 Good morning. Good morning, everyone. And it's like getting the place ready for the Christ. You know, that's the way that you work on these things. You just feel like you're in service to the Christ and all of you coming. That's like the Christ coming. And so it's, yeah, it's like in India. I was just in India, I think they call it Siva. It's like service, you know, just a life of service and devotion. And having your whole life be like a prayer. Let it all merge together to just be a unified prayer. And then it's like your mind could just naturally then just ascend, you know, up like that. I think Joe Cocker just died, but love lift us up where we be long. It's a famous song from Joe. It's gyrating around so in the spirit and so in the love. And that's really what we're all about. We've talked a bit about the idea of experience. It's interesting that in heaven there are no beliefs. So this whole realm is the realm of beliefs. It's interesting that in a realm of such diversity of beliefs that there's all this right and wrong about who believes correctly. And none of them are correct actually. There aren't any beliefs in heaven. God didn't create beliefs. So it makes you stop the next time you're talking to somebody about beliefs. So I like hearing people's beliefs because I know that they don't have anything to do with anything. They're very attentive and they could tell me anything. I'm nodding and smiling. They could say God lives in a pink pyramid in such and such a place. And I just keep nodding and tell me more. Because I'm more just liking their presence of who they are. And the opportunity to just be in that presence together. So there's no splitting hairs over beliefs. And then Jesus teaches us in the Course that forgiveness is the only helpful belief. It's like a blanket of peace that just extends over the whole universe. Because forgiveness doesn't oppose. And that's what I like. I like just being the presence of forgiveness so I can be... I'm so agreeable people. I won't necessarily agree verbally but they can see it in my eyes. And when my head is nodding, my head is almost nodding like, tell me more. And it's just feeling the presence. That's the most adorable thing to me. We have a friend in Canada who was telling me recently that he played that song I want to look twice at you until I see the Christ in you. Jeff, he played it for hours. He just played it. He put it on as a meditation that just went on for hours and hours. Because Andy was saying it. How many hours? Oh, I don't know our track. No, everyone lost track. Many hours. They lost track of time. Yeah. And then looking through the eyes of love. That's the song too. Prepare ye the way of the Lord? Yeah. Prepare ye the way of the Lord. I know, isn't it great? All those songs and hymns now, they were a little lit up. I remember when I was in church when I was a child, I didn't know that I was lit up. But now I am. Now I get those old hymns running through my mind. Rejoice, rejoice. And it's fun. Christmas is fun now. Christmas isn't like a heavy time of pressure and anxiety. It's just a time of happy celebration when it comes around. You can just chime right in with it. Yeah. And part of the fun of traveling for me is that there are so many different pathways to God. I just enjoy being shown. I could see it in people's eyes when they're very devoted and joyful and happy. They want to tell of their discoveries. Wow, it's fun to listen to people share their miracles. Different cultures, different ways, different pathways, different theologies. There's no sense of... There's no one to convince of anything. That's where the contentment is. It could be absolutely just content in your state of presence. Without having to even speak of it. If there are words, great. If there are no words, then it's great. If you're just dancing... When I went to India this time, the woman who hosted me in New Delhi, she said, before I got the damage, you know, the reason I like you, the reason I watch you on YouTube is you have no gimmicks. You have no gimmicks. In India we don't have many gimmicks. Every teacher has a gimmick. I watch you on YouTube because you have no gimmicks. When I finally went there and she invited like 40 of her friends to come see me like a satsang in New Delhi, she said, well, first I'll be to help other people come up and introduce you and give you some flowers or something, and then we will have a whirling dervish. Okay, I've never had a whirling dervish before in any of my gatherings and I said, that sounds good though. I'd like to have a whirling dervish. And so she said, it's a gimmick. When you're in India we use gimmicks. It's for my friends. But, you know, it's just fun because it's like that old saying, live and let live. When you live and let live, you really live your life through joy and happiness and inspiration. Everyone do the same, regardless of what it is. There's no point in trying to judge anybody for anything. What's the point of it? It just takes away, it blocks your own happiness when you try to judge somebody else. And people talk about, well, there's certain behaviors we can't be condoning certain behaviors. You know, we, from that movie last night, we could really see that these interpretations aren't coming from the world to us. That consciousness is generating these false interpretations. So we have to take responsibility for our state of mind. We have to take everyone else off the hook if we're going to be off the hook. Because as long as we hold on to interpretations of persons, places, events, then we, that's what Jesus said, judge not, lest ye be judged. That you'll bring on to yourself whatever you hold on to in your consciousness. And he wanted us to be free. So to me, that's very, very important that we do that. And then the Gospel of Thomas came out, you know, when they found the Gospels according to Thomas. But I think judge not was Jesus's shortest teaching in the Gospel of Thomas, be passers-by. We have to be passers-by of the world. And like, lest the world go by, don't... He talks about that in Lesson 128. The only value that this world holds for you is that you pass it by without looking back on it. Be above the battleground. Just watch it. Just watch it. Forgiveness is quiet. Serene, it quietly does nothing. It looks and waits and watches and judges not. You know, it's just a profound state of mind. And so in one sense, everyone talks about being proactive versus passive, but this state of forgiveness is a state where you can watch the thoughts and you don't give any power to the thoughts. And then eventually the thoughts aren't there. The thoughts can't even enter your mind, your pristine, holy mind. The light becomes so strong and so bright that the thoughts of temptation, the thoughts of ego, they can't even enter. And, you know, the Bible said perfect love cast out fear, so that's another way of saying the same thing. If we devote our lives to loving, then the fear doesn't have a space. You know, if we keep our garden weeded and clear and clean, then we have space for the fruits and there are plenty, plenty of fruits. Also, it's transparency. I feel like the way we live our life has to be extremely transparent