 The evening is on yours David and now the floor is open for you. David will now speak to you. Thank you. Thank you Rishan. Thank you for inviting me. Now I come to India to share an experience of joy and happiness and peace of mind that comes from a state of non-judgment and acceptance. And this is a state of mind in which opinions have vanished and non-duality or presence of oneness is what remains as the living experience. So it is such an honor really to come to India because of the deep spiritual traditions of India, the teachings of the Vedas, the great deep teachings of the Vedas, the Vedas of the Danta, the beautiful teachings of non-duality. And Rishana has invited me to come because I have studied and practiced a teaching from the West, a teaching that originates in the United States but has spread all around the world. And it's called The Course in Miracles and it's very touching that we have present moments as the name that Rishana uses in her seminars because this is the teaching of learning to live completely in the present moment without the distractions of the future and the past. There are many wonderful non-dual teachings on the planet and some of the most famous ones come from India, they originate from India. China and now we have a non-dual teaching for the Western world. And the Western world has been embraced by many wonderful teachers that have come from India. Recently the group of people that I live with and work with watched a movie of the life of Paramahansa Yogananda and it was very inspiring. And the more they watched the life of Yogananda coming to the United States in the 1920s and establishing what would become the self-realization fellowship out in California. Beautiful monuments and beautiful remembrances of this amazing teacher. And so for myself and those who work with me and follow my teaching, we have a modern day non-dual teaching. Very much like the lineages of Sri Ramana Maharshi, very famous Omara Namsala and Yogananda. Many amazing Indian spiritual teachers have been teaching these beautiful non-dual teachings. And what we find with the Course in Miracles is it uses modern day contemporary terms, terminology to convey the same teachings of these great Vedanta teachings from India. Using psychological terms which many of us know psychology is a factor in people trying to discover the mind and the psyche. Christianity uses terms that come from the tradition of Jesus Christ and we also have the terms from education such as curriculum and learning goal and so forth. So the teaching that I study and the teaching that Roshana is studying is called the Course in Miracles. It pulls from three major disciplines. It uses the vocabulary from psychology, Christianity and education. And that's why it has been regarded by many as a contemporary scripture whereas the scriptures obviously with the Vedantas go back many, many, many centuries. This is a teaching that came via a channeling process to a research psychologist in New York City and it began in 1965 and continued on until 1972. So the book itself is a scripture that leads one just as the Vedatas lead to a state of peace, peace of mind, inner peace and self-realization. Also it comes in many ways as a correction for Christianity. Christianity and many of the world religions will see a dualistic world, a world of heaven and hell. And the great teachings from India teach us that what we have perceived as hell or as pain or as suffering are illusions. They are distortions. They are distortions of reality. They are not reality itself. They are Maya. They are illusion. Same teaching from the West is teaching the same thing. That love is our nature. That peace, happiness and harmony, eternal happiness and harmony is our natural state of being. The state of pure oneness, absolute oneness is what reality is. People have asked me where will you go when you go to India for the first time? And I have enjoyed the size and the symbols as we have come here today. I see the candles burning back there. I see the Buddha and the rest of the teachers, Guruji, on the way over driving here today. A car drove by and Guruji was on the back windshield of the car, which to me is just a symbol that he is here with us today very much. And also when Naya and I were called to come here, things have unfolded that we ended up staying at the Shangri-La in New Delhi and coming to a presentation by present moments and we will travel tomorrow to Rishikesh to stay in Nirvana. So the locations I tell my friends in the West, I'm going to Shangri-La, present moments and Nirvana. Let's go our way to stay. To me these are all words but they're the symbols of what's in our hearts. We have Nirvana within us. We have the Kingdom of Heaven within us. We have happiness within us. My journey using the Course in Miracles has been very much like the journey of the yogis, of the saints, of the mystics. It has been a journey which was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi. When I first saw Richard Attenborough's movie, Gandhi, my heart was touched to the very core. And it was so memorable that even to man here and to look on the rupees and to see Gandhiji on the rupees. It's the first time I've looked at any currency anywhere in the world and been inspired by just looking at the currency. And that shows how deep the traditions of peace, of nonviolence, of love are in India. The teachings that I learned was a teaching of learning to trust, divine guidance and divine intuition to lead me in everything in my life. And so part of that trust is coming to live a life of absolute integrity. Meaning what you think and what you say and what you do has to be in perfect, harmonious alignment. Otherwise it's just another theology. Otherwise it's just another belief system. I think what I have found in my travels around the world, and India is my 41st country so I get to meet many people all over the world, is that people are in search of an experience. We don't need more theologies. We don't need more teachings that are just about theory. People want a practical experience, a peace of mind. People want to feel that harmony in their soul. And they want to have that harmony be consistent, not something that comes and goes. Many of the questions I can ask is how do you live a life without anger? How can you live a life without jealousy or envy? Is it possible to live in this world without competition? Can you be in complete harmony with all that is and live a life free from all competition? And I say that has been my experience. When I dedicated my life to spirit and gave everything over to spirit, and the rest has been given to me quite effortlessly and quite easily. That means that when I travel around, whatever the means are that