 Okay, welcome everyone. This is our first of January first course of miracles workbook lesson. And as a reminder, we will be going live from time to time during the year, both for workbook lessons and also for some spontaneous zoom gatherings so we hope you will join us and it will go out on. YouTube, my main YouTube channel and some other channels as well. So we hope you enjoy it. The purpose of these workbook lessons is to apply the lesson of the day to everyone and everything that you perceive. And as best as you can, not to make any exceptions to the workbook lesson. So, there will be an opportunity for you to write in questions and issues, and I may address those in commentary to make these workbook lessons as practical as possible. The goal of practicing the workbook lessons will be to have an experience in which you see that the thoughts that you think you think and the world you think you see are all in mind that there is no inner world and outer world. There is just one perception of consciousness and that is being dreamed and then problems are gone and victimization is gone and that experience. So that is the, that is the goal of the mind training of the workbook of a course of miracles. Since we don't have any comments or questions or issues yet, let's just start off right now with workbook lesson number one from a course of miracles. Nothing I see in this room on this street from this window in this place means anything. Look around slowly and practice applying this idea very specifically to whatever you see. For example, this table does not mean anything. This chair does not mean anything. This hand does not mean anything. This foot does not mean anything. This pen does not mean anything. Then look farther away from your immediate area and apply the idea to a wider range. That door does not mean anything. That body does not mean anything. That lamp does not mean anything. That sign does not mean anything. That shadow does not mean anything. Notice that these statements are not arranged in any order and make no allowance for differences in the kinds of things to which they are applied. That is the purpose of the exercise. The statement is merely applied to anything you see. As you practice applying the less the idea for the day, use it totally indiscriminately. Try not to attempt to apply it to everything you see where these exercises are should not become ritualistic. Only be sure that nothing you see is specifically excluded. One thing is like another, as far as the application of the idea is concerned. The first three lessons should not be done more than twice a day, each preferably morning and evening. Nor should they be attempted for more than a minute or so, unless that entails a sense of hurry. A comfortable sense of leisure is essential. Nothing I see means anything. And I think what I'd like to emphasize for us this year is simplicity. Truth is simple and the ego is the belief in complexity. So as we ease into the day with these beautiful lessons, nothing I see means anything. Let's remember a feeling of joy and a strong feeling of simplicity as we go our way throughout the day. And I prayed on that theme this morning. I received a section from the text in chapter 26. Section three called the borderlands so I think since this is our first day and I don't have an email list of themes to apply the lesson to or issues. I will just take us slowly through this beautiful section, which is emphasizing the simplicity of God and the simplicity of oneness. And please do write in your, your issues as we move forward during the year because I will take the time to go through the lesson of the day and then apply it to the practical issues and challenges that come up for you. During your, your, your daily experience in life in this world, the borderland complexity is not of God. How could it be when all he knows is one. He knows of one creation, one reality. One truth. And, but one son. Nothing conflicts with oneness. How then could there be complexity in him. What is there to decide. For it is conflict that makes choice possible. The truth is simple. It is one without an opposite. How could strife enter in its simple presence and bring complexity where oneness is the truth makes no decisions for there is nothing to decide between. And only if there were could choosing be a necessary step in the advanced toward oneness. What is everything leaves room for nothing else. What is this magnitude beyond the scope of this curriculum. Nor is it necessary, we dwell on anything that cannot be immediately grass. There is a borderland of thought that stands between this world and heaven. Not a place. And when you reach it is apart from time. Here is the meeting place where thoughts are brought together, where conflicting values meet. And all illusions are laid down beside the truth, where they are judged to be untrue. The borderland is just beyond the gate of heaven. Here is every thought made pure and holy simple. Here is sin denied and everything that is received instead. This is the journey's end. We have referred to it as the real world. And yet there is a contradiction here, and that words imply a limited reality, a partial truth, a segment of the universe made true. This is because knowledge makes no attack upon perception. They are brought together and only one