 I'm Jillian Bell from Walkwith, three school years or ten, been in this form with the course of 20 years, and I'm finding at this third stage in my life, it is letting go that mother quality that wants to have children happy, because I realise that is still holding me back in form. This is my interpretation, and I'm really throwing it over to see if other people have another interpretation. I can sort of relate to the guy in the Old Testament who was asked to kill his son, was it Abraham or something? I believe that was metaphorical as much as anything. The reason behind the experience is hand over. When I got into strike about 18 months ago with anguish for the state that both my kids seem to be in in their 40s, the message I got was, you trust me with your life, why don't you trust me with your children's lives? I suspect that that is it, but I have this special relationship as a mother with two children. Are there any interest to hear your thoughts on that, please? It reminds me of that passage in the Bible where all the apostles are around and Jesus' mother Mary is coming up and trying to make a big deal about Mary coming up to the scene. Basically, he says, who is my father, mother, sister, brother? He looks around the whole audience and he that does the will of our father in heaven is our father, mother, sister, brother. If you are coming into a state of mind where your mind is opening to transcend all special relationships so that you have this unconditional love, a gape that you can love any person in any culture or tradition just as much and as dearly as you love your own children. I think what happens a lot of times when we start to move into that, there could be a lot of resistance to that, but the most helpful way to think of it is that you're not devaluing your children in any way, you're just including the rest of the universe with them. So this awakening to the present moment is really an inclusive movement where you're saying, I love you and I am going to embrace everyone with the same love. And those roles that the mother-daughter roles or the mother-son roles that come in when you still feel a little bit of a tightness or something there or something that's restricting, those are still concepts from the past. You might say that all roles that involve personal relationships and interpersonal relationships were set up by the ego to reinforce guilt. So it's as if you seem to come to this world and deal out parents and siblings and children and people in your environment. And the ego is doing the dealing and that's why relationships in this world have such guilt with them because it seems like these patterns of guilt is play out over and over. Expectations that were not met, projected on parents or children or siblings or priests and nuns and so on and so forth goes on and on. And when you get into the holy instant, what you start to see is all those roles and all those expectations that go with those roles are getting gently washed away by the spirit. All roles in this world are like concepts that the mind identifies with and then you might say that they're ego ideals, so let's say you're identified with the mother concept. How good is a good enough mother and how much guilt comes in when you try to measure up with other mothers or with the standard that you have in mind. So you see that the idea of being a mother is an ideal, an ego ideal and that you never can quite fully reach perfection with it. There's always not good enough, could have done better and it's the same with the father role and it's the same with roles people do with spirituality too where they take on a role and they feel like they fail and they don't live up to the role. So as you go deeper in your mind and as you go deeper within the Holy Spirit or the intuitive self, the higher power slowly loosens your mind from these roles. And you might say that before you wake up from the dream of this world, your final role is forgiveness but it's a very broad concept. It's so big that it encompasses the whole world. It's like a giant blanket of love that just spreads over the whole world and you can take everybody in your mind and realize that everybody is included in you and that everybody lives in your heart. Of course it's a very, very powerful tool and so a lot of times it's not unusual for people to have a Course in Miracles as their spiritual path and have it for years and years and years. The guidance of how you work with it may seem to change over the years. You may do the workbook for a number of times and then be guided to kind of open the workbook or the book more like an I Ching kind of thing where you're pretty well in touch with the Holy Spirit and you reach some sex spots where you're a little turned around and confused and you need an answer and so you just close your eyes and formulate your prayer. Really just a prayer of health brings some clarity and then many times people can top open the book that way and use it that way. Sometimes in the early years with the Course people will attend study groups and they will be quite structured and disciplined and that all has its place too in the sense that it's kind of like the 12 step program. If an addict is coming in and they have a completely chaotic life, a little bit of structure is good if you have chaos in your life and you just scatter. And it's the same with the Course in Miracles. It's not assuming that you have a highly trained mind when you begin doing those workbook lessons. It's actually assuming that your mind is not trained and so Jesus and the Holy Spirit are going to take you into the waiting pool first and slowly take you in and slowly ask a little bit more of you as far as the practice periods and take you in and let that discipline grow as you build confidence with working with your mire power and