 So, pleasure, the pursuit of pleasure, is a distractive device, and is also a device that really anchors the mind that the body is real, and it seems to be very attractive. This is what the Course refers to as the attraction of guilt. The deceived mind does not see, does not equate guilt and pleasure. Pleasure is seen as something very desirable, it's something to be sought after, and something good. A lot of times you'll hear, you know, God wants you to enjoy yourself. Take part in the menus of the world, you know, enjoy the variety and the spices and the many pleasures of the world, and God wants you to enjoy yourself. But from the metaphysical perspective, you know, first of all, God is spirit. God does not know about the physical, projected world. God only knows his creations, or his creation which is the Sun, and he knows him as perfect. And this is a pure, abstract, infinite relationship that has nothing to do with form in any way. So when we get down to the ego using the body for pleasure, pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain, basically the mind is unaware that they're the same, that by pursuing pleasure, one is also pursuing pain. The pleasure is a guise. Yes, you know, this we've talked about the pursuit of wealth in this world and the belief in poverty and lack, you know, in a material sense. And these are many forms of the same kind of split, the same guise, that if I'm poor and lacking and it's a world of scarcity and so forth, that I can yearn for a better day and in better times and more possessions and an easier life, so to speak, or those that actually do seem to accumulate and build up the things of the world that are supposed to bring the good life, but still feel the pain and the anguish and the depression. We still find the same thing that the mind is still seeking for happiness, peace, contentment in the world, and it's just seeking in the wrong place. It's in the mind and letting go of the false beliefs where the peace and contentment, happiness come. So that's a quick look at pleasure. Attack is something that is very important as a defense against the truth. It's a witness that separation has occurred. To truly see that separation is impossible seems to be at bay or at odds with what the body's eyes show, because as one looks around the world through the body's eyes in a distorted perception, one sees attack in many different forms, verbal attack, physical attack, guns, tanks, bombs, weapons, knives, arguments at all areas and levels, verbal abuse. It seems to be a world where attack is the common experience. The mind cannot attack. The mind is abstract. The mind is one. It can only make up body fantasies where attack seems to be real. Ego uses the body for attack and it's a fantasy of attack. It definitely makes guilt seem real, that if attack is real, it's perceived as real, then guilt, then it's justified. And if guilt is justified, how can one be wholly innocent? How can one be the wholly innocent child of God as one was created? It's all made up. And it's just on the screen that once again the deceived mind wants to see the conflict, not in the mind, but in the world and it actually, under the Ego's counsel, will look for it in the world. Now this is not to say that wars per se or sports games per se or a verbal abuse or anything is evil or bad, because once again it's the interpretation that has to be looked at. A healed mind can calmly look upon any site in the world. The body's eyes will still report to the mind changes in circumstances, changes in the way things look and symptoms and so on and so forth. But the healed mind just puts them all into one category, that they are unreal. And once again you have to really have a clear metaphysical idea of why this is so, of why sicknesses must be impossible, of why competition cannot be in the world, of why there can't be victims and victimizers in the world, that it's all in the mind and it all comes down to that subject-object split. So it's because it's all unreal that the Course says, for instance, that the world is neutral, that it's neither good nor bad, that it all has to do with how the mind looks up on it. Because it's all really just a projection route for sure in the mind anyway. To the Holy Spirit, the world is neutral. Because remember, it's just a screen, it's just a projection, it's, these are just symbols that it can use for its purpose. So in that sense the world is neutral and the Holy Spirit can use the world for its purpose. To the deceived mind, the world is not neutral because it is chosen to order the thoughts that make up the world in a configuration or a construct that literally make it seem real and literally make it seem that instead of dreaming the world, that it is now a figure in the world. It's a little dream figure and it's gotta, it's a person. It's gotta, you know, do things and defend its life and everything. So in the, to the deceived mind, the world is anything but neutral. It is judged and ordered it. It's always good or bad. It's something in between. I mean, it's always something. It's never just neutral. Right. To the deceived mind. Now in the miracle we have, the