 But we'll continue on with some questions, Joe. Yeah, I'd like to share how I see things in certain and see what you have to say, because I think I see it differently in some way, but we'll see. There's certain statements in the course, like the script is written, or there's only one Son of God rather than many, or there's statements for God didn't make this world, right? And then if you look at the great tradition of spirituality, most spiritual traditions believe God did make the world, and there's many souls, but we're all one. So from how I look at it, is certain things in the course help me understand it in kind of a way, like there's the statement, words are symbols of symbols, thus twice removed from reality. So those statements, either way, there's one soul, many souls, those are symbols of symbols twice removed from reality, any of those statements. And then like the course says, there will never be a universal theology, or it's a universal theology is impossible, something like that. But what the course aims for is an experience, right? So I think all those statements, if you take it literally, they're theological statements. And the course says there is no universal theology. So I come back to, rather than necessarily taking a position on any of those things that I look at the question you like, what is it for? So if there's the script is written, that could be of serving the ego or serving the Holy Spirit, depending upon the circumstance. If somebody feels like a victim, like, oh, no matter what I do, it's always the same, the script is written, then there's choice. Then that's a useful statement, right? To say, no, you have choice about what you do with your mind, right? And then at a certain point, it could be the opposite. Like any statement could serve anything, depending upon what is it for. So for me, rather than believing the standard course theology or metaphysics, I just think about what is it for? That's kind of how I deal with it. Because I don't know, like, is the soul, is there many, did God make this world at week? I really don't know. And really, I don't really even care. Really, I want the peace of God. Really, rather than know some theological statement, you know? I think that what I do remember is that a universal theology is impossible, but a universal experience is not only possible, but inevitable. Right. Yes. Right. God, it's beautiful. I think what you're saying, Joe, and what you were just referring to is that when you realize you're going for an experience that's not like a human experience, positives and negatives and good and bad as the ego judges it, but you're going for a transcendent experience that transcends all of time and space, that if you have the willingness just to stay open by asking what is it for or show me, show me the way, or lead the way, spirit, or whatever, with that sincerity, then it's just inevitable that you will be guided into that experience. And I think that is a trap when things are seen in terms of words and then there's trying to make a precision in terms of the words. It's great to be reminded that words are but symbols of symbols twice removed from reality. Because the temptation can come in to believe that you can actually reach God through words, especially if you have a book with 31 chapters and then 365 lessons and a manual for teachers. Helen Chuckman was quoted as saying, ah, it lasts a pathway to God for intellectuals. So it's like some people will say, why so many words and so on and so forth. But it's a very important point that you're making that words, the course, anything that's informed, all symbols, including words, are basically neutral to the Holy Spirit and therefore in the awakening, really to say what is it for? Because the ego can use form for its own purpose, defending against the light, and the spirit is using words for awakening. But the spirit's use of words is just very temporary. In other words, when we say prayer is the meaning of miracles and when people would say, I'm going to pray my way back to Nirvana or pray my way back to heaven, that's actually a very helpful and valid. The idea that you can just repeat certain mantras and words, OK, how many times do I have to do? How many thousands, tens of thousands? I'm on like 457,000 Hail Marys in my halfway there, or is it going to be take a million Hail Marys or whatever. Whenever you're coming at it from a quantitative thing where you're repeating something, it's really calling for a purification that goes beyond the words. And even the workbook points at that. Our use for words is almost over now. He's like employing. He's saying, come with me. Stay with me. Stay with this presence. I'll take you there. I'll take you home. So that's important. Even for those that are working with the Course and they feel like that's their given pathway, there's a very important line in the Course where he says, the ego enjoys studying itself. That's a very important line in such a big book. The ego enjoys studying itself. Because, again, it's not about memorizing a theology. That won't get you there. It's going to be the transfer of training that will take you there. It's going to be making no exceptions to the divine principle. And the Course is just the beginning. You might say that the words for a mind is identified as intellectual. It's kind of like a trampoline. It's like saying, come on. Get on the trampoline and start jumping. But eventually, you're going to fling. You're going to spring off the trampoline. It's like you don't make it to heaven with words. You don't make it back and go, gosh, gosh. It was lesson number 76 that did it for me. Thank you. There aren't any words in heaven. You don't get to pick and say, I made it through this lesson. Because there's really no causation in form. It's just the desire of the mind. And there are many seeming pathways. But I think you're onto it in the sense that you really want to pay attention to how you feel. And you really want to stay open to be shown and literally guided and taken there without locking down onto a theological debate, which is going to be a delay maneuver. I mean, I love it. I go around the world. I'm in 30-some countries. And I love being on planes and trains and talking to people and meeting with people in groups. And I just, at one point, to me, what I discovered about forgiveness is that forgiveness sees that the whole world is a world of beliefs and that there are no specific beliefs that are true. So I have fun talking to people. They say, do you know the name of God? And I'm like, oh, tell me. I'm so ready to join in a state of mind with everybody that I won't even try to name the correct name of God. I'll be like, tell me. And they could really tell me anything. They could tell me to make up any name that they want, or they could say that God is a pink pyramid or whatever. They're not going to find any disagreements from me because I understand that there are no specific beliefs that are any better than any other specific beliefs. So I have a lot of fun that people say. I'm an atheist. Oh, wonderful. You know, people say, you're just turning into a spiritual chameleon. David, you've got no backbone. You can't even give a solid theology with him. Yeah, you're right. I'm just into love. And so there's no point in debating anything, really. Whatever