{"id":3586,"date":"2014-09-09T03:00:47","date_gmt":"2014-09-09T07:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/?p=3586"},"modified":"2014-09-18T10:36:09","modified_gmt":"2014-09-18T14:36:09","slug":"the-creation-of-enemies-and-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2014\/09\/the-creation-of-enemies-and-war.html","title":{"rendered":"The Creation of Enemies and War"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Question:<\/strong> All of the difficulties we have with one another seem to be due to the fact that we\u2019re all trying to protect ourselves. It seems like in the very process of trying to keep ourselves safe, we actually create the enemies out there who are threatening us.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Answer:<\/strong> Who is the self in you or me that needs to be safe? Let&#8217;s examine it. What is the nature of this self that not only feels like it has to be protected, but that is always coming up with different ways to do it?<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s the past. Can you see it? Who is there in this moment, sitting here with me, that has anything to fear if it&#8217;s not something dragged over from yesterday or twenty years ago when you won an award, or you thought people should never talk to you in a certain tone? Free an individual from his or her past, and you free their future from fear. Why? Because that past doesn&#8217;t exist. It doesn&#8217;t exist except for a content-laden image, fully conditioned, that sits in the mind, that is accessed when events transpire, and referred to as what should or shouldn&#8217;t be. Then comes up agreement or resistance according to that relationship, and a person spends their life worshipping that nature through their relationship with what they call the present moment. They are never in the present moment; they\u2019re always busy looking at themselves to make sure that what is happening confirms the self that they have mistaken themselves to be. They have become identified with an image.<\/p>\n<p>We don&#8217;t see the world, but we see the images we have of it, and what we want from those images. And when one lives like that, seeing only what one wants (or the opposite &#8212; what one doesn\u2019t want &#8212; which is no different), then that kind of relationship that we have with those thoughts and feelings is a never-ending sense of dissatisfaction in itself. It has to be, because we can&#8217;t control the world.<\/p>\n<p>It seems so obvious in some ways. A person will spend a day or a lifetime trying to figure out how to manipulate things so that something that they want will stay in place. We do that endlessly, endlessly refusing to see that the best we can hope for is a kind of truce with changing time. It never occurs to us that maybe, just maybe, we have a nature that isn&#8217;t intended to be at war with changing time, but is actually superior to it, actually sits above it and contains changing time so that in containing this world that is always changing on us, we&#8217;re no longer afraid of those changes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Question: All of the difficulties we have with one another seem to be due to the fact that we\u2019re all trying to protect ourselves. It seems like in the very process of trying to keep ourselves safe, we actually create the enemies out there who are threatening us. Answer: Who is the self in you&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":232,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[167,1],"tags":[178,37,288,2030,1273,2029,171,374,2028],"class_list":["post-3586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-enlightenment-self-realization","tag-enemies","tag-fear","tag-identification","tag-images","tag-self-protection","tag-threats","tag-violence","tag-war","tag-world-problems"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Creation of Enemies and War - Letting Go with Guy Finley<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2014\/09\/the-creation-of-enemies-and-war.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Creation of Enemies and War - Letting Go with Guy Finley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Question: All of the difficulties we have with one another seem to be due to the fact that we\u2019re all trying to protect ourselves. It seems like in the very process of trying to keep ourselves safe, we actually create the enemies out there who are threatening us. Answer: Who is the self in you&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2014\/09\/the-creation-of-enemies-and-war.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Letting Go with Guy Finley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Guy-Finley-260924340633\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-09-09T07:00:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-09-18T14:36:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Guy Finley\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@guy_finley\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Creation of Enemies and War - Letting Go with Guy Finley","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2014\/09\/the-creation-of-enemies-and-war.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Creation of Enemies and War - Letting Go with Guy Finley","og_description":"Question: All of the difficulties we have with one another seem to be due to the fact that we\u2019re all trying to protect ourselves. It seems like in the very process of trying to keep ourselves safe, we actually create the enemies out there who are threatening us. Answer: Who is the self in you&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2014\/09\/the-creation-of-enemies-and-war.html","og_site_name":"Letting Go with Guy Finley","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Guy-Finley-260924340633\/","article_published_time":"2014-09-09T07:00:47+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-09-18T14:36:09+00:00","author":"Guy Finley","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@guy_finley","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2014\/09\/the-creation-of-enemies-and-war.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2014\/09\/the-creation-of-enemies-and-war.html","name":"The Creation of Enemies and War - Letting Go with Guy Finley","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-09-09T07:00:47+00:00","dateModified":"2014-09-18T14:36:09+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/#\/schema\/person\/1e80afed42f91bae3eb4ca59666c1d16"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2014\/09\/the-creation-of-enemies-and-war.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2014\/09\/the-creation-of-enemies-and-war.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2014\/09\/the-creation-of-enemies-and-war.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Creation of Enemies and War"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/","name":"Letting Go with Guy Finley","description":"Holistic, Mental Health and Emotional Wellness","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/#\/schema\/person\/1e80afed42f91bae3eb4ca59666c1d16","name":"Guy Finley","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/308\/3082f4cd4990377da62358c5c69fd4e1x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/308\/3082f4cd4990377da62358c5c69fd4e1x96.jpg","caption":"Guy Finley"},"description":"Bestselling \"Letting Go\" author Guy Finley's encouraging and accessible message is one of the true bright lights in our world today. His ideas cut straight to the heart of our most important personal and social issues - relationships, success, addiction, stress, peace, happiness, freedom - and lead the way to a higher life. Finley is the Founder and Director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit Center for Spiritual Discovery. He is the acclaimed author of \"The Secret of Letting Go\" and more than 45 other books and audio programs that have sold over two million copies in 26 languages worldwide. His work is widely endorsed by doctors, business professionals, celebrities, and religious leaders of all denominations. Through Life of Learning Foundation, Guy has presented over 5,000 unique self-realization seminars to thousands of grateful students throughout North America and Europe over the past 20 years and has been a guest on over 700 television and radio shows, including national appearances on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and NPR. The Foundation's popular Key Lesson e-mails featuring inspirational quotes by Guy are read each week by a hundred thousand subscribers in 142 countries. Guy speaks four times each week on inner-life principles at Life of Learning Foundation's home in Merlin, Oregon. These meetings are ongoing and open to the public. For more information about Life of Learning Foundation, Guy Finley, and their life-changing messages, visit guyfinley.org. \"Guy Finley is...one of the leading experts at the forefront of human potential.\" -Nightingale Conant \"Guy Finley has helped millions live fuller, more peaceable lives.\" -Barnes and Noble","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.guyfinley.org","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Guy-Finley-260924340633\/","https:\/\/x.com\/guy_finley"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/author\/gfinley"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/232"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3586"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3618,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3586\/revisions\/3618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}