working with intuition. So it's also very important to be very gentle with yourself. The ego will try to interpret against the Course and interpret against many different things on this spiritual journey with like one defense mechanism is perfectionism. Some people do the workbook and they'll do so many lessons and say, I'm not doing it right, I'm not doing it good enough, I'm just going to stop doing it or start over on lesson one and this could be a common ego tactic. Reach a certain point, go back to one, reach a certain point, go back to number one. You should remember when you're doing the text and when you're doing the workbook just be gentle with yourself and stay open to those next lessons and know that you're going to forget practice periods, you're going to make mistakes, but don't, like they do in banks where they compound the interest, don't compound the mistakes by beating yourself up. Oh, I messed up, so therefore I'm a failure at this or I'm not going to be able to do this because that's what the ego wants you to do, it wants you to conclude that you're not going to be able to do it, but you are, you know, you are going to succeed in this and it just takes faith and be gentle with yourself. I can't say that there is no world. That's right, and basically it's the same thing in eastern philosophy they call it Maya. Maya is another word for illusion and that you might say that this entire perceptual world is an illusion. Now to the mind that seems to be dreaming it and perceiving it, it does not appear to be an illusion, it appears to that mind to be reality. But because it appears to be real, it's like you find yourself asleep and reacting and responding to the images as if there are real people there doing real things and real activities occurring. And initially there's not an awareness that it's just a dream, no different than your nighttime dreams, you know, when you can be lying at home safely sleeping in bed and going through all these emotional reactions as your mind is generating this dream, nighttime dream. But what seems to be the daily world, this daily world of this room and all the bodies and everything, this is a dream as well. And you begin to get a little bit of sense as you work with the course of the dream-like quality because the more detached you become and the more deeply you go into your mind, you have a feeling like you're just dreaming a dream or you're like you're the observer because of the quantum physics, you're the observer of the whole thing. And an important step towards coming to this is that same lesson 132, Jesus says, there is no world apart from what you think. So you have to start to realize that the world and your thoughts are really identical, even though all of us have been trained to believe that we have these little thoughts swirling around in our minds. And then there's this massive cosmos that's out there and they don't seem to have any direct connection. Most people think my thoughts are there and I'm influencing the whole universe. And that's part of devaluing it and feeling that your thoughts have no power and that's part of the dream world. But the more you go deeper in, you start to realize that the thoughts that you think you think and the world that you think you see are actually identical. So whatever you're thinking about, your mind is so powerful that it's producing the entire cosmos. The planets, the stars, the skiers, we have a movie that we'll probably be showing. There's a lot of gradations and level in that twisted perception and it's not very happy either because it's a judgment. It's saying that some are ahead and some are behind. So if you continue to work with the courts, you'll reach a state of mind that's inevitable where you start to see the sameness of all things. That all things be exactly as they are. It's the way the work of the system. Initially, you seem to go through a phase where you're tempted to project or blame somebody or something or blame the environment, blame the government, blame the president or the prime minister, blame the scientist to be those on there or something. You draw it back in your mind and you realize that it was just a mistaken belief. That really it was the belief in separation of this really the form, the form in the sciences or the low spec in the eye that was causing all this crazy world. And then when you release that low spec from within, then everything is perceived as the same. You see the big picture. You see the whole tapestry. You don't try to pull anything out from it. So yeah, there is one more step beyond the happy dream and of course says God will take the final step. And then it goes on to say that God doesn't take steps. But the final step was actually the first step of so to speak. When we were created, we were created perfectly. And so the final step is nothing more than remembering your own perfection. It's not like this thing that has to occur in the future. It's just kind of going backwards. I always had the image of like you land on a beach and you make tracks all over the beach since we're here in New Zealand. You make all these tracks. And then at some point it's like getting a room and starting to step backwards and cleaning the beach and wiping away all the tracks. Until you get to a point where you've kind of wiped away all the tracks. And all that's left is this pristine beach. It's got no tracks or indentations left on it. And then you get lifted up at that point. And that's more of an idea. The time really goes backwards instead of forwards. So really you're just trying to unlearn all the errors and mistakes that you thought you had. And then when you're done unlearning this, you are what you've always been. The one who will be set to go on? Yes, the one who will be set to go on. And that's a blazing life experience. Who