7 Practices for Realizing Your Highest Possibilities Intro.

There’s nothing wrong with hoping for the best; in truth, it's natural. But, whenever we will remember the following truth, and then dare to act on it, we are guaranteed good fortune whatever we may encounter along the Way: the power we need to fulfill our highest possibility in any moment is always right where we are because... It dwells within us.

Transcript

Hi,

This is Guy Finley,

And welcome to the time we're about to spend together where we're going to work to understand and employ what I'm calling seven simple practices for realizing your highest spiritual possibilities.

I always set out with each talk by providing a key lesson,

Meaning something that puts into ideally some simple terms what the purpose of that particular talk is going to be,

And the key lesson that's going to introduce us into these seven simple practices goes as follows.

There's nothing wrong with hoping for the best.

In truth,

It's natural.

But whenever we will remember the following truth and then dare to act on it,

We are guaranteed good fortune whatever we may encounter along the way.

The power we need to fulfill our highest spiritual possibility in any moment is always right where we are.

Why?

Because it dwells within us.

The limit of our present view is not,

Actually never,

The limit of our possibilities.

That's proved this time and time again.

So the real question is,

Assuming that we want to consistently expand both our present view of life with all of its possibilities,

Is where should we begin with this journey?

And the answer is simple.

Please consider it.

Before you and I can change the world we see,

We must change the way we see the world.

And that requires two specific conditions.

First,

That we acquire real and true self-knowledge,

And then that we learn to act on it.

And that's really the purpose of this course.

So let's get started.

Think with me for a moment,

Try to see and feel at the same time what I'm about to describe.

Into what do we gaze,

You and I,

When looking through a telescope or a microscope,

Other than into the yet discovered depths of our own mind?

For whatever world we explore,

Inwardly or outwardly,

What is it we uncover there other than a corresponding knowledge of it that was in us before we got to that place of perception?

And if it's true,

Which it is,

Where does this newly gained higher understanding await our discovery of it,

Other than within some timeless order of our own consciousness that we have yet to awaken to?

So assuming it's our wish to actualize this kind of potential,

This true spiritual possibility in the here and now,

Which when else would we want to do it?

Meaning as opposed to waiting for time and circumstance to bring about accidentally some conditions that allow it,

What's required of us?

What does it take to invite these kind of priceless revelations?

First,

To understand that the real reason,

The true purpose behind all spiritual practices is not to somehow confirm or prove certainty with certainty our ideas or beliefs that they're true.

We've all been doing that.

We all know the results of constantly trying to prove ourselves.

No,

The task is discovery,

Not proof.

So exercises,

Including the ones that we're going to look at together,

Are designed to help create specific conditions conducive to the revelation of what is true and what is not about our own ideas and beliefs.

And that includes our view of this world in which we live.

Said a little bit differently and perhaps to a little relief in understanding when it comes to working with these practices,

If we'll work to see,

To discover whatever it is that is given to us in that moment,

It's impossible to fail.

How much of a relief would it be to know that you can't fail at something,

That once you set out upon that path guarantees that you will be a different order of human being,

Not just when you get to the end of that journey,

But as you take it.

And why is that?

Why is it impossible to fail when it comes to implementing true spiritual practices?

Because the purpose of our practice,

Of any practice,

Is to reveal to us something about ourselves we didn't know was true.

It's that simple.

Our practice is going to let us see what is true and what is not.

About ourselves,

About our relationships,

And about the world in which we live.

To get a feeling,

If you will,

Of what some of that means,

At least relative to your own wish to realize your possibilities,

Think for a moment about someone who maybe sets out to explore and discover some region previously unknown,

Even to exist.

Such unexplored territory is exactly the same as our unexamined consciousness,

Where every step into it,

Regardless of what is found there or not,

Makes the journey successful.

Think what it means.

No one who is willing to explore himself or herself can fail to realize and reclaim the treasure of their own yet still realized possibilities.

But let's be very clear at the outset.

For this journey that we're about to embark upon together through these seven special spiritual exercises,

These practices require a very specific and really an altogether new kind of mindset that I'll help explain now in a short story to you.

Imagine a school for higher education.

Then in this school,

All of the students,

And we'll say there are 12 of them,

Are all in competition for a certain scholarship that everyone wants.

But after a series of special tests,

It's announced that the winner is a young girl by the name of Christine.

And oh,

When it's announced that Christine has won the competition,

You can't imagine the rumble that rippled through the room of the other students.

That's not right,

That's not fair.

And one man in particular stands up and says,

Why did Christine win the scholarship?

Everyone here knows that I'm a superior scholar,

That my grades are consistently better.

And the teacher looks at this young man and says,

You know,

It's true.

Your grades are better.

But you see,

You always take the seat at the far back of the class.

And even you have to acknowledge that the only tests you volunteered to take were the ones that you knew you would do well with.

Even before they were administered,

You had decided what you could and couldn't do.

Whereas Christine,

She always sits in the front row,

And she never fails to raise her hand to take every test,

Including the ones that she knew she would not do well with.

Think about the two different kind of mindsets.

One is interested only in proving the image that that person has of himself or herself.

And the other is dedicated to discovering what's true and what's not by constantly testing herself as life brings about those possibilities.

We've all heard the expression that when the student is ready,

The teacher appears.

And so there is a very distinct relationship between receptivity and any subsequent realization of the lesson involved.

And one last thought before we get started with our first of these seven practices.

Let this sink in as best you can.

The realization of our highest spiritual possibilities is not an accumulation of knowledge.

It isn't by adding something to ourselves,

Because we understand that all knowledge,

All forms of thought belong to the past.

Rather,

This task and these exercises will help you understand that while knowledge has its place in your work,

It is not possible for us to realize our true spiritual possibilities in the here and now through the use of that knowledge any more than you can bind sunlight into the pages of a book.

So that even though an intellectual grasp of spiritual matters can't really exist without the past,

The wisdom that we seek through these exercises has no past.

We learn it here,

We see it now,

And we're changed in the here and now if we're doing the exercises with the right intention.

This means we can only enter into relationship with each of these exercises,

And we can only perceive the promise that they bring in our willingness to be perfectly present in the here and now to everything that these lessons will reveal to us about ourselves.

So let's all take a nice deep breath and prepare ourselves for the first of our seven lessons.

Reviews

By far, this series of talks have altogether been the most enlightening yet, of all to which I have listened here on Insight Timer. Coming from a foundational background of related conceptual learning, your guidance was a bit of both spiritual shorthand and deeply, deeply profound, Guy. Very much appreciated, and grokked in the space of aligned knowing. Here's to doing, and appreciating with discipline, the Work. -A x

Great!

Thank you 🙏