are needed for me to travel, to speak, to meet the people, to hug the people, to listen to the people, everything comes and everything is beautifully provided. Some people call it a spiritual calling. It was Mother Teresa who was on a train in India when she received her calling of service. And her life was very much a demonstration of putting the spirit first and trusting that by living the life devoted to spirit, she would find the peace and happiness that everyone is seeking. And when I look at my work with The Course in Miracles, I see that it is a pathway of purification that all of us are praying to have our hearts purified so that our thoughts and our emotions and our words and our deeds, our very actions are all in complete alignment. That's what is most important is living a life of integrity. What this means is that when I give someone my word, whatever I promise them, in terms of anything in this world showing up to speak, visiting them, doing something for them, it means you keep your word, you follow through and keep your word. And this is the practice of letting the spirit guide so that every thought and every moment sends out a blessing to everyone in the world. That as we heal, we are all healed together. No one is healed apart. No one truly walks alone. We are truly all in this together. It has given me opportunities to go inside my mind and learn to trust the spirit to give me the words to speak and the places to go, the people to meet. So that everyone that I meet along my journey, I see as a reflection of the one. We are one spirit and the diversity of the bodies and all the images of the world are perceived as whole from a mind that is dedicated to homeless. There's a saying that I use often and that is if you spot it, you've got it. Meaning if you perceive it in the world, it starts first in your consciousness. So if there's hatred in the mind, the only place that that hatred can be corrected is in our own hearts. I was very touched when someone asked Gandhi about the devil. He said, Mahatma, what do you think about the devil? And he said, if there is a devil, he's running around in our own hearts. He's got to be in our own hearts. He's not an external devil. And I think that gives us all the opportunity to see that when we feel anger, when we feel hatred, when we feel even suffering and discomfort, that there's something inside our hearts that is calling for purification. It's calling for healing. So the teachings of course in here also teach that if you practice this course, you will learn to see everything as either love or a call for love. And that means that hatred is a call for love. Hatred is a call for help. Conflict is a call for help. And if we devote our life to being truly helpful, we will answer that call. We will not turn away. We will not conclude that we are different or better than anyone else. We will answer a call for love with love. It's really a very, very simple teaching in forgiveness. Now there are many sincere spiritual seekers and many sincere religious people that believe that forgiveness is seeing that what was done to you, even if you were done wrong, even if it was evil or error that was done to you, the shared is a way to let go of that evil or error that was done to you. What we learn from Course in Miracles is that when we perceive evil or when we perceive error, it is our own consciousness that needs the correction. It is not other people that need to change for us to find inner happiness. It is a surrender of the erroneous thoughts and beliefs in our consciousness that lock away. And when we surrender those thoughts and beliefs, we come back into that state of pure awareness, pure awareness. This puts the responsibility for our state of mind fully on our consciousness and does not make it into an equation where we believe that other people have to treat us in a certain way in order to be happy. And just like all spiritual traditions, it requires an internal discipline and an internal practice to let go of all grievances and all hurts and all judgments. Sometimes people believe that forgiveness is letting somebody else off the hook when actually when we hold a grievance, we bring heaviness to our self, to our own heart. And it is our mind and our consciousness that needs the forgiveness. When we are offended by someone, the spirit gently reminds us, pluck the offense out of your own mind. Do not hold on to the offense or you will not know the love that you are and the love that is real or true. Now, among the great nominal teachings, there's always an interesting aspect of trying to explain answers to these ontological questions. How is it that we live on planet Earth? How did we come together? How did this world of time and space, this cosmos of time and space start? What beginning did it have? These are very deep questions. Sometimes this thing called relic, this thing called the great play and I feel that those who go on this spiritual journey to go deeper and deeper into this experience that I'm talking about start to see the world more as relic. It's just a play of ideas. It's a play of images. It's a play of concepts that are very transitory. Always shifting, always changing, always moving. Where did they come from? Scientists talk about the big bang as an explosion of hot guesses that occurred millions and millions of years ago as if it's an origin. And what we learn from A Course in Miracles is that there is a state of pure stillness and pure love that precedes the big bang. That before this cosmic explosion of images is peace eternally. And since the big bang we believe time moves forward. We keep track of history, past, present, and future. And what we are learning from quantum physics, what we are learning from the Vedas, what we are learning from A Course in Miracles is that the state of mind in which there is perfection is prior to time, prior to the cosmos. And therefore the Buddha taught us to empty our mind with everything we think we think and think we know in order to find the experience of Nirvana. Jesus taught us the kingdom of heaven is within. He wasn't teaching us some external heaven and sky of somewhere in the planets and stars. He was teaching us the Buddha talk of presence that is deeply within us. So my practice for the last quarter of the century has been to be very still. It's been a practice that has involved meditation. But most of all it has been a practice of being used. Having prayer by heart to let the spirit use me in the most helpful way for the entire planet. What will be most helpful? And therefore the way that it played out for me was going around upon invitation to wherever I was guided to speak. It's different from religion of trying to convert somebody or change somebody. And