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 The
following article by Anne-Christine was written in the Spring of 2000
for the French magazine "Illuminations" in anticipation
of the publication of Guy Finley's new book for French-speaking
readers: To Tell the Truth: Inner Life Lessons on Love, Lies,
and Pitfalls Along the Path.
"The only mistake that we can make as human beings
is to be asleep, unaware of ourselves," states American author
Guy Finley." Given that our lack of awareness is at the root
of all our problems, our only solution lies in an increasingly sharpened
perception of what we are." In his latest book, entitled To
Tell the Truth: Inner Life Lessons on Love, Lies and Pitfalls Along
the Path, Guy Finley explores the pathways leading to internal
freedom.
I met Guy Finley via telephone on the first day of spring. Flocks
of snow geese and Canada geese had just congregated in the fields
around the house, and I could hear the piercing cries coming from
thousands of feathered throats - a pleasant moment that I shared with
Guy before beginning the interview. Our conversation would be colored
by these voices heralding the season to come.
Speaking of voices, Guy Finley's is warm, vibrant,
passionate. My impression is that I have a young man on the other
end of the line. His books, of which several have become best-sellers
(The Secret of Letting Go, Freedom from the Ties that
Bind, and The Secret Way of Wonder), are a testimony
however to great experience in life. In fact, from a very young age,
Guy Finley was confronted with certain troubling contradictions in
American society. Born to wealthy, famous parents, his friends were
the kids of stars often having serious problems with alcohol and drugs
- Dean Martin, Lucille Ball and Liza Minelli - among others. The young
Guy learned very quickly that money and fame do not necessarily accompany
happiness. "My father (Larry Finley) was the pioneer of the talk
shows we know today, before Johnny Carson. Time Magazine named him
‘Man of the Decade' during the fifties. I remember watching
a Christmas parade when I was five years old, seated on Jayne Mansfield's
lap. She was a gorgeous and famous woman, yet her breath reeked of
alcohol! I had everything that society taught me to be the source
of happiness, yet I was unhappy."
Guy Finley's career quickly turned to music. Star musician/composer
at twenty years old, he signed contracts as a rock singer, composed
music for films and television, and worked with Neil Diamond for several
years. Above all, he asked himself questions: How is it that at the
moment where we arrive at the peak, an event takes place -- a death
or a failure -- that turns us upside down and lands us at the bottom
of the heap, having to begin all over again?
So he set out to find answers elsewhere. He traveled
extensively in India and other parts of the Far East and then worked
for many years with author and Christian mystic, Vernon Howard (The
Mystic Path to Cosmic Power, The Power of the Supermind),
who would have a profound influence on him. It was Vernon Howard who,
just before his death, encouraged Guy to write his first book. "Writing
is a natural extension of my work as a composer. I wrote music and
lyrics. It was nothing but a tiny step to take from composing a song
to creating a book," explains the pleasing, serious voice.
But such books! The sales of The Secret of Letting
Go (Lâcher Prise in French) surpassed 60,000
copies in Québec alone. This book, as well as all the others,
was translated into several languages. The work of Guy Finley on letting
go indeed seems to have answered a real need for inner transformation.
Is it then so difficult to let go that one needs a set of instructions?
"It's not that it's difficult to let go. If your
house is on fire, you don't ask yourself if you should get out
of it immediately, do you? My books discuss the way in which a person
awakens to his internal experience so that he can discover the nature
of experience and the nature of the being that is experiencing it."
According to Guy Finley, each human being possesses the ability to
grow, to become better, more loving, and more wise. It is the relationships
that we engage in with others that give us the opportunity to discover
these places within ourselves where we have accepted limitations.
So letting go also means dropping our sense of limitation.
Is the human being really limitless? Or is it more just an ego trip
born out of the abuse of illicit substances? There is nothing limitless
about waiting for a paycheck in order to pay past-due rent, nor about
waiting in line at the supermarket! "If you put one of these
magnificent geese in a cage, it would still be a goose -- of course
-- but it would no longer be a real goose, right? It would not be
obeying its true nature, which is to fly high and far and migrate
with the seasons. It's the same thing for us. We are eagles
that have been conditioned to think that we are cuckoo birds. The
proof of that is that we would never feel this feeling of dissatisfaction
that we experience by being caged if our deeper nature were not to
fly and be free." Seated in the pinkish light of the waning day,
telephone in hand, I watch a bird of prey serenely gliding above a
hillside. Pictures of disheveled birds and noisy clocks (cuckoo! cuckoo!)
superimpose themselves on one another. I think I am beginning to understand"
Well and good, but is he letting go? "Real letting go requires
being aware, being totally present to what we are," explains
the American author. "No truly conscious human being sabotages
himself - it's impossible, because it's contrary to Nature.