continues past the gate where oneness is. Salvation is a borderland where place and time and choice have meaning still. And yet it can be seen that they are temporary, out of place, and every choice has been already made. Nothing the Son of God believes can be destroyed. But what is truth to him must be brought to the last comparison that he will ever make. The last evaluation that will be possible, the final judgment upon this world. What is the judgment of truth upon illusion? Of knowledge on perception? It has no meaning and does not exist. This is not your decision. It is but a simple statement of a simple fact. But in this world there are no simple facts. Because what is the same and what is different remain unclear. The one essential thing to make a choice at all is this distinction. And herein lies the difference between the worlds. In this one choice is made impossible. In the real world is choosing simplified. Salvation stops just short of heaven for only perception needs salvation. Heaven was never lost. And so it cannot be saved. Yet who can make a choice between the wish for heaven and the wish for hell unless he recognizes they are not the same. This difference is the learning goal this course has set. It will not go beyond the same. Its only purpose is to teach what is the same. And what is different, leaving room to make the only choice that can be made. There is no basis for a choice in this complex and over complicated world. For no one understands what is the same and seems to choose where no choice really is. The real world is the area of choice made real. Not in the outcome, but in the perception of alternatives for choice. That there is choice is an illusion. Yet within this one lies the undoing of every illusion not accepting this. Is not this like your special function where the separation is undone by change of purpose. In what once was specialness and now is union. All illusions are but one. And in the recognition that this is so lies the ability to give up all attempts to choose between them. And to make them different. How simple is the choice between two things so clearly on a like. There is no conflict here. No sacrifices possible in the relinquishment of an illusion recognized as such. Where all reality has been withdrawn from what was never true. Can it be hard to give it up and choose what must be true. And so very briefly I will give a commentary. One thing that we have become accustomed to in this world is his choice. Choice is an invention of the ego in oneness. In eternity. In God. There is no choice. The will of Christ and the will of God are one will. It's a will for perfect happiness and love and peace and joy. And so from this illusion of choice this invention of choice comes what we would say options menus. Think of yourself going to a restaurant and and asking the waitress for a menu. When the menu comes there are many choices of food and drink desserts perhaps, depending on the restaurant but this menu is what the sleeping mind has become accustomed to. It is a sleep dreaming of exile from God from its true nature as Christ and believing in the choices of the world. And the ego is sitting back in the mind going haha yes the more choices, the better. And that's why people value money and possessions because the more choices, the more things that can be either purchased or or bought or owned or possessed in some way things that can be eaten or used in some way by the body seem to take on a value. Yet, all of these options on the menu have no value whatsoever. Choice isn't what it seems to be. But in the sleeping mind there is a choice of purpose. So we'll come back to the restaurant example. Before you enter the restaurant, you can remind yourself of your purpose. The purpose of seeming to go into the restaurant is to extend love and joy and happiness to be a beacon of light to be a demonstration that you are the light of the world. The purpose will be your purpose regardless of whether the restaurant is open or not, regardless of whether you, you seem to receive good service or bad service, regardless of how the food tastes, or how the food looks, or whether they have the menu items that you prefer. Your purpose is one, your purpose is to be an extension of love and light. And this is how we forgive. This is how we start lesson number one, nothing I see means anything. That's right. Nothing. Because the waitress could spill the food onto your lap, could drop the tray, could forget about your order and forget about you in the restaurant and that will not deter you from being the light of the world. Nothing I see means anything because I have a purpose. And while I believe in choice, I can choose this purpose. I can bring this purpose with me. I can bring it like a light to light up everyone and everything in perception. So let's practice that. Let's go forth in this day and, and as I do these lives throughout the year please send in your, your questions there'll be instructions on how to do that, or just send in your issues, you may not even have any questions you just say this is this is what I'm dealing with. And I will address those in, in conjunction with the lesson of the day from Jesus, the master, freeing our mind from all illusions, opening to the truth. Okay. Have a happy day. Have a wonderful day. Be blessed. Thank you.