 That's going to be one of our themes as we go through to learn how to be gentle with yourself, not so hard on yourself. And this morning, I was talking a little bit with Lisa and it was kind of fun because she was coming back here to the monastery with almost like it was a movie set. Just like you're going to film something and you show up on the set with no sense of knowing anything about anything, about how it's operating or what's going on and that's really where we're training our minds to be able to do that with all situations. So you show up with all this love and this great attitude to share, but you're really clueless about everything else, you know, like what's really going on? I don't know, like you're just showing up like you're an extra on a movie set and they've just kind of pulled you in and scooped you into the scene, into the scenario. I think how wonderful that feels, there's no sense of duty, obligation, responsibility, trying to get it right, you know, thinking you know something, you're just like an extra that's been pulled in on the set and you can just show up and go, wow, this is fun. But to be an extra, I think it takes a lot of mind training and letting go of everything you think you know about yourself to be an extra, you know, to just show up. That was the thing I got right before I came out here, like 10 minutes before I walked out here it was ding, I got a new email, it was from my friend Gary Renard and he's been working for the last couple of years to develop a television show based on his book, Disappearance of the Universe and he was calling for extras, he said we need like 30 extras, you're not going to get paid, but we're shooting the trailer, we need 30 extras to show up and imagine if you could just feel that feeling with your whole life and your relationships and your spirituality, that you're just an extra showing up on the scene, you don't really have a history. The spiritual practice, it's so much, we think we know what we've all done before, what was successful, what wasn't successful, what our spiritual ambitions are for the future, how we hope it'll look, how we hope our practice goes and it's all part of a movie that's trying to keep us unaware of the now, that we are just perfect and innocent right now. End of story, no need to make up more stories, no need to add to things. And so frequently in my talks, I talk about that, that you have to be willing to let go of everything including ambition, especially in the industrialized, the so-called civilized worlds, that's debatable, the Aborigines seem to have it going on and they're not considered civilized and then the civilized world, I don't know, if you call that progress and advancement, you know, there's the old Chinese curse, may you live in exciting times, that was the Chinese curse. You see how flipped this world is, you know, it's like, oh, it's exciting. And you think, you want more excitement in your life and then it comes with all this other baggage and you find yourself wound into something and like, where did this all start? How did I, I thought it sounded exciting and then all of a sudden I feel trapped, I feel burdened, I feel overworked, I feel overwhelmed and that's part of the lure of the ego. It wants you to get excited about its world and get stuck like on flight paper, you know, and then wondering, how do I get off of the flight paper? And it's just beautiful to realize that you can actually lead a life and have a life that has no ambition and we're redefining success in terms of lack of ambition instead of having ambition. Because it ties into what we talked about and I think what Lisa talked about with the volunteers yesterday and the inspirational talk is letting go of the attachment to the doer. You know, as long as you're invested in the doer, then you're invested in the personality self and the doer's actions, getting things done, productivity, you know, it's very, very sneaky. It's like a wheel that just keeps spinning and then occasionally there's a wise saint or sage that comes along and says, what if the highest productivity is absolute pristine silence? It's just a definition that's so opposite of what the world, how the world defines productivity that it's almost striking. What if absolute pristine silence is the highest productivity is being as we were created to be and not trying to pretend to be something that we're not. So, a big thing that we're into is giving yourself more and more and more permission to be done through first. That's a phase that you go through where you just, you know, it's like my friend Rusty used to say, like, if this is a puppet, a body is a puppet, I want to get back on the strings and let the Holy Spirit move the crossbow. You know, I want to, you know, like St. Francis, make me an instrument. You know, that's the same beautiful presence of let me be done through, let me be left through and smiled through and hugged through. Let me have words that inspire and bless, pour through me as a communication device that I may see that I am more than the device, that I am the light that is behind the device that is shining and that I am entitled to miracles and I am entitled to know who I am. So it goes counter to the teachings of the world. At one point Jesus says, you may begin to see how the goal of this course is the opposite of the goals of the world. Because all of the goals of the world are for the making and improving and keeping of a self-concept of an image that God did not create and really knows nothing about. So that's why Shakespeare called it much to do about nothing. It's like spinning your wheels seemingly for years and years and years and at some point reaching a surrender point and just going, oops, I don't need to spin. I can relax and, you know, we're kind of encouraging everyone to take early retirement. You know, it's good. It feels