 So we'll begin our last session here, our last section, and Peter has let us know as far as getting to the airport and grabbing FIT, but this will be probably a little bit under 45 minutes, about 40 minutes or so we've got for our closing session to make sure we have time to do everything that we need to do. Lisa was raising some questions that are very important questions for her and asking for some insight and clarity on them, and actually I would say that these are core questions, core metaphysical questions, core ontological questions. When we look at questions in this world we all know about all the different disciplines and we know about the field of academia called philosophy, and these kind of questions sometimes are called ontological questions, they're very, very core and very basic. The questions, the way they were presented during the break, Lisa was saying, in terms of awareness, wanting to get a deeper awareness of this instant of terror, this instant of insanity, this instant that, actually of course the miracle is Jesus is going to call this instant a tiny tick of time, but he's also going to call this instant the unholy instant. The unholy instant is this time of terror, and again the whole context of a course of miracles is that it's having to be presented to a mind that seems to be asleep and dreaming. The basic premise of the course, and Lisa was sharing it, she said, I gather, I know from the course that God doesn't seem to have awareness of this dream, that in reality we are awake, in reality we are with God, and in reality we are pure love, as God created us, and in reality we are one. There's something intuitive in us that even if we read these words we go, yeah, there's something that's like innocence, pure innocence, pure love. It's all about the love, that's what Lisa was saying, it's all about the love, and there's this awareness from the course that's saying, in the course he's talking about this unholy instant, and she was saying, we're told it has been corrected. She had questions too about who corrected it, and who experienced it, who experienced this unholy instant, and who corrected it, and so on and so forth. So in order to answer those questions, I would say that as I've traveled around the world and gone to 47 countries, oftentimes I will say that the number one question is kind of like, let's cut the chase, let's get down to some of the core questions. How did this happen in the first place? If everything is pure love and oneness and God is all-powerful, what did they teach us? All-knowing, omniscient, all-powerful, omnipotent, what's the other one? Omnipresent. God is omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent. Where does the tiny tick of terror, where does terror or fear come into that? And that's what I was raised with too. I was raised with those are the attributes of God. Where does that leave room for terror? Where does that leave room for whatever you want to call it? None of the only instant. And I used to answer this question in a couple ways. One, if you go to the clarification of terms in the Course of Miracles, which actually was given at the beginning, but the published version, they stuck it at the end. But basically, there's one interesting passage that caught my attention there where Jesus said, the ego will ask many questions that this Course has no answer for. He gives examples. How did the impossible happen? To whom did the impossible happen? And many forms of this question. And when he says that this Course has no answers for, he doesn't leave it there. He basically says that an experience will come that will end your doubting. In other words, you will never find conceptual answers to your conceptual questions. Why? Because the ego itself is a concept. Who's asking all the questions? The ego. Spirit doesn't have any. If everything is bliss, you think Spirit's going, who am I? You imagine in heaven and looking, and with God, who are you and who am I? If knowledge or knowing, some of you are even familiar with Byron Katie and her questions and the work. One of her big teachings is, I think she wrote a book called Loving What Is. What if God is what is? What if heaven is what is? What if love is what is? And the whole focus is loving what is. And again, that resonates. There's something there that's like, I resonate with that. But this idea of who is asking the questions. There was a saint in India that lived down on a mountain called Arunachala. Some of you might be familiar with Ramana Maharshi. He was an amazing saint. They even made a movie. Somerset Mom made a movie called The Razor's Edge, which was originally made in 1948, and then Bill Murray played in The Razor's Edge. And it was all based on Somerset Mom's encounter with Ramana Maharshi in India. But Ramana, his pathway to God, was basically very simple. He said, just really look at the question, who am I? You'll find presence. You'll find spirit by really going deeply within. But for most human beings, they find that a very difficult pathway to God. Imagine doing that with your dogs. When the dogs are barking, they want out for a walk. They want to be fed. And you're doing your who am I. With your husbands, with your dogs, with your decorating, with your house, with your in-laws, with your relatives. Imagine all those years that seemed to be a human life. And you're who am I in the whole thing. Who am I? He said that's really the central question. That's really the core issue. He went into silence for many years facing, looking within his own mind, and