If I'm aware that what I'm doing is harmful to me, I change
my behavior immediately." Guy gives the example of servitude.
"Most normal human beings dislike those who bow and scrape before
them. We abhor that because the person doing it is showing weakness.
On the other hand, when we are slavish, we don't perceive ourselves
as showing weakness. We think that we are acting in a wise and even
strong way! This proves that we are asleep to ourselves when we act
in this manner, because we would not act this way if we knew it was
harmful to us." Therefore, it is profound awareness that should
be our guide.
And you, Mr. Finley, what do you do when you feel a powerful emotion?
"The rule is never to repress a negative emotion and never to
express it. When I feel a negative emotion, I don't push it
away and I don't give it life. I bring it under the light of
awareness, and this allows me to see that that state is my state,
that it hurts me and that it proves its origin is within me, even
though this feeling wants to make me believe that someone else made
me feel it." He goes on to assert that to hold another person
responsible for what we feel is equivalent to blaming our shoes for
being laced too tightly. According to him, the cause of our greatest
sufferings is identification with something outside of us that is
therefore necessarily transitory -- be it a relationship, a house,
or a financial investment. "If I am identified with my relationship,
with my house, or with my money, I am doomed to suffer."
The sun is setting behind the darkened trunks of trees. The geese
begin to bury their beaks into their feathers. The sky tips into gold,
then into shadow as Guy explains that we are our experience. Each
successive event of our life is there to remind us that we have invited
it into our lives. "When we realize that - that my experience
begins in me - we then have solid ground from which we can do the
work which transforms us. Given that we are no longer blaming whatever
or whomever, we no longer feel ourselves to be the victims of situations;
we work with our most intimate self, where the problem and the solution
co-exist."
Suddenly I hear a laugh at the other end of the phone line; "One
of the most important rules for me is: Don't ever defend myself.
If we could put this one principle into practice, how much more simple
life would be!" Don't ever defend yourself? "Yes,
because that which is true needs no defense and that which is false
cannot be defended. If I defend myself, it's because something
in me was provoked. In other words, if the irascible attitude of my
boss makes me angry, that anger already existed within me. So the
only way for me to become aware of this anger seated in me is to not
identify myself with it.
If I give it my voice, I then become the very thing that I condemn
in my boss! To be unaware is to condemn oneself to being a barometer
that rises and falls according to the outside temperature." This
is really the first time in my life that I see myself as a barometer"
I imagine myself treating my boss according to a barometer! Amusing
idea that contains an explosive cocktail of anger, rebellion, fear,
and helplessness. This cocktail I should neither drink nor hurl in
his face, but be aware of it. It will dissipate on its own, because
it's the awareness of my state that gives rise to the ending
of my alignment with that state. If I repress it by believing to know
it, I am only lying to myself and I learn nothing from the situation,
as opposed to being a conscious person that integrates each learning
experience.
According to Guy Finley, the fundamental question
that all human beings should ask themselves is: "What do I want
to do, in this moment, in relationship to myself?" This question
pushes him to continue writing (he is currently working on five books
at once), because awareness is always enlarging, and writing makes
him more aware of himself. It is yet the fruit of his own experience
that he shares in his latest work. To Tell the Truth: Love, Lies
and Pitfalls Along the Path contains fourteen chapters, each
one addressing a certain aspect of human life: "Breaking Out
of Self-Punishing Patterns," "The Nature of Success,"
"Lessons in Love," etc. It is a practical work aimed once
more at self-discovery, self-understanding, and self-knowledge.
Finally, the works of Guy Finley teach that the "know thyself"
of Socrates is the royal path towards a happy life. "The human
being is the fruit of the marriage between shadow and light,"
he declares. "We are the wolf as well as the lamb." Awareness
of these two opposites -- without pushing anything away -- is therefore
the key, because awareness of the wolf and the lamb expands beyond
the states of the wolf and the lamb; because this awareness holds
within it the seed of the unchangeable, which is our true nature."
"Light doesn't change," concludes Guy Finley. "Everything
passes through light." Outside night has fallen. The moon begins
its ascent in the clear sky. Some geese are still squawking. It is
almost quiet.
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