 I'd like to try to get into some of the metaphysics of the Course and how the mind works and not keep it too abstract and theoretical. If we start talking and there's a point where something's resonating, but you need a concrete example or something, please speak up. To deceive mind believes so much in the specifics of this world that we have to start with the specifics and work our way back, kind of like from the bottom up, as Jesus says in the workbook or in the text. So we need to start to relate with the way we perceive things initially and that can be kind of like our presenting problem or our situation and then we're kind of working back to the mind, to the beliefs and what's going on in the mind. Because that's really where our release is. It's like this ongoing thing of just wanting to hold that intention to get real clear about the ego thing and to really be able to see the ego for what it is and to remain kind of above the battlefield or to remain above it. That you get to notice where your attachments are, which is really a lot to be grateful for because you can't start to let go of something until you can see it. Whatever questions come up, if you have a question formulated in your mind, just feel free to come forth with it and everything because there aren't any good questions or bad questions or whatever, so we can kind of go into things. Is there anybody who has any questions right off the bat about the cook? Yes? About money. Yeah, that's something new. Money, finances. So really, I've been trying to get straight in my mind about applying to course and then having things met best in a certain way or explaining things. Everybody knows. We all know. Yeah, that whole question of manifesting. Well, I just keep reading how you make these corrections and then you step into a consequence of that part and then somehow that leads up into being at peace and meaning that you kind of have nothing. But it's true that the course just comes straight out and says that it has one goal and that's the peace of mind or the peace of God. And a lot of times people will take the course and kind of say what is this thing about abundance or what is this thing about manifesting or those kind of things. And basically, the first thing that needs to be worked on is the course in the sense that everyone that comes to this world perceives themselves as very tiny and weak and frail in some sense. Others, you can deal with that in a certain way. Some people try to overcompensate with money or possessions, with particular relationships. Some people try to... I myself was in college for 10 years and it was kind of that thing of feeling like if you read enough or you have enough degrees, kind of. There's just so many ways that people try to kind of achieve a sense of worth in this world. And the course is basically saying that your worth is established by God. That nothing you think or say or do is needed to establish your work. But the whole system is kind of a... the mind believes that it's a small teeny person in a body and that it's got to constantly strive and struggle to keep its head above water, whether it's financially or health-wise or in a number of ways. I really don't think that. I really don't think that. That's not what I think. And I don't have to have a lot of extra. I just want to have enough. Just enough. Well, the idea of manifesting too sometimes comes in whereas in a sense there are a lot of metaphysical systems that talk about that. If you really focus on visualizing or holding a certain thing in mind and you can have it come. What I would see that as is like a stepping stone. For instance, like in the song of prayer, Jesus talks about prayer. The highest aim of prayer is for the atonement or for peace of mind. And along the way, a stepping stone may be is that you may discover that you do seem to be able to manifest certain things. And along the way, that could be a stepping stone towards seeing that my mind is powerful. But it's like the Course is leading us to the point where as soon as you can start to have experiences that you have a powerful mind, then what do you want the goal to be? And Jesus is saying, why not have the atonement or have peace of mind be your goal? Now the thing about money has always been a thing for me, too, is kind of like the more I study this and the more I start to just let go of my worldly pursuits and trying to achieve certain outcomes and just to not judge the outcome. My fear, of course, was that I'm going to end up destitute or I'm going to end up without enough money. And it's been, it's taken the experience of actually just going with this and following it in and seeing that everything's working out. It's kind of like we all have this safety net which is the Holy Spirit is there and sometimes we feel like we're walking on the Tigra and we hear the Holy Spirit is down there but sometimes it's not until you seem to teeter or fall off sometimes and land on the net that you go, ah, it's always been here for me. It comes down to what is it for? And that's something we'll get into, I think, more as we go on tonight, this whole form content issue, you know, content being a purpose in our minds, content being what is the purpose or what is it for which is a real alien question to the ego because the ego basically is really bent on form, on outcomes coming out a certain way, on setting specific external goals and then striving to achieve them and then when you do it, then, gee, I'm still not happy. What's next? You know, kind of that game of I'll be happy when going on and on. What are you waiting for? Peace form. I'm going to wait and be peaceful when I get this or get better, achieve this or achieve that and then play peace now. And what was an artwork for me is when I read that post that you set up a situation, you know, you can have those goals and things but like, if it's temperature, my peace depends on whether it's the 80 degrees or 60 degrees, whether I live in this neighborhood or that neighborhood, or whether, you know, I'm going to this club or that club or whether I have this personally or that much better and it doesn't have to be a decision. You know, to claim peace now. Yeah. A powerful idea to think that peace is a decision. In a sense, that's where the course kind of veers away from a lot of psychotherapies and practices where basically it was kind of like go into your past and get in touch with some of these unconscious memories and scenes that were causing you the problem and here comes the course that it says there's nothing in your past that's causing the problem which is kind of a radical thing because so many psychotherapies, you know, say, you've got a big delve into your past and the course comes along and says that your peace of mind is what we were just hearing or the guilt and fear and anger and whatever you're feeling is based on a present decision, a decision that you're making this very instant. And