people say to me, I know it's not about specific beliefs. So I've got no specific beliefs to defend, too, which is glorious. You have a really nice ride on planet Earth when you have absolutely no specific thing. It could say anything. It wouldn't matter. But that's the state of mind of just coming to an awareness that there are no specific beliefs that are better than another one. I think that's the same direction you're heading with. Yeah, right. So like you said, in heaven there are no words. For me, that's like a specific belief. I don't know that there's words in heaven or no words in heaven. Just from the thing we said, though, about words or about symbols of symbols twice removed from reality, I would just say heaven and reality. But those are just words. Right, yeah. And we're really here for an experience. We're not here to pick apart words or to say these words are better than those words where this theology is better than that theology. It's really freeing when you see there's no hierarchy of theologies, even. So I'm not going around saying, well, there's the fundamentalists and this and this. Or you could say, well, non-dualistic teachings and metaphysics can be more helpful or faster than dualistic theology, meaning that heaven and hell or believing the opposites, the end and the end, and whatever you want to say of reality. In the end, it's a state of mind that is just pure presence. And that presence has nothing to convince. There's no sense of convincing anybody about anything. It's quite delightful to not have to convince anybody. Anybody could say anything. And you'd be just just presence as presence. There's not a sense of debating or it takes it off of the realm of concepts and tit for tat and all that stuff. It's really frustrating, though, you know. To a debater, it would be. To a debater, yeah. I grew up in a family of hard-court Christian parents with a lot of particular worse than my dad. And you set a plan with that. And you don't, like, twice debate and scream at them. Now, there's no debate. And you didn't know what to do with it. And so, yeah. OK. I don't know if this is helpful, but it just came to mind when we're in a discussion around words and phrases and all the stuff around beliefs. It's like the Hogwarts school, right? It's magic. And so they're learning incantations. But it's not the truth. It's magic. And that's what this world is. The illusionary, magical things that we try to use to get us beyond to the other side. The spoken mirrors stuff. So I love what it's pointing at. What I'm seeing pointing to is just into the science where everything drops away. And truth is there, because that's where truth lives. Without, and the line has been blown out of the way, too. I mean, these are words, right? They're like, I'm trying to make an incantation now. And it's not the truth, however there's that. Trust that we speak of. There's something that we sense. There's a knowing that we can taste in all these things. And then none of it is correct. So it's really, I guess it's referred to as the mystery. And Duncan is like another incantation. So it's just like throwing it away at all ways. Yeah. It's also the sense of guidance or what's given that the Bible said, let your yea be yea, let your nay be nay. Not that yea is better than nay. Sometimes I'll hear, be in the yes, stay in the yes, as if yes is better than no. Or light is better than darkness, or whatever. Remember, these are just metaphors. So it's an experience where there's a purpose. And the spirit can use the purpose, can use the symbols to point to a purpose. But it's like the Zen master who's pointing to the moon. You can focus on the form, or the pointer, the finger, or whatever. And really, it's just the light. The whole thing's about the light, not about the pointing at all. And I think you can apply that with the course. Some people have heard people say the course is a bit too intellectual. Well, again, even when I say Helen said it was a last and pathway for intellectuals, it's not saying the course is intellectual. Because again, it's what is it for? Is it going to serve you in the awakening? Are you going to use it to go for an experience? Or are you going to try to lock down into theologies and forms, and turn it into another? Say, oh, this is the best theology, or some, whatever. It just doesn't go anywhere if the purpose isn't for the experience. So I think that's a very important point that Joe's bringing up, that this purpose underneath is everything. And we can't project the ego onto form. You can't just say, oh, this person's got ego thinking, or that's an ego action. When people say, that's an ego action, I'm like, what's that, an ego action? As if you can take this puff of nothingness and project it onto a behavior, and say, that's an ego action. Or that was a spirit-inspired action. Again, you see how it's trying to take it from the mind and put it out onto a form. And then you're judging something positively or negatively. And it's very subtle. It's back to the same trick of falling for that trap, when it's best to just say, I can't determine what's an ego action or a spirit action. David, are some of those concepts or projections that you talk about, though, just seems to be just easier ways for us to express something and to visualize remains are egos that need to see it that way? Yes, I think it's the teacher of God does not decide his own words. He lets the words be chosen for him. So that's one of our common topics that a lot of the ones in the community are coming to. When you're in that likeness, that joy in everything, you're in that state of mind of the attitudes and happiness and everything, then you don't judge the words that come. You don't have that part in your mind going, oh, I wish I hadn't said that part. Oh, it was going so good. Then you had to say something. That part, that mechanism in there that's always like the censor, always the evaluator and judging, we're letting that go. We're letting that fade away. And so Frances has had a lot of fun. She just recently had inspiration to come up with a TV show. We joined on the title, Out of the Blue Comes Frances Zoo. So that's her TV show. And she goes to all kinds of different settings up on mountains and all over the place. But you can share about how that's been part of the joy you've been feeling recently is you don't have to be concerned about the words that are spoken that come through. That's like the course. It's so easy to just, the course becomes a way to judge again. You learn it intellectually. Then the judge is still at the background. Now we use that to judge, which is more spiritually correct, which metaphysically correct, not correct. It's all still a protection of the self-concept. I'm a spiritual seeker and a spiritual teacher concept, a right to be perceived as anything. And that is, I can see how that can be used. The words, the language, and right and wrong, it's still this judge of what is right, what is wrong, from other people or from the self, from this body, trying to be right to avoid one part of the dualistic world and strive for the other part. And just the same game never, never ends. And in the end, when we forgive seemingly others and external world, in the end, the forgiveness well done on the self too, like anything that comes out is to be