coming into what is real through the who am I question. Very, for most people, very difficult pathway to God. People say, I'd rather meditate or chant or something than try to who am I, everything, every single circumstance in this world. There's a lot of circumstances. So, when we read Jesus says, the Eagle Boy has many questions that this Course has no answer for. He does tell us that an experience will come that will end your die. And if he tells us that it must be so, he's not saying a concept will come that will end your downing. He's not saying a belief will come along that will end your downing. He's not saying a process will come along that will end your downing. He says an experience will come along. In spirituality, has anybody had the discussion, something about talking the talk and walking the talk? What's the difference between talking the talk and walking the talk? What's the difference between talking about miracles and living the miracles? Conceptual. One is conceptual and one is an actual experience. Oftentimes in this journey, we will have this question that arises. I've seen it in movies, a friend of mine recently was talking about it. And it's interesting that it comes up in relationships sometimes. But it's almost like the ghost in the room or the elephant in the room. You know, it's the question that you don't often want to come into the discussion. And it's a pretty simple little question. It's called, are you happy? That's an elephant in the room. Are you happy? I mean, imagine just coming to a sense of honesty with that one question. Where you can honestly answer it. And I'm not talking about honesty the way the world talks about it. Jesus defines honesty in his menu for teachers as consistency. So to honestly answer that question to Jesus is to consistently answer that question. And that is a very interesting question. Now let's get back to the questions that Lisa was raising. First of all, we have, many of us have come up and grown up in the Judeo-Christian culture and world. And basically, most of us have some familiarity with the Bible. And we've read this book called Genesis. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. We've learned about Adam and Eve. We learned that there was this word that Jesus, actually the Bible uses in Genesis, called Paradise. There's this thing called Paradise. And then there seemed to be God and then we've got Adam and Eve. Everybody knows this story. Eve came from a rib from Adam and so on and so forth and seven days. And on the seventh day, Sunday, God rested and so on and so forth. And then we learned in there about a tree. Now in the Christian, Judeo-Christian terminology, this is a very important tree in Genesis. It's called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And basically, according to the story, God said, you can have any fruit, any of the fruit here that you want in this garden. But, it's interesting that God is using a but word. But, we should be wondering about this book right away when we've got God and Buddy. But, don't eat from the tree, from this tree. I always see the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as duality. If God is pure oneness, then it would just be don't take a bite out of duality. Because if you eat from a tree of duality, eating, trying to nourish yourself and eat from, it's almost like taking the poison apple, you know, if you eat from duality. So, you know, Peter studied theology and studied many, many things. He came from Vietnam and Buddhism and Taoism and all kinds of different theologies, all kinds of different religions, but that's just giving you the Judeo-Christian thing. Well, that's like a core idea too. That kind of relates to that question about that tiny tick of time, that unholy instant, that moment of terror really relates to that tree, I think. It's in Genesis. We're not just talking Course in Miracles now, we're going into the Bible. There's a tree there and there's God and Adam and Eve are there. So, they're representing mankind and the God's there. And there's a tree there and there's a snake there. So, we're getting down to some core things. And the snake comes to Adam and Eve and says, go ahead, take a bite. You don't have to listen to what God says. Take a bite. Eat of that tree, take a bite out of that tree. That seems to be a temptation as a snake. Snakes have got a bad rap for a lot of time. If you talk about loving all the creatures of the earth, well, the snake's got a bad name, bad name, because it's coming to Adam and Eve and saying, you don't have to listen to God, you can listen to me and eat from that tree. Well, I was raised to be a Christian so I was raised with all this stuff. And in answer to your question, I was reading through the Course and I was reading through the text and Jesus started talking about all this stuff. I find that kind of fascinating because this is like core stuff, this is like core issues and basically Jesus said, God would never put you in such a position. Well, let's get a hallelujah down in Wagnerville. Strike one for Genesis. It's a baseball game and the pitchers just blown a fastball in there. No, no, God, let's get this straight. People say, Dave, you can't go down to Texas and start talking this stuff. I'm in Texas right now, I got my soul in brawl and I'm ready to talk about Genesis and I'm ready to talk about that snake and I'm ready to talk about that tree. I'm coming up to the plate, I'm going to talk about, let's not keep anything hidden here. There's nothing sacred. All right, we're in