it's beautiful, beautiful for me coming to India because India has such great diversity of the people, diversity of the religions, diversity of language, diversity of dialects, an amazing epistry of diversity and yet a harmony that is underneath the diversity. Harmony and a respect that is there. We arrived yesterday and already we have had the most wonderful fascination with the traffic into Delhi or I might say the driving into Delhi. She has been watching from the car of all leaving cars and motorbikes moving across lines. Artificial painted lines in the streets that don't seem to mean anything to anyone. And she's come from Canada where lines mean something. Where cars are not supposed to come close. It's not good for cars to come close to other cars. Where she comes from if one car gets too close to another car, there's a hump, a beep. And she was saying there's an anger behind a beep. So right away we notice the fascination of all the cars leaving. Not to surprise they are all alive. And effortlessly, everyone seems to be. We were amazed where Shana was talking on her cell phone, leaving, living out, multitasking. And multitasking while driving in Delhi. Amazing thing. And you know what's so beautiful about that is because even the traffic, even driving in the traffic, is a demonstration of respect, is a demonstration of love and harmony, and of letting go of control. You can't leave the building with your car or your moped or scooter with an attitude of control. You wouldn't go anywhere. And how could you have a grievance when you're driving in Delhi? No. You know to me this is a contrast because I've been in 41 countries and one time I went down to New Zealand. And New Zealand is very picturesque. It's where they filmed Lord of the Rings who might have seen beautiful spectacular mountains. And the roadways were so clean I couldn't find a speck of garbage anywhere. I went all around the South Island looking to see if I could find a piece of garbage. Not a speck. Pollution? I don't think they know what pollution is in the island of New Zealand, the South Island, and so forth. It's amazing. But when I was in New Zealand I said, everything is so clean and beautiful. I said, what is it that is your number one problem down here in New Zealand? And they said, road rage. They have nothing else to be angry at. They get angry on the road. So you see, we have to allow this anger to be released. What's the point? Life is too short. You have to be angered in grievances. Now, we start with the streets, but then once we start to get into relationships, once we get into families, once we get into interpersonal relationships, or Rashana said, once you get into parking in this district, then the anger could start to come. You could drive and flow and flow, but don't take my parking space. Because the possession, you know, it's this sense of still the mind wants to have some kind of control over the world. And the greatest teachings, the greatest traditions tell us to trust and go with the flow and stay in the harmony. And don't point the finger, don't try to blame the world. Don't try to blame your brothers and your sisters and people of the world for the upset that you may experience. It seems to be that in interpersonal relationships, this provides the greatest challenge. Because most of the suicides, obviously the suicides are the number one cause of death in the world. But once we look at homicides, there are so many such a high percentage of homicides that are in families and couples, people who know each other, who get triggered so much that anger comes out so much that the homicide comes through that anger. And this is where we must release the ego. We must release the error in the mind that believes so much in privacy, so much in possession, so much in ownership, so much in control that the ego would rather kill than be wrong about its position. The teachings, of course the miracles, are the teachings that the ego made this distorted world of time and space. And that this distorted world of time and space is a cover over the love that's in our hearts. That we actually were created by love, by God, by spirit as well. And we just allowed this ego in our consciousness to have control. We've given it relief. We've taken the power of our mind, of our consciousness, and we've given it over to the ego. So, of course the miracles is a way of systematically training our mind to undo the ego, to withdraw all our faith and investment in the ego so that we can come back to the state of perfect, eternal pure love. And what the Course of Miracles offers as a methodology is a workbook that has 365 lessons, one lesson for every day of the year. It tries to keep us very focused and very simple. Now, the great teachings of India, meditation is extremely important and we have things like mantras. A mantra is a way of focusing the mind, having a very loving thought and using the power and energy of your mind to focus on that thought, to transcend distractions, to transcend temptations, and to transcend distortions. And so, I would say Course of Miracles is very similar in the sense that it advocates stillness and peace of mind. The whole workbook is a training program going deeper and deeper into deeper states of meditation. That's the whole purpose of it. It's not designed to give you more money or a better family life or help you attain possessions or attain power or control in the world. It's designed to take you deeper and deeper states of meditation. The more you do the workbook, the more you go down into deeper states of meditation. I would say that every single day, every new workbook lesson gives you a new mantra for the day. A new fresh mantra where you take the mantra and you practice that mantra all through the day with whatever you do. Because the purpose is to take you into a unified perception so that you see the sameness of all friends. And the differences which are of the ego start to fade away, fade away as you keep practicing and practicing. You see the connections which feel the love and the connections and the differences fade away. So for me that has been my experience. I spent 10 years in university in undergraduate and graduate teachings. And then the course of miracles came into my life and I decided that as much energy, time, effort, money and energy that I put into those 10 years of full time education that I would dedicate that same effort and energy into peace of mind. I would forego a career, I would forego a future and future ambitions and future goals for mind training, discipline, purification and coming into deeper and deeper states of mind. That was a decision I made back in 1986. The last year I was in university and the first year of course of