 to a spontaneous edition of A Course in Miracles Live. And today, I thought I would talk a little bit about practical living from the Spirit's purpose. And this is in response to a lot of you have written and have just said that you are conflicted or that you're feeling disturbed or you're feeling insane. Sometimes I get messages where people are writing in saying, I'm afraid, I feel like I've reached as far as I can go with God and with this journey. It just gets to be very, very intense. Some have had times, bouts of suicidal thoughts. Other times it's like a feeling of desperation or deep sadness. So I thought today I would do a session on really practical steps of living in practical ways of looking at the world because when people perceive the world, this is the same world that Jesus calls in A Course in Miracles an impossible situation. He also says that this world is backwards and upside down at one point. And so if you're perceiving something, it's kind of like when you feel disturbed or upset, it's kind of like Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland where she kind of goes down the rabbit hole and then she meets the mad hatter and everything when she's down in the rabbit hole and comes down to land. She just feels crazy. She feels confused. She feels disjunctive. She feels like everything feels unfamiliar, uncomfortable, and distorted. And that is what the mind that's sleeping and dreaming of Exile of God is feeling this distortions, these delusions. It's feeling disillusionment because it's just feeling like this hopelessness of no escape from the dream. But if you followed me earlier today, we had the beautiful lesson. Let me recognize that my problems have been solved. So the Holy Spirit has solved the problem of the world. We'll say the perception that there is a world. The Holy Spirit has solved it. And in reality, all is love, truth, life, joy, happiness, oneness, eternity. But when the mind believes something that God didn't create, when it believes in the ego, when it believes in the devil or Satan, when it believes in separation from the Creator, from Source, when it believes in fragmentation, when it believes in specifics, when it has forgotten abstract love, it can be very, very intense. And a lot of times people report feeling quite insane. And the question is always, what can I do? What can I do? What steps can I take to help ease myself away, to help tune in, to connect with this inner peace, to connect with the Holy Spirit and Jesus and start to feel the peace that the Bible said, the peace that passeth the understanding of the world. What is it that I can do? So I feel like today is a good time to start to really look at practical steps of living in spirit, in the spirit's purpose. What is the spirit's purpose to start off with? The Holy Spirit is the spirit of joy and the joy comes from the purpose of forgiveness. What's the definition of forgiveness? It's just simply seeing the false is false. It's becoming aware that you're the witness self, that you're the dreamer of the world of dreams and that in that sense, it's impossible to be impacted or conflicted by something outside because the dreamer of the dream realizes that there must be another purpose for the dream. Jesus tells us in his Course, the world was made in hatred. So forgiveness is a new purpose. Forgiveness counteracts the hatred. Forgiveness replaces the hatred. Forgiveness supplants the hatred. Forgiveness wipes away the hatred. And you might say, where did this hatred come from? The hatred is the ego belief system because it's a belief system in separation from God. So that's where all rage, anger, hatred comes from is believing in something that you're not, believing in a self that has been made by the ego based on the foundation of the belief in separation from God. So we're going to go look at the curriculum of forgiveness today. We're going to look at the steps as we open up to this forgiveness and we're starting to realize that actually forgiveness is equated with sanity and judgment and opinions, vengeance, grievances, anything that is trying to fragment or to find understanding through fragmentation, through pieces and parts will fail because forgiveness is the learning goal. Forgiveness is the learning goal of the curriculum. All of the workbook lessons of A Course in Miracles are aimed at forgiveness. Forgiveness simply sees the false as false but that needs to be total too. There's no such thing as partial forgiveness. In order to see the false as false, you have to let the miracle transfer and the transfer of training has to sweep around the sleeping mind just like a lighthouse on the coast. The light sweeps around the darkness, sweeps around through the darkness. The transfer of training of the workbook lessons has to take hold or take root in there in the mind as an actual experience and then it has to transfer to envelop everyone and everything that's part of perception. So we will take a look at what this forgiveness really is because we want sanity and we really want to learn forgiveness. We'll call that the same curriculum. And the ego's purpose for the world, again, the ego is a death wish. It's the belief in separation from God. So with a death wish, it's trying to make up, make fiction, make fantasy, make believe. It's set up a make-believe cosmos and a make-believe world to keep the mind asleep and dreaming. It's basically the world is a projection of the ego made to reinforce the separation from God. When we say the ego made the world, that's what I mean when Jesus says the world was made in hate. God did not create this world or cosmos, this linear world because God is eternal and the world isn't. The whole cosmos of time and space is ever changing and the spirit of God and the spirit of love is eternal. And eternity is changeless. It just is a state that simply is. The kingdom of heaven is. If we shorten the kingdom of heaven as it is in hand, it's the kingdom of heaven is. It's business. It's like my bracelet says business. It's a good reminder. So we want to really take a look at the same curriculum and we want to look at the steps that you go through when you really work with Jesus in forgiveness. And the main first phase, we'll call it as a phase of unlearning of dismantling and undoing and certainly the beginning workbook lessons of his workbook are lessons of undoing. It's kind of clearing the mind of all of its dark cobwebs, of all of its false learnings. And what are all these false learnings based upon? Well, they're based upon the ego belief system, but what is this learning of the world? That's the false sense itself, the personality, the self concept. The personality and everything that surrounds the personality, meaning other persons, places, events, locations, environments, situations. All of that is false learning. It's ego learning that was made to take the place of love, of God, of oneness. If we use the Bible terms before Abraham was I am, Jesus said the I am presence is prior to learning and then this whole cosmos is false learning, kind of like the layers of the onion placed over the core. So as we go for spiritual awakening, there's going to be appealing of the onion, letting go of the false beliefs and learnings, the false value system of the ego and the world and coming down to a pristine state of just beingness or of business. And as the mind is being unwound from all these false beliefs, it feels very disconcerting to the ego. It feels like the collapse or the destruction of the ego's thought system. And that's why it is wailing and grieving and crying and whining and there's much gnashing of teeth as the ego is proceeding, it's being undone. It's afraid of love. The ego is afraid of love. The ego is a death wish. So the death wish is afraid of eternal life. And that's what the undoing of the self-concept is all about. So we will talk a bit about the