because if we're truly living a life where we say, my mind holds only what I think with God, we've got nothing to hide or protect. You can afford to be a really open book when you live a devoted life. You know, you can say to people, that's right, come closer. Look as close as you want. There was a Christian, I think, one time who was following Gandhi around and was asking him about his beliefs, his Hindu beliefs, and so on and so forth. And Gandhi just smiled and just said, why don't you just follow me around and live with me? He wasn't going to give him some kind of dissertation. His way of life, he was so comfortable and confident and relaxed in his way of living that he could say with an open invitation, just come with me, follow me around in a friendly way. Come along with me. Let's walk together, let's live together for a while and see. That's what Jesus did. He was very friendly. He said, come, all of you are weary and laden and burdened and I shall give you rest. We want our lives to be such a life of devotion to be so integrous that we can, in a friendly way, say, come along. Come and see, come in closer. Instead of this kind of pushing people away and get away from me, I need my space or sometimes I'll see these metaphysical or spiritual books where they'll have some pretty profound, kind of radical things to say, but sometimes it's almost like it's one of these ghost writers because the person whose name is on the book, they're nowhere to be found. You can't call them, you can't write them, you can't email them, you can't see them. It's nice. I like books because you can share some ideas, but isn't this about the living practice of it? Aren't we here to be witnesses of love, witnesses of Christ's love? Shouldn't there be a little bit of availability with that? Why would we be reclusive? There are of course there are times when we want to just pray and rest and I have those times too when I'm traveling for five months or I just want to watch the grass grow. I can sit down on my lawn chair and enjoy the grass, but I think overall that's part of the spiritual use of the body as a witness. We are to have smiling faces. Our foreheads are to be serene and calm. We are to be an example for those who can turn and say, wow, you look happy today. What's going on with you? And that we invite, we have an invitation, an ongoing invitation by our state of mind. The Bible says, let your yea be yea and may be nay, and I have found with our guidelines we talked about last night, no people pleasing, no private thoughts, that when you actually start putting those into practice that's just an invitation to expose the unconscious and the ego will come up when you have the allowance, when you have the permission and the allowance of no private thoughts and no people pleasing. What that is really saying is we don't want you to stuff it down and I think underneath a lot of the pride and the arrogance and the self-centeredness you're talking about, there's a lot of repression and denial. They're not in touch with their heart. They really need to get in touch with their heart. I am, life experiences with the parable of David going back, I was very shy, I voted the most shy quiet person in my senior class in the yearbook and so on and so forth. I think in my 20s I started to realize that I had a lot of major repression and denial going on. I became very aware. Later on when I'd be in my 30s and would travel to South America and I would do my enlightenment gatherings and my enlightenment gatherings weren't women's retreats or men's retreats. Enlightenment gatherings, everybody's invited, we're all awakening, it's all about enlightenment and devotion to God. But about, like in Columbia, 93% of the people that would show up at my gatherings in Columbia were women. About 95, 96, 97% of the people in Argentina that would show up at my gatherings were women. And I asked Jesus about it one time, I said, no, it's kind of interesting, I'm doing these enlightenment gatherings and there's almost all women. He said, well, it's not really a male-female thing, it's this macho man kind of like quiet, strong, more like the John Wayne. John Wayne wasn't showing his emotions. Very rarely out here in the Wild West is anybody holding those emotions down. And so I think that it can seem to be tough love, but when we start doing our no private thoughts, no people pleasing and people come here and they start to give themselves permission to let it up, oh, a lot comes up and it's not pretty. The unconscious mind, the shadow, is not pretty when it comes up. So I think the most important thing is to have that invitation and there's many movies that have been made where the Holy Spirit has to teach through contrast when there's so much pride, there's so much arrogance, when the mind is so closed and shut down, I would say, I call it the school of hard knocks. The harder the nut is to crack and the deeper the pride is, the spirit will bring in whatever it takes to crack that nut because it's God's will for perfect happiness and that nut, that denial and that repression is blocking out the light. So we have movies such as The Peaceful Warrior with Dan Millman. I had people watch that and they go, that's an extreme movie. I mean that definitely flushes Socrates, flushes the ego right out of its nesting place. There's a scene on the ledge where it's like the ego is coming out full. It's not like hiding back in the nest. All the bees are out of the nest and the queen is out of the nest. It's showing everything it's got and it's vicious. And Socrates, even with integrity, like you were talking about, the basic respect and integrity when Dan says he'll meet him on the bridge and he shows up with a bunch of excuses. This is the first time he's going to even meet him. He doesn't even have the respect to be honest. He just has a bunch of excuses. Basically Socrates pushes him in the river. And people will say, you know, well I don't know about spiritual teachers that push people in the river, but you can see it was actually quite a helpful teaching device because that started to crack that nut right away. And then it just got more intense and more intense until the ego reared up again like, oh no, no, man, I'm not doing it your way. And then the motorcycle accident. Whenever guilt and fear is held in the mind, it just, if you don't let it up and you don't let it out into the light for healing, then the ego just takes it out onto the body. And then we see Dan's body just mangled a gymnast with a mangled body because of the pride. I thought that movie was a very good movie but it was showing the extremes. Interesting that Dan was calling for spiritual awakening. There's that little willingness that was there. And that's why Socrates appeared at that gas station. And yet the pride was so strong that I would say that movie would go into my genre of spiritual tough love movies. Strong, strong teachings. Because he had the willingness, because he was wanting it. And it opened up. Now there have been a lot of great mystics and saints all over the world for many centuries. I met a woman over in Holland recently and she said, I've read so many teachings. I've listened to so many gurus and this