forgiven. There is no judge that is to be nurtured in the background to say, you should be this way, you should be that way. This words doesn't sound too true. Nothing is chore or more force. You just allow everything to come through. And it's how the judge are. Yeah. It's this thing that there's this belief that there is somehow an external world and then there's a mind and that there are actually things that actually happen out there. And then there's this thing on the inside that's interpreting what's happening out there. The only thing is, the deeper you go, you realize there is no out there. That whatever you're perceiving, you're not interpreting situations, you're not interpreting people's behavior, you're not interpreting external things. Literally what you believe and what you're interpreting is what you perceive. Jesus is working through those early workbook lessons. My thoughts are images I have made. He's making the connection between the thoughts you think you think and the world you think you see. Knowing that you perceive yourself as a human being. So you think the thoughts that you think you think are very personal. They're just part of your personality. Then there's this massive cosmos, external world, that has nothing to do with the persona. It's like apart from the persona. So now you've got the individual versus society, the individual versus the group, the individual versus the partner or the spouse. There seem to be a subject and an object. All the great teachers, you know, Christian Emeriti and everything we're talking about, this subject, object split. The belief that there is something, not you, that's out there. And oftentimes it's interpreted as hostile. Like I was having such a wonderful day and then I got this phone call or I got this email or I bumped into this person on the street and then my beautiful day was ruined by this one that I bumped into or this one I interacted with. You see how it's still your victim of the world is if you're a happy person, happy, happy, go lucky and then something comes along and messes that up. So what I'm teaching is that what you perceive as an external world is an interpretation. Not the Holy Spirit's interpretation. It's the ego's interpretation that there's you and something not you. A world with other people, you know, with private minds and private thoughts, they've got their own ambitions, they've got their own personal histories. It's quite a complicated mess. How you're gonna navigate with 7 billion other human beings, not you, with different personalities, different desires, different ones, different belief systems, whoo. It's very complicated when it's you and 7 billion. Just on this planet alone, imagine if you go and astral project other planets. You're dealing with zillions of seeming other creatures, like Star Wars, you know, you go to the bar and there's all these creatures and you go, oh man, I thought Earth was tough. I was working on my skin complexion. Look at that. But you start to go, oh my gosh, what's happening here? But what you start to realize is I just need to stop judging. That was what Jesus taught, you know, and the beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount. Judge not, not because it's wrong, but it's just because you weren't created to be a judge. God didn't create you and go, ah, thus I make you a judge. Why would oneness make a judge? That doesn't make any sense at all. So once you start to realize that it's impossible to judge, then you feel that union, that connectedness again, that oneness, but it's the subject object split that's getting healed. And anytime you see somebody that you don't like, it's just the interpretation is being made and the character just seems to be acting it out. They're just doing what you wanted them to do. They're just acting out a belief. You believe in laziness? Oh look, you draw forth a character that seems to be lazy, you know, not that they're really lazy, not that God would create laziness. Why would God create laziness? God, God, what point would it serve for unconditional love? Oh, let's have some laziness here, you know. It's, it doesn't come from source, but if it's believed in, then you'll perceive it because you'll interpret as if there's an external world in which laziness is acted out, maybe as a roommate or a spouse or something and then you go, oh my God, I've got a real problem on my hands now. I'm living with laziness. Oh, you're not, you really aren't. Yes? I have a few questions that I'm gonna be asked one for sure. I think I get, sometimes I'm watching the news and I get, I, like, I can't understand, like when you see it saying don't make any exceptions and then like, don't judge others and what you're seeing is projection, but then you see something like what's going on in Iraq and you see, like, I mean, suppose the president is a student of a course of miracles and like, how would, like, I know that the Holy Spirit doesn't direct you, I mean, you're not, the course doesn't tell you what to do in form and it says to listen to the guide and do things out of love. And sometimes, like, I don't know, like, like, I don't know if I'm making an exception, if I'm trying to rationalize it, or if, but I also started thinking, like, logically, and I don't know if this is me or if this is my ego or something, what's in logically, like, maybe sometimes if you're truly doing things out of love, you can't always, like, just do nothing and not care and, like, there's a lot, obviously, a lot of people suffering and do we have, do we should we do something about it? Then I read your book and I think somewhere in the book you said, like, something like, well, I think you even said, like, you don't vote or something like that and I mean, there's nothing wrong with, like, but is there something, like, what if you do vote and what if you have some, like, cares about different positions or something, like, all put in perspective, like, how do you bring them together and, like, is, I don't know, and then sometimes I get confused by, like, I think that in my sheltered world in California where I have a good job and my worst problems are, like, people, my co-workers doing something and I get annoyed with them and I say, okay, I see you as cool, this is not really a problem, but then when you see something like Iraq and it's a lot, they're totally confused and I'm still getting not so sure, so. Yeah, well, what I've been emphasizing is the spirit meets the mind wherever it seems to be, whatever it believes in. So if someone believes that they're human being on planet Earth and they have certain political beliefs or support certain actions of trying to help people or promote nonviolence or promote particular political views, maybe democracy over communism or whatever it is, the mind will be worked with, the Holy Spirit will work with the mind right where it believes it is. So it's almost like there's a soul that's kind of circumvented itself and surrounded itself with a belief system and the spirit's gonna reach through those symbols of whatever that belief system is and say, here, I'll take you to the core. I'll take you back to perfect love with whatever you believe in, it doesn't matter. And really, there's no degrees, you know, so it's not like it's harder for the Holy Spirit to heal Hitler than Mother Teresa. The