miracles. So I left behind my academics, all of my academics and decided to dedicate my life solely to a purification process. It was very short after that when I started to see very strong guidances of what to say, what to do, where to go and to learn to trust. So it took me a while of reading in your literature over here but I turned into a Sanyasi just by my desire to go into deeper states of mind. What does that mean? For those visiting in the western world they need education, they don't know where the Sanyasi is. Most of you know. It meant that I started off traveling with no means of support, no visible means of support. Just like a yogi or Sanyasi walks away from all attempts to be provided for by the world through jobs or through various interactions with family and partners and societies, I dropped away from that. And so from 1991 to 1996 I had no house, no tents, nothing that we would call a residence. You might have said prior to that I was a householder, to use the terms, but not the Sanyasi. The Sanyasi is not a householder. And the reason I think I was guided into this period of being a Sanyasi was just to learn trust because I didn't know where I would lay my head down at night. I didn't have a house or a tent so I had to trust. Every single night or five years, this was not an experiment for ten days, this was for five years. I floated around, floated around and it was very interesting to see what would happen every day. When the sun was going down I was interested in where this body would be laying down. Many of the places where I was welcomed, where I was received, was horse and miracles groups in the United States. I traveled around to 49 of the 56. I didn't go to Alaska. I heard it's pretty cold out there. I hadn't quite reached Yogi's status yet, so I didn't want to test out Alaska. But I did travel around like a woman called Kisto who traveled around like that. And I was most often welcomed into horse and miracles groups where they're studying a nominal teaching of pure love and pure forgiveness. And they treated me like I was their own brother, their own sister, their own child. Well, come home and stay with me. What do you mean? You know, this is a tradition in many parts of India. The Sanyasi's part are welcomed into the house because of their dedication and devotion to self-realization, to spiritual enlightenment. They are welcomed. But most people don't think of the United States as having that same tradition. You know, you don't hear stories. You think it has centuries of living, centuries of rural teachings, centuries of mysteries and mystics and saints. And so to me, this was quite miraculous. That's why they call it the course of miracles to move around the United States and be welcomed in. Come here. Come home. Here's some food. Here's a couch. Oh, I have one time they said, here's a closet. This is a closet. But I was offered places to stay. And the most important thing for me was to learn to trust that I would be provided for just by my devotion to living a life in the spirit. Not using degrees that I had from university, not using skills that I had developed, but using trust. If trust was a muscle, like a muscle in your arm, except it's a muscle in your heart, that's not what the muscle I had to learn to develop. And what are the benefits of this trust? The trust was part of the purification and not relying on my past learning, but letting my present trust and guidance lead the way with everything without exception. What are the benefits? I learned that safety was a state of mind, not a condition in the world. I learned that health was a state of mind, not a condition of the body. I learned the power of consciousness that if I cleared away all my judgments and negative thinking, that the body would be completely healthy. That there was no need for hospitals and doctors when consciousness was pure. Because the same thing that the yogis have been teaching us, the yogis that taught us that even temperature is part of the state of mind. They could transcend even things of temperature. Like we're doing right under the air condition right now. We're getting hit with those. Nice icicle air is coming out of your body. Naina asked for, she said she would like a name and you know in Indian tradition sometimes the teacher in the guru would give a name. So her name is Naina. So I have a sectionally called her Naina Nanda. Naina told the beautiful eyes and Naina means happiness. That's pretty nice. Beautiful eyes and happiness. That's your nickname. And so part of our guidance is to travel around and to be naturally happy, naturally joyful, wherever we go. We don't have to be speaking to big groups. It's everyday. It's everyone. It's everywhere. It's so beautiful how when we came to India people said well you'll do fine if you remember only one thing. If you go to India, don't have any expectations. Naina, don't expect anything. You'll do fine. And that's been beautiful. That's what our journey is. Not just for India, but for daily life. For everywhere. Contentment and peace of mind go together. When we have all kinds of expectations for how our life should look, how our life should be, or even how the traffic should go, then we're putting ourselves in a state of mind where we are vulnerable to error. And when we learn to trust and we learn to just show up as bringers of peace, as bringers of joy, as bringers of happiness, then we find that the world is very happy. If you have happiness in your heart, you will draw forth reflections and consciousness of that same happiness. That's been a joy for us. Now to come down here, we both took off in Sweden. We took off to come to Dubai and then to come down here. And I've been flying for many, many years and I've had some amazing kind of miracles with airlines. And I know Mother Teresa had a lot of miracles with airlines too. But on our trip to India, for us it's the first time to come to India, we started off going to the airlines in Sweden and we were in row 32. Row 32. And we went to check in and we could tell the things were getting shifted around. And they put our tickets in and they came out and they said, no, there's been a ticket change. You are no longer in row 32, you are in row 7. That's business class. We didn't try for this. We're just happy. We're very happy to receive business. For me, I have long legs and I could actually lay down and take a nice trip down here. I see those as just reflections of consciousness. And you're not trying to get something, you're not trying to make something happen. You're not trying to force something. You get these beautiful soft reflections back that come so effortlessly, so easily. I don't believe in accidents. I don't believe anything in this world is random. I