self-concept because the self-concept is everything of time and space that was learned to cover over the face of Christ, the pristine light of Christ, our true identity. This world was learned and overlearned. In fact, Jesus says you never pause while you were learning this world to ask the question, what is this all for? Jesus says, you came without a self and you made one as you went along, meaning to believe in separation and believe in a cosmos and believe that you can actually come into a body, into a world, he's saying you came without a self and made one as you go along. He says, I have invented the world I see, meaning the ego invented of make-believe self to take the place of the Christ, of the pure love, the pure eternal oneness and love that was extended from God as the Christ. So as we go on this journey, we're going to take it slow and work through things very, very carefully because this process will say of forgiveness is one initially of unlearning, of undoing, of dismantling and then as we really start to practice these workbook lessons, those 365 workbook lessons in A Course in Miracles, we'll see that the goal is to begin to open your heart, open your mind to the miracle, to allow yourself to be used in a miraculous way, as a miracle worker, and to strengthen what is real and true and that is spirit. It's not the body. It's not the person. It's not the personality. It's not everything of linear time and space. That's all getting dismantled and undone to make way for the Christ self, for the recognition I am as God created me. We're opening to the word of God, the capital W word of God, which is I am as God created me. It's a humble statement of the truth. And we will move through all different aspects of healing from the undoing into the healing aspects, healing of mind. And we will end with a section from the Course that is very, very practical. I found it to be one of the most practical sections in the Course. In fact, when I first came across the section that we will end with today, I just was absolutely stunned, amazed, flabbergasted at how practical it was for practical living, for practical living, dealing with the images of time and space, dealing with the seeming problems that the ego throws up, which are just seeming specific problems in form. And we learned in the lesson today, lesson 80, that basically all these specific problems just were made to cover over the single problem of separation, belief in separation, and that as we really see it for what it is, as we see the problem for what it is and where it is, so to speak, in the mind, when we're open to the correction that it has been resolved, it has been solved. Everything has been solved. And what's left is a sense of peace and happiness and joy, and that's what is natural for a perfect child of God. So let's start off by looking at one paragraph from chapter 12. And chapter 12 is the Holy Spirit's curriculum, and we're going to go to section 5, the same curriculum, because we want sanity. When you feel yourself disturbed and upset, you want sanity, and that sanity is what Jesus is calling the same curriculum. So if we go through this really closely, we're going to go down to paragraph 6. Chapter 12, section 5, paragraph 6. And we're just going to go through this one paragraph to start off with, because it kind of gives us a whole context for this spiritual awakening. You know, Jesus at one point says, Prepare you now for the undoing of what never was, that people can look at that sense and say, What does he mean? Prepare you now for the undoing of what never was, but once you start to realize that the perceived world of time and space is a perceptual hallucination, it's an impossible situation, it's a delusion that when you think the ground is solid beneath your feet and that you are a body that has feet that is standing on the earth, that's pretty much taken for granted. And Jesus is saying, You can take it for granted if you want, but you have to unlearn the self-image and self-concept that you've made, including the body, the person, the self, and everything that surrounds the body, including the planets, the solar system, the galaxies, the whole cosmos, it's all part of a false sense of self, a substitute for the Son of God, an ego make-believe fiction substitute. So if we go to paragraph 6 here, chapter 12, section 5, paragraph 6, he starts it off by saying, You do not know the meaning of love, and that is your handicap. So I think the latest book that I worked on, it's called Jesus, a Gospel of Love, and there's that love word, and he's basically saying, You do not know the meaning of love, and that is your handicap. And basically what he's saying is that true love is of God. True love is of Christ. True love is Spirit. It's eternal. It's changeless. It's oneness. Yet there's one point in his workbook where he says, We say God is, and then we cease to speak. So love is God, and it's Spirit, and it's unconditional, agape love. It's the love that is always love, always, always, forever and ever and ever love. And he says, You do not know the meaning of love, and that is your handicap. So as you practice any spiritual pathway, one basic context, a starting point, is to start off with just an admission. I do not know the meaning of love. Because if love was known in the truest sense, then that is the kingdom of heaven, and there is nothing else. The kingdom of heaven is God and God's creations, and that is a state of spiritual oneness and eternal life that can only be known. So Jesus is saying, the only thing you can ever know for sure is who you are as the Christ and who God is. But he starts off this paragraph, You do not know the meaning of love, and that is your handicap. All judgments are part of that handicap. All opinions are part of that handicap. All attempts to figure out the world or the characters of the world, that's part of the handicap. Anything that you try to figure out about linear time and space is part of the handicap. And what we're going to start to realize is, even the desire to understand this world is part of the handicap, even the desire to understand the world. Because Jesus talks about the peace that passes the understanding of the world. And so whatever we think is understood in time and space and history is part of the handicap that is blocking the meaning of love, that is blocking the direct experience of that love. He says, do not attempt to teach yourself what you do not understand and do not try to set up curriculum goals where yours have clearly failed. He's basically saying, if you're trying to teach yourself who you are based on the five senses and based on history, the past, then you will never succeed in the goals, the curriculum goals you set up. There are very much personal goals, personal goals to achieve certain things in time and space, and he's saying, do not attempt to teach yourself what you do not understand and do not try to set up curriculum goals where yours have clearly failed. When we look at curriculum goals like different achievements and accomplishments in the world, in the world of form, Jesus basically tells us, notice an outstanding characteristics of the things that you have pursued and maybe even believe you've achieved. They have not satisfied you, and then the ego forces you to look for new goals, but it's the one setting up all these goals in time and space, and it's like a merry-go-round of unworthiness. The mind feels unworthy, it tries to achieve and accomplish things in the world, thinking that that will give it peace and joy and happiness and satisfaction, and it's more left with Mick Jagger's song I Can't Get No Satisfaction. So he's saying these goals of the world to try to achieve a sense of worthiness, achieve a sense of love and acceptance of peace and stability, they have clearly failed. Why have they failed? Well, he goes on in sentence three to say, your