spirit's like, oh, Mother Teresa, you're so sweet and so devoted and following, you're gonna be an easy case here. Well, Hitler, that's gonna take a long time over there with that one. The spirit just doesn't, the spirit doesn't work that way. The spirit doesn't see degrees of error. The truth is true and only the truth is true so it doesn't see degrees of error. It doesn't see hierarchies of error. It's so anchored in the truth that it just only knows the truth. It only knows the reality of who you are. It doesn't, it's not judging where you seem to be in form or how far along you seem to be in the illusory process or whatever. So if somebody, like when you're saying what if there was a president of the United States that was a course of miracle student, I don't think that's gonna be happening soon, but you never know in the sense that- You could make a good movie. Ha ha ha. Joe, Joe can write a script. That would be an interesting script. You could make a good movie. Oh yeah, you could really have a good movie out of that one. But the thing is, the course is teaching, you know, there's nothing outside of you. It's all just a perception and so on and so forth. And you know, you have to have certain qualifications to even run for the presidency. And then when you do, even if all the people voted you in, I'm sure if you took positions that the world is just an opportunity for forgiveness and there is no external evil and everything like this, you might garner 0.0001% of the population who would actually vote for you. But supposing you got to the point where you actually got elected, then you've gotta take an oath of office. Do you promise to uphold the laws of the United States of America? So help you God. You would have to answer yes to that, you know. Well that's interesting. There are eternal laws, laws of the United States of America and you're gonna have to take an oath to uphold those laws. You see, it's no different than when people have said, you know, we could have a major shift of consciousness if we could just get a course in miracles into the Vatican. And I know people who have actually, it sounds like a Dan Brown novel of trying to like get the course into the hands. I had one friend who was, who I think had a course book and he was over there and this was when his Pope John Paul was the Pope and his mission was to go there and put the book in the hands of Pope John Paul. So he tells me the story. He gets all the way over there and he's only like seven feet away. Pope John Paul's there and he's like, it's close, it's close. He's trying to get the course book in the hands of the Pope and that was the assassination attempt. Somebody shot the Pope and he was only seven feet away. It's not close. Seven feet away from getting the book in the hands of the Pope. And then he was shot. Then all of a sudden the special police, you know, the secret service and everything came in and you know, anybody who was near the Pope got pushed away immediately because the Pope was on the ground. You know, so, but these are the kind of things of trying to lead with the form. It's much more likely that you could get Joe to write a good screenplay. I do another good one in this case. The course to the Pope, right? I've given him ideas. He's like going, oh my gosh. These are movie scripts coming out. You're more likely to get something like that made as a movie which would inspire people to start thinking and pondering about what is the helpful way to come to peace of mind? Is it through trying to enact something in form? So even very well-known spiritual teachers or Course in Miracles teachers may seem to take political views. And then there are other students that go, oh, no, please, this is not what the course is about. It's about shifting your perception and not taking a side and taking a stand in certain issues. But again, you cannot perceive a world different from the world that you believe. So while those seem to be meaningful distinctions, like going green and conserving energy or trying to eliminate pollution or eliminate nuclear waste or disarm nations or all these things, I went through those same beliefs myself in the parable of David of trying to make the world a better place and trying to do helpful actions that would bring about a healed planet and so on and so forth. Recycling all of the kind of things, then those are just simply reflections of belief. There's nothing, again, right or wrong around beliefs. It's just opening to the Holy Spirit and saying, please show me a new way of looking at the world. Please give me a unified perception where I see that everything is perfect right now in divine order. And you can't just shove things away and say, well, it's all an illusion anyway. That's probably the most overused defense against the truth. And yet when Jesus Christ walked the earth, he didn't go around telling everybody it was an illusion. I think in the Gospel of Thomas, he actually told Thomas, there's something that I'm gonna tell you but I don't want you to make it public or it will bring down fire on our heads that the world was like a desert or a dream. 2,000 years ago, the world wasn't like ready to hear some prophet to come along and say it's all an illusion. Now, 2,000 years later, we have a Course in Miracles and one of the biggest mistakes that Course in Miracles students do is they go around saying it's all an illusion anyway with everything. Is that their experience? No, they're actually speaking about something that they read in a book and sentimentally they're kind of moving in that direction but it's not their experience. So why are they speaking it? As the person's laying in the hospital in traction and they're banging on the cast point, you did this to yourself and it's an illusion. It's like not helpful at all. You can't lead with the form. You get into the attitude of the Holy Spirit. You get into the love and then you let the Holy Spirit give you the word and the actions. You may end up going around hugging people or smiling a lot and demonstrating a sense of peacefulness that comes through in a very easy, natural way. And occasionally you may have some pretty dramatic, seemingly miracles where the form shifts. There's physical symptoms removed or things that happened around Jesus. Yeah, those things can happen as well but it's still not to make a big deal out of them. He wasn't here trying to heal bodies. He was here demonstrating there's a higher reality. There's the kingdom of heaven. So it's a good question though. That's the kind of, I guess you've got a few more but that's a good lead-in question that we're not actually trying to judge our brothers and sisters based on what they're doing. We're actually going for a sense of self-honesty and coming to self-honesty with our own thoughts and the beliefs and feelings through guidance of the Holy Spirit instead of trying to judge that others aren't doing it right or those are all just more judgments. But it's like, if you feel like you're being guided to say that out of love then I feel like we have to take this certain, I feel like I'm called to take this certain action of going green or take this certain, maybe take this certain action of sending troops to Iraq to defend the village or something like that. Then it's all, is it true that even in the mind as long as you're