 Okay. Hello everybody. Hi. Great to see you all. Yeah. Really happy to be back for our next couple episodes of this wonderful series. It's been really rich. And I'm Peter for anyone who's new. I'll just be hosting today. And yeah, we, we are going to have a full day. I'll just let you know about the lineup. So we start with the movies or sorry episodes with David. And then after that, we'll have a 10 minute break. Then we have some breakout rooms for you to share any emotions or your experiences with the episodes. And then we'll have a 45 minute break. And then we'll have a Q&A session with me. So I'll pass it over to you, David. Thank you. Thank you, Pete. Welcome everyone. Good to see your smiling faces and your waves and your kisses. It's just beautiful to be here together and to be able to dive down deep toward the light. And actually the light is the present moment. What we consider the present moment in this world is not really the present moment because as long as there's images involved, it's not the present moment. As long as there's form involved, it's not the present moment. You know, as long as we're perceiving through the seeming five senses of the body, which are really part of the consciousness in the mind, then that's not the present moment. It's funny when we talk about some people talk about present moment consciousness. There is no such thing as present moment consciousness. Consciousness is the domain of the ego. And you'll never find the present moment in the domain of the ego. The present moment is prior to time. It's the IM before time was and was his past tense. So as we go really deep in this journey, you start to realize that whatever you're perceiving through the five senses, whatever you're perceiving at all is is a veil drawn over the light that we are and that we will forever be. So that puts it in a much deeper context. Now we're all on a journey to find the present moment and experience the fullness of the light. And today again, we have a beautiful Turkish series called Another Self. It's from this year. It came out at the end of July in the summer of 2022. And it's basically this story through eight episodes of three women who are really best friends. There's Ada, the doctor, surgeon. There's Sevgi, who was an attorney, a single lady who basically is searching for love and romance. And she had been diagnosed with cancer. And now she's gone through a remission. And she's living there with Mouko, her mother, in this beautiful beach town in Turkey. And then there's Leila, who is married. But also she has a lot of issues in the marriage. And we can see with the two of the ladies that are married, they have enormous issues coming up in their marriages. And with Sevgi, her issues are primarily with her mother. She's living with her mother. So she's dealing with those issues. And what are the issues except the desire to hold on to the past? That's what all issues are. And Jesus is teaching us in A Course in Miracles that the past is over. Don't try to breathe life into your failing ego, he says. Don't try to bring the past into the present moment because the present is clean and clear and fresh and sparkly and lit up with innocence and light and joy. And the past is dark, it's shadowy, it's heavy, it's guilt ridden, it's filled with fear. The past and the present can't be the same thing. And then this world is an attempt to bring the past into the present, to obscure divine innocence, to obscure divine happiness and joy and radiance. So as we usually do with these Saturday movie workshops, we always have a set of themes that people vote on in Facebook, in English, in Spanish, in tribe they vote. And then we tally the votes to see what themes you would most like addressed. And then we use the presentation of the movies, or in this case the episodes, to help us experientially dive into the experience, just dive into it. It's more like you're here at a swimming pool and Jesus is in the pool saying, the water's warm, jump in. Come on, let's take a swim together in the pool. And when you're afraid of the light, then you say, oh, maybe I'll put a few toes in. I'm not going on the diving board. You enjoyed in there. Someday I'll come swimming with you and Jesus said, no, no, it's good now, jump in now. So first of all, I'd like to welcome, we have a couple new participants joining us for the first time. Amy in the United Kingdom is joining us for the first time in Kimberly from the United States. So a big welcome to Amy and Kimberly from all of us. And also we have people in our centers that are joining us and people from around the world. I see my friends from Spain sprinkled around. I see we have Living Miracles Monastery. We've got Mexico and we're all piled into the Zoom room to look at these themes. Coming in number one in the pool is experiencing the power of forgiveness. That is, by far, the number one whole result, experiencing the power of forgiveness. Well, what can I say about that except forgiveness is not personal. People don't forgive other people. No matter what we've believed, we don't really forgive other people. It's our mind that needs to forgive. People are projections of the ego. So when you're trying to forgive a person and you're having difficulty forgiving a particular person, it's because forgiveness is for the mind. It's not for people. In fact, when you forgive, you laugh at the idea of people. You think, oh my God, I was obsessed with people. I was obsessed with people thoughts. The ego was firing these little particles in my mind at me. And there were people thoughts. And what the people did was important to me. What the people said was important to me. Whether the people seemed to be happy or sad was important to me. And Jesus is telling us, no, experiencing the power of forgiveness is experiencing the power of your mind. That this world, a time and space was made by the ego to keep you mindless. In fact, if you believe you have a brain, you believe