 Okay well good morning everybody hello hello and welcome to our Tabla Rasa online retreat weekend I'm Peter I'm going to be the host this weekend and we've got a beautiful theme the happy dream so yeah I can just let you know a little bit about this coming weekend we'll we'll have a session right now and another one later on today with members from our community you also have a movie workshop coming up tomorrow all-day movie workshop and then we'll have our final session on Sunday but to start with we have Francis here with us in Mexico and we have David at the monastery in Utah so I'm going to pass it over to you guys now thank you Peter hi everyone hi Francis what a fun topic happy dream the happy dream can't think of a better topic to to explore for the weekend it's beautiful yeah we're so grateful that you could all be there with us you know we're all here together in our zoom room and you know I I was happy when I when I got to the part of the course where I read the line the Holy Spirit needs happy learners to learn the final lessons of happiness so that to me told me that that I really needed to get into the happiness if I was going to see the world differently and allow the Holy Spirit to offer a replacement for the ego's world of guilt and judgment so that's what we're into we're into going all the way with with happiness and he didn't say the Holy Spirit needs conflicted learners he didn't say the Holy Spirit needs resistant learners he didn't say the Holy Spirit needs reluctant learners he said the Holy Spirit needs happy learners if you're going to learn the final happy lessons wouldn't you have to be happy to really experience the fullness of of your gifts so Francis we we love talking about this topic I always am excited to talk about the happy dream because that's our dream of non-judgment and it always comes back to guidance follow the guidance to get to the happiness yeah that's our that's our plan yeah I think this topic is so fitting so fitting about the spiritual journey because I I remember that when I first met David in 2009 the first two-hour gathering that I went to David was there talking about he like you know the fruit of a crossing miracles practiced with the Holy Spirit is that you can be happy consistently and without deception and he said he hadn't had a bad day for 20 years and it was very very striking very striking to to have someone testify that and I thought it was something I've never heard in the world doesn't matter what the promises were nobody no things can promise a happiness that is that doesn't end and and I can say that just by truly following this this pathway inexperience this is truly the goal and the means happiness happy learner and happy dream is not only the means but it's also the end as we you know I also realize as I practice more and more I realized I associate this word happiness solely now with the spirit and God and it doesn't it started to not really have any association with the world of images and what it can offer you know it only associated with with the spirit because it only comes from God and comes from spirit so so truly yeah as we give ourselves over to follow the voice for God Holy Spirit happiness is absolutely inevitable absolutely inevitable so yeah I like that line in the course too that happy dreams come true not because they're dreams but because they're happy it's the state of mind that brings the happy dreams the things you can't be sitting back and judging oh that's a good thing that's a bad thing oh that was a good day oh that was a bad day oh I had happy good things happen to me today and then oh another day I had bad things happen to me that's all just judgment and the happy dream is the state of non-judgment Jesus is not trying to say you're going to reach an egoic happy dream because ego is a death wish I would a death wish know what happiness is it would often it would have to be fake happiness false happiness and that's a happiness based on outcomes that you have prejudged as good outcomes so if you prejudge certain things as good and you prejudge other certain things as bad that when the good things seem to occur you'll have pseudo happiness and when the bad things occur you'll have pseudo unhappiness but pseudo is not reality and uh I've been sharing in the last couple weeks about my friend Dorothy who I met probably I think around 1990 and I just had a call with her uh somewhat recently and and she was having things happen to her body and memory that most people would say are bad things I mean you know when I talk to people about Alzheimer's or dementia they they just shake their head they go oh what a pity what a pity as if like losing your memory of things in the world is a bad thing uh because you can't function David they say you can't function well I think your mind is always active and your mind is is in the heart of of God and Jesus so your mind is actually doing very well even if you lose the memory of things of this world you're still in good hands with the Holy Spirit because memories are not truths memories are not reality so dementia uh my grandmother had to was diagnosed with dementia she was quite happy quite consistently happy but she couldn't tell you who she had breakfast with or she couldn't tell you what happened the previous three hours and my friend Dorothy was the same way she had was in an automobile smash up uh had a mangled foot black toe and um she started to lose her memory of that she was a mother that she had two children that she you know where she was from England she started to lose all that for a while and then she started to little by little get little bits and pieces back and that's how she contacted me because she saw my name on a book in the library for a course of miracles and she said to her helper friend I think I know this guy and then she eventually got in contact and we laughed for like two hours but that laughter is based on a state of non-judgment that that laughter is not based on a state of your body it's not based on the state of your world in terms of your specifics it's based on your point of view your interpretation of the world brings the happiness so that's really what we want to talk about today because you know admittedly what Jesus teaches us in the course is to the ego it's extremely radical for example Jesus teaches that the body is a learning device nothing more and nothing less it's just he's very common learning device so the body that you think is yours is a learning device the bodies of your brothers and sisters throughout the world is 7.8 billion they're all just learning devices to help your mind wake up you may think that your body is different from the other bodies but actually it's the same because your body is a learning device and the other bodies are learning device you may I see a pen and a marker here you may think that you your body's a pen and your brother and sister they're a marker they look different you and your brother and sister look different but a pen and a marker are both the writing devices so in that sense they're both learning devices but what Jesus says is if you read meaning like lesson number two I've given everything I see all the meaning it has for me if you give your learning device the meaning of being a human being breathing human being with organic processes in linear time if you give it a personality and suddenly the puppet is no longer a puppet but it's like Pinocchio it's a real human being and you give it real thoughts and real beliefs and a real private mind you've suddenly assigned so many things from your mind to this learning device and suddenly you've made it into something important and then if this device seems to get famous oh or if it gets rich oh or if it gets many skills or if it's beautiful or sexy or smart then you see you've given a lot of meaning to this