with, I think what I'm trying to say is that I think what I understand is as long as you're listening to the right guys then whatever happens we'll follow what's, will be the right outcome. But, and then the question becomes how do you know if you're listening to the right guide? The idea of the right outcome is that as a part I was just reading in lesson 135 of I mentioned the healed mind is relieved of the belief that it must plan but it cannot know the outcome which is best nor the means to achieve the outcome nor the problem that the plan was meant to solve. It's, you can see you go deeper into the I do not know what anything is for and then you become peaceful in that not knowing about the world. So you could say that you simply will perceive what you believe and your actions, what you do comes from what you think. So as long as you still seem to have some ego thoughts what you do comes from what you think the behavior is going to be motivated by what's going on in your mind. If you're vacillating between spirit and ego which is what the sleeping mind is doing it's not completely egoic and it's not completely spiritual it's just going it's vibrating and vacillating between truth and error or spirit and ego. So you start to realize you just have to be intuitive like people say should I I guess got a Facebook claim about what should my diet be? Should I have meat? No meat, a mix and so forth. These are the kind of questions I get all the time. They're like tell me what to eat and I say well you really need to tune in and be intuitive. I went through many stages where I was vegan for a while and I would go through stages of just trying to be intuitive of what feels helpful and right. At one point I was told as I was traveling eat whatever served. Well that took it to a whole new level. Creatures with antennas and thank you Jesus right before South America it's just what I wanted. But you know it's really that's part of letting go of preferences or you know thinking I'd be like looking like and then I'd hear you know it's don't judge it, don't judge it. Protein, whatever it is. It's just it was a high mind training eat whatever served. Then I went to Australia and then they say oh we paired you up with this woman Jasmine. So I'm there teaching eat whatever served and people are going yeah like right. And she's a breatharian. So she's they got a fun little treat for that week you know breatharian and a guy who eats whatever served. They're just like oh man you know and some of her retreats people were just shaking their heads if you can't eat food for two or three weeks before the retreat. You have to go to this place in Thailand where everything is pitch dark and you can't they have no light. So you first you don't get to eat then you have to go into pitch darkness. You know people were listening to her retreats in this corner. What do they think I am you know I'm not going to one of those retreats but it was all just you get a chance to watch your mind you know with whatever arises just to notice. My other question was kind of related to the one that I shared with you over email and I don't know I think I mean I think it's an interesting story that I just wanted to like talk more about that just to like basically the story is that I was traveling in China with a friend for a few months and she has a disease that I found out called periodontitis and her gums were like very sick and her teeth fell out during their travels and I could see how much pain she was in when we were eating and she had to brush her teeth like after every single meal and we went finally I was almost going to come back to America and we went to dentist in China and we went to two different people got two different opinions and they told her that the best treatment that she could get still doesn't guarantee that it'll be clear based on being perfectly healthy but it'll help her but it costs a lot of money and this friend is one of these friends that has no job and is really following the wind and like believes it like in just miracles common and she tells me I wanted her miracles and I offered to say like well let me help you with this and let me so before I left for China I maxed out my ATM card for a few days in a row and put money I made her create a bank account and gave her money for the to treat her like I know how much I know what treatment she needs because we went to the hospital together and then I get back and the first week was good and she said okay I went to this treatment they claim they like scraped off the like they had like this thing like attached to the teeth like the growth and they scraped it off and it feels better already and then afterwards she told me that she's she has to get it and she doesn't have enough money and I said when you don't have enough money I gave you so much money and she says oh but I gave half of it there was this person that I would kind of help and help them and and found out that she gave half of it the charity and it wasn't charity was like a bunch of different things and this is the kind of person she is like she's always relied on other people the miracles of other people like she's never had she that's the way she lives and I can totally understand that like now she has this and she wants to return some of that and I think I got a little bit frustrated and I don't know and then I was saying then she was saying well don't only give me more money if she like she's gonna ask me for more but I don't I want to help her and she's now she says like I don't know I just didn't know what to do when I was also I was feeling a little bit angry that like she gave away and then doesn't have enough and then I was feeling guilty because I was feeling angry and then I was sitting like what she's found is that she can't blow it away it's like she's helping other people and how much you have here and like why are you so attached to it and then I'm saying but that just there's a lot of thoughts going in my mind and I didn't really know what the answer was and I didn't really know what like I just that was my question is just like just dumping all of those feelings in this exchange. Yeah it's beautiful honestly. I think again these are fantastic questions. You start as a core student and you're this now you're getting down to all these nitty-gritty things you know that sometimes people study the book for 20, 25 years and they had never dawned on them about that situation but but really there's only one lesson forgiveness is the only lesson that the mind needs to teach and learn and grasp and I could summarize you know how you've heard in the Bible as you so so shall you reap and what goes around comes around and the love karma and giving and receiving are the same and so there's a line in the course which really echoes giving and receiving are the same is that all that I give is given to myself so you see how that only comes into a full awareness when you start to see everything as miracles in mind when you extend miracles it blesses both the giver and the receiver both are equally blessed and you've felt that you've traveled with Susie so when you're out there on the road and you know you feel she's like you are like greatest miracle she just feels your love and your collaboration and your being together and all the joy together and you're used to the