you are, some of you might have read the literature on what are called near-death experiences. Where they call them near-death experiences. Because that light is what life is. And when they go into the light, they know everything. And it's all telepathic. And they know all the wisdom of the universe and the words fail. That light is who we are. That is the light of Christ, you might say. Or whatever terminology you'd like. So when you go deep in your mind and you learn to forgive the illusions, you're just making your mind ready to remember that light. Which is beyond description. May I ask you something? Many years ago, when I first came across the course, I'd been reading your nananda. And I remember at the beginning of my book, I brought it along today for some reason. But it's this statement that he made that really kind of blew my mind. The spirit was one. By the law of duality that became two, positive and negative. Then by the law of infinity applied to the law of relativity, it became many. Now the one is endeavoring to unite the many and make them one. And I felt that my whole journey of course was that. And I still read it. I put it aside for months and then I pick it up again. It's a precious gift. But it does say it leaves that you do not have to. How beautiful. That you leave you nothing in the sense that you are what you are. And you always remain perfect. And that's the good news. That's what the New Testament was just coming along. It was just saying, you can't die. He did a little skit at the end of his life. He did a little crucifixion resurrection skit. He kind of has a little flame. I can't possibly convey the whole thing to you, but I'm going to put a little skit on to show you that you can't die. And that's what the joy comes from. When I used to go, I was at the hospital. And all the doctors and the nurses loved me. Because you breathe in here like there's no death. Like you go around and you're laughing and having fun with all these patients that are seeing on their last days or whatever. And then the patients would always call me in and we'd have these exciting little conversations about go through the light. You're perfectly innocent. Don't hang on. You didn't do anything wrong. You're perfectly loved. Then they would check out. And I had a high check-up rate. Instead of healing the sick and raising the dead, I cleared out hospice. Because it's all about innocence. It's not about a body hanging on for a couple more days or hours. It's about recognizing divine innocence. In fact, there was a course of miracles teacher one time. I was doing the dishes, I think, and I was listening to a tape from a course of miracles teacher. And they asked the teacher, they said, what does the course say about life on other planets? And the teacher said to the course says there's no life on this planet. And I remember that. I was like, wow. First time I've heard that one for a while. But what this teaching is, is that biology is, we know it. A body that's born and ages and grows old and dies. That goes for life here. But life is a state of mind. I mean, if you're not happy and joyful, it's like you're kind of one of the walking zombies. Like one of those old, like the Stepford-wise, or you know, some of those old movies where they just kind of were walking around like robots. And some of you might have seen The Matrix and there's so many big movies that are coming out. Where it's like all of they act. And the funny thing is, it's like there's six billion bodies every day trying not to die, trying to survive and make it another day. And it's all just a big facade. Because underneath that, there's one mind that's afraid to live, afraid to recognize the one. And when it's so afraid of the love, then it gets caught up into The Matrix or into this act of being a separate body or a separate mind. And at some point you start to realize that you want to unplug from The Matrix. And that's where the many become one in the sense that your mind becomes very whole and unified. And oh yes, then it's no worries me. Then it really can say it like full gusto. And you stop worshipping at the altar of death. Yes, yes. So what we do is, you know, initially you start to say, wait a minute, if I'm a death worshiper, how am I a death worshiper? Or you start to expose this unconscious police system that involves judgment. You know, how Jesus said, judge not, let it be judged. That the judge is what the death is. I mean, and to reach a state of non-judgment is the resurrection of your own mind. That you're resurrecting your mind like Jesus did 2,000 years ago. He just said, hey guys, there's a better way here than judging. Let's try trusting. Let's try trusting our higher power, you know, and that's what does it. So these, I'd so glad to share what you did because it's really beautiful when you can all come together and just have an open, friendly, loving, respectful dialogue on this. And what you find is that there's a lot of assumptions and a lot of things that are believed to be true that aren't actually true. But the more you come together and just start to question those assumptions, the more they dissolve away and the more free you are and lighter, you know. I was in college for 10 years and so now the Holy Spirit can use the vocabulary and the things that I seem to learn. Nothing's really taken away. I mean, I don't regret those 10 years in college at all but I realized that when I was in college I was emotive for me taking all those classes was for degrees, important jobs, status, those were all ego motivations and then once you get into the awakening experience the Holy Spirit can use all your skills and abilities but they're just aimed at extending love. They're not aimed at puffing up a personality. They're aimed at dissolving away that personality. So what