that's like, hmm, that really is a radical kind of idea instead of going on a witch hunt into your past to try to uncover these things, it's based on a present decision. Now, if we follow that in a little bit further, it says that a decision is a conclusion based on everything that you believe. That's an interesting idea. So my peace of mind or my state of mind is dependent on a present decision and a decision is a conclusion based on everything that I believe. It's so important to get in touch with the unconscious beliefs that we have in our minds because it's kind of like without getting in touch with them, without raising them to the light and being able to look right at them and see what they are, these assumptions that are under the surface, then it's kind of like more of like being a robot. Getting up in the morning, automatically going maybe to brush your teeth, get ready for work, go through the motions. How many of us get up in the morning and just sit there in bed and go, what is the nature of reality? I don't want to even brush my teeth yet until I really get a handle on this. It's kind of like you click into gear and maybe during your lunch hour or during some time at work or whatever, you'll have some of those questions come in. Sometimes they come into the form like, what am I doing here? What's the purpose of any of this? They come back into our consciousness but a lot of times they kind of get brushed aside. It's like, well, I've got too much to do. I've got too many practical things to do to start investigating these questions. And the ego would have us keep some of those questions in mind because the more we start to really question, the more we start to go into the mind and we start to question the belief that this world's built on. When we talk about the idea of decision, there is that whole idea of choice. And then when I was growing up, I always had this sense of destiny, that there was some kind of a destiny involved. But I didn't really like the idea of predetermination because the more I thought about destiny or predetermination, it seemed to eliminate my choice. If everything was predetermined, when I was in psychology, I studied behaviorism and they were saying that it was all predetermined in the sense by your environment. It was like a stimulus response. You just keep reacting to your environment. And if something about that idea was kind of like, I don't know if I like that because that means I'm just a victim or I'm just completely determined by my circumstances. So I like the idea of choice and then I would hear about psychics and different people who would literally kind of read the future and read the past and everything and it was kind of like they were just reading from a script or something. How could these psychics be predicting these things that would happen almost like they were reading the future and it seemed to be there was a sense of destiny there. But how do you put the two together? How do you put free will or choice together with destiny? And to me, when I finally came to the course, it's like that's where it came together because Jesus is saying that the script is written. In other words, during the unholy instant, all the scripts and all the perceptions were spun out in an instant and the Holy Spirit was given as a simultaneous answer. But all of the happenings took place in a specific one instant. And where does choice come in then? And Jesus is saying that really what you do is you have choice on how you're going to look on what's on the screen. You always have the choice whether you're going to look through the ego's lens or the Holy Spirit's lens, so to speak. And really within the dream framework that's the only choice that we have. Now that's not the way it seems because it seems like that we're persons in this vast world and it doesn't seem at the beginning like we're dreaming a dream. It seems like we're figures in the dream that we go through every day. And it seems like we have choice as persons. In other words, we can choose what I'm going to wear in the morning, what I'm going to eat, where I'm going to go, those kind of things. Whether I'm going to wear the green shirt or the blue shirt or buy this car or that car. And in this world, that's what choice stands for. And of course, the ego counts with too that the more money you have, the more choice you have. That's why money is important in the sense of like, you know, it's like if I have more money then I can choose, I have more places to choose where I want to live. I'm not so constricted. I can choose what kind of foods I want to eat and where I want to go, whether I want to travel or not. And you know, the ego counts with in the sense the more money you have, the more freedom that you have. And here comes, of course, the miracles in saying that really the only choice you always have every instance is how do you look upon what's happening. And so that's where the freedom lies. Not in the freedom of choosing between illusions, so to speak. Choosing a green shirt and a blue shirt, you know, it's okay. Jesus is kind of saying, you know, don't arrest your mind in just choosing between illusions. You know, you can have a big dilemma. Do I want to read the course tonight or do I want to watch this TV show? You know. And basically what it comes down to is the real question is is the purpose that I'm going to bring? Welcome. What purpose will I bring to reading the course? What purpose will I bring to watching the TV show? It's a real, you know, that's the thing that the course keeps working toward is what is it for? What is the purpose? The only way that you can wake up and when I mean wake up it's kind of like wake up to the eternal reality of our true identity as Christ, the Son of God is you have to see the choice where it is. Now, and another way of saying it is you have to see the problem where it is. In the deceased state, as we go through life, the problem seems to be on the screen in the world. The problem is I don't have enough money to pay the rent. The problem is this person cut me off on the highway but the problem is, you know, my mother-in-law won't speak to me or I have cancer or, you know, one of hundreds and thousands of things that seem to be problems in this world. And basically the message of the course is if you perceive the problem as to be on the screen or in the world then you're kind of stuck because there's no solution to the external problems. We seem to come up with solutions in other words we seem to come up with enough rent or we seem to come up like polio. Polio seems to be a big problem and then we seem to come up with a polio vaccination. Ah, a solution. And it's kind of like a dam breaking where you try to keep putting those things in the hole. And what the course is saying is the reason it's important to see the decision where it is and to see the choice where it is and to see the problem where it is because it can