and this. But she said, I just sit down now. She said I'm down to three. Jesus, Mary Baker-Eddie, and you. She says, even with a lot of the Eastern teachings and the gurus, I can only go so far. And then there's still something that I hit a wall with. But she said, wow, it's just like it's bottomless. It's infinite with these teachings. And of course Jesus mentions in the course that he mentioned about Jesus that he was a first to awaken from the dream. Which would kind of imply the Buddha wasn't awake. But Jesus, the teachings are so joyful, so friendly, so respectful that most people who work with the course get that feeling when they pick the book up. Like, whoa, this is not a human author. And I think everyone who does work with the course as well as Mary Baker-Eddie, the teachings are so penetrating that the ego reactions and resistances are so strong. It's like you're not getting deluded teachings here. You're not getting teachings that are with ice. You're getting it straight. No ice. It's gold. Like a straight whiskey just straight. Or vodka. We had a great time down there in Brazil, Sao Paulo, and I think from the back of the room Louis looked and pointed at our melon. You're like vodka. Vodka. It's straight. So another one with Mary Baker-Eddie, I was really blessed to get this set of books at my little peace house. And it was a series of little books called We Knew Mary Baker-Eddie. And this was her staff. These are the people that lived in the same house with her. Tough love. Tough love. They would say she could be as sweet and kind and gentle as anyone on the planet. But if you were with her for a while and you knew better the certain ego thing, she was as sharp as a general. She could carve, carve, carve. And so that was tough love. And that, I think that's kind of a rare glimpse of that series we knew Mary Baker-Eddie, because she was, you know, absolutely like Jesus is in the Course, absolutely positively non-compromising. How do you compromise with truth and expect to be happy? How do you compromise with truth and expect to transcend sickness and death? You have to be absolutely uncompromising in your practice of this. You can't give the ego a little leeway. A little rope. I'll give you a little rope. You can't compromise with the ego and expect to be happy. You can't compromise with the ego and expect to know eternal life. It's just going to be another form of compromise. And compromise generally in this world has a pretty good connotation. When they talk about collective bargaining agreements, compromise is the positive thing. And then Jesus comes along in the Course and he's got a beautiful line in this text. Salvation is no compromise of any kind. Salvation is no compromise. He's putting compromise in the ego category. He's saying you will never know who you are. You'll never know God. You will never know peace of mind with compromise. That every day in what seems to be the human life, there's a hundred or a thousand little compromises that are made every day. And he even took the time, I believe it was an absence from Felicity, he took a day with Helen Shuckman where he started out with her in the morning and he started off with, I love you. Jesus starts off with, I love you. Then he's like, and? And I'm going to point out to you today every point where you could have made a better, more loving choice. I mentioned Jesus Christ working with you and going through a whole day where she could have offered a cab ride to a friend and so on and so forth. So could compromise going with category of people pleasing? Yes, that's exactly it. I don't think Jesus actually uses the term people pleasing but that's one of our guidelines is because compromise is so insidious, it's so ingrained in what seems to be the human life, that you could be like Paul Simon's song, believe you're gliding down the highway when in fact you're slip sliding away. It could be that subtle and that slippery. So I would say that's why that no people pleasing has been so effective with our communities is because we would rather people let it up and out than to try to put on a happy face or try to behave in a peaceful, loving way while not feeling peaceful and loving. We would rather it come all the way up and out and be part of a purge and healing. And so it does rock the boat. Part of people pleasing is put in place by the ego because it wants to minimize fear without letting it go. The last part is important to hear, minimize fear without letting it go. That's why the people pleasing, all these little bargains, all these little, let me please you and you start to realize, wow I'm never going to find stability in my mind if I'm so external oriented to pleasing others. It's almost the opposite of egocentric pride, a personal pride, now making other people so important that you want to please their feelings, please their whims, please their preferences and you lose all sense of integrity by trying to please everyone instead of listening to the Holy Spirit which is what would you have me do? I think too what's helpful is when you start to bring everything back to just the core ideas too is that for example, let's look at a little bit about gift giving whether it's Christmas or birthdays, general things, Valentine's Day, so on and so forth. God just gives. God doesn't know what reciprocity is. God's not waiting for something back. Even though sometimes maybe in the Old Testament or certain scriptures they'll kind of paint like an anthropomorphic picture of God. They'll put human characteristics to God. It's as if God gets angry. God's like, oh come on. I've been patient with you but now that's enough. I'm going to zap this tribe and it's almost like God is human. That's enough. You cross the line. I'm zapping you. I'm zapping the whole tribe. And then we have things in the Bible about fear God and keep His commandments and that gets interpreted as literally you're supposed to fear God. You're supposed to tremble in the presence of God. If God is pure love why should we be trembling in the presence of God's love? We should be in a state of reverence. All. Just absolute love. So what I think is interesting is I would say this young man is also purely positively if you see that you can only heal him by perceiving the sanity in him. I would say that he's helping to actually unearth some beliefs and reciprocity in the sense that there's so much expectation in the human condition. If I get you a birthday present every year then when my birthday rolls around it's like and or a Christmas. That was the thing when we were kids. We were watching like a hawk eye what our siblings got or we were talking to our neighbors what did you get in this and that and if there were no presents under there and our parents tried to say well Rudolph had a cold this year and whatever we were mad at Rudolph or Santa Claus or something and if we didn't believe in Santa Claus that we were mad at our parents because there's so much of this in the core of the ego-belief system and we're having to learn to give, give, give as God gives, give unconditionally and Jesus even talks about it in the Course. He says who gives a gift and then waits to see if the gift is even received much