you find you're left with is a state of non-attachment. I was talking earlier today with a professor who was very vivid of the force and she really wanted to translate a lot of my gatherings even though we had had a professional translator and a woman who was going all the way in from all the saints and mystics have said it's an inside job and when we have things like wars that seem to be erupting in the world of form that's just an opportunity for forgiveness. The first Gulf War back in the early 90s set the foundation for the Course in Miracles and we were doing this seminar on forgiveness and all week everybody had their anger and rage coming up around something. Some people were angry at Saddam Hussein some people were angry at George Bush some people were angry at the media and the way that the media was portraying the whole thing and so various of us went through this Course in Miracles seminar everybody was getting really angry and had something that was very detached very blissful did not by debate for anything and then the last day of the seminar she saw a bird covered in oil and she lost it just after this poor innocent bird that had nothing to do with this poor she got angry at all human beings or having this bird killed with all this well but see that was just another version of projecting the problem and really what Course in Miracles is just saying is you've got to recognize that your belief in your own mind and separation and ego belief is where the war is and is where the anger is and only the ego gets angry but as long as you identify with you but it's not the real you it's just sleeping you as identifying with the ego so this is why it's important not to stuff your anger and stuff your rage it's important not to stuff your feelings because those feelings need to get triggered and need to come up and it's okay to feel that anger when you're watching TV or whatever but it's also okay because I I want happiness I don't want to hang on and harbor this anger so that's what this is really about it's about not protecting those feelings and emotions not going around pretending well a good Course in Miracles student never gets irritated or angry it could get into a state of denial and you try to control your behaviors but emotionally it's much better to be more honest with yourself and to let those emotions come up and even though Jesus says in the Course anger is never justified meaning when you feel angry don't try to get into justifying it and blaming it and going down that whole tangent but what he is saying is as you do the Course you will seem to get angry you will have a lot of emotions and that's okay but it's important to think that you're not doing the Course properly if these emotions are given and initially the Holy Spirit will use those contracts you'll have bearable experiences and then you'll have these yucky feelings and it's very difficult because that's what a split line does it swings back and forth between bliss and yuck until you were able to transcend the ego and then the yuck is gone and the separation in yourself grows stronger and stronger and stronger it's self-love and a truest question it's not narcissistic in any way because you're not talking about personality you're just, you're, you know, love thy neighbor as thyself you're really coming to love yourself and you're coming to a purity of thought you know how Jesus said blessed are the pure parts for they should see God all you're doing is you're purifying your heart just letting go of false desires and people thinking you just freeing your mind that's from all that stuff then your vibration your spirit vibration seems to go stronger and stronger like you're getting the note get a nice high beautiful note that you're bringing more consistently then you start to attract people into your awareness that are reflective of that note that you're bringing so it's very empowering as you start to feel loving and when you find one that's not so one it's just reflecting a doubt thought about yourself if you still doubt that you're the Christ I guess who's going to act it out somebody somebody's going to show up and she'll be like where did you come from it was just another hidden doubt thought about yourself being your love about yourself being the Christ and so you learn to line up with the Holy Spirit and realize that's a call for love that if you are loved that if someone comes up like that it doesn't seem to be very loving they're just calling for love and guess who really is calling for love is yourself taking the form of seemingly somebody else so instead of perceiving that as insulting to the fact that you're taking your piece away you should perceive them as the Holy Spirit as just calling for love and you extend the love to them and you feel great because it's just as reinforcing that you have the love and that you are the love you can't get something away that you don't have so if you just leave a call for love and you give it away then that's going to wash away that doubt thought that's just another washing away of someone's doubt so it gets more intense as you go deeper into your mind and there's a section in the self versus self-concept section of the Course that says the role of the accuser will appear in many forms and it will seem to be accusing you but have no fear it will go at last as long as you're doubting your own self as to Christ of course the role of the accuser is going to show up maybe mum or dad maybe your sibling your child, your grandparent it could be and of course Americans would be for somebody who would stand up and say you don't know what you're talking about you're full of it you should go home and read this page and this text or whatever it doesn't matter where the role of the accuser comes from it's still just an opportunity to extend love