you're mindless. Because the mind doesn't have a brain. You understand? The mind doesn't have a brain. The mind is fast. The brain is just a wrong minded thought in the mind. But it's the mind doesn't have a brain. The mind doesn't need a brain. At some point when you reach forgiveness, you laugh at the idea of a brain. Oh, what a silly idea. I thought I had a brain. I was concerned about intelligence, worldly intelligence, learning things. No, that was all a trick too. So when we're praying for having the experience of the power of forgiveness, what we're starting to pray for is help me remember the power of my mind. Help me, Holy Spirit, remember the power of my thoughts because the thoughts that are real are the thoughts I think with God. They are eternal thoughts. What's an example of an eternal thought? I am as God created me is an eternal thought. Isn't that lovely? It doesn't have a perceptual components. I am spirit. That's another workbook lesson. That's a pure thought. I am spirit. There's nothing perceptual in that. It doesn't say I am spirit with a brain. It doesn't say I'm spirit with a body. No, just plain, pure, simple, I am spirit. In fact, you could just leave the last word off and you could just say I am. Isn't that lovely? Without having to put a personality on there, without having to put a history, without having to write a story, just I amness. Just beingness. I amness. The other thing about forgiveness is forgiveness is of the present moment. You can't really say honestly that you have any past forgiveness lessons or future forgiveness lessons. Forgiveness is always a state of the present moment where you just simply see the false as false. It's nothing more than seeing the false as false. And it's very peaceful because you're not attempting to make the false true. And this is where the self-concept comes in when you actually try to have a personal identity, then you get caught up in pride, and then you get caught up in self-righteousness, and then you get caught up in being right. And all those things are not happy. I've never met anybody who's self-righteous, prideful, or just feeling like they're right about specific things in the world, right about opinions. That's not the pathway to happiness. The happiness is just letting it all go. Number two is stop protecting the crumbling self-concept. You voted with 47 votes for stop protecting the crumbling self-concept. If somebody says you're a failure, stop protecting the crumbling self-concept. You can say, well, yeah, I failed in the past for sure. I was a failure in the past, but it's not me. That's not me. I'm alive. I'm reborn again in Christ. I am fresh and clean and clear in this moment, and I have nothing to do with the self-concept. Was I big? Was I small? Neither. Was I fat or skinny? Neither. Was I beautiful or ugly? Neither. Was I intelligent or stupid? Neither. Was I a man or a woman? Neither. Was I a child or an adult? Neither. Neither. Neither. Neither. Neither. And that's because forgiveness allows us to stop protecting the crumbling image that the ego made of us, the ego made of us, a personal self that is so tiny. It could not be the Christ. And why, when our self-concept falls apart, why be sad? Why not go woohoo? There it goes. Down the toilet. Let's flush it. Let's flush it and send it out. It's on its way down there. And you see how different that is from being concerned about building a better self-concept, thinking you need more achievements, more accomplishments, more intelligence, more beauty, more skills, more abilities. Jesus says, what is an idol? Do you think you know? An idol is for more of something. It does not matter more of what. Wow. An idol is simply wishing for more. So I know that goes against our conditioning. Our conditioning tells us more, more, more. Get more, more, more, more, more. And the spirit goes, no, no. Let go. Let go of the crumbling self-concept. It was never enough. Who you are is everything, but the self-concept is never enough. So when it starts to crumble, let it slush down the toilet and put the lid down even. Don't even bother to look back on the water. Just put the lid down. It's swirling in there. Yeah, I know where you're going. Goodbye. Lid down. Goodbye. Okay. Number three. Facing the fear of true intimacy. You know, true intimacy is in the mind. There's really not true sexual intimacy, because sexual intimacy involves the body. And Jesus tells us minds are joined, bodies do not. And what he means is if you want true intimacy, all you have to do is realize that you have no private thoughts. You would keep no secrets. You would be totally transparent with everyone and everything. And you can broadcast your Christ's light to the whole world. Broadcast your Christness. Broadcast your joy. Broadcast your happiness. 24-7. 24-7. You're going to be broadcasting the who you are. And that is going to be the greatest blessing that there is. So that's a good one. Facing the fear of true intimacy means when love comes into your awareness and the ego gets frightened, just stay calm and allow yourself to merge with that love. Don't pull back from it. Don't be afraid of love. And the last two themes are when I am healed, I am not healed alone. That's pretty obvious because there's only one of us. So when I'm healed, the whole world must be healed. When I'm healed, everyone is healed in that. If there's only one of us, how can that mean that some are healed and some are not? You know, if there's only one of us, if I accept the healing, then everyone is healed with me. That's a pretty strong concept. The ego does not understand that one at all. But Jesus says, oh, that should be obvious if there's only one of us. When I am healed, the whole universe is healed because there is no world apart from my mind. My mind contains the world. And if I forgive the world, then I perceive a forgiven world in a happy dream. But there's only one of us. And the last one is anger is never justified. In this