feel that every person we meet is sent into our life, into our awareness, into our consciousness. A number of years ago, I was amazed to find this beautiful movie from India called Slumdog Millionaire. It really touched my heart. Because from Slumdog Millionaire, I got the sense that there is a destiny. Not all have a destiny. And there are signs and symbols around us every day that we are trying to reach our awareness to tell us that we have a destiny for God, for love, for spirit. Yes, we let it in. And that movie to me was a strong reminder that we are always taken care of. We just have to be aware of things. When I was watching the movie Gandhi years ago, I felt like my heart opened up so much from watching Gandhi. And recently, I was in South Africa this past December. And I was taking a ride with a friend of mine. And he said, oh, by the way, that's where Gandhi built his ashram in South Africa. And so I drove right past it. And it reminded me of a scene in the movie when Gandhi was building his ashram in South Africa. And an American reporter was with him. And he turned to Gandhi. And he said to Gandhi, Mr. Gandhi, you're quite an ambitious fellow. And Gandhi turned back to the reporter and said, I hope not. So here is David watching Gandhi, raised in a culture of capitalism, of culture of business, bigger, better, more. Materialism accumulates, have big careers, earn big money. And then I'm watching the movie Gandhi and he replies to, I thought it was a compliment. I thought the American was actually complimenting Gandhi by saying you're quite an ambitious fellow. But Gandhi's answer struck me. Gandhi said, I hope not. And if we go into the Bhagavad Gita, if we go into some of the deep scriptures, it teaches us that the life of the senses, the life of materialism, the life of pursuing bigger and better things in the world, is actually a distraction from the stillness of our hearts in the present moment. And I have to say that when Gandhi said, I hope not, something inside of my heart jumped for joy. Something changed in my life when I heard Gandhi say, I hope not. Because I can see that having loving connections with your friends, with your family, with those who meet, is more important than anything we could achieve or accumulate or accomplish in all time and space. That when it comes to the point where you take your last breath and you pass away from this earth, it won't matter what you accomplished or accumulated in this world. It's only the love that we ascend in our hearts that will count. That's the only thing that is really worthy of our devotion and our attention. So, to me, I made the decision many years ago to devote my life to love and having disciplined my mind, I have come to a state of mind where I will not allow anything of this world to be a distraction to the love in my heart. Nothing is more important than being loving. Nothing is more important than being friendly. Nothing is more important than being kind. Nothing is more important than showing respect and having a giving heart, being truly generous. When somebody is there looking you in the eye, you give your full attention. When I travel around the world, I really feel like I'd like to be fully present with those whom I'm with. So I don't let my thoughts go off to other countries, other times, other lands. I don't go back and rehash the past anymore. I think it's over. I can't change the past. So I will make no attempt to go over the mind anymore. Just let it go. And I love spontaneity and I love being very spontaneous, so I'm not really interested in future plans. I don't have ambitions. I don't have any ambitions for a future. When I was in South America a number of years ago, somebody from the audience raised their hand and said, Okay, what happens if you're in an airplane and suddenly the airplane starts going this direction? How happy are you then? And I say I'm very happy, actually, because I had no regrets, had no plans for the future. If the plane starts going on a nose dive, you can bet I will be the one celebrating in the seats on the way down. I will enjoy every moment and every second because I have no ambitions and I have no regrets. Nothing I wish I could have done differently from the subject of me. That's what the goal of spirituality is, is to start to be so full of the process that the love is there in your heart. Love is flowing through you. So we're just happy to be here. We have had much joy and much laughter. We have been lavished with such welcome and love since we've been here. We've only been here for two days, less than two full days, but we have been so warmly received. And it's been quite amazing too. We've met some people here already in our two days and it's been very, very touching for us. I find to me that spirituality is not a theology. It has to be a practical experience, otherwise it doesn't really count. Sometimes people will sit next to me and they will strike up a conversation and I actually reached a point where I don't really put faith in beliefs. So someone can tell me that they believe in God and someone can tell me that they don't believe in God. I would love them to think. I would love to believe her like I love the atheist. I love when I come to India, I love the sense of inclusiveness that we have. We went out to dinner last night and we were having dinner with Rishanar, and they were saying, in Delhi, we are all Delhiites. We have no true differences. All are Delhiites, all are united as Delhiites. No Muslim, no Hindu, no Jew, no Christian, Delhiites. And to me that was a beautiful reflection of community. We pull together, we don't accentuate differences. We don't try to make something of differences. We value the sameness of our being, the sameness of our hearts, the sameness of our core above any differences. And therefore we show respect. And isn't that a wonderful way to live, living a very respectful life? So I have heard that we have a roving microphone that is available for questions and comments. This non-view of the word, what exactly does that mean, or non-view of the teachings you used in the beginning? Yes. Non-dual in the most basic way is not too. So for example many religions teach that there is heaven and there is hell. And heaven is good and wonderful and loving and hell is not. It is a very dark condition of suffering. And so it's describing as if everything has two parts to it, of good and bad. Non-dual teachings teach that that love is actually real and is all that there is. And that suffering or hell or sickness or death are part of delusions. They are distortions. And so that everything that is part of the distortion will come to an end because it never had a beginning, it doesn't have a source. So that's why the non-dual. And