Texas, we're in Arlington, we'll do it. Basically, Jesus says, no, God would never put you in such a position. If God is love, what business, what business would God have of putting that kind of a tree in the garden? You, most of you know how it is with children, Stephanie can tell me with children, if you've got a kitchen there and you bake some chocolate chip cookies with almonds and you let them rise and they're right out of the oven and the kids can smell them, everything and you put those cookies in a jar and you say, now I got to go out, I got to go out and do some chores but I just baked these cookies in there in the jar and I just have one thing to tell your kids before I go out I got to go get some milk and some bread and everything out. I just, don't go in that cookie jar. That's all I ask of you. Is that any different than God saying, listen, there's plenty to eat here, but I wonder again, why is God butting? God is one, why do you have to put a but in there? But don't eat from that tree. Jesus says God would never put you in that position. So it must mean that duality, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is some kind of a trick because God didn't put it there. It's a trick. And I don't know about you, but this whole Halloween thing, you know, trick or treat, if that's a trick, what's the treat? I want to know the truths, actually, trick or truth. Let's play this game of trick or truth. What's the truth here? If God didn't put that tree there, then it must have been imagined. And I would say that what are we imagining is, we're imagining a separation from God. If God is pure love and pure oneness and Christ, remember what Jesus said in the Bible in the red letters, I and the Father are one. They're connected. It's not like two forces there, it's just love. Love is one. Jesus was representing God's love. He wasn't saying, listen, I'm different. I'm the sales rep. And I want you to follow me, but forget about the light. He was saying, no, the light is real. Heaven is real. We are love. We are light. And he demonstrated that too very, very well on his life on earth. So let's get into a little bit of science here. If God and Christ are the same in heaven, it's not like you get back to heaven and go, okay, when do I get to meet with the big guy? God isn't a guy. And God isn't a separate entity. When you know Christ, you know God. You know Christ because Christ is your identity. You more than live and breathe and move in him, you have all of your existence in God. You cannot even concede or live apart from that love. It's absolutely inconceivable that a species could live apart from God's love. Absolutely inconceivable. No concepts could ever cover over such a divine love affair. In fact, Jesus says it's like a happy song of gratitude. The song of, the forgotten song is just a song of gratitude. There's been an unseeming amnesia, but the song hasn't gone away. It's still a song of gratitude. We know how good gratitude feels in this world. When you're grateful for people, when people are grateful for you, doesn't that feel good? Imagine eternal gratefulness. It's got to be really amazing, eternal gratitude. So this world of time and space is to believe that the effect Christ could leave the cause and not only leave it, but have an existence apart from the source. This world is a crazy idea. It's insane. It's an impossible situation. And what can we say about this hypothetical situation? This impossible situation is just an as-if. So in the clarification of terms, Jesus says, the mind is described as-if it has two parts. And you know what he does with those two words as-if? He italicizes those words. Jesus Christ italicizes two words. Does it get your attention when he italicizes something? When you're reading something in a book, and there's something italicized, what does that mean? What does it mean when something's bolded or italicized? Pay attention. Pay attention. The mind is described as-if. He puts those two words in the clarification of terms in italics. As-if it has two parts. So he's obviously doing it for a reason. He wouldn't be writing it in that way, but he's putting italics on those two words. The mind is described as-if the separation happened. The mind is described as-if it's schizophrenic. The mind is described as-if the separation from God actually occurred. As-if. As-if. He's telling you it's still hypothetical. It's not a reality. He's just saying, this is going to be important for you. And what are those two parts that he described in his course is right mind and wrong mind. But it must be helpful for us, because why would you put it in and spend 31 chapters talking about it if it had no importance whatsoever? So I'm going to come back to Helen Shuckman now and William Tefter. These are two research psychologists in the 1960s at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. Helen Shuckman described her boss, William Tefter, as helping her, consoling her, stroking her, helping- she's pretty nervous about this inner dictation that's going on from Jesus Christ. She's an atheist psychologist, and she's got Jesus Christ dictating a book to her. What do psychologists do with people who hear inner voices? They usually lock them up and prescribe drugs, and she's the one who's receiving this information. Is it a trance? No. She can pick up the writing and put it down if the tea kettle's boiling, if there's a knock at the door. She is not in a trance. This is not automatic writing. She is not in any way, shape, or form in a trance, but there's