episode, we're going to definitely see some pretty heavy anger surfacing. Ada has, in the previous episodes, has gone through a lot of anger when she was kind of forced to resign from her career, her job in Istanbul. She was quite upset. When she found out, her husband told her, I slept with another woman. Ada was quite upset. But in this episode, it's not so much Ada's anger that's coming up, but it's her husband, Slim. He's got rage coming up. Her ex-boyfriend, Toprak, has rage coming up. And there's going to be some situations where we seem to even see a physical confrontation between the two men in the love triangle with Ada. Ada and her husband, Slim, and her ex, Toprak, the two men are going to get into it. They both think they want Ada, but they want God. Whenever we get angry, it's like we're going for a goal in time and space, and we think we're being blocked from that goal. So all love triangles are just fantastic opportunities to go to God. I remember, I had in my experience in the parable of David, I used to be floating along, and then Jesus says, well, you seem like you're doing well there, but you've got still some unconscious skills. I'm just going to throw a few triangles at you. Anybody here ever faced a triangle? Those triangles are really great opportunities for forgiveness. You know, Jesus loves to send us triangles to help us release our unconscious guilt and fear. So let's say thank you, Jesus, for the triangles. And Jesus is giving us one more triangle today with Ada, the beautiful Turkish woman, Dr. Surgeon, and Toprak, her rock and roll folk singer, boyfriend, and Salim, her construction worker, builder, husband. And when we look at these three characters, let's just take a little closer look at the triangle before we start today. Because it's kind of fun if you just take the triangle and you look at it a little bit. Of course, if you want God, then there is no triangle. It's a hologram where you can see that you love every aspect of the hologram. But in the triangle, you still think there might be one or another that would serve better, and you're still playing this either or game. Now, in this triangle with with Ada and Salim and Toprak, when I was looking at it with Jesus, and we can see that not only the triangle came about from the self concept of trying to hold on to the past, but whenever you're playing a role, it's based on some belief in lack or some need that you feel is still unfulfilled. So let's just take a look for for an example at Ada. Ada became a surgeon, a doctor and a surgeon, and she's still quite identified with that role. And she became a doctor and a surgeon because because her father died of cancer. Can you imagine being a young woman who watches your father die of cancer and then you make a decision in your mind and you say, I'm going to be someone who helps people like my father who was sick with cancer and died. And so you become a doctor. And this is a self concept that still has a bit of a personal messiah in it. Sometimes doctors actually believe they save lives because they believe life is of the body. And nurses believe they're saving lives. But but bodies don't save lives. Surgeons don't save lives because life is not of the body. Life is of God. And we have to realize that sometimes even the career goals we've had or even the the roles that we have taken on, we've taken on out of guilt because we want to prevent something. Maybe Ada watched her father die of cancer and she thought, I want to prevent this from happening to anybody else. So I'll become a surgeon or I'll become a doctor and I'll play my part in preventing cancer. Pan doctors prevent cancer. No, cancer is a is a is a belief in the mind. It's it's a it's a belief in false identity. It's an eating away in the mind when you believe you're something you're not. And then it gets projected to the body and it seems to take the form of a disease. But we know from Jesus that all illness is mental illness. Now Toprak is Ada's former partner and lover. And Toprak basically represents to Ada is the man the men who have left all the women in her generational life of her, her, her going back to her mother, her grandmother and so on and so forth. So Toprak, he just represents to her the abandon her, the one who left the one who was not true, the one who was who did not keep the fidelity and and basically again, this is a situation in the mind. People don't let us down. When we believe in the ego, we've let our true self down. We've because we're spirit. And when we believe in the ego, we're trying to be something that we're not. And in one sense, we're trying, we're breaking our promise that we made to God, that we would be eternal creations forever and love. So whenever we believe in the ego, we're trying to break a promise that we made to God in eternity. And it doesn't go well, you know, we seem to go into all sorts of troubles and issues in this world. And then Salim, some of you remember in a previous episode, Salim was a little boy and his house was was bombed and and it came crashing down. He lost his mother when he was a child. And now, when he's married, he was looking for a mother substitute. And this happens too. In time and space, when when one character disappears, it's often the mind will search for another character to replace the first character. So for Salim, his mother died when he was young. He married Ada. And in some ways, he wants Ada to replace the mother figure. And also, he lost his family when he was a child. He wants Ada to be a woman who will produce a child and will recreate the family that he lost. This is all part of an attempt to keep the past. Whenever we're looking to people to fulfill a role that we believe we're lacking something and they need to fulfill the husband role or the wife role, the mother role, the father role, the daughter role, the son role, it's because there's a there's a lack in the mind. And now the characters are being used, literally manipulated