learning goal has been not to learn and this cannot lead to successful learning. What does he mean by this? Your learning goal has been not to learn. Your learning goal has been not to learn forgiveness because forgiveness is just seeing the false is false. Seeing the temporary is temporary. Seeing the unreal is unreal. And this cannot lead to successful learning. What is successful learning? Forgiveness. It's basically forgiving your mind for what you thought you did in terms of inventing a world and a cosmos that God didn't create in terms of becoming a person and having real goals as personal goals and trying to achieve and accomplish something. That cannot lead to successful learning because successful learning is coming back to the present moment. Successful learning is true forgiveness. It's accepting the atonement. It's accepting a total escape from the past and a total lack of interest in the future. That's the power of now. It's accepting that being as God created me, as Spirit, is the only thing I can move toward. I can move toward the light and when I learn to forgive, I am moving toward the light. That is the purpose of the world to forgive it. Sentence 4. You cannot transfer what you have not learned and the impairment of the ability to generalize is a crucial learning failure. That's saying that you cannot actually transfer the learning of the Course without going through the workbook lessons and transferring the training that these lessons are offering. Each of the 365 lessons is pointing at the same state of mind, the same forgiveness. And the goal of the Course is forgiveness. The teachings of Jesus are all about forgiveness. Forgiven, you shall be forgiven. The teachings of Jesus are all about true forgiveness or what the Course could call accepting the atonement or the correction for the belief in separation, the belief in the ego. And then he says something very interesting in Sentence 5. He says, would you ask those who have failed to learn what learning aids are for? In other words, would you ask what he calls the unhealed healer what learning aids are for when the definition of healing is letting the Holy Spirit show you forgiveness and use the symbols, the learning aids of this world. The symbols, the images were made in hate by the ego but the Holy Spirit can use everything that the ego made as a helpful learning device. Because it has a purpose, a very high purpose, forgiveness. Would you ask, that's the key, would you ask those who have failed to learn what learning aids are for? If you're going to ask a mind that still has ego investments, it still believes in ownership, it still believes in possession for its own sake, it still believes in control, it still believes in manipulation, it still believes in trying to control the world. Would you ask a mind that believes in all those things what learning aids are for? Would you ask it what our house is for? What are bodies for? What are cars for? What are schools for? Would you ask it what anything is for? What are relationships for? Would you be like turning to the ego to ask it what are these things for? But the ego made them in hate as a part of an attempt to block true learning, block forgiveness. And so that's why everything that has been learned, every single concept has to be emptied out of the mind. You have to let go of everything you think you think you know for the forgiveness to shine and to you can grasp the light of forgiveness that you're just seeing the false is false. Would you ask those who have failed to learn what learning aids are for? They do not know. If they could interpret the aids correctly, they would have learned from them. Okay, they do not know. If they could interpret the aids correctly, they would have learned from them. What does that mean? It's that they would have learned to be happy, to be joyful, to be lighthearted, to be kind, to be respectful, to see the impossibility of grievances, to see the impossibility of attack. They would have learned from them. They could interpret with the Holy Spirit correctly the mind that interprets with the Holy Spirit perceives a peaceful world. It can let all things be exactly as they are because it's the interpretation of the Holy Spirit. Remember the Beatles song that Paul McCartney wrote, let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be. Speaking words of wisdom, let it be. It's basically all things work together for good. It is seeing that that is a divine fact. It's everything in the high state of mind you can see is divinely orchestrated because it's all for one purpose. It's all from the purpose of the Holy Spirit for forgiveness. So that paragraph is a really good start for us today because you can see that as long as the mind is asleep and clean to the past it does not know the meaning of love and that is a handicap because God is love, Christ is love and if love is all there is and you don't know what it is and you don't know what its meaning is that's a handicap. We'll call that an ego handicap. Not a real handicap in eternity but it's an awareness, it's an ego handicap. Okay, we'll move on now. I know that this is a course in undoing so I just, I went to the workbook and I just typed into the course of Miracle Search Program one word and that one word was understand because the biggest assumption that's made that's behind all criticisms and all blame and all pointing the finger and all trying, we'll say fault finding and looking for a wrongness. What's underneath it is the belief that you understand and Jesus says if you already understood and you would know what love is and you would have no need for this course so bottom line is understand we have to first come to the realization that we do not understand the perceptual world. You can't understand an impossible situation. You can't understand something that's backwards and upside down, it's impossible. So we start off with the workbook introduction and again Jesus is talking here about forgiveness and he says the exercises, these workbook exercises and to help you generalize the lessons so that you will understand that each of them is equally applicable to everyone and everything you see. There it is. And the understanding is equated with forgiveness. Forgiveness is equally applicable to everyone and everything you see, everything you perceive is subject to understanding through forgiveness. What is that understanding? It's just seeing the false is false. Is there a positive goal for that? Well, that's the closest thing to love when we talk about a mind waking up is generalizing the lessons, seeing the false is false and not believing that anything that's perceived through the five senses has any truth or validity. We can see that starting off already in workbook lesson number one, nothing I see means anything and we can also see it in lesson number two. I have given everything I see, all the meaning it has for me. He's teaching that perception, fragmented perception, linear fragmented perception which is what the world seems to be to the sleeping mind. It's not understandable and the meaning is not coming from love or God because God didn't create this world and love is just pure oneness. It's beyond time and space. So he's starting off with lessons in perception. When we get to workbook lesson number three, he's immediately going after the assumption that anything in this world is already understandable. Can you understand the human race? No. Can you understand the earth? No. What about the solar system? No. No to the cosmos. You can't understand anything that basically we're taught in university, we're taught in high school, we're taught in junior high, we're taught in elementary school and even kindergarten and preschool. Can any of that be understood? No. So he understands that for us to heal and come to the meaning of love, to come to true understanding that passes the understanding of