less reciprocated he's not even reciprocated off he's not even going there that's just purely ego but who gives a gift and waits to see in other words he'll come out and say if that's the case, if you're paying attention to whether the gift was even received or not then you need healing you don't know what true giving is he talks about that with healing too he has a part in the manual for teachers should healing be repeated and if you doubt a healing if you're pray you offer it up for healing to the light Hawkeye is waiting to look at the body for the symptoms are the symptoms going away? is it working yet? Jesus says if you doubt a healing then you need to go right back to the Holy Spirit and ask for healing that you haven't healed at all as long as you're still looking out on the bodies and judging whether the healing occurred based on the symptoms you're still using the body what the ego made as your witness to whether the healing has worked or not that can't work it just can't work and so if you go much deeper into that you start to see that you need a healing of perception that fragmented perception is the sickness it's not the body the body's not even sick Jesus tells us in the Course don't ask the Holy Spirit to heal the body ask the Holy Spirit to heal the perception of the body because it's the perception like in the movie last night the perception and the interpretations where the distortion occurs not in the form the form is just a projection of what's going on in the mind so I had those kind of experiences where I started to live very simply and I went through all kinds of phases I started to live in divine providence and float around and my divine providence experience they got me into Jesus being my guide and my so-called boss and me not having earthly bosses trusting that the birds were provided for I would be provided for and I just didn't have a lot of money to be doling out money for presence to niece, nephews and so on and so forth like I had done for many years and I thought this isn't going to be pretty when you give gifts for a number of years there's almost like an expectation that gets built up and then when you could say I'm just living a simple life of following God now to a little child tough so I do remember the first time I went to a birthday party and when I showed up and when I didn't have a gift I wasn't giving gifts to anyone at that point in fact I was actually reading that part in the course I think it's number seven in the ten characteristics of the teacher of God it's called generosity he was talking in that thing about the teacher of God does not want anything that he cannot give away what would he want it for he could only lose because of it he was equating true generosity with an attitude had nothing to do with like philanthropy like Carnegie or Bill Gates or money money money presence presence presence it was almost like he was implying you've got a sick interpretation of gifts giving and you need to come back to the generosity of your heart your peace of mind is a huge gift it's no small gift at all you can offer that freely to everyone through many of these things but one time with my niece it was so good because I was so much in the Holy Spirit and I was at the birthday party or whatever and then my little niece she came to me Uncle David didn't you get me a present with a little quivering lip okay here we go Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit came through with such a big hug and something came through about us being together or me playing with you or sharing all this the spirit didn't leave it at nothing it was just a blank space the spirit gave what was being extended and she went oh and then every time I would go to a birthday party or whatever they would be even happier to see me with no gift but to be there with them at their party the presence to hold them to offer the time the spirit was guiding me to go to the party not always go to course groups or course conventions or whatever go be with them swing them around go play with them in the yard you know that was part of the generosity of the spirit and they quickly got a hold of that was what they really wanted more than some tinker toys that would just get thrown away you know in so many weeks or months yeah when you give a physical possession you divide its ownership like if I had a million dollars and I gave you half of it I'd have less and there'd be half and half and what we know from miracles is when we give miracles away it increases the love in the giver and the receiver now that's the kind of generosity we want to get into increases the love in the giver and the receiver not lessons it's like we've been in the habit of trying to take things in and stuff things down because we thought that was the way to be a kind functioning person and we we don't realize how much that that stuffing and that repression hurts us people will sometimes say sickness like cancer psychosomatic the psycho it does come down to our mind and when we have attack thoughts unless we lift them up and we lift them up to the light and we allow ourselves even at times talk about them or even express them and we try to pretend that they're not there but still believe in them and push them down then we don't heal and I think you'll find in our community which we've got communities around different places in the world and people practicing this no private thoughts and no people pleasing and it takes a little while to kind of get into the rhythm of it because it's almost like going against the current you've been kind of covering and pushing stuff away for so long trying to be nice and good and then you want to get in touch with it but it seems like there's a risk involved I don't know how this is going to go over we always talk about discernment too like if you have one good trusted friend that loves you and it can hear you that's where the spirit will guide you to begin and then it will grow in your circles I had an email this morning from a friend and I love it that people can just pour their hearts out about anything and pour their thoughts out and I think it's quite healing because that's why people have been writing emails to me for the last 20 years that's a catharsis even if they feel like they don't have anybody in their life that they can let this up with they feel safe with me and therefore they go right into it and I think I have a whole book called Healing in Mine it's just emails to me and my loving response is back and sometimes they'll say at the end of a long expression session email oh I think I'm answering my own questions you don't have to respond to this email it was just the allowance to write the email and to put it all out that was the healing and then they started getting the answers they don't need somebody to tell them the answers they know their answers but they're covered over so I'm just going to read it to you so you can get a sense of it because this is what I welcome from everyone hi long time no emails this email has been in my mind for a long time but I didn't know to write it or not it's been quite a tough summer for me ego don't let me go easily so much stuff coming up at the same time I have a huge