business world and handling things in certain ways and she's showing you like divine providence you know I think I remember that time on Skype when you told me that you were heading to another city but you you needed money for a ticket but your ATM wasn't working and she didn't have anything that would work so you simply she said let's email and ask for help in this city somebody will buy us our tickets and we'll repay them and it happened that way you've just reached out and somebody bought the tickets and then you know worked out so she's like teaching you like a faith like like the guidance is inside you and we have all of it in sight and yet you're bringing in joining which is bringing in a lot of help the symbols are coming through your ATM card and whatever but what's the lesson under all of that the beautiful lesson underneath that is all that I give is given to myself so Jesus says in the Course who offers a gift and then tells the receiver how the gift has to be used or appreciated he's saying that's not a gift at all he's exposing ego motives like if you have a friend or a son or a parent or a relative or something and you say now listen I'm going to give you this gift but you have to use it this way or we were all familiar with that like I'll give you the money but these are the conditions and a true gift doesn't have conditions do you imagine God creating you and say listen I'm going to give you everything I'm going to create you whole eternal perfect pure love and everything but I don't want you to do this this this no love is a gift miracles are a gift it's a free gift so so when you feel inspired to extend something it could be giving money to someone who seems to need it or giving someone a hug or offering to buy somebody some food or something it can still have behavioral components to it but when you're tuned into that inspiration of the source spirit you're going to feel inspired by what the spirit wants to extend through you that's what miracle work is all about it's based on inspiration and you simply extend it and when the ego tries to creep in and say oh listen I gave you what you needed and you didn't use it for what it was intended for so and so forth that's where the judgments start to creep in and it doesn't feel good the frustration comes in the difficulty because the strings get exposed and the strings are all part of the I know mind the mind thinks it knows what even being helpful is based on those egoic beliefs so there's a prayer at the beginning of the course I guess in third edition or the later editions it's on page 28 it was actually on page 24 in the first edition I'm here only to be truly helpful wow that is quite a prayer I'm here only to be truly helpful your whole journey with spirit is going to be the spirit is showing you and informing you what true helpfulness is and in the end true helpfulness is complete non-judgment where you are so lit up and inspired by the beingness by the truth that's the greatest gift you can be is to be yourself as you were created by God that's the ultimate of truly helpful but there's going to be steps along the way where you'll receive guidance we talked about specific guidance in form and I've had that so much in my life where I'm guided to offer something offer something even visiting somebody in the hospital or going to a psychiatric ward and so on and so forth where Jesus is like I want to perform a miracle through you I want to love through you and shine through you and extend through you and and he's saying my love has no strings attached no expectations on on the outcome in form he's even got a part if you get back into the manual for teachers where the question is asked of Jesus should healing be repeated and it's like his answer is if you offer the miracle if you offer the love if you offer the healing and you have continuing concern about the patient or about the symptoms or whatever you have need of a miracle it doesn't say the patient has need you need to come back because giving and receiving are the same if you give the miracle away you must receive the miracle if you extend healing you must be healed yourself what does continuing concern mean or continuing worrying about something except to be what the unhealed healer which is something Jesus talks about a lot unhealed healer is trying to give away something that he doesn't he's not so sure about himself you know and this is what course of miracles students go through when they're having such a high teaching they want to be the healed healer but they have to accept the atonement for themselves to be a healer they have to actually accept the correction in their mind so every time we're like a messenger we must first receive the message for ourselves and ultimately when we talk about mine that's where that's what it's all about it's between you and the Holy Spirit accepting the correction the atonement and it was never about the people so I see what this situation is it's beautiful here you are even seemingly a new course of miracles student and right away you're going hmm I've got some mixed emotions going on because I I love my friend my friend needed help I said let's go visit a dentist or let's get medical care ok what will the treatment cost therefore I give you the money and those that's just that's part of the flow of the spirit you're just extending the love in your heart but once we start getting into the concern did they follow did they do what what they needed to do whenever we have concern about people then it's still our own doubt of our own identity seemingly reflected in people and situations it's always am I willing to be healed am I willing to accept the atonement that's the key issue always never anything about about form and and oftentimes you know if you offer something it's really just comes down to this thing do you feel it in your heart one time I had a group of students with me and they decided to go out with me to downtown Cincinnati and so there I was down in downtown Cincinnati walking among the homeless some of the outcast of everything and they were having fun watching me and counter all these people one woman came up she looked like what the world call like a bag lady and bag lady clothes and she came up she goes who I can feel the spirit coming off you I can see all the way down the road let me hug you and then there'll be somebody coming who will be like asking for money that there I'm sure go to India you know you've been through the whole thing some people asking for money they were the students were like following me around just watching what's he gonna do and how's he gonna interact with all these people on the streets and everything it was very spontaneous sometimes it would come through to offer some money or something to him sometimes they would watch and there wouldn't be money offered but it would be a hug I'd say come here let me give you a hug it was the spirit knows what's best in every single encounter it's there's no kind of formula for it give money don't give money you know it's like it's spirit knows so a lot of times one time I was in Colombia and my friend Victor was taking me along and it was similar like in India they had the untouchables in Colombia they've got the street people I was in a big city like Columbia and there was a homeless person so to speak walking on