the world that we have to first come to an undoing of thinking that we understand anything of the world. All the learning of the world is based on the ego and so everything that is learned about this world and from the ego is completely un-understandable. It's not understandable. Workbook lesson number three, I do not understand anything I see in this room, on this street, from this window, in this place. There we go. I do not understand anything I see and then he's practicing with the specifics of room, street, window, place. Then in chapter, or actually workbook lesson number three, he continues on by saying the point of the exercise is to help you clear your mind of all past associations to see things exactly as they appear to you now and to realize how little you really understand about them. Even when people study through history about spiritual movements or spiritual groups or spiritual communities, avatars, mystics, saints, gurus, teachers, basically you can't really understand anything in history because he will tell us in lesson seven, I see only the past. You can't really understand the past because the past was made by the ego. The past was made in anger and hatred and you can't really understand the ego. You can't forgive it or release it. You can't really understand ego dynamics because it's a puff of nothingness. It's a death wish. The death wish doesn't really have dynamics. Why? Because God didn't create it so it can't have dynamics. It doesn't really have any power. It doesn't really have anything at all. It's a puff of nothingness, but when you believe it, then you perceive a world that it projects. Again, the point of the exercise is these workbook exercises to help you clear your mind and these associations to see things exactly as they appear to you now and to realize how little you really understand about them. And he also says in that workbook lesson seven, which is, I see only the past, it is the reason why you do not understand anything you see. So he's really telling us really why the world is unintelligible. Why is it meaningless? Why is it completely beyond the capability of true understanding? It's because it's the past and it's the ego. And he's basically saying, you can understand God and love and Christ. You can understand joy and peace and happiness because that's what creation is. You can understand that because it's true, but you do not understand anything you see. You do not understand anything you perceive. You can't really learn this course if you think you know something about some one person place thing or anything at all. You have to kind of go through the rabbit hole of I do not know. You've got to go down the rabbit hole. I do not know. And then all the way through it to a place of I do not know, but I'm willing to be shown. And that is the attitude. That is the predisposition that is the thing that is most helpful when you're working with a course in miracles. Workbook 8 says it can not understand time and cannot in fact understand anything. There it is. He's not mincing any words. Because of these workbook lesson number 8, my mind is preoccupied with past thoughts. And as long as your mind is preoccupied with past thoughts, it's preoccupied with the ego and ego thinking. And therefore it, this mind preoccupied with past thoughts cannot understand time and cannot in fact understand anything. And then he gives us something hopeful there in workbook lesson number 9. He says understanding is not necessary at this point. He's just asking for willingness. He's saying you have a preconception that the world's real. You act as if the world's real. You, you perceive this linear world as if it's real. But if you're just willing to do the lessons and you're going to pre a participant with doing these lessons very sincerely, your prior learning is not a prerequisite for taking this course. Because nothing was learned before that has any meaning. So he's saying understanding is not necessary at this point. It's just the beginning of the dismantling and the undoing. And we need to be gentle with ourselves in the sense that if you feel there, you feel you're judging yourself or I'm not. I'm just not learning and linking him with Jesus. And I, why am I this way? Why do I feel I'm worthy? It's just basically saying he's saying just, just hang with me. Your understanding is not necessary at this point. Then he goes on in workbook lesson 9 to say in fact the recognition that you do not understand is a prerequisite for undoing your false ideas. So you can't really go through the rabbit hole of undoing the rabbit hole of unknowing if you think you know something. That's what pride is. That's what arrogance is. That's why there's not a single question truly asked of the ego because the ego is always setting up double questions where it's, they aren't really questions at all. They're not really a sincere question. They're just a declaration. The declaration can take many forms but oftentimes it goes I'm sad, you're wrong and you need to make these corrections to make it right. But Jesus calls this in his, his pamphlets, you know his additional notes that came along with the course. He calls it forgiveness to destroy. Were you first defined the problem as something in the world? And then you say you're going to forgive it. And Jesus is like, you already made the error real if you've defined something is wrong in the world because the world was made by the ego as a distractive device to keep you from exposing the ego in the mind. So if you point the finger at person's places things and you think you've found some kind of fault or wrongdoing, you've already missed the point of, of course, the miracles which is forgiveness. You've already made the error real and Jesus says you cannot forgive if you make the error real. You cannot make the error real and then say, and I forgive you because forgiveness is seeing what your brother did or did not do has not occurred in reality, in spirit it has not occurred and just occurred in distorted perception and if you point the finger and you're going after these wrongdoings and things then clearly that's where the problem is. Also in workbook nine, this is loaded here in workbook nine, these exercises, the workbook exercises are concerned with practice not with understanding. You know, he knows that peace and understanding are together and cannot be found apart. He knows that, that the practice comes first, the willingness comes first. Let the rubber meet the road in the practice and just practice this as much as you can, as best you can and let the Holy Spirit illuminate your mind with understanding when you have let go of all your beliefs and thoughts. When you've emptied the mind of everything you think you think and think you know then what is the understanding but not before them. You do not need to practice what you already understand. In other words, what you already think you know and understand about the world you don't need to practice that. You've already over-learned the world he's saying, now we have to unlearn it. Now comes the joy of unlearning. Now comes the joy of preparing you now for the undoing of what never was for the dismantling of the ego and even though the ego is not going to like it you don't have to identify with the ego. You don't have to identify with it or its emotions. He also says in workbook nine, it would indeed be circular to aim at understanding and assume that you have it already. Yeah. Why would you even aim for understanding if you already understood? So I remember a winter solstice I went to I believe it was many years ago at a zoo and I was part of this program, a Buddhist program and we chanted for like two hours I know nothing and we chanted that for two hours and I felt so wonderful something here I've never been anything like this but I think I'm onto something here and Jesus is saying it would indeed be circular