negativity going on kids showing to me that my attitude oh boy not good I'm doing the lessons I try I pray so on nothing happens everything feels very heavy I live intellectually not in my heart and as long as it's like that it's nothing nothing really sinks in my heart maybe for seconds I see I try I try lose patience I feel like I'm never going to make it who is making what yep ego ego I even started to hate you and a lot I felt very strange because you haven't done anything bad to me only been very nice exclamation exclamation my very old beliefs came up too I can be happy only two weeks and then something bad will happen I totally forgot that my daughter has been really angry I can see my anger played out in her and I want it to end my prayers don't seem to work at all I'm miserable right now it's all about your solid retreat coming up in January that made me angry too defensive two weeks how to get money I even ending my friend she has money to go everywhere she wants she doesn't have to work she doesn't have kids she has a husband who studies the course I told her that also she was able to hear it I know her life hasn't been easy I'm feeling so rotten bad evil person I'm worthless my life sucks nothing works for me I'm always depressed time to time is better my life fails again I don't have any strengths left I don't know what to do I feel like smashing this computer too much everything I should know better I shouldn't feel like this guilty feeling so stupid I'm studying the course for a long time and don't get anything if I look back at my life before it was much worse things got also better it feels so twisted I'm not going to make it I really want peace of mind for information points now I offer this email to the Holy Spirit's hands I don't need this shit anymore I'm tired help me and thank you and that's where it starts we don't have to pretend we don't have to keep playing the games of should be should or could of what of should be different than it is and everything is not holding it in anymore and letting the spirit guide you to people and places that are there to listen but also there to be demonstrations and openings of non-judgment because we need just like in this world we need way showers we need mentors we need role models it's the same way that Jesus works where he's using the symbols and slowly bring us like oh there's another way oh yeah there's another way oh thank you for reminding me there's another way just someone to call someone to reach out to that's why we have had these gatherings over these recent years too is because there's a spaciousness here in the canyon and for people to come and just relax and begin to trust that the other way is obvious so thank you thank you both for sharing that because that's how we we heal when we just hold it in our mind it just bounces around like a pinball and if we just get crazier and crazier and when we open it up we can feel the relief coming already like I don't have to try to deal with this all by myself alone there's help on the way thank you for unwind your mind I've enjoyed it greatly thank you the world the entire world the entire cosmos we perceive is is our thoughts we could say a reflection is that there's something out there and there's a mind that's in there and the thoughts are being reflected out there but it's not really there's not really an out there and an in there it's we can talk about spirituality mind waking up God but what it comes down to is I say 99% practice so when you're describing these kind of extreme situations I think if we went around the loveless here there's a number of people that could talk about in their own lives the extreme situations I know for me even teaching the course publicly back in the early years was actually another course teacher that was throwing out big threats and putting bizarre YouTube's twisted popsicle character YouTube's out really some pretty strange stuff but again you have to stick to the teachings you know Jesus said in the Bible the meek show on her at the earth he goes even further in the course of miracles to say that the meek show on her at the earth means they shall literally overcome it with their strength because you know Jesus was always equating meekness with strength to the ego that's the opposite weapons defense attack that's strength you know who's got the biggest military rules the world the only way you stop a dictator and a tyrant with a good military fast and you blast them away Jesus's teachings are so the opposite of absolutely everything that planet earth has to offer I know from my own experiences that I've had experiences where I visited a friend who I was just going to her house to meditate with her and watch some metaphysical movies but she didn't tell me that she had a insanely jealous ex-husband that had been divorced for a couple two or three years and they had some scenes where I'd be there meditating with her and it was like a Jack Nicholson movie red rum red rum the look and the window the blood coming in the door the face with the raging anger and everything is I'm just on the commonly on the floor watching a metaphysical movie with my arm out just watching this but I had gotten so much into the teachings of Jesus around if I defend myself I'm attacked in my defenselessness my safety lies someone smites you on one cheek turn the other cheek where are you going to find teachings like that these completely overturn every thought of this world these seems like ridiculous teachings you know they they make Jesus look ridiculous as if like he's the most impractical teacher in the history of the world to come out with sayings like that but in my own journey being raised Christian going through Bible school in summer having my own issues with Christianity and sacrifice and penance and punishment and all this and this and then from years decades of working with the Course that when I would get email threats voicemail threats or physically at one point this insanely jealous ex-husband I was out walking to a pine forest one morning to go meditate and his car drove up and he was he was listening to this Christian radio station radio show called Focus on the Family Dr. James Dobson and I'm just staying with her and meditating and I'm walking along there and through his perception he was perceiving me as the enemy as the one breaking up the family even though they've been divorced for some years and everything so I was the villain the devil Satan himself taking a walk and I could hear Jesus saying stay with me I'm just out on a sunny day walking along the side of a golf course stay with me stay with me guy got out of his car literally this body got thrown to the ground you know people talk about fear of violence and this and this the whole thing got used to the point where he ended up heading such it was such a contradiction in his mind to be a Christian listening to a Christian show and throwing somebody to the ground it just like it took that to pop the full intensity it hit him at some point and his face changed and then he picked me up like he was Mother Teresa he turned from the villain to Mother Teresa because he popped through it and then went back and it turned into a tremendously