the other side of the street and I was walking with Victor and his brother and we were walking on the street and then I just looked across the street and I saw this person and I just ran across the street and gave him this big long hug and then I came back over with Victor and brother brother was just like what the hell are you doing you do not go and hug these people you cannot you know he's telling you can't it's just not what we do down here we don't hug homeless people you you let them stay on that side of the street you stay over here you know and so Victor watched he said wow I was watching my brother's reaction and watching you you seem to have a lot of fun or I was going down the street in Colombia one time and and I heard this voice coming it was a man that was over there he kept looking at me kind of a squinting at me is going gringo gringo and something like that over there and I looked at him and I'm there mano there mano which is brother and he was like he just didn't know what to do I mean he was he was just so but see it's when you're in the miracle the spirit is in a state of extending you don't it doesn't you're not judging what they're calling you or whatever you you're in that state you don't know from a from an ego perspective what is most helpful you're in a state of complete surrender of I don't know but leave me show me I had a friend who was in a course in miracles one time and he was in Philadelphia and he was going and working with the circus as a clown so he tells me the story where he comes he gets off his work with the circus he's dressed up like a clown Rekha does the bubble lady and the clown thing too he's got the nose on he's in full costume as a clown and he's leaving and he's walking through the streets of Philadelphia and he's walking along in his clown suit he tells me he's a course miracle student he's practicing and he's walking along and then a street gang sees him and so street gang comes up to him and they pull out their switch blades they literally surround the clown my friend who's in the clown and they pull out their switch plays and they start threatening him you know in really in negative ways and threatening to cut him up and everything and all he could do was utter in one instance of prayer help Holy Spirit but he just said help Holy Spirit the next thing he knows he goes straight to the ground and he starts cooing and making baby sounds that's what happens after he cries out help Holy Spirit and the whole gang with all the switch plays they were like man they were just like oh man it was almost like they were seeing baby sounds sounds of helplessness on the ground there was no defensive maneuver to try to break away there was no talk about meekness baby sounds like in a clown suit laying on the ground who would think of that only the Holy Spirit pulls you out of that but what you see it was his willingness it was his defenselessness and willingness he just cried out the prayer of help and then before he knew it he felt of the ground and he started coo-coo-gah-gah and they're like man this guy is crazy and you know they dispersed immediately and he was safe you see how it's just a symbol now that's the kind of attitude you have to when you go to China you live it over there you know enjoy it but if you can be in that state of I'm here only to be truly helpful you know that's the same thing Susie's going for you know she's here letting her her mind be used to trust and be open and and then that's a walk of trust you know even if her teeth fall over teeth fall out you know she's still gonna be practicing the same thing the world would say well you know that's a shame if all of her teeth are out then she might have trouble eating maybe then she's ready for a liquid diet who do how do we know what's you know what's best you see how the interpretation even a teeth falling out can be like oh that's not the norm of all these people and all these have sets of teeth and then you got somebody with just gums that's not good well who's who are we to judge you know we're just to follow our hearts and be truly helpful and to stay as clear and open as we can to be receptive to the spirit coming through and you see how practical that is you know you and Susie have the same lesson you're both zooming in together to learn forgiveness and you feel the gratitude I know you feel that that there's a real gratitude there for whatever's happening it's just the ego parts going some things I just don't get you know and of course ego doesn't doesn't get it and I mean I'm not gonna if she wants to give it away then I trust whatever but but I think that we talked about it and she also said that like she else I think in the end for like we we we're not we we both said like this is the learning experience and and but but I don't know I just feel sometimes I feel some guilty that like money is a really big one for me because I don't feel like I feel so when I go to India and when I see other people and I like look at my life and I see Iraq and I see the news and I feel like I mean why I'm so I'm so blessed and like any possible thing that I could get in like not satisfied with like it's just so silly because look at I'm like I'm more luckier than like 99% of everybody and it's like so so then I feel really guilty about that yeah it's just the comparison device in the mind as long as there's a comparison going on there don't be guilt as long as you just stay in this I don't know but show me on the state of mind it's you gloriously open to the lessons I guess it'd be fun some time for Francis and I and Susie and you to do some traveling when we were over there they were offering houses come and stay and do gatherings will set up set us up in a house so we'll take you here we'll do this they were wanting even to try to set up spiritual communities and all kinds of things but it's just fun to show up in that attitude of I'm here to be truly helpful and have an open mind of not knowing how that's going to go just let let it just love so much to travel with her and like that's when I go traveling that's how I am I go to hostels and I don't have a plan and that's how we met and it was so fulfilling to go with her like not really have a plan and she took me to a bunch of different places just the way she worked she lives is really inspiring to me yeah it's beautiful it's about the Bible question because it seems like when I read the text and some of the lessons and when you talk about it you refer to the Bible but at the same time the Bible is written about this creation my question is about how the Bible I can use as a pointer in conjunction with the question miracle in what kind of Bible like this is about the creation that didn't happen so how can I discern what kind of Bible it's really something that I can use and apply more to this means well actually I put together a book when I had a group of students back in the 1990s called I called it the Bible course companion I was going to take the Bible and the course I'm going to bring them together so we can have a clarity that is helpful because the Judeo Christian belief system around the Bible is predominant not necessarily worldwide like Islam you know is but for United States and Canada and Australia and so on and so forth Mexico a lot of South America Judeo Christian belief system is quite