to aim at understanding and assume that you have it already. Each small step will clear a little of the darkness away and understanding will finally come to lighten every corner of the mind that has been cleared of the debris that darkens it. So if you start to transfer the lessons then you start to gain the peace that passes the understanding of the world. You start to merge with and join with Jesus's understanding or the Holy Spirit's understanding and perspective. He even tells in chapter workbook lesson 15 that you will begin to understand when you have seen little edges of light around the same familiar objects which you see now. So he's heralding the beginning of Christ's vision there in workbook lesson 15 in lesson 16 we will practice this idea in many forms before you really understand it. Lesson 19 despite your initial resistance to this idea you will yet understand that it must be true if salvation is possible at all. Lesson 25 this false identification makes you incapable of understanding what anything is for. And then he gives us examples of ego understanding versus spiritual understanding in actually in workbook lesson 25 again. For example you do understand that a telephone is for the purpose of talking to someone who is not physically in your immediate vicinity. What you do not understand is what you want to reach him for. What is the purpose you want to reach him for? What is the purpose of the call? You may say the purpose of the telephone is someone who is not physically in your immediate vicinity but Jesus is saying purpose is not at those levels but true purpose with the Holy Spirit is what is it for? What is your purpose of the call? What is your motivation? Are you wanting to reach your brother, your sister out of joy, happiness, love to extend the love and the blessings or is it something egoic? And then in lesson 29 he says when vision he is talking about the vision of Christ has shown you the holdingness that lights up the world you will understand today's idea perfectly and he says and you will not understand how you could ever have found it difficult in lesson 41 we understand that you do not believe all this he knows that the mind that is practicing with the Course in Miracles has its doubts it does not believe necessarily what is being shown it has a lot of fear and a lot of unbelief and Jesus wants us to believe fully or to forgive the mind that thought the separation was real he wants us to forgive the ego forgive Satan forgive the devil that is what Jesus wants us to do do not fear Satan and the devil forgive the forgiveness lines you up with the Creator puts you in a state of invulnerability with the Creator in lesson 45 we will also try to understand that only what God would have us do is what we want to do so we follow this again this is undoing the false belief of understanding what anything means through the five senses in the review lessons I do not understand anything I see how could I understand what I see when I have judged it amiss I do not understand what I see because it is not understandable it is all from workbook lesson 51 there is no sense in trying to understand it and then in lesson 52 let me understand that I am trying to use time against God the very fact in workbook lesson 55 the very fact that I see such things is proof that I do not understand God and therefore I do also do not understand his son so this is a beautiful way for us to start to loosen up from the belief that we understand anything and you may think hmm am I gullible it is like well to believe in the ego which is to believe in a death wish is the ultimate sense of gullibility when you are truly the Christ and you believe in a whole belief system of guilt and shame and pain and punishment attack death hmm that is a bit gullible when none of it is true believing something that God did not create and none of that is true only spirit is real of gullibility hmm so let's move on now to just one paragraph from chapter 7 and this paragraph hmm this is talking about section 5 healing and the change of mind the purpose here Jesus gives us an insight we are going to go down to paragraph 9 as you can hear two voices so you can see in two ways you can perceive in two ways one way shows you an image or an idol that you may worship out of fear but will never love the other shows you only truth which you will love because you will understand it understanding is appreciation because what you understand you can identify with and by making it part of you you have accepted it with love that is how God himself created you in understanding in appreciation and in love ahh let's listen to that again that is how God himself created you in understanding in appreciation and in love so that is giving us the clearest pointer to true understanding understanding is appreciation because what you understand you can identify with you can understand the Christ you can understand the Holy Spirit and you can understand God that is good to know but the world that is knowing but the world of perception cannot be understood and you can't start from the belief that you already understand it if the whole course is designed to unlearn and undo and dismantle all false learning you can't start with something that you believe in in the world you have to start with an open heart with open hands with willingness in your mind you have to start with just a little willingness to be shown show me the way I'm calling on you Jesus the way the truth in the life and I'm asking you to show me the way and then he's saying yeah and when you let Jesus show you the way then the understanding is appreciation because what you understand you can't identify with and by making it part of you you can make it with love accept Christ's love accept Christ's happiness and peace and joy accept the light of Christ and the vision of Christ as yours because God created you gave you that gift in creation so from what we've seen here that the learning of the world involves everything that is perceived experiences so before we get to the section I promise at the end here which is going to be a really good practical way out of illusions and into the light let's look at chapter 31 the final vision let's go to section 5 self concept versus true self this is a treat the learning of the world is built upon a concept of the self adjusted to the world's reality it fits well for this an image is that suits a world of shadows and illusions so this is the image that Jesus was just referring to specifically saying that if you identify with an image if you identify with the past if you identify with the form of things you cannot know your real self your true self here it, meaning the image walks at home where what it sees is one with it the projected world the building concept of the self is what the learning of the world is for this is its purpose that you come without a self and make one as you go along and by the time you reach maturity you have perfected it to meet the world on equal terms at one with its demands mature person you have perfected it on its terms to meet the world on equal terms at one with its demands at one with its laws you got to do this this, this, this, this to survive yeah you just try to meet the world on equal terms and that's what human survival is about the concept of the self is made by you it bears no likeness to yourself at all the title made to take the place of your reality as son of god the concept of the self the world would teach is not the thing that it appears to be for it is made to serve two purposes but one of which the mind can recognize the first presents the face of innocence the aspect acted on it is this face that smiles and charms it seems to love it searches for companions and it looks at times with pity on the suffering and sometimes offers solace it believes that it is good within an evil world this aspect can grow angry for the