learning device which is just an instrument just a little tool for the mind to use to let go of the ego that's all the body is it's a learning device used by the Holy Spirit to let go the ego and nothing more and Jesus says this learning device can and often is over-evaluated you know if you're a mind if you're a divine mind you can't be a famous divine mind because there's only one mind who would you be famous to you can't really be rich because the divine mind is all that there is so it's not rich or poor you see these are all just attributes that are given to the learning device to help you forget that it's a learning device so that the ego can convince you that this body is who you are this personality is who you are and you can't know happiness as long as you believe that you're something that you're not if you forget your spirit and you start attaching all this meaning to the learning device then you're not going to know the happy dream you're just going to be hope hoping to have more happy outcomes in the world and Jesus says there are no happy outcomes in this world less than 128 the world I see holds nothing that I want he's not trying to have give us hope for finding happy outcomes in the world he's saying there are none and I'm going to let you know that from the get go so for Francis and I this this is our life this is the you know you you give way to the happiness you give way to the guidance but you don't evaluate body symptoms because what difference does it make if your learning device seems to have symptoms or not it's still just the learning device and Jesus goes even further and he says learning devices don't make mistakes that's right your body has never made a mistake ever learning devices do not make mistakes mistakes errors are in the mind not in don't blame your learning device don't say you are getting too old and you're too fat and you you're you're not intelligent enough and you're losing your memory you see if you keep blaming the the learning device and the learning device doesn't even make any mistakes it's the judgments in the mind projected onto the learning device is where the errors occur so this is like a deep metaphysical context for what we're talking about this weekend I see Roland Roland Ritter's there he was concerned about his learning device or other learning devices and if you can apply the workbook lessons equally to either one of course you can learning devices and if this if it looks like this as your brother and this is you you can apply the workbook lessons equally to both learning devices you and the others so to speak you know without problems because that's that's actually what Jesus wants you to do make no exceptions to the lessons so fun fun Francis we're in for a cooker this weekend yeah I would I was just thinking when you were talking I actually read a sentence in the course yesterday um Jesus says anytime that you you put the body's betterment as your main primary goal you bring death closer because that is what you're here to seek um as identify with the body it's like whoa anytime because the way that we seek happiness you know before the course is all about seeking the betterment of the body seeking the betterment of self identity and here Jesus said learn from me and we're going 180 degrees opposite direction we're not going trying to seek from that realm anymore and here we're seeking for the freedom of the mind you know freedom of the mind comes from non-judgment freedom of the mind comes from forgiveness freedom of the mind comes from not making decisions for ourselves but letting the spirit make decisions for God for us every single day and that is a day in and day out practice a day in day out choice to aim for the freedom freedom of the mind it's a it's a total opposite direction that's for sure yeah yeah Francis and I were talking Francis did a counseling call recently and I've had a number of counseling calls where where people will kind of when you get into the counseling call and they feel all the love and acceptance then they start to spill the beans of their their plan of awakening and it involves the future I'm gonna I'm gonna finish my studies I'm gonna get a good job and when I have a good a good job and I I'm financially sound and I have a good apartment or house and I have things when things are right when I have all the conditions in the world right then I'm really gonna open to the course and practice and live this course in the future you see and I I can relate to that because that was my plan before the course came I I called the game that I played in my mind I'll be happy when and the I'll be happy when game is once my finances look this way once my relationship status looks this way once I have a stable secure life in form then Jesus I will be ready to take your plan then I'm ready to be the happy learner but until I get the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle in order I'm not a happy learner I'm a frightened learner I can only give you so much time Jesus I'll okay I'll do your lessons but I got busy stuff to do important stuff to do because I've got to work it out on my own I've got to survive and I've got to do the right things and make it I have to make it in the world before I can do your course of course it never worked my game of I'll be happy when finally was intercepted by Jesus himself which Jesus was like no no listen this game is getting you nowhere you're like a hamster spinning your mind on the hamster wheel with I'll be happy when and that's an ego game if if not now then when you know like my friend Dorothy would say so what about the past now what and Jesus would say yeah so what about the future now what what about are you going to follow me now so Francis and I know from our own experiences and also from our counseling calls that it'll oftentimes people say well I can't really give myself over to study and practice the course and understand what it's saying until the conditions are right and then for some of you you do reach a point where you feel the conditions are right and then you try to study the course as if it's a textbook and you think you're going to intellectually learn the course how that is the biggest joke to think that you're going to intellectually grasp a teaching device that is meant for you to let go of everything you know about the world when you believe you'll reach a certain crescendo of study and you'll suddenly go oh I got it I understand the course I have achieved one of my goals in life and then the angels all laugh and Jesus laughs and then the next thing is no peace and understanding go together and Jesus says until you pass the test of perfect peace you don't understand anything literally you can't understand anything at all until you pass the test of perfect peace because perfect peace is where spiritual transformation occurs you know it's in the peace of mind it's not an intellectual understanding I've been traveling and teaching the course for over 30 years and one of the most common things I hear is well I read this in the course I get that intellectually but and I have stopped well it's not right there intellectually but the but cancels out the intellectual understanding how can you understand something intellectually and and put the word but after it the word but literally cancels out what you just stated so I said maybe we can quit the game if I get that intellectually but I can't live it or Helen Shuckman herself described of the course she said I know the course is true but I don't believe it and and Jesus says in the course this course will be believed entirely or not at all this is not you don't get points brownie points for understanding the metaphysics it's your points come in your peace of mind that comes from the transfer of training of using the workbook and not making any exceptions so that's what