Guy Finley's 40 Check list for Freedom

Guy Finley's 40 Check list for Freedom

Following are forty simple internal indicators for evaluating just how far along you actually are on freedom's path. As you review each of the inner liberties on the list, just note mentally to yourself whether or not that particular freedom belongs to you.

You may find some of the upcoming list surprising. If that happens, let it. And then feel free to consider you never knew such a freedom could exist for you because, up until now, you were sure you had no choice but to live restrained in this area. Now you know better! Allow these forty freedoms to awaken and stir that secret part of you that knows living in any kind of bondage is a lie. Then follow your own natural sensing all the way to the free life.


You're Well Along Freedom's Path When:

1. You have no desire to change places in life with anyone else.

2. You step over setbacks without stopping or looking back.

3. You don’t think about your sex life.

4. You accept and appreciate praise, but never take it to heart.

5. You don't overeat or feel driven to diet.

6. You meet and do what's true without fear of the consequences.

7. You really don't want anything from anyone.

8. You stop thinking about how much money you may or may not have.

9. You don't carry any upset from the last moment into the present one.

10. You have no interest in old resentments.

11. You start spending more time alone and enjoying it more.

12. You stop dreaming of the perfect vacation.

13. You lose all interest in trying to win mental arguments.

14. You're neither frightened nor shocked by the evening news.

15. You stop making deals with yourself.

16. You dress for comfort, not for compliments.

17. You don't blame anyone else for the way you feel.

18. You forget what it was you didn't like about someone.

19. You're awake to and spontaneously considerate of the needs of others.

20. You see beauty in life where you never could see it before.

21. Your life gets progressively simpler.

22. You see where you're wrong sooner than later… and stop defending yourself faster.

23. You do what you don't want to do, and you do it with a lighter spirit.

24. You're not afraid of having nothing to say or do, if that's your true condition.

25. You can take criticism without cringing away from the truth that it may hold.

26. You have no concern for what others may think of you.

27. You stop trying to make others see life in your way.

28. You enjoy the sound of silence as much or more than the sound of your own voice.

29. You see the same unpleasant traits within yourself that have made you shun others.

30. You say what you want, and not what you think others may want to hear you say.

31. You actually enjoy hearing about the good fortune of someone else.

32. You see more and more just how un-free you and others really are.

33. Your moods are fewer, lighter, and move on much quicker.

34. You see society is destroying itself and that the only solution is in self-change.

35. You can listen to others without the need to tell them what you know.

36. You don't find a thrill in any kind of fear.

37. You know that forgiveness of others is the kindest thing you can do for yourself.

38. You realize the world is the way it is because you are the way you are.

39. You'd rather not think about yourself.

40. You can't come up with one good reason why you should ever be anxious or frightened.

HOW TO RECONCILE THE SPIRITUAL AND WORLDLY ASPECTS OF ONE’S LIFE?

The world is examined and proved to be non-existent, through your own experiences:
1. By comparing impartially the dream and waking state experiences, and finding them to be exactly similar.
2. By proving that the objective world has no existence, independently of the subject ‘I’ or Consciousness.
You understand this fact, and accept it completely and unreservedly. Think about it more intensely, until it descends into your heart, becoming experience itself. Then you become what you mean by ‘jivan-mukta’, and all your problems automatically cease. To an ordinary man, life constitutes actions, perceptions, thoughts and feelings – one of these alone being experienced at any given time. In other words, you stand detached from all activities, excepting the one in which you seem engaged at the given time. To this list of four categories (actions, perceptions, thoughts and feelings), the spiritual man adds just one more, which indeed is the most important one: ‘Consciousness’. This last one is doubly important; because, over and above its importance
as a separate entity, it shines in and through the four categories already mentioned. You are simply asked to direct to the consciousness aspect the attention legitimately due to it. This is all.
When you are engaged in thought, you are not engaged in action, perception or feeling. When engaged in action, you are not engaged in thought, feeling or perception. So also, when you are engaged in knowing, you cannot be engaged in any other kind of activity. The presence and recognition of subjective Consciousness, your real centre, is the one thing needed to make your life possible and connected. Make it so, by knowing that knowing principle to be your real centre. You never go outside it, and you can never leave it, even if you will. This does not deny or negate your worldly life, as is ordinarily supposed, but makes it richer, firmer, truer and more successful. To have deep peace and not to be disturbed from it, even for a moment, is the ardent desire of everyone. For this, you have necessarily to be at a centre which does not change. That is the real ‘I’-principle or Consciousness. To be it and to establish oneself there is the end and aim of life. This alone makes real life possible.