by the ego to try to fulfill a perceived lack. Jesus tells us this will not work. And this is why the human condition doesn't work. Because only forgiveness will set the mind free. Only going inside to the light will set the mind free. We cannot attempt to make idols and to hold on to those idols as God substitutes. Because that's just attempting to hold on to the past. And the past is gone. And Jesus keeps telling us gently, let it go. It's already gone. So don't hold on to it because you're just going to burn yourself in your awareness. If you keep holding on to the past and expecting these characters to give you unconditional love, God can give you unconditional love because God is unconditional love. The people cannot. The people were part of a setup to help you maintain guilt. And that's the ego's purpose for the people. Obviously, the ego made the body because God didn't create it. It's not eternal. And therefore, we have to look closely at what is the ego doing. So in this episode, we are again coming to the main lesson that that God is of the present moment. And as long as we believe the past is not over, we keep generating a future based on the past using the ego's crazy belief system. And then we always seem to have unfulfillment. Oh, I'd be happier if my husband or wife were different. I'd be happier if my children behaved differently, if they were more respectful. Or I'd be happier if my parents were grateful and if my parents remembered the present moment. We don't need our parents to remember the present moment because their image is too. We just want to remember the present moment in our mind. And it's all coming back to the self-responsibility of our mind coming back to the present moment. We can take everyone else off the hook and say, oops, I was expecting way too much from you. I want to be in the giving mode. I want to give the light away that I may know myself as the light. So I think these opportunities are so beautiful because we get to watch the characters acted out. Yes, we've all gone through some pretty intense relationship issues, but they were all just attempting to cling to the past. And now we're watching these characters acted out for us. And we're seeing that yes, the jealousies, the envy, the who's going to end up with who question. That's a big question that seems to be important to the human race. Why do people buy gossip magazines that put two bodies on the cover of a gossip magazine and say, look who's together now or look who broke up? Who really cares? Who is with who? I don't care. I'm not, I'm not interested. They're not going to get much money from me because I'm not going to buy the gossip papers because I don't really care. And then even when people ask me about people that I've known for many years, where are they now, David? Where is so-and-so and where is so-and-so? Are they well? Are they doing well? And I always know in my heart that they're all in my heart and they're all doing well because my heart's doing well and they're all in there. So they're all doing well too because you can see it's your perception of things. When you're really wondering about where people are or whether they're doing well or whether they they care about you or whether they communicate with you or not, you just should look into your mind and see them there because that's where they are. They're all in the mind. They've always been in the mind. They're nowhere else but the mind. And this is the most relaxing experience that you can have your head. You know, you just kind of go dancing through the day all as well, all as happy. Why? Why is all well and all as happy? Because all is mind. There is nothing but mind. Jesus says in the Course, you are mind, holy mind, purely mind. He says when you realize you are mind, your body is gone from your self-concept. And when you believe you're a body, your mind is gone from your self-concept. You've just, if you believe you're a body, you've just eliminated the most important thing that you could focus on, which is your mind. But there's one thing, you can't be both a mind and a body. It's an either or. You're either a divine mind still one with the mind of God or you're a body and the mind is gone from your self-concept. If you believe you're a body, you're going to be concerned about diseases. If you believe you're a body, you're going to be concerned about relationships and partnerships and who's with who. You're going to be concerned with all kinds of things, the environment. If you believe you're a body, suddenly you're going to care about the environment. You'll suddenly care about global warming. You'll suddenly care about weather patterns. You'll suddenly care about temperature patterns. You'll suddenly care about the food chain and if the body's having enough food or not. You see, if you identify with the body, you bring the cares of the ego and the worries of the ego with you. And once you are back to being a mind, you are peaceful again because all is well in the mind. Ultimately, we are an idea in the mind of God. That's what Christ is, is an idea in the mind of God. So that's the farthest thing from the body. Being a pure idea in the mind of God is that's the Christ. And when you identify with the body, you are identifying with something that is make-believe. It's fiction. It's fantasy. It's a construct. Who we are is more than a construct. Who we are is a divine being. But once we identify with the body, we go into all the worries and trials and temptations and tribulations of that one crazy tiny mad idea and the ego invented the body. So we don't want to identify with something the ego invented. That's not going to make us happy. So I hope you're all ready for a great movie. Ashley, it's two episodes, but they're the equivalent of a Saturday movie. And I'll be with you through the whole thing. I'll come in and join you as we go through this and enjoy the ride. Enjoy the ride with your Christ self. Have a good mind watch.