world is wicked and unable to provide the love and shelter innocence deserves and so this face is often wet with tears at the injustices the world accords to those who would be generous and good this aspect never makes the first attack but every day a hundred little things make small assaults upon its innocence provoking it to irritation and at last to open insult and abuse the face of innocence the concept of self so proudly intolerate attack in self defense for is it not a well known fact the world deals harshly with defenseless innocence no one who makes a picture of himself omits this face or he has need of it the other side he does not want to see yet it is here the learning of the world has set its sights for it is here the world's reality is set to see it the idle last so to see to it that the idle last so the learning of the world is is basically protecting the ego the belief in idols in place of God and it's holding the the belief in the reality of the world in place it's covering over the experience of the Christ and of direct contact direct experience of God beneath the face of innocence there is a lesson that the concept of the self was made to teach it is a lesson in terrible displacement and a fear so devastating that the face that smiles above it must forever look away lest it perceive the treachery it hides the lesson teaches this I am the thing you made of me and as you look on me you stand condemned because of what I am on this conception of the self the world smiles with approval for it guarantees the pathways of the world are safely kept and those who walk on them will not escape so you can see the self concept was made to take the place of love take the place of God it's entirely fabricated it's entirely an invention of the ego it's an attempt to miscreate to misuse the power of the mind to make up something that isn't true creation it isn't like the eternal creator it's a temporary projection that has many parts and pieces and it's very fragmented nothing like heaven nothing like God and nothing like the eternal idea of Christ the eternal spirit of Christ but it's important that we see that this is in chapter 31 the last chapter of the course and he's basically saying the self that you believe you are in terms of this world with time and space the body the personality the mind that seems to be a private mind with private thoughts private emotions private ambitions and also a private past it's all a cover over the light and but it's important for us to look and see what he's saying here because this self was invented and he's telling us that the building of a concept of self is what the learning of the world is for this is its purpose this is the ego's purpose that you come without a self and make one as you go along and try to make it in the world make yourself into a mature functioning adult citizen in the world and then you think you're succeeding but Jesus says you you're trying to hold on to a false identity that God didn't create to use the Paul Simon song you believe you're gliding down the highway when in fact you're slip sliding away away from the light away from remembering God so everything is backwards and upside down and that's why Jesus says you can't judge your advances from your retreats because the more successful you are in ego terms the farther you are away from the awareness and remembrance of the light and the more humble that you are the more disidentified you become with the body and the world the closer you become to remembrance of the light wow that's a good one so we are now ready for the practical step of opening to forgiveness and I say practical because for me when I read this section I had this kind of feeling it was like Eureka oh my gosh if I follow what this section in the course is teaching I'm not going to have any problems because this is so spectacular in terms of the practical application of practicing forgiveness moment by moment day by day circumstance by circumstance situation by situation and you will notice that this is not an approach that involves looking back on the past some of you remember in the bible there's in the old testament there's that section where where Lot and his wife are part of a group that are fleeing for their lives that are running to escape and Lot's wife has just told one thing the only thing she's told is just whatever you do don't look back because if you look back you'll turn into a pillar of salt I believe when I was much younger I was watching the movie the Ten Commandments and I remember hearing that watching the scene and then she couldn't stop it she turned back temptation was too strong and she just turned into a pillar of salt it was a salt woman it was it was a woman a form of a woman but she was frozen in just a salt she was a salt figure and that really struck me I think I was watching the Ten Commandments and I was a bit like oh my god and now I see that that was just a symbol that don't look back to the past because you cannot find God in the past many have tried to look in history scientists look back to the Big Bang they're not going to find God in the Big Bang historians look back and study God and the approaches to God through many different cultures and civilizations now Jesus is going to teach us here that you cannot find God you cannot find peace or joy or happiness understanding you can't find love except in the present moment and you have to have a purpose that guides you to look for love where it is which is within not in the projected world so here we go I'm just going to go through one of the most practical helpful sections of A Course in Miracles if you only read this section and you only practice this section you use this section as your text along with the workbook lessons that would be probably like light years ahead so to speak closer and closer to the light because this is so clear and so obvious and so direct that we're just going to mmm just savor it line by line this is from chapter 17 section 6 setting the goal it doesn't get any better the practical application of the Holy Spirit's purpose is extremely simple but it is unequivocal in fact in order to be simple it must be unequivocal the simple is merely what is easily understood and for this it is apparent that it must be clear so he's asking us to lay aside all things we've ever learned before and he's saying it can be simple but it must be unequivocal you can't make exceptions when you practice this section you've got to do it with all your heart and soul and might you've got to give everything to it what's the preparation for doing this section the peace of God is my one goal the aim of all my living here the end I seek my purpose and my function and my life while I abide where I am not at home okay we want simplicity we can't compromise we can't appease we can have no appeasement no compromise here we we are practicing with mind training and this is the simple straight approach instead of saying don't do this don't do this don't do that we're Jesus is saying do only that in other words here I'm going to give it to you just follow this and don't deviate and waver it's like the woman to Jesus in the bible in the gospels where they said we've cut this woman in the act of adultery and you know you believe in the laws of Moses what do you say I tried to trap him and he drew something in the dirt and then he asked him a question he who is without sin let him cast the first stone the man all dropped their stones and then the woman who they said they had caught in the act of adultery came to him and said master lord what do you say of me and he said I condemn you not go your way and sin no more go your way and stay right minded go your way and stay in alignment with the Holy Spirit in alignment with your calling in alignment with your heart in alignment with your purpose he didn't put any credence or belief in the past he saw her innocence