miracle is a glimpse, is a, is like a reminder, a remembering of the neutrality, of the unreality of the world. There's a sense of easiness and of just the gentle watching because the mind is seen to be the dreamer and there's a real detachment in the miracle. The mind is literally, there's been a choice to give the mind over to Jesus or over to the Holy Spirit to align with the right mind. And there's great detachment that comes because there's no longer a control issue of trying to control what's happening on the screen. It's just a, I'm being able to look upon things with, with gentleness without judgment. Talk about judgment a little bit because that is that, that attempt to control what's on the screen is done through judging. Yes. Everything that seems to pass before these eyes. Yes. And judgment, I think in a more of a common term, you know, judging your brother a lot of times is, is associated with condemnation, putdowns, superior or inferior kinds of things, making unequal. And that's the common usage, you know, letting, I've got to give it my grievances. I've got to quit judging, my criticizing and so forth. Judgment goes much deeper than that. But, but I think if we follow that idea of judgment is, is to make unequal, make appear unequal what is equal. The sonship is one. And a metaphor for this world is that every, everyone or every brother is equal. I think when we talk about judgment, we bring it back to the deeper levels, we get to that sense of ordering thoughts, that this is judgment. There, a condemnation or criticism is a sense of, of an ordering or judging, you know, of better than thou or so on and so forth. But when we pull it back to the more subtle realms, we see that the entire projection of thoughts, my thoughts are images that I have made, that the world is nothing more than projection of thoughts. That is the ordering of those thoughts that maintains the illusion of the reality of the world. So any kind of ranking in my mind is an ordering of thoughts is a judgment. Yes. So it doesn't matter if it doesn't matter if what I'm looking at and judging ranking comes out in the top position or in the bottom position, whether it's a one or a 10, it's still judgment. So a 10 is just as much judgment as the one is what you're saying. Yes. That, that any ordering of thoughts, or if we use the, the line from the, from the laws of chaos, a hierarchy of illusions. This is precisely what judgment is, is making a hierarchy of illusions. If I rate and, and rank some illusions as more important than other illusions, then, then how will there be an awareness that they're all just an illusion? They're equally illusionary or illusory. So basically this is where this is the core of, of judgment is this ranking. It's also the reason why the course talks about how important it is, the relinquishment of judgment in the teacher's manual. And also the very first principle of the 50 miracle principles is that there is no order of difficulty in miracles. And at some point in the course, Jesus is saying that if, you know, if you can get the first principle, then the rest of this course would be easy, because this is literally the principle that, that the ego defends against. That to the ego, there is enormous order of difficulty that in following the spiritual path and trying to see the Christ in everyone, trying not to, to order and judge situations and events, that is what the ego is, is trying to hold on to. That's what is bread and butter. It's that very ordering that holds the world intact for the ego. Yes. For the disabled mind. Yes. So, you know, I've used the example, for instance, of going to a restaurant and that you've gone to a number of times. And for instance, you like their cherry cheesecake. And this time you go in and you order your cherry cheesecake and the waiter says, Oh, we're sorry. We were out of cherry cheesecake. And an experience of, of disappointment or deprivation or whatever, once again, gets into this ordering of thoughts. So the cherry cheesecake in some way was raised up or lifted up or part of the construct of the concept of the person. For instance, I like cherry cheesecake is as opposed to pecan pie or, you know, ice cream or whatever. And you can see from that example a little bit about what we're talking about. It's not that you have to go around judging or condemning or cursing the vanilla ice cream or whatever. But, but if it is ranked lower than the cherry cheesecake, we have a, there's an order of preference. And it's part of the hierarchy of illusions that literally the self concept is a construct of ordered thoughts. I like sunny days more than rainy days. I like warm climates more than cool climates. I like to drive a mercury as opposed to Jaguar, you know, on and on and on. I like women who have long hair or long dark hair as opposed to blonde, you know, on and on. I like these television shows better than this. It's, it's all part of the ordering and the ranking. And this is the judgment that holds the world up. These are the stilts underneath the projection of the world that if you took the stilts away, then the world would would collapse or fall away and fade away.