spread there so I actually they some people that's got a hold of my Bible course companion they actually turned it into a published book called my meaning in Scripture no it's if you buy it we might I don't know if they have a copy of it here it's actually out there it's called my meaning in Scripture my meaning my meaning in Scripture yeah really it's referring to Jesus my meaning in Scripture so what happens is he'll take things like from Genesis that that God created man and his likeness and image take a quote right from Genesis that's the Bible and he'll actually explain what he meant by that Jesus actually quotes the King James Bible all over the place in the course there's all these references so all Jesus is doing is clarifying the scriptures he's clarifying the Bible and he's doing a masterful job of it and likeness an image is likenesses of a like quality you know so God is spirit so God created man and his likeness of a like quality as spirit and an image he has something else that he refers to with that he kind of got a synonym but it's not like we think of image like this like God is formless so if God has created man and his image it's not it's not going to look like a body that's for sure because God is not a body God is spirit like creates like you know just like we get apples from apple trees and oranges from orange trees and so forth lemons from lemon trees we get spirit from spirit and so it's very helpful for people who have been raised with the Bible that that thing I would actually kind of every time I would travel I would read my Bible Course companion or this book read it through and then I would go to churches I'd be in Baptist churches and all kinds of churches with the Holy Spirit speaking through me in biblical language the people love me they were just oh they weren't going because I was the spirit the Holy Spirit was speaking their language and it was they could totally relate to it so that's the way a miracle worker is you just say tune in to God and then the spirit gives you the language in that moment that's the most helpful it just gets a little bit interesting when I had a friend of mine who was following me and he decided he would invite me I think to his Baptist church in the deep south and invited his parents his family all of his friends none of them who were into the course at all he was going to educate them by bringing me into the deep south and into one of these churches well when we started to get into topics like Jesus I could see they were very very focused on Jesus and they had some interesting ideas on Jesus and the Holy Spirit was just speaking through me and there were some times when when the Spirit would just come through me and come through me come through me and I noticed some of their faces started to get very red cherry red and then I noticed I could see some veins in their necks so there were some there that were he was like he was enjoying it but he brought a lot of his friends and family and everything but I was just in the state of joy so I wasn't interpreting red faces or veins is anything going wrong it was just they were asking a lot of questions about Jesus they seem to have some set ideas about sacrifice and sacrificial lamb and so forth those are just interpretations but I was just the Spirit was just pointing through me so that one's recorded that's on the web too if you go I all these things have been recorded and before I took that trip actually my friend or I was traveling with she said a friend said you can't go through the deep south with David without getting tarred and feathered and so we did we did the whole trip and there was no tearing and feather I think Joseph Smith the prophet from from ornism got tarred yes it's like a bridge it's all in the course but it's I've been edited so I had a table of contents where I had questions for Jesus and then in the book I have the question for Jesus I have Jesus and Scripture from the Bible answering the question and of course the miracles answering the question so it's quite a clarifying experience they have that all put together into a book called my meaning in scriptures especially if you've come through the Judeo-Christian route and you have a lot of friends and family that it's amazing you read this book and then you just join with them in love and all these wonderful things start coming out of your mouth and your mom's going yeah that's right that's right that's right because you're not trying to change their mind or convince them you just are there in love connecting with them and the Spirit just gives you just what their hearts can hear yeah also because yeah I just wanted to throw some the Bible but at the same time can allow that to be guide guide me the parts that I'm reading because it was reading by human you know so the parts that I can utilize to enhance my experience the Spirit I won't be able to use that and apply so but again when you were talking about the creation the way we see it it never happened so that's what I'm trying to do have to concern about using the Bible how to use certain parts of the Bible to use some yeah thank you yeah it's beautiful it's all what Francis was saying just about being in the joy of the miracle and the words just come if there's even words to be spoken it'll be some situation where it's the Spirit knows not a word can help not a single word but the smile and a hug and a pat on the back is totally felt when you embrace somebody that's often times with homeless people you know I just look in their eyes I hug them we feel this love this joining it's not necessarily about trying to meet physical needs that happens actually very naturally at times too we're going to like third world countries like Argentina or countries where there's children juggling and washing windows just to try to get some coins to help support their their brothers and sisters in the family you know been guided to to take some coins along and you know enjoy every encounter they're right with every traffic light enjoy the encounter to the fullest feel the love of joining and extending even a friend of mine who had all these little angels and so I'd grab some coins or we'd have some coins to give them and then we'd slip a little angel in and watch their eyes light up as they went to their friends and an angel it's very 95% Catholic very devoted and for them a symbol of doing a juggling act or cleaning a window and getting some coins and an angel that was almost like oh my god you know they were just so thrilled this is all inspired by the spirit if you're not supposed to walk around like some metaphysical clinician not not real not real not real no the spirit comes through you enjoy and people and you see the witnesses to joy lighting up you were saying like love is contagious you know when you're in that thing she was quoting research like when there's a happy house that the happy the house is like within five houses five houses with it start to witness and feel that the love you know the research that they've done it's just showing it what you give you give to yourself really beautiful yeah is it time wow that was a quick day thank you thank you thank you for joining with us so yeah if there's anything you need from the bookstore or anything you want me to sign and then tomorrow um yeah it's going to be quite a full day