 Hi everyone. Hi. Thank you. Thank you for joining us for our online retreat weekend. Yeah, we have a beautiful theme reborn in the light of Christ. So I'm expecting miracles this weekend. And yeah, so we're going to be having sessions with the monastery, our friends in Utah. And we'll also be having a movie workshop tomorrow. So it's going to be a full weekend. But today we're going to start with David and Francis here with us in the studio in Mexico. And so I'll just pass it over to them now. Hi everyone. Glad to be with you. It's always a treat for us every month to see you all. Beautiful. Well, what a topic we have reborn in the light of Christ. And I know some of you are saying, wow, that feels very good. It's a beautiful topic and it resonates. So this weekend we want to just go explore together and see what does it mean to be reborn in the light of Christ or sometimes you heard the phrase born again, born again, fresh, clean, brand new, innocent, what does it mean? How does that apply to me and what is the way? So what a beautiful opportunity we have to gather with all of our friends around the world. We even have five new people that are with us for the first time. So welcome to you who are joining us as well. Yeah. It's really beautiful to see your smiling and shiny faces here on the big screen. Feels like a very, very deep time and just like Jesus is guiding us just to go deeper and deeper and deeper and can really feel it, the deepening that's happening. And last week, actually, David in a Saturday movie workshop, David showed this Jesus life of Jesus movie that's very epic and very long. And I think it was really striking for me when how you opened that session because you said it was the first time that the divine light actually shine in the dark world. For the first time ever. And that is what Jesus symbolizes for us because he's the Christ. He's fully in alignment with the Christ. And that is really the light of this world. And 2000 years ago that was the symbol in time seemingly shine and carried on this, this, you know, this mission of just keep shining the light and here we are still being guided by this light to, to basically reach this point to say, Well, let us identify with this light and let us take this leap of faith in mind to actually merge with this light to be the light of the world to shine our light. Yeah. It's something, you know, we've in this world, we've learned what light is, but it's a light that we perceive through our, through our eyes. And whether we're talking about sunlight or ultraviolet light or fluorescent light or whatever it's, it's an external projection or a substitute for light, which Jesus pointed the way for us. He said the kingdom of heaven is within so he's teaching us that the light is within. And it's still there it's who we are it's our I am presence it's our connection with God it's our awareness that we're the Christ, all of that is the light. But it's covered over with a lot of false beliefs, and the basic false belief if it was like a pyramid of false beliefs that at the bottom of the pyramid is the belief in linear time, where cause and effect are separate, and the cause seems to come before the effect. And when we look at linear time. The mind is accustomed to learning in heaven is just pure being the light just is. You could just summarize all the heaven with two words, God is isn't that refreshing. How simple God is that's what the light is God is. And then when we learn and believe this mask of linear time and space this mask of of a world this mask of a whole cosmos. This giant seeming cosmos of time and space and stars and black holes and quasars and planets, you know, all of that is is like a linear defense against the light. And so when we have a topic like reborn in the light of Christ, what we're really asking is take us so deep take us back inside where the truth is still in us, the I am presence is still there. The love, the eternal love is still there. And that is the love that we were created in we were created in God's love and we are a child of love we are we are an extension of light. And when we start to pray for that just please open my heart back to the light, then it seems like in our linear world things start to collapse, they start to dismantle, they start to be stirred up and rearranged, almost like you're you're stirring up a bucket that has water in it but it has mud at the bottom. And when you stir a stick in there, the water which was very clear turns very muddy, and we want to bring it back down to the stillness where it's clear, we want, we want to be able to see clearly, and we want to experience ourselves as the light. So it's quite a journey because everything we've learned is is in a past, present, future framework. And what Jesus is telling us is the light is always just present. The light doesn't have a past and it doesn't have a future. It's just what is God is and Christ is and love is it's just reality, but it's covered over by this, this linear trick. And when we, when we buy into that we, we think we're creatures of time we get identified with the body. And Jesus is basically teaching us that it's like bodies are like shadows on a movie screen, you know, they're just, they're just projections of dark shadows. And we've identified our identity with these shadows. We've, we become watchers of the shadows and then we identified with the shadows and then we start to put a lot of thought and a lot of effort into these shadows, how to how to preserve the shadows, how to make the shadows better, how to make the shadows successful. And Jesus is like, please, it's just shadows. You're the light, you're a creation of God. You're perfect in as the light, but, but once you play in Shadowland, it doesn't have a happy ending. You basically have to leave Shadowland before you get happy. You can kind of get a little bit happy in Shadowland, but not really fully happy because the shadows aren't who we are. That's not our inheritance. So we're going to really take a deep dive this weekend and join with you in like walking through what it takes to let go of the investment in these, these shadows. And, and to start to see them from an entirely different perspective, you know, from the Holy Spirit's perspective, Shadowland, it turns bright. The shadows, the shadows don't have a chance when the Holy Spirit is given the power, we, when we give the power to the Holy Spirit to show us the world in a brand new, clean, fresh way, then we see it completely different. And we were talking this morning, Francis actually found a passage from chapter 26 that jumped out at her and we were both kind of looking at, wow, looking at actually the whole section. It was quite, quite exciting, but, but it was actually, it was paragraph 13 there in chapter 26 in this section called the little hindrance that really jumped out. Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, this is chapter 26. And the name of the chapter is called the transition. And, and last night, this paragraph paragraph really jumped out of me, jumped out at me because it feels like this is the way this spirit and Jesus saying this is how I look at life in general. And he says, each day, and every minute in each day, and every instant that each minute holds, you but relive the single instant when the time of terror took the place of love. That's what every single moment is. It's a repeating of, of this little mistake. And so you die each day to live again until you cross the gap between the past and present, which is not a gap at all. Such is each life. See me interval from birth to death and on to life again, a repetition of an instant gone by long ago that cannot be relived. And all of time is by the mad belief that what is over is still here and now. So that's like the trick of time. Time is an invention of the ego and the ego invented time to cover itself. It's almost like the ego is a belief. And then the ego felt it felt a bit exposed and naked. So it generated a cosmos of time and space as like a giant veil to cover itself, to keep itself hidden. And then when, when we believe in this veil, then we, we seem to be a product as a person. We seem to be a product of time and really the body is just part of this perception of time. It's, it's, it doesn't, it's not a very good home for us because it seems to be born and then it just has so many years to live and then it dies. It's kind of a sad story. It's like a brief little blip of time. It's allowed to live and then it disappears. And Jesus is telling us, yeah, that would be a sad story if it was true. But actually you're a perfect creation of God. You were created as an eternal being. So it's interesting the way that is describing it because it's just saying that while we're addicted to linear time, we can't really know the truth of our being. And anybody who's known anything about addictions, when you, when you first admit and discover that you're addicted to something, and this is, this is more than just addicted to alcohol or addicted to sex or addicted to food. This is addicted to time. The very nature of our world is based on linear time. Then I think Jesus is basically saying it's going to take present trust and inner guidance to set you free from this addiction. There won't be an escape from this addiction to linear time unless you become 100% intuitive. Unless you just say, okay, spirit, Holy Spirit, you lead the way. You have to teach me to let go of what I have believed in because when I believe in the past, it seems like it generates a future. And when I live each day based on plans and preferences and learnings from the past, then my projected future is going to also be subject to those same fears, those same doubts and concerns. And I will not know how to reach my eternal nature if I just continue to play the game of time. So I think for us it's been learning to hand time over to the Holy Spirit, literally each day, each moment. Not in a kind of a real obsessive way where you're just so obsessed with getting unstuck from time that you can't even let anything even flow through you, but more in a relaxed way where you just say, okay, here is the day for you, God, this day is yours, you guide me, you lead me, you show me the way. And then present trust is what will direct the way. It's a very different way of living. Yeah. And Jesus also says in this very chapter that all learning is either a step toward the gate of heaven or a hindrance. So he basically kind of just took everything. It doesn't matter that, you know, the images or what situation that we perceive in our life is all the same in the, in his summary is, you know, you can learn from about two teachers, and each set you in opposite direction. And there's no other choice when you still believe in choice and linear time, this is the only choice that matters, which teacher you follow, and you can't really, you know, develop your own curriculum, when we choose to follow Jesus when we choose to follow this spirit, because we have to realize that if we give ourselves over to this teacher to guide us all the way back to heaven, we have to let go so much of this past learning and what we think we know what's the best for us, how I should perceive everything. So it becomes like this. I think the way Jesus is saying this is this life can be used so well used as just a life to follow the teacher that guide you all the way to the gate of heaven, or to nowhere. This, this, this is what is this distinction. And of course we want to say we want to use this life, you know, when it seemingly still in our awareness to go all the way back to heaven, then every single moment is our opportunity to be set free or trapped in prison in the in the in the loop of time. There is no other purpose of time and there is no other purpose of the curriculum is very clear. This moment I can choose to be free, or to continue this loop. And I think for me it's very helpful because it kind of put everything in perspective. It can put everything to to this simple way of saying, this moment is my moment of release. If I choose to follow him with full trust in this moment, then I will, I will be guided. So that's really, that's what we say yes to. Yeah. And I think everyone can relate to the teaching from Jesus that all guilt relates to our belief in the past and all worry and anxiety relates to our belief in the future. And, and then you have Jesus come rushing into us with such happiness and joy, saying, you know, what time but now can truth be known now is the only time there is. And there's something in your heart that that can feel a joy, a glee with that what time but now can truth be known like it's it's not something I have to figure out it's not something I have to learn in the future. It does not something that has to be a future destination. It's a here and now release of the ego and it's a here and now experience and, and it does take trust. I mean it starts off I think with I trust you, spirit, I trust you with me. I trust you will guide me what to say and to do. I trust you will give me anything that I need in any moment that will will bring me back to you to the light. And, and it means that we do let go of the pursuits of the world, because our goal is a present goal. It's not a future goal. We've been accustomed to, once you believe you're a human being, then all of a sudden future goals are part of the package. Oh, you're human and now what's your future goals? You know, imagine if if you were in school or even talking to your parents and, and, and they ask you what do you want to be when you grow up and you said, I just want to be now. That sounds very playful and very joyful. I just want to be here now. Is it okay for me to be here now? Ram Das wrote a whole book called be here now. And, and that's so relaxing because if you can start to open yourself to present trust and you can listen to the voice for God, your intuitive voice, it will just tell you how wonderful you are right now. You don't have to achieve an identity in the future. You don't have to conquer something in the future. Who you are right now is is love is is perfect love. And it's a surrender into that. It is so much of a letting go of everything that I think came before. You know, we've been taught that what happened before is made as who we are now and who we are now will will make us who we are in the future. And Jesus is saying, no, it's, you're not really a creature of time. Everything that happened before doesn't have anything to do with who you are now. You can say you had a bad past or a good past, but for Jesus, it's like, well, still, you are who you are right now because God created you as an eternal being. And now is our closest approximation of eternity that we can experience while we're perceiving time and space. We can, we can be happy now. And we can talk about the past to talk about the future, but it doesn't really affect the essence of who we really are now.