard used to say: "Throw a toothpick in front of a runaway trick." Show me one person, and I'll show you someone who is on their way to a new kind of greatness, because that person will begin to realize that their true nature -- who they really are -- is not a creature of condition. Yes, this body is a creature of condition. The mind, even thought itself is a form of conditioning. But who we are, Ellen, in essence cannot be touched by anything that can negatively impact it. Nothing can touch it.
When we understand that, not intellectually, but because we've gone out into life, we say: "You know Life, I've always tried to avoid these moments. I've been trying to avoid the moment where I see that I'm a liar, that I sell my soul to people to get them to like me. I've been trying to avoid seeing how frightened I am that something is going to happen to me and take away what I've got. My whole life is dedicated to trying to keep all this at bay, but I'm not keeping it at bay anymore!" That man or woman has found the door to freedom, because they've found in themselves something that is already where they want to be. All they have to be willing to do is test the water -- find out for themselves whether or not they have to spend their lives trying to turn things according to the way they want them or whether there is a greater turning taking place in which there is no more torment out of trying to control life.
ED: But a person then has to be willing to risk everything.
GF: And here again I say, risk what? Please tell me. I want one of you to tell me what you have to risk. Risk what? This is so important that you learn to ask yourself this question. When you're moved to do things against yourself, when you're moved to do things against other people, and you're unconscious of doing it... do you know that every time you fawn in front of another person, every time you act like you're a nice person for the sake of getting someone to approve of you and help you through life, do you know that you're a liar and a plague on the face of the earth? Do you know why human beings do that, Ellen? Because they live with a constant shadow behind them that is always standing there with a shadow sword saying, "If you don't, I'm going to drop this sword on you, and you're going to lose something." I'm telling you, lose it. Lose it. You better lose it, because if you don't lose it, you will lose -- just like we lose every day, each and every one of us, every time a negative thought or feeling comes into us, every time something unwanted gets us to move against someone else or life itself in order to re-secure our position. That's not a turning point; that's a tormenting point. If a person gets tired enough of that, they can bring an end to that tormenting nature as not the world doing it to them, but something that was formed in them at an early age. It's actually archetypal, racial; it runs very deep. That person can begin, little by little by little, to bring into themselves this awareness, this Light, this understanding, and it's the life, the understanding, that dismantles that darkness. Then a person has something.
ED: You said something recently: "When are you going to stop making deals with your pain?" That's what we do, isn't it? We're so afraid of what we're going to lose that we put up with this constant negativity.
GF: That's exactly right. I'm so afraid of what I'm going to lose that I put up with this negative state. I comfort negative states. I comfort negative people around me so that they'll keep me in their family circle. Lose what, Ellen? Lose what?
ED: That's a great question, because I'm sitting here thinking, what am I going to lose, and the deeper I try to look into that, I can't put my finger on it.
GF: This is the problem. When the negative thought or feeling... when that turning point comes in life and crisis is looming, and one is caught up in trying to figure out how to put everything back together again, it's all predicated on the mind revealing to itself some kind of image, some content that says, "If you don't do this, you will lose that." And when one thinks they're going to lose something, they don't have what they think they're going to lose. They have an imagined thing they're going to lose. That's what the darkness does. It produces a kind of pseudo-light that says "this will be gone if you don't do what I say to do."
You need to see the fact of it. This is urgent to understand: I'm afraid I'm going to lose something... my God, who could be a bigger loser than me right now? Someone who's trying to figure out how to hurt somebody so that I can be free of a pain, somebody who's trying to figure out how to take advantage of another human being or the planet itself so that I can have a pleasure. Who is a bigger loser than that?
ED: No one.
GF: But that nature will tell me I'm going to lose something. This is where your spiritual work comes into it -- to begin to recognize in such moments that I'm being confronted with an illusion. I'm actually seeing a lie that all my life I have not understood as being a lie. I believe that my life as it is has value, that there is something good in this nature that will follow without question these negative states towards what those negative states say will free them. When a person gets to that point, Ellen, they simply stop doing it. Then there is nothing to win. You've stopped losing.
ED: You've talked about the fact that with everything changing, we don't want anything to end. I think it all comes back to this image we have that there is somebody here that can end, so we're constantly trying to bring things back, and we won't go with change. We won't let our lives change if we're hanging on to something.
GF: Nothing begins that something doesn't end. Something must truly end for something to begin. Until things truly end, not even the beginnings we have are real, but they are merely re-configurations of trying to avoid places in our lives. Don't be afraid, Ellen. But see, things will not end by themselves. You have to bring an end to it, meaning "I'm going to bring an end to my relationship with this fear, but I don't even know what that means." You won't. "I'm going to bring an end to this hatred I have for someone. I'm going to bring an end to this worry." Don't think to yourself, "How do I do it?" Just do it.
ED: Then you're on the constant turning point.
GF: You'll learn.
ED: Thank you, Guy.
GF: You're welcome.
ED: This has been a Fireside Chat with bestselling inner life author, Guy Finley. I'm Dr. Ellen Dickstein. Thanks for joining us.
Turn Self-Tormenting Thought into New Self Triumph
Posted by Guy Finley in 459 Galice Road, Merlin, OR 97532 on , and updated on .
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