healing even what would seem to be physical violence it turned into a huge healing where he cried and he said I've always hurt and I never talked about it and he just cracked wide open and then when she came back late in the day she said how was your morning I said lots of healing he had gone by then but we have to follow the teachings in my defenselessness my safety lies the best defense is actually no defense and I've had that happen when I've been out and about around the world like a growling angry dog charging me and I'll just be in presence sometimes one time I was just I kneeled down and put my arms out it's like the dog hit a glass window because I was so defenseless almost like the horse whisperer that there was there was no way that that dog was going to attack no attack in my mind at all just welcome and you see the power of that that's why we watch that movie the power of the mind the power of thoughts and also the power that we can change our thinking we can align with that glory with that love with that light with that presence if this scenario like with your ex-wife and your daughter if this was like their opportunity their grand opportunity to live a glorious life and open to eternal life this is it you know the way that we handle these things when the world comes in and says you know go after them or attack or defend or so on and so forth everyone's going to have to do what they feel comfortable with so sometimes people do feel comfortable with hiring a lawyer there some people do receive steps even around all kinds of practical things sometimes people do feel to move you know that the guidance can be what the guidance is going to be but I find if we just open up and we keep opening to that love in our heart and we follow and take the steps whatever those steps are given then it just dissipates and goes away and I've had that experience in my own life one time there was these emails that were coming and letters that were coming with all these threats and everything and I remember I was talking to my biological father at the time and he was saying even though he was a Christian he was raised Christian he was basically saying you have to defend yourself against these threats and he kept saying you have to defend yourself and I said you know if I would defend myself I would be going against everything that Jesus ever taught me from a little boy on up to an adult because I said what good is the value of the teachings if we don't live them what point? what's the value? I would just answer a letter as I was guided and be sending love and so on and so forth and it just went away that's how it works I can't tell you how many times that has happened over and over and that was just me practicing the teachings so I think you've done the right thing I think even with your daughter coming to you and speaking to you that was again just an opportunity to say am I going to really trust here that this works for everyone just as much as me works for everyone it's the rule of the law of love the law of forgiveness when you stay by it you come soaring from it in higher and higher our goal is so I think it's good that you've stayed the course with that and you've stayed in that place of meekness you still can take actions there can be things you can do like one time when I was with a friend in Florida and we went for a walk on the beach and we came back and the car was gone our tents were gone our clothes this was one of my early course we were all gone and my friend just looked at me and she just said now what and I said you know it's just going to work together for the good and I shared a few ideas that were on my heart and it just came everything came out of that miraculously even being out of state with the car gone everything seemingly taken it just opened the gateway seemingly being taken care of and then going up the other coast of Florida sharing all the miracles at different churches and having people say thank you for sharing that oh my god that's exactly what I needed to hear and I said if Jesus had come to me before I said I'm going to take your car for a couple days and don't worry I'll take care you're really good and this is going to be an enjoyable experience for you what would I have said we would have said sure you could take the car and that's pretty much the attitude that we had we didn't have a reaction as if we were robbed or stolen from or whatever we were so open-eyed and so full of miracles and so loved and so cared for that it just strengthened our resolution to be miracle workers we came out of it even stronger in our devotion and dedication to be miracle workers and even more witnessing came from it so this sounds a little bit like the Bhagavad Gita and Harjuna and going out to be the best warrior you can be and so forth well you know it's the central teaching of the Course is one part where Jesus says the one thing you can ask about anything safely is what is it for so you know I've traveled around the world and the deeper I went and getting myself over to fully to this state of mind I could start to feel like Shakespeare all the world is a stage it really felt like a movie more and more like a movie and I watch all kinds of movies I mean I remember years ago watching some movies where the language in the movie I was just practicing my mind watching but my mother was in the other room doing the dishes and I could hear the dishes clanking louder and louder and then finally she said dude you have to watch a movie with such language already I was just using everything for training it's my interpretation I was working on getting purified where people would say that's a very violent movie so judgment in the mind is where the violence is it would apply to this world as well I remember just being so swept up by Jesus and I'll go anywhere I'll do anything and I remember going down to Columbia and Columbia is known for having the gorillas that live in the mountains that come down and kidnap people and Argentina with bars steel bars on the windows and a lot of these countries but when I landed down in Columbia they said oh we've got a beautiful man and his wife and his children you're going to stay with them and it's out in the row areas so we went out there but there were just guns everywhere not pistols but rifles and guns absolutely everywhere and even to go to the house where I was staying we had to pass many many gunmen but I'm just in this such a state of love and service and devotion it all seems like fiction to me I mean I don't have reactions when I watch and see guns all over in movies and I don't have even when it's this character moving through time and space it's the same thing I'm waving to them I wave with gunmen and guards and you know we have encounters you know those are like props they have rifles over their shoulder not rifles to go hunt big game or something they're there for people to shoot people but I just think they're adorable actually and I was on Facebook about a week ago and I think I must have been tearing telling one of those parables and somebody took a quote from me and I thought they had my name and this was the quote and I thought this must have been from one of my parables but