Sri Atmananda Krishna Menon

HOW AM I TO ORDER MY LIFE AFTER REALIZATION?

After realization, you may live exactly as before. The answer is only in terms of how another man sees your activities of life, in both cases.Subjectively, you have undergone a definite change, from your identification with the unreal to the identification with Reality. So you can no longer lose your equanimity and become desperate; because you know you are perfect and changeless.After establishing yourself at that centre firmly, you will be able to engage in the usual activities of life even with interest, as an ordinary man does; leaving all interest and activities to the mind, senses and body, but never losing your centre in the least

Sri Atmananda Krishna Menon

WHAT IS THE NATURE OF THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS?

Thought rises in Consciousness, rests in Consciousness and sets in Consciousness.Therefore, it is nothing other than Consciousness. It consists of the content and theboundary.Now, examining thought with the mind itself, the mind perceives only the boundary,and calls it thought. Examining it closer, the mind crosses the boundary and enters the content of thought. But, to its amazement, the mind finds itself lost and merged in the content of thought, which is nothing but pure Consciousness.Thus, the thought endeavouring to examine the content of thought is no thought at all, in the strict sense of the term. Because its object is Consciousness itself, which can never be objectified; and in the attempt the mind dies and gets transformed into Consciousness itself. Similarly examining feelings, the mind gets merged in Peace itself. Thus thoughts and feelings are nothing other than my own real nature – Consciousness .

Sri Atmananda Krishna Menon

IS ANY EFFORT NEEDED AFTER REALIZATION?

Yes. You realize the moment you hear the Truth direct from the Guru. All subsequenteffort is only to remove every obstacle that might come in the way of establishing oneself in the Truth.

Sri Atmananda Krishna Menon

EXPERIENCE OF HAPPINESS IN DEEP SLEEP – AN ANALOGY

Suppose a bucket is lost in a deep well, and you dive down to the bottom to make a search. You touch the bucket there at the bottom, and come up to the surface. Coming out of the water, you say you found the bucket. But the bucket was really found while you were under the water, where there was no medium to express that experience. Similarly, Happiness was experienced in deep sleep, but you get hold of a medium to express that experience only after coming to the waking state.Experience is always beyond the mind. The personal ‘I’ knows it only when the ‘I’comes to that realm of the mind. Still others come to know it when you give it a gross form by putting it into words. But the experience was clearly beyond the mind.

Sri Atmananda Krishna Menon

Live right now

Never look forward to anything. Do not live in excitement of
forthcoming social occasions. No, this will not take true
pleasure from you. By living fully right now, you live with the
only genuine pleasure there is.

Vernon Howard ,The Power of your Supermind,

Unwilling to see

"A man cannot see anything he is unwilling to see. He is unwilling because he fears that the loss of his false and fixed viewpoints means the loss of himself. He identifies with these viewpoints; he thinks they are him, which they are not. Now, the loss of his old nature is his very rescue, for it leads to Reality, to his True Self. But he will not plunge into the darkness, fearing that there is nothing beyond. There is, but every man must take the plunge for himself. Then, everything is different."

Vernon Howard, The Mystic Path to Cosmic Power

Awareness of anxiety dissolves it

Feeling anxiety is not the same as awareness of it. When you merely feel anxious, you are identified with it; you are so close you can't see it. If you close your eyes and feel a round object with your fingers, you may worry that it is a bomb. Open your eyes and you see it is a harmless ball. Likewise, as we awaken to see things as they really are, our pains disappear.

Vernon Howard, Mystic Path to Cosmic Power

Living from our True Source

Two farmers own wells. The well of the first farmer is dry. He gets water only when rainfall fills it accidently and irregularly. That farmer is insecure and apprehensive; he is at the mercy of chance. The well of the second famer is fed naturally and constantly by an underground stream. That farmer is relaxed and unworried.
When living from our True Source, we are relaxed and unworried.


Vernon Howard, The Mystic Path to Cosmic Power

Do One thing at a time

Do one thing at a time and know you are doing it. A tremendous secret of right action is to do one thing at a time and to know that you are doing it. When you do that, there cannot be any resentment of doing an unwanted task, such as the dishes, for example. You do it because it has to be done.

Vernon Howard