Advices and Queries

While it is essential for each person to experience the Light of Truth for themself in their own heart, Friends have found it helpful to share their own insights with others in the form of short advices. Additionally, certain queries or questions have been formulated by Friends in order to stimulate spiritual and moral contemplation, which may aid others in their journey of realizing the Light within.

“These things we do not lay upon you as a rule or form to walk by, but that all, with the measure of light which is pure and holy, may be guided; And so in the light walking and abiding, these may be fulfilled in the Spirit, not from the letter, for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.” - Quaker Elders at Balby

Advices for Individuals and Meeting Communities

1. Take heed, dear Friends, to the promptings of love and truth in your hearts. Trust them as the leadings of God whose Light shows us our darkness and brings us to new life.
2. Realize that the Inward Light of underlying, overarching, and transcendent Truth - whether called God, Source, Seed, Spirit, One, All, Void, Universe, Awareness, and/or Love - is within everyone, omnipresent, and accessible at all times.
3. Know that all may come to awareness of the Light directly, without need for any external mediator whatsoever, simply by being still and silent, letting the world fall away, and opening themselves completely to this Spirit.
4. Allow your worship and your daily life enrich each other, and treasure your experience of God, however it comes to you. 
5. Remember that the more quiet we become in our lives, and the more we devote to our awareness of the Inward Light, the more open we will be to the promptings and guidance of the Spirit.
6. Heed the words of others that are shared with us, whether spoken, or written in spiritual books such as the Bible and/or other works, which contain important messages for us to contemplate and hold up to the Inward Light - as do all the experiences of our existence, for which there is no substitute.
7. Appreciate that doubt and questioning can also lead to spiritual growth and to a greater awareness of the Light that is available to us all.
8. Ground your spiritual life in your own experience of the Divine, professing only what you possess. 
9. Let your faith free you from crippling fears so that you may live adventurously, in obedience to the Truth that has been revealed to you.
10. Let your life speak, testifying to others through all your words and actions.
11. Be aware of the Spirit at work in the ordinary activities and experience of your daily life, in your sorrows as well as in your joys.
12. Be open to and alert for how the Spirit may be speaking to you in fresh ways, and leading you in new directions. 
13. Take on only those tasks appointed to you, according to your strength or capabilities.
14. Be alert to how a “way opens"; it may even be revealed through a door closing.
15. Seek to know those Friends whose theology and practice of Quakerism or other faiths are different from your own.
16. Learn about others’ experiences of the Light. Take opportunities to enter into prayer and work with the wider community of faith. 
17. Let us be grateful for all that we have, neither reveling in our own gifts nor coveting those of others. 
18. Guard against contentiousness and love of power, but show compassion and charity for all, without discrimination.
19. Remember that love is a gift of the Divine Spirit, not simply a human emotion; and by opening to the Light Within, we can receive and give love beyond our normal human abilities.
20. Attend to what Love requires of you.

Queries for Individuals and Meeting Communities

1. 1. What is your understanding of the Light, and how it works in you, and are you open to the healing power of God’s love?
   2. Do you “live from the Center”, making time for quiet openness to the Spirit, and listening to the Teacher within you?
   3. Do you yield to the Spirit's guidance, and with what emotion do you do so?
   4. Do you live a life in that virtue that takes away the occasion for all wars?
   5. To whom or to what do you feel accountable?
   6. Do you quake at the power and love of God, or the authority and fear of men? 
   7. Are you aware of “that of God” in yourself and in all others?
   8. Do you seek to understand where a person’s words come from when those words are strange or disturbing to you? 
   9. Do you listen patiently, and seek the truth that other people’s words may contain for you? 
   10. As you learn from others, are you willing to share with them what you in turn have learned?
   11. Do you make a practice of turning to the Inward Light for guidance, remembering that living in the Spirit is a process of discernment?
   12. Which parts of your life is the Light of Truth seeking to illuminate?
   13. Do you limit God in the ways you listen and the places you seek?
   14. Are you teachable?
   15. How do you interpret your faith in light of the Religious Society of Friends’ heritage?
   16. Does anyone's relationship with God challenge and/or inspire you?
   17. Do you look for opportunities to deepen your understanding of the history and testimonies of the Religious Society of Friends? 
   18. Do you inform yourself about the diversity of Friends’ theology and practice? 
   19. Do you recognize that although the space within Quakerism is graciously large, it also has legitimate boundaries?
   20. What is your understanding of our purpose as a Religious Society?
   21. How do prevailing cultural values affect your life?
   22. Do your actions reflect your beliefs? 
   23. What is your life saying to others?
   24. When pressure is brought upon you to lower your standard of integrity, do you resist it?
   25. What are the tasks that seem important to your sense of who you are and who you know that you should be, and have you been embracing or avoiding them?
   26. Do you regard your time, talents, energy, money, material possessions, and other resources as gifts, to be held in trust and shared according to the Light you are given, and how do you witness to this conviction in your life?
   27. How do you distinguish between the leadings of the Light and the pressures of the needy?
   28. Have you learned to distinguish inspiration from impulse, insight from temptation, and patience from laziness?
   29. Are you ready to hear any concern the Spirit may lay on you, large or small? 
   30. Are you ready to rest if it is asked of you?
   31. Do you maintain an appropriate balance among work, service, worship, family, and recreation?
   32. What does Love require of you?
   33. As the Inner Light affects outward change in us from within,  are you mindful of guiding others in this direction when interacting with those with whom you disagree on worldly issues?