they actually put it on Facebook guns are fun because guns are fun when they're fiction you saw that one I'm like I don't know they pull all my quotes I think who wrote that one guns are fun oh me right guns are fun when they're fiction and it must have been from one of my parables down and having so much fun with waving at the gunman and this and this where I go to the changing of the guard or different places and I think I was in Argentina one time and I think I was walking by a bank and they had armed gunmen at the bank and it was a changing of ships and you know some of these countries in Belgium France and Argentina they kiss so much it was these two armed you know kissing I was like where's my camera you know because it's just we don't see some of these images you know the kissing gunmen you don't see that we see John Wayne you know and killing people but it's so beautiful because you start to realize what is it for that's really for our mind to see the world completely differently and everything is neutral you know there was a Holy Spirit knows that everything is neutral they're just symbols so for example could the Holy Spirit ever use guns has anybody ever seen the movie revolver well the Holy Spirit uses guns a lot it's almost like a gangster wake up movie and it just shows that the Holy Spirit can use guns just as easily as flower petals they're just is benign they're just symbols the problem like we found last night with the movie is when you start to follow the interpretations in your mind you react to those and even the main characters in there you know there was a lot of threats flying here and there from all the characters and then they'd go to the next scene and they found out they were completely mistaken and then they had a new set of threats and fears and then they were completely mistaken and I loved how we went through so many of those things it was kind of a rinsing like you don't know what the hell is going on here and that's beautiful because that opened them up to faith and guidance and being shown something greater and collaboration so yeah I would say that the United States seems to be a country where there seems to be a lot in terms of gun ownership and yet my teachings question the very concept of ownership of anything owning a car a house an orange an apple owning a body you know it goes so deep dislodging the monarchy from the idea of even ownership you know there's no ownership in heaven why should we pretend and believe in these concepts where we end up defending what we believe we own guns you know guns is more of an extreme example I did a talk I think in Barcelona not too long ago where I was in the backyard in a garden and I think I started talking about food and sex and money and and it was great because I started off there and then I started getting at the judgments and the preferences that are underneath it and the self-concept that was made to take the place of God and that we finally got down to starting to see that the call for love that was underneath that it was like oh it's calling for love when I'm craving this when I'm craving that I'm really calling for God calling for God calling for God and just like if you had a little toddler who fell down you wouldn't scold or smack the toddler for falling down you go and pick them up and say oh here I'll hold your hand try again you know we need to be that loving with our mind because our mind's been caught in this twisted guilt thing and it needs relief and we need to answer that call and do that consistently and then I would say the far reaches of that is you have so much joy to extend and when you know you're extending God's joy and God's purpose you know like the Bible said if God is with us who can be against us I guess that's how I feel I didn't blink when I was invited to Venezuela years ago this was back at a time when there was so much seeming friction with the United States that they were doing war games for an attack from the United States on their oil fields as I'm going into Venezuela so there's war games preparation from an invasion from United States going on I'm just there as a miracle worker I'm going meeting all these open hearted people we're laughing we're crying we're having huge revivals and healing gatherings I'm just being whisked around I was on like 8 television and radio shows I had corporate sponsorship for my trip sponsored by Coke and Toyota a mystic to talk about that the world's not real being sponsored by Toyota and Coke I mean this when you're serving spirit God's like I will blow you away I will blow the fear away I will show you the glory I will take your mind and lift you up so high that you will forget that you ever had a fear and I was so willing to do that whereas I know some other people were like seeing well I'm not going to Venezuela now because of who's in charge and what's happening there and this and this it didn't cross my mind I'm right in there and I see everyone that way so I would greet Hugo Chavez the way I would greet everyone else there and Hugo was actually pretty big into Jesus as well as a lot of other strange mixes in the world but we probably would have had a nice talk about Jesus actually I didn't but we could like when Osama bin Laden when they were trying to find him somebody joked one time that there was a place that he would hide where he wouldn't be found and he said just outside the bush ranch in Texas and I said well if I met Osama I actually would have a pretty good lunch with him I have wonderful lunches with everyone and it doesn't really matter I came to Cincinnati one time where I have this peace house and I was in there meditating pretty one time and I went to the door and there was a gentleman there and I said hey come on in I invited him in I fixed a cup of tea offered him some food and everything and he was I didn't know these things but later on I found out that he was a wanted criminal that there was a manhunt going on for him and it was all from his ex-wife where they had gotten into such a conflict that he had left and she'd put warrants out for arrest and if they would even come near each other the police would be called in and so on and so forth I don't know I had the most wonderful time and then after he left and I described it to another friend they said do you know who that was you know me and this is like a wanted criminal and I was like oh come on I'm not going to buy all that stuff and I had such a really cordial wonderful time with him eventually weeks later his wife called and said David I need your help I've gotten so into the ego and so fear that I've got so many warrants for his arrest out and I need to forgive and we need to meet and talk we can't get near each other because I've called in so many authorities and took you know all this restraining orders and advice that she said we can't even get within 20 feet of each other and I said but what do you want me to do and she said well if he calls you know could you just arrange something because you have us just pick a restaurant and we'll meet and that's exactly what I did he called in I picked a restaurant and all this healing started it reversed all this restraining orders and this negativity but you