are there religions that are non-viewed? I think or is it just philosophy that are non-viewed? I don't know if you would call them religions. I mean some people do. I would say that out of India in the Vedas came a Veda Vedanta. So there are many, many hundreds of thousands of people around the world that practice a Veda Vedanta. It's not just a small little philosophy. It's a people who live by these traditions of non-duality. Of course the miracles is now sold somewhere between one and two million copies all over the world. It has now sold more copies in Spanish than the original English. It was received in English but the Spanish cultures have picked it up like a wildfire. And so I believe the course exists in 17 languages. Most people wouldn't describe the course of miracles as a religion. I myself say that religion is inner peace. Theologies that lead to inner peace, any theology that helps you come to peace of mind is very helpful. But most people see the course as a book that they study and they practice in their daily life. The course doesn't have hope. The course doesn't have bishops or cardinals or high priests. It doesn't have a hierarchy. It's just a book that individuals use practice training their minds to come to a deep sense of peace and stillness. One of the benefits of a course of miracles is because you can take the lesson and practice it all throughout the day with any situation you have. You can practice it at home, you can practice it at work, you can practice it when you're hiking. You go up to Nepal, you're hiking. You learn practice with everything that you perceive in your world. And it works to start to take you into a deeper state of mind. So I find that extremely practical. Also, I know in ancient times, oftentimes yogis and sannyasins would leave their families and go off to live a life of moral isolation so that they could practice the principles and to go deeper into meditation. But what I find is, for example, with Naima, she's practiced the course of miracles for a number of years using the context of her family. Using the internet to watch videos, listen to destructive thoughts, and to apply it in a practical way while she's continued on with her family. Yes, I'll give you a good example of that. When I first picked up a course of miracles, I had a personality and a self-concept of being extremely shy, extremely shy. In my high school, I was the quietest person in the whole place, everywhere. And so I would say the reason was I had a lot of self-doubt, unworthiness, concerns, questions, doubting myself. And when I started to practice this new curriculum and learned to practice training my mind and forgiving, it built my confidence up in being guided and being intuitive. I became much, much, much more intuitive. Yet I think the most helpful thing for me was becoming intuitive, confident in my intuition enough that I would then start acting on my intuitions and having very powerful, positive experiences. Each time I would receive an insight for something that was helpful, guidance, and then act on it and it would feel like my whole life would open up from that in amazing ways. And we might call them synchronicities or the feel that you're not alone, that there's a bigger plan and you're starting to tap into that bigger plan. And so that's what builds the confidence. When you have conflicting emotions and conflicting thoughts, that can just perpetuate self-doubt. But I need miraculous, harmonious experiences to start to gain confidence in a new way. And that didn't seem to take time. I would say it was most definitely a guide. I had been raised in Christianity but I never had felt an extreme connection. But as I went through this process, I started to feel the presence of Jesus guiding me and leading me and I was in the place of surrender and complete following to that presence. So for me, a guide is very important. That's the way. I started off with the book but then that helped me make the strong connection to the guide. Thank you. I feel like that's exactly what I'm talking about. We have to come to a very strong, intuitive feeling. We have to honor those intuitive feelings. Because those intuitive feelings may differ from society and they may differ from family, voices and influences. And to take this journey towards what's called truth or an experience of divinity or love requires a lot of stepping out of the boxes of thinking in very structured ways and coming to nurture ourselves, to give ourselves permission to discover for ourselves an actual experience. It's something that I think it brought Nina and I together because we're so strongly devoted to being intuitive. Another thing we learned was that guilt, no matter what country, no matter what culture, guilt is very suffocating. And any theology or any teaching or religion that still incorporates guilt that you should feel guilty for this or that, I would say just misses the mark. We're not condemning or praising certain behaviors and actions. We're saying let's look at consciousness or the psyche and let's discover a way to innocence. Let's discover a way to peace and harmony and connection and not let theological beliefs come in between us. Because Indians are different than other parts, other countries of the world where there have been religious wars. There have been the riots between the Muslims and the Hindus. And we've seen it in different parts of the world that religion, if we're going to cling to religious beliefs as an identity and start to judge and point the finger at others who have different religious beliefs. Where is the love? Where is the harmony? Recently, 9 and I watched this beautiful movie called My Name is Hung. And it's such a beautiful movie because the mother in the movie teaches her little boy that there really are only good people and bad people. There are no Hindus, Muslims. She teaches her little boy that the religious differences make no difference at all. And it literally carries him all the way through his life. And he becomes an inspiration to hundreds and thousands of people by just taking the teaching that his mother taught him, which was to be good, to live from goodness, and it carries him through his whole life. So for us, we hope to see what you're talking about, but it's not that we should hold on to religion as an identity when religions and theologies can actually be used by the ego to separate and to push away. The other thing I like is when people say to me, religion, I just reinterpret it to mean inner peace. And that way I see that there really are no religious differences. If all the prophets and the avatars and the saints are all expressing inner peace as important, then that's a unified religion. Not the theology though