because the Christ looks upon the Christ and he knew when he said let he who is without sin let him cast the first stone there was one that was without sin it's the Christ and that was the Christ that said I condemn you not love does not condemn love does not judge love does not point finger love does not hold an opinion love does not judge so here we go this is like a real straight shot so if you're having trouble with grievances and revenge and intensity that's based on false beliefs and false attack thoughts then this is the way out this is our chance to go your way and sin no more the setting of the Holy Spirit's goal is general now he will work with you to make it specific for application is specific there are certain very specific guidelines he provides for any situation but remember that you do not yet realize their universal application so what does he mean by there are certain very specific guidelines he provides for any situation what does he mean there well much later in the text he has a section called rules for decision and in that section he gives very specific guidelines for any situation he gives you rules for decision to go through the day so the setting the goal section here in chapter 17 is like a precursor and he's like saying did you get it if you go through this section and you go ah then you're set if you don't really grasp what he's pointing at then you get another try in rules for decision a little bit later toward the end of the book toward the end of the text so this is the first go round ok therefore it is essential at this point to use them in each situation separately until you can more safely look beyond each situation in an understanding far broader and you now possess in any situation in which you are uncertain the first thing to consider very simply is what do I want to come of this what is it for and again the ego can come up with all kinds of outcomes but he's saying the first thing to consider very simply is what do I want to come of this what is it for do I want peace of mind do I want happiness and joy do I want forgiveness am I really really going to look at this situation with purpose to forgive it or do I want something to come in terms of a form outcome that maybe I believe in from the past and I'm hoping in for the future you see there it is to come of this what is it for that's it what is the purpose of what I'm perceiving the clarification of the goal belongs at the beginning for it is this which will determine the outcome in the ego's procedure this is reversed the situation becomes the determiner of the outcome which can be anything the reason for this organized approach is evident the ego does not know what it wants to come of the situation it is aware of what it does not want but only that it has no positive goal at all okay it's a death wish Jesus is telling us the ego has no positive goal at all the spirit the Holy Spirit's only goal for this situation for any situation to be generalized to all situations all specific situations is forgiveness I can forgive and see this differently I can forgive and this will disappear I can forgive and this fragmented perception will dissolve into a unified perception into a happy dream happy dance but the ego has no positive goal at all it's a death wish you can't expect a death wish to have a positive goal here okay without a clear cut positive goal set at the outset the situation just seems to happen and makes no sense until it has already happened then you look back at it and try to piece together what it must have meant and you will be wrong not only is your judgment in the past but you have no idea what should happen no goal was set with which to bring the means in line and now the only judgment left to make is whether or not the ego likes it is it acceptable or does it call for vengeance well so if you haven't set the goal and you haven't been in the miracle and experienced the glory the joy the connectedness of the miracle and you do look back on the situation by yourself will say now the only judgment left is to make whether or not the ego likes it is it acceptable or does it call for vengeance the absence of a criterion for outcome set in advance makes understanding doubtful and evaluation impossible there we go that's the key line that's in paragraph 3, sentence 7 the absence of a criterion for outcome set in advance makes understanding doubtful and evaluation impossible you can't value anything you can't understand anything unless you're in your purpose if you're just in the ego and looking back and trying to analyze and figure things out and make correction personally yourself or make restitution personally yourself trying to absolve yourself in a personal way by looking back on something that's occurred in the past he's saying understanding a doubtful evaluation impossible you can't forgive and you can't understand the past the past is over and gone and Jesus is telling us the reason you're not happy is you see only the past less than number 7 and my mind is preoccupied with past thoughts that's why you're perceiving only the past that's why you're perceiving linear time that's why you try to make the past, present, future construct of the ego real is because that's what you believe in and you believe in its interpretation of time you don't believe in the holy instance you don't believe in the miracle but you can learn and experience the forgiven world through miracles if you're willing to not try to interfere and basically what that means is don't look back the past is over the past is gone the past is over it can touch me not that's the glee that's what this is all having for you have to realize that you cannot understand the world by looking back on the past because the world is the past that's what lesson number 7 is teaching is I see only the past and you cannot know the holy instant if you hold on to the past you know the past is the unholy instant the past is the tiny tick of time the madness, the insanity if you look back on the past you may think you can break it apart but you can't you can't break apart what's over and gone and you definitely can't understand it or evaluate it so like with Lot's wife Jesus is just telling us don't look back you've got to have a clear cut goal in front for peace for love for forgiveness you've got to be your torch if you plan to wake up if you don't have your torch of forgiveness it's like walking into a cave with no light or walking into a cave with a with a flashlight or a torch and if you put it behind you it doesn't do any good you can still stumble on the rocks and fall because the light is behind you but you need the light in front you need to have that light in front it's very quick shot to the kingdom of heaven and to forgiveness if the light if the purpose is out front the purpose is the only choice purpose has to be out front and if you don't put forgiveness out front or peace of mind out front then we just read that earlier the situation just seems to happen and you don't know what's going on you basically are in the dark huh without a clear cut positive goal set at the ad set the situation just seems to happen and makes no sense until it has already happened then you look back at it and try to piece together what it must admit and you will be wrong Jesus is basically saying don't look back you will be wrong anytime you're trying to find something from the past you're not practicing a course of miracles you're not following the spirit you're not following Jesus you're not following the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit is taking you to the present moment of non-judgment and the ego is saying point the finger analyze figure it out and try to even make restitution that's still going back and trying to figure out is if you know what went wrong the correction is and Jesus is saying over and over in the course the Holy Spirit is the correction