have to see that it starts with yourself if somebody's telling you somebody's a criminal or they're this way or that way you know who needs to know that stuff that's not helpful information for me at all that's not good background information I'm here to see the Christ in everyone and I see the reflections of my mind I mean I see miracles millions of miracles all over the world because that's what I'm calling forth lots and lots of reflections of love and everything and so I mean I had my days where I had my seeming test and my calls for faith but then when that faith grows strong you do see a different world you don't see the same world that you saw through the ego's filter like if you had a window that you were looking at it was all dusty and dirty and you got hoses and soap and windex out and you made that crystal clear you would definitely see a different world out of that car out of that dusty muddy filthy window you know when the filters clean it's just completely different you do have to put the actual quote in when a brother behaves insanely you can heal him only by perceiving the sanity in him that's the actual quote there's another quote that says if a brother asks you gives you an outrageous request do it as long as he doesn't bring harm to yourself or another it's like every step in the awakening as you go along you just give it over to the spirit and you let it be used for the purpose of teaching through the attitude of love and I'd say as you go along the egoic needs for things start to diminish as you pull your mind away from the ego belief system and it starts to feel more like a movie and more surreal then the needs start to evaporate and that's even in the Bible you know when Jesus would be out teaching teaching the apostles would come to him sometimes about you know Lord you have to stop you haven't eaten and so on and so forth he would say I have manna from heaven it's actually like in the east they kind of call it prana energy when the mind becomes more and more aligned with spirit and less and less identified with the body the egoic needs shrink and shrivel up and disappear and then you really feel like it's all just props so it's more like a lunch or dinner becomes a backdrop it's interesting you would ask that question right when they bring the bell for lunch the practicalities I love the humor but it becomes a backdrop just for heart to heart sharing and one time I was down in Plano, Texas and I was an Indian man named Kumar Arvind and they would bring in 3, 4, 5, 6 cakes brownies and just huge potlucks they had a big house big gatherings and at one point he was despairing right before lunchtime it was his last question David every time we eat a morsel of food every time we put food in our mouth they are reinforcing the separation so depressing everything we put in our mouth reinforcing the separation reinforcing the separation what do we do? I said Arvind why do you eat? why do I eat? why do I eat? okay I eat because I am hungry I said that is not a good enough reason okay then David please tell me what is a good reason I said we will eat for joy so he turns to these 50 some people in his house okay everyone today we will eat for joy meaning what is the purpose for anything we have to apply the purpose to absolutely everything to get swept up into what it is all really for it was a very happy lively lunch because Arvind was leading the way we will eat for joy we will eat for joy it is so depressing we reinforce the separation you can see the contrast there and that is what it is about it is about inspiration happiness when you go to your mother's birthday party and you meet all these people it is for joy are we going to wait till it is a funeral and everyone shows up then or are we going to do it while we have the opportunity you feel the guidance you feel the inspiration you are going and that is I think we can think that even in the course of miracles in the workbook Jesus says what is the purpose of the telephone he says on the level of this world the purpose of the telephone is to reach someone who is not in your proximity he comes right out and says everyone can relate to that definition talk to somebody, communicate with somebody who is not in your proximity but Jesus then says the real question you should ask yourself is what do you want to reach him for what is the purpose of the phone call you see he is lifting the purpose of a phone from a time space definition reaching someone in your proximity to what he does with everything with guns, with food with birthday cakes with absolutely everything with the body what do I want to reach him for what is the purpose for my brother what is the purpose for my sister so I took a snapshot this morning from lesson 135 the longest course workbook lesson that there is 365 because I thought that would be a good way to end the morning gathering and this paragraph is absolutely mind blowing this is food for thought I take this one with you to lunch it says this is from lesson 135 paragraph 12 the healed mind is relieved of the belief that it must plan although it cannot know the outcome which is best the means by which is achieved nor how to recognize the problem that the plan is made to solve I'll read it again the healed mind is relieved it cannot know the outcome which is best the means through which it is achieved nor how to recognize the problem that the plan is made to solve basically saying you better be clueless and trusting if you're going to be happy because anything you have in your mind that you think you know about anything in this world, anything about any situation person, place, thing is going to harm your mind in the sense that you won't have peace and awareness it must misuse the body in its plans until it recognizes this is so but when it has accepted this is true then it is healed and lets the body go so we're talking really about guidance and as you go I think we've heard this morning there's lots of different ways that guidance can come through the Holy Spirit's guidance can only come through your filter with what you currently believe the Holy Spirit is never going to give you guidance that's beyond your your level of receptivity what good would it do if he gave you an answer but you couldn't even receive or interpret but always the Holy Spirit will take you into deeper faith and trust of starting to realize lesson number one nothing I see means anything that you don't understand what this world is for and that the only way out of a perceptual problem is trust and guidance to be unwound by the Holy Spirit and so we're all into practicality that's why it's just good to come and open your mind to pray and to to listen and it's wonderful that you're all here to talk about it so openly because I think everyone today has really offered a great blessing all but blessed by everything that's been shared here so have a wonderful lunch for joy eat for joy and I believe do we have a comedy routine perhaps tour at 2 o'clock there's the bell at 2 o'clock Jason where do you want people to at the gathering so it'll be like a comedy routine and possibly a little tour maybe a tour afterwards he's got his tour hat on his safari hat ok thank you love you all