because the theologies are so different. And we don't need to keep pulling hairs out over this belief versus that belief. To me, those after a while are not very important. I was raised with probably the same core values as you and a lot of people. And then I got deeper into the teachings and the practice of this nominal teaching. And it started to be like a cleansing or a washing of my mind of this idea of external causes. Starting to say, oh, I believe in a lot of external causes. Like I believe external causes with soup, for example, people would say don't drink too much strong coffee with caffeine at night before you go to sleep or you may not be able to sleep because if the caffeine heats you up or around sickness, germs, or genetic transmitted diseases that go back generations that were transmitted to the genetics of DNA. This book and I would say, oh, nominal teachings start to change our thinking process from having external causes to starting to see that if there is a cause of guilt and pain and suffering and death and murder, it is within our consciousness and it can be healed. To me, I thought the same as you, I thought that's going to take a lot of work. It's enough to try to stop smoking or drinking and behavior on occasions far enough. But changing consciousness, changing the very realm of consciousness seems to take an enormous mental discipline. And we know from the yogis that that's exactly what they're saying. They're not saying you can just affirm your way. They're saying you have to go through very strong mental practices to achieve the goal of a peace of mind or experience in the mind. With this book, A Course in Miracles, I saw that the workbook was giving a systematic way of practicing this change of thinking. And when I started doing the workbook lessons, a very interesting thing started to happen. My daily life started to have so many synchronicities as if everything I was experiencing during my day would actually plan somehow for me to do my lesson. So instead of David having to deal with all these separate people and separate stresses and difficult situations, I found it came around to my practice, my consciousness. And then at some point as I went deeper and deeper with it, I started to do a lesson on sickness. Lesson 136 of A Course in Miracles is about sickness. It's a distance against the truth. And that day I got sick and I got to practice my lesson. Instead of taking medicine and instead of going to the doctor, I actually used my lesson and I had a miracle. All the symptoms went away in one instance. So that's what I thought, but then again I thought, this is my path, so I better give 100% to my path. Even me asking the question of how many other people would benefit would be a distraction from him. I willing to practice it to the best of my ability. And I practiced it so much that I actually had an experience one day where the book said that I could heal the sick and raise the dead. And that is extraordinary when you have a book that's telling you you can raise the dead. And I actually had a day where I was doing a lesson and that was my lesson. And I walked into a grocery store and there was a woman laying on the tile. And I looked at her and the paramedics were there. There were four or five paramedics doing CPR and working with her who tried to revive her. And then I watched for like five minutes and they stopped. And they all moved away. And I watched and it was just the body laying, literally dead right in front of me on the tile floor. But I'm still doing my lesson of the day. And this particular lesson was telling me there is no death. This was part of the lesson of the day that death is not real. That even death is an illusion. Now there aren't too many cases in human history. I mean if you read the Bible it talks about Jesus raising the dead. But it's not that common throughout history where dead people come back. Some of this terminology had these things called near-death experiences where people stop breathing. And sometimes they're gone for a long time and they come back. Well I was practicing my lesson and it was very strong. And with the paramedics I just was looking at this dead woman. And in my mind, my mantra, my one mantra for the day was there is no death. But it was so strong in my mind and it was like I was watching this whole scene just for my mantra. Like that was what I was saying. And then I felt like up around my third eye all this energy. And I felt a huge amount of energy in my heart. And this rush of strong energy moving through me. And as I watched her diaphragm, her stomach, started to breathe again. I watched her breath till her feet come back into the body. And so what I'm saying is with a book like this and a teaching like this and with devotion. Not thinking of the future where this is heading or how many years it will take me. Because I've been at this for 25 years. But all I could say is I had to put my full faith and devotion just into my work with us. One lesson, one mantra. And I practiced it so strong that I started to see witnesses in the world. But more than that, I noticed that when I was traveling from third world countries, when I was going on my travels all around these 41 countries, I noticed myself getting extremely peaceful and not bothered by anything. And I thought to myself, this is working. This is actually working. And then I just continued on even further and further to feel so much love in my heart that I couldn't contain it. I had to go and share these teachings and share these experiences because it was so important to me. One time too, I went back and my father, my earth father, went to his church and told the minister that I was a saint. How many of you have had your parents call you a saint? You know, but we call our parents. Yes, my father and I was the saint. Yeah, because we're so inspired. And to me, I say that we're all saints in training. Every one of us is a saint in training. And I think that way. I really believe that, but I know that I have to do my lessons. I have to intuitively do my lessons and keep practicing. And every time there's even the slightest temptation to blame or point a finger at somebody, then that's my lesson, to heal. I take it that way. And there's one beautiful line from A Course in Miracles. It says, would you rather be right or happy? And I think all of us were starting to go for the happy. It's more important to be happy than to be right. And it also says, seek the people who have happened within, and all who want to show the eye to them to you. How do you seek the people who have happened within? Yeah, I feel like, in my life, it was first coming to an honesty of what I wanted from the world. So I started to make a list of what I wanted from