this presence in her that can pick the pen up and start going and in mid-sentence stop if there's a doorbell, if there's something going on. And Jesus is literally using her, and we do know from Absence from Felicity that she had this huge scribal ability. Some of us have different abilities in this world. She had an amazing scribal psychic ability that she had misused in the past, and she had a lot of guilt around it because she misused the ability as a priestess. That's what happens when we misuse something. We feel guilt. It shouldn't be surprising. So Jesus patiently works with her for seven years. What I said was this, what you wrote was that, and he's got to be very patient, even though she's got a great scribal ability to work with her like an elder brother continually. What I said was this, what you wrote was this. Let's go back, write it down, and it takes seven years to get this book into this realm. And during the process, after they go through a number of chapters, chapters, going through another chapter, another chapter, another chapter, at one point, Bill and Helen decide to ask the same questions that Lisa is asking. They basically do what you do, Lisa. They basically, Jesus, before we go on with this job, you know, this big task, do you mind if we ask some questions? He said, don't sure. How did this happen in the first place? How did this happen? And Jesus says, well, it's a good question. And you could tell by how you feel if you look at your emotions that you believe it did. That's what he told her. Look at your emotions. Look at your emotions. And you can tell by looking at your emotions that you believe it did. And this course is coming to you because of your prayer and at your request for help. You believe it happened. You ask for help. I am answering. That's pretty straightforward. So when he says you believe it happened, he's saying you believe in hypotheticals. You believe in the impossible. You believe in pain. You believe in suffering. You believe in guilt. You believe in fear. Shame. You believe it happened. You believe in time. I'm speaking to you from eternity. And imagine if Jesus had come 2,000 years ago and let's say he didn't use a virgin birth. Let's say he didn't even use Joseph and Mary. He's a divine being. He just was going to beam into planet earth like they do on Star Trek. Without the whole thing of growing up and the Jewish tradition and learning Hebrew and Aramaic or whatever, going through the whole thing all human beings have to go through. Just suppose he just materialized one day and there he was with his beard and his robe, purple robe and let's say he's in the temple there and he shows up and everybody goes Who are you? Where did you? Where did you just come from, Mike? And he says God is love and then he materialized. He just materialized. He told the truth. He could have even kept it shorter. God is. Forget the love part. Just God is. Two words he could have. He materializes, he says God is. Do you think we have a Bible? Do you think we have any red words? No miracles. Just God is. Just came and told the straight truth. Well, let's suppose he said a few more words. He beams in. He looks around and everybody says this world is an unreal dream. God is. Now he's got two senses. Then he dematerializes, he goes. He's gone. Do you think we have a Bible? Do you think we'd have a New Testament? Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? All... I don't think you'd have anything actually because you might have had somebody you wrote down. There is this crazy guy with this purple robe that is the most mysterious figure in the history of the universe. And I'm writing down what he said. This world is nothing but an unreal dream. God is. Well, God is love. And then he was gone. I don't think it would have even made it. It made it through to Arlington, Texas in 2016. I don't think we'd have much to talk about. But actually what the Holy Spirit did use was to use the symbol of this Jesus guy and he used three years of public ministry and teaching, demonstrating a presence that's not of this world. I mean, healing is sick. It's pretty strong in a world where sickness seems to just repeat and cycle over and over. Birth and death and sickness, that's a long story that's been going on. As long as there seem to be biological life we've got cycles. You know, the circle of life, they call it in Lion King, but it's cycles of birth and death and sickness and so forth. I don't think that it would have made much of an impact. So again, what Jesus told Helen the Bill is you believe it happened. Now, also in the Course of Miracles this is addressing another question of Lisa. Lisa was like, if God is love and God is all powerful God should just wake us up. God should just do like, remember the bewitched, the story of bewitched. Samantha, God doesn't even have a nose to twinkle. But God should just wake us up. God should just say enough. They had enough of this illusion. God recognized the illusion that would be something. If God is all love, and now love is like, come on, where did you guys mess up? Then God wouldn't really be God. If God knew something other than love then that would not be God. So we have a situation where there's a seeming belief in separation. There's a split between cause and effect. And isn't that the way that planet Earth works? Because any discipline you study doesn't matter if you go to university. I don't care if it's studying traditional cause and effect for a reaction, there's a reaction in physics. I don't care if it's