good. It's not that you have to work hard and you have to have all these savings to take early retirement, which is the ego's version of it. It's more you just have to relax and sink back into your divine purpose, into your divine calling and then retire from the thinking of the world, which is always push, push, push. You know, there's a pressure with trying to be pushed to achieve something, to accumulate something and somebody was talking to me the other day. It's like saying that the mind is like a parachute. It only works when it's open. You know, we have to allow ourselves to open up to an experience that's beyond this world. And of course in miracles there's ten characteristics of a teacher of God and the final one, and he puts it at the end for a reason because it takes a lot of, you could say, mind training to experience it, but the final characteristic of a teacher of God is open mindedness. You see how that dovetails with non-judgment. If you are completely open, completely open, that would mean you would be closed to nothing. It wouldn't matter what your brother or sister was talking about. You would just have this beautiful fragrance, this presence coming from your heart as your brother is speaking, regardless of what your brother or sister is speaking about. You're just thinking, adore you, adore you. Well, the final score on this, adore you. It doesn't really matter what the puppets are talking about because we're here to extend this loving adoration. We practice with our brothers, with our sisters here, adore. It could be talking about the stock market or what's going on in Miramar or whatever, and it's just like adore, adore. You don't really put attention into the words that are being spoken. And you don't actually have to follow the words that the more intuitive you get, the more you get into resting in the Holy Spirit. It's great. You don't even have to pay attention to what anybody is saying. You're just sitting there, adore, adore, adore, adore, and then five minutes later you may get to smile or say something, but you don't have to follow. You're just sitting there, adore, adore, adore, adore, and then five minutes later you may get to smile or say something, but you don't have to follow. I remember one time I had some students that were with me in Denver back in the 1990s, and we went to Idaho for a trip and we got there and a friend of mine from Kamloops, Canada had come down and he seemed to, every time I started to talk about special relationships or that topic, he would seem to have a lot to say, so I would get a few words in and he would kind of go on to something and I would say a few more words and he would go on to another thing and this went on for about an hour and a half or two hours. They actually recorded the session and I had, as usual, just a wonderful time and just was like, when we finally took the break, I went back to my room to just sit quiet for a bit and this group of students just followed me like a hornet snuts. They were all angry and stirred up and I was sitting in there, they came into the room and they go, I said, what's going on? And they were like, this is terrible. We've traveled hundreds of miles to come and hear you speak and this man is like interrupting you every five seconds. You can't get in two words, as wise. You're trying to talk about these profound topics and we have to listen to all this other gyrations. It's like this guy seems to be in mega resistance. We should lock him out. We should not let him back into the session room. It's a waste of our time and everything. And I said, oh, I thought it was a delightful session and they said, how can you possibly perceive that as a delightful session? And I said, well, I was just, it's like the Holy Spirit just is inspiring me and it's like playing me my favorite songs in my mind and I'm just in this state of adoration and whether the body speaks or not is not really my concern. I'm not identified with being the speaker or speaking anything. And I said, what's this interrupt word? I said, I can't possibly be interrupted. You can't really be interrupted unless you're identified with being the doer or the speaker. That's where the interruption comes in. If you think that there's something outside of you that's breaking something or stopping something, but the flow is in our heart. The flow just flows. They were like, what weren't you like listening to what he was talking about? I said, oh heavens, no. I said, surely you didn't try to follow some of those gyrations. They were like, yeah, you know, we're taught to be good listeners, to look people in the eye and to follow what their words are, you know, false empathy and all this crazy stuff. You know, it's just about being relaxed and being in the flow and not trying to follow the thoughts of the world. You know, it's about tuning in. Just like if you tune an FM radio, you tune and tune into the frequency and to that smooth crystal clear station and you turn away from the static into the crystal clear music. And that's how it is with listening to the Holy Spirit. You just, you practice tuning, tuning. Ah, yeah, got the vibe. Ooh, ooh, that's good. Found the sweet spot. Ooh, yeah. And then at this point when you're in the sweet spot with God, then the rest of the material world is immaterial. It's absolutely irrelevant. It wouldn't matter whether the bodies seem to be, you know, overlooking a beautiful canyon or in a concentration camp or, you know, often the ocean somewhere or in a mountain or in Wall Street or whatever, the location of the body has nothing to do with peace of mind. It's just tuning in to that, ah, that alignment with spirit. That alignment with spirit is not circumstance dependent. Isn't that wonderful? It doesn't matter what the circumstances are. You're just tuning, tuning. Ah, yeah. Ooh, right there. Crisp, clear, in line and tune.