the world. I could see that peace of mind had a lot of other desires mixed in with it. And so, for me, it started by saying, well, what if I put the peace at the top? My peace of mind is the most important thing. Let me do an experiment like Gandhi did to see if I can really do this. Like, for example, in economics, when people work for a living and have money concerns and economic concerns, the peace can slip underneath that concern for survival. And so I knew that I would have to develop a stronger trust. And that way, kind of the traveling symbiosis experience, what I was followed up with, was me starting to get invited to share my experiences in many places, and starting to live on donations. Very different from me from 10 years of university, and degrees, and education, and reciprocity of receiving a paycheck to go out like a sannyasi and live on donations. But the benefits were enormous because I never was going to people going, give me, I was simply in a place of openness to receive and accept, but not to ask for or demand. And you know that part of our whole world system, like you're saying, is I'll give to you, you give to me, reciprocity, exchange. It's the fabric on which this whole world is based. So to me, that was the most important thing was learning to let more trust come in and more confidence in that trust. And that started to change my whole consciousness. And I just kept going. I just, like a rocket ship, I said, I'm going to break the gravity of this world. I kept going. Every insight I would have, I would publish it to the whole world. I would make websites. I developed ways, pathways to God, like three or four different pathways to God, one using movies. And so I developed the Movie Watcher's Guide to Enlightenment for people who like movies. Maybe there are temples, synagogues, meditation, all the rituals, but they like movies. And frankly, I've come to India to tap into Bollywood. I feel I have a huge, untapped territory to one of the largest, most wonderful movie industries in the world is right here. To me, that's a gift that I want to discover more about. And before we came down here, we were sitting in an Indian restaurant in Stockholm, Sweden. And they had a Bollywood movie of their apparently tooth-famous, an actor and actress they had just seen. And my name is Tom. We saw the dancing and everything. We were barely eating the Indian food. We were like, both of them. We were like, oh, I want more of that. But that is it. So through music, through movies, through different kind of techniques that I've discovered work for me, I put them out on the internet so people can have easy access to them. And also movies, people feel very relaxed when they're watching the movie. So that can be a good way to train your consciousness. Instead of just going to pure entertainment value, you can watch movies in a new way. So I think it can be enjoyable. I don't think it has to be an extremely difficult path ahead. It can be enjoyable. Maybe you can just give us an example of any one of those 365 days. It's just an example. Okay, I can do that. Yeah. I can give you an example. So, for example, this is a book about changing your perception of yourself and everyone and everything in the world. To look at the world in a different way, to have peace of mind. So the very first lesson in the book is number one. Nothing I see means anything. That's number one. Number two in the book says, I have given everything I see all the meaning that it has for me. I have given everything I see all the meaning that it has for me. Yes, yes. You can see this is just the beginning of this very powerful transformation of consciousness. 365 lessons, but those are the first two. And then as you move on, like for example, three of the most helpful lessons for me were five, six and seven. They're very early. Five, six and seven. I'm never upset for the reason I think. Oh, I'm never upset for the reason I think. Number six, I am upset because I see something that is not there. Mmm, that's amazing. Lesson number seven, I see only the past. Everything I'm perceiving is the past. And then as you move along, it says I see nothing as it is now. Then it works your way further into the book. There's a lesson number 48. There is nothing to fear. You see how powerful that is. If you could fully give your mind over to that one thought, there's nothing to fear. Lesson number 50, I am sustained by the love of God. It's taking you more to that intuition, to that actual experience of that love in your heart. Now what happened to me is I had many, many miracles over a number of years using the book. But then suddenly one day, I was meditating with a friend of mine, a woman. And it was an open-eyed meditation. We were just sitting, looking gazing into each other's eyes. And I started to go deeper and deeper into my mind that got very, very still. And all of a sudden the whole three-dimensional world just turned into two-dimensions. It was like a picture. And then after that, everything went to light, just pure light. It actually went beyond the veil of this world into an actual direct experience of just pure light. And that was the first time it happened. Then it happened the second time and then it happened the third time. And then after three times, this started to look like a painting. Each time more like a painting. Like the characters weren't what I thought they were. And these are the discussions because we have these experiences. Mine was saying, I feel like I know these people. I just landed in India for the very first time. But you feel like you know them. You know them. Yes. It's the warmth. So I do. I have put A Course in Miracles on the internet for free. So you can go and read to your heart's content. Or you can search data. Yes, just search data. Free A Course in Miracles and you'll find your way. Because that's part of what my job is, is to make it available. And is this a single author's work? Or did you mention when it was written or who wrote it or who developed it? It was channeled by a research psychologist between 1967 and 1972. And it comes from Jesus. Jesus is the author. Although he hasn't been around for 2,000 years, he's back. And it's out of copyright. Yes, it is. It actually is out of copyright. And the thing is, most people around the world see Christianity as very dualistic. I know many people in India, for example, would say, wow, heaven and hell stuff, it has to go deeper than that. And I would say that this teaching shows that Jesus is a non-dualist. The same as Parampastha, Vilga Nanda, Ramana Maharshi, all the great mystics and saints. He was another non-dualist. And that's why he could raise the dead, heal the sick, because he had transcended the Maya, the religions.