studying mechanics. If it's studying you can't even talk about baking a cherry pie without talking about cause and effect. Because what are you talking about when you bake that cherry pie? The ingredients, what you mix in first, what comes first in the process with the cherries and the crust and the flour, butter, whatever you have, and what about the oven? Is there any time involved in baking that cherry pie? You better believe there is. You can't even talk about baking a cherry pie. You can't even, I'm in the south, you can't talk about grits. Kiss my grits. You think that you can talk about grits without time. You've got something else coming. Jesus says you can kiss my grits if you think that grits don't involve time. Everything that has been learned about time and space and everything that all the humans seem to act and interact with is almost like telling a fish in the ocean, there is no water. The fish is like, what are you talking about? It's so accustomed to the water that the fish would go. Do you want to run that by me again? You know, we should do a movie with Nemo and you ask Nemo, what about the water? It's like asking human beings about time. Time is so assumed to be real in your time that it's part of the construct of being a human. If you take time out of the human equation, really what's left? If you take time out of matter and space, if you take time, Einstein told us time and space are the same thing. They're relative to each other. If you take time out of the equation, guess what else you have to take out? Space. You can't talk about anything. You can't even ask a question without time as a basis for that question. And what is quantum physics showing us that everything is absolutely connected? We used to believe that time and space and dimensions had different causations and different things that there was actually some kind of separateness that was real. That's what Isaac Newton basically studied this world of time and space and all of Newtonian physics and I would say all of the science that we were all raised with were electrical. It's all Newtonian. He studied the ephemeral world and he drew conclusions based on the ephemeral world and that's what our science was that we were all raised with and we went to science lab and science class. Even back in that cherry pie you couldn't even bake that cherry pie unless you had tools of temperature and ingredients and so on and so forth. And now, quantum physics is showing what? That everything we learned from Newtonian physics everything we learned from science when we go to those jobs we're working in those different careers. Nursing is all based on Newtonian physics. The entire field of nursing the entire field of medicine the entire field of engineering the entire field of everything. Even if I come here and I drive by a funeral parlor you couldn't even have a funeral parlor business down here in Texas without time the belief in time and space that's how fundamental it is. So when you start picking up a course of miracles and it resonates for you and you start following it and following that inner intuition and voice get ready hold on to your Texas hats because Dallas is going by bike and more than that Texas is going by bike you watch the matrix Kansas is going by bike Oklahoma is going by bike it's all going by bike America is going by bike Trump is going by bike Obama is going by bike the whole construct is going by bike and why? Because why? Love and light are real happiness and joy are real are fairy tales why do we like certain fairy tales? We like happy endings don't we like happy endings we don't like grim fairy tales we like happy ending fairy tales well what's the most happy ending except to realize there was no beginning to this world the world will end in laughter because it was a place of sorrow the world will end in happiness the world will add a joy of course intuitively we know that has to be the case something inside us knows that at the core of our being fear cannot last fear is temporary love is eternal nothing real can be threatened nothing unreal exists herein lies the peace of God something inside that knows that those words are coming from divinity that's the that's the summary at the end of the introduction that's how the introduction ends nothing real can be threatened nothing unreal exists herein lies the peace of God that's what we are joining here for right now is because there's something that resonates about that all have this inner knowing that if we trust this presence if we follow this presence that only goodness can be the result the name of this creature in this dreamscape is called David there was a David in the bible in the old testament the songs all the songs the songs of the soul came through David yay though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death he is with me surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever my grandmother memorized that I don't even know the whole thing I know how it starts I know how it ends I know how it ends if all this can resonate with that surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever so we have reached the end of our session and I thank you all for joining me and coming it's been a pure delight I'm glad the Holy Spirit prompted me to come for Diana to come to come down here I'm glad we were so graciously hosted Peter and Lisa and I'm glad all of you came and thank you to unity of Arlington and so I leave you with the end part of the Truman show in case I don't see you good afternoon good evening and good night