correction is not your function he says it's the Holy Spirit's function and that function is forgiveness another way of looking at the world if you realize the depth of this you would realize that for accepting the correction you do not have to do anything because it's a different way of looking at the world it's not changing the form seek not to change the world Jesus tells us seek rather to change your mind about the world that's the teaching that's it right there paragraph five the goal of truth has further practical advantages if the situation is used for truth and sanity its outcome must be peace and this is quite a part from what the outcome is if peace is the condition of truth and sanity and cannot be without them where peace is they must be truth comes of itself if you experience peace it is because the truth has come to you and you will see the outcome truly for deception cannot prevail against you there we go that's a great sentence sentence six of paragraph five if you experience peace is because the truth has come to you and you will see the outcome truly for deception cannot prevail against you you will recognize the outcome because you are at peace here again you see the opposite of the ego's way of looking for the ego believes the situation brings the experience the Holy Spirit knows that the situation is as the goal determines it and is experienced according to the goal the goal of truth requires faith faith is implicit in the acceptance of the Holy Spirit's purpose and this faith is all inclusive where the goal of truth is set there faith must be the Holy Spirit sees the situation as a whole the goal establishes the fact that everyone involved in it will play his part in its accomplishment everyone involved in it will play his part in its accomplishment that's quantum that's the quantum field everything is working together for the good if the goal is truth all things work together for the good for those who love the Lord that's what the Bible says Jesus says there are no exceptions except in the ego's judgment no it says this is inevitable there's the quantum field the happy dream no one will fail in anything this seems to ask for faith beyond you and beyond what you can give yet this is so only this is the viewpoint of the ego where the ego believes in solving conflict through fragmentation and does not perceive the situation as a whole therefore it seeks to split off segments of the situation and deal with them separately for it has faith in separation and not in wholeness what a line that's sentence number 10 there on paragraph 6 and he sets it up by saying again the ego believes in solving conflict through fragmentation and does not perceive the situation as a whole holistic perception of the Holy Spirit of Jesus the situation as a whole the present moment everything simultaneous everything is whole he says therefore it seeks to split off segments of the situation and deal with them separately for it has faith in separation and not in wholeness what does it mean seeks to split off segments of the situation and deal with them separately certain people it has to deal with certain people it can accept it likes certain ones it doesn't like other ones it likes certain aspects of the situation but it dislikes other aspects of the situation ah it's quite apparent that the ego is using separation and perceiving separate aspects and segments of the situation and then saying you need to deal with this you need to deal with that you need to deal with the specifics of the wrong doing that you committed and the Holy Spirit is like come back see the whole situation as a whole see the situation in a some way holistically come back come back in your mind see that you can see this as the witness self as the dreamer of the dream don't take it personally that's one of the four agreements Mikael Ruiz don't take the situation personally because only the ego seeks to split off segments of the situation and deal with them separately it's like trying to deal with different people and different aspects of the situation one at a time separately and it's a mind issue it's a you either are perceiving through a fragmented perception filter of the ego and then trying to deal with all the aspects of the separation differences or you're coming back with the Holy Spirit and you're saying everyone's innocent because the mind is innocent that lines up with God confronted with any aspect of the situation that seems to be difficult the ego will attempt to take this aspect elsewhere and resolve it there aha that's how it works in this world that's it's like two guys get into an argument and one says let's take this outside and solve this in the street husband and wife are arguing they decide to get a divorce let's take this outside to the courtroom and resolve it there let's resolve differences of opinion let's try to resolve differences of interpretation in some kind of external forum or with external judges or external systems and Jesus is saying why not come inside with me and see the unity see the wholeness look with the Holy Spirit they're part perfectly he was telling that earlier he was saying that you can see each one will play their part perfectly see if I can find that aha but everyone plays their part absolutely perfectly everyone everyone the situation is seen in a holistic way and then you feel gratitude for the situation because of the wholeness that is perceived so he's saying confronted with any aspect of the situation it seems to be difficult the ego will attempt to take this aspect elsewhere and resolve it there and it will seem to be successful except that this attempt works with unity and must obscure the goal of truth and peace will not be experienced except in fantasy that's not real peace if it's fantasy peace is the peace that passes the understanding of the world peace of mind and inner peace is what Jesus is calling us to truth has not come because faith has been denied from where it rightfully belong thus to you do you lose the understanding of the situation the goal of truth would bring for fantasy solutions bring but the illusion of experience and the illusion of peace is not the condition in which truth can enter so wow wow wow that is amazing that is the most practical direct way of looking forward and putting the purpose out front if you believe in time Jesus is just saying okay I'll grant you that you believe in time but if you want to escape from the ego's linear linear view of time it invented past present future even Einstein said past present and future is an illusion so Jesus and Einstein are completely lined up there's a quantum perspective and it's a holistic perspective and it involves your purpose and putting the goal of truth out front that's the only way that peace can be experienced wow well that was a great a great session in forgiveness and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do I like teaching what I would learn and reinforcing and strengthening forgiveness in my mind you know as Jesus says forgive and be forgiven basically teaching us that really what we need is forgiveness in our mind we need forgiveness of the belief in the ego just meaning release just release it not doing any kind of heebie jeebie on it just seeing the falsity of it and its projected world seeing the false is false okay I think we'll close today this spontaneous session with a song from my friend Alisa Amour and the title of this beautiful beautiful song is without forgiveness I will still be blind it's just such a call into the depth of true forgiveness beautiful feel that love thank you thank you Jesus thank you Holy Spirit thank you thank you for joining me in this spontaneous deep dive into the practical living of the Spirit's purpose that's what we want to bring day by day moment by moment practical living and practical experience miracles that light the way so thank you all love you see yous