 Okay, we have a question ready. I'm not even sure what my question is. She's picked up the microphone. After all that, she's got the microphone. Let it come through. So is this on? There we go. So let's see here. Let's just be that. I went to the Course in Miracles on Tuesday for the first time in years and years and years. I've been out here in Iowa for four years and I've been starting for spirituality down in Iowa City. So I'm very happy to have found this group and this place and these people and this life up here. And after I went to the Course in Miracles on Tuesday I wanted to just ask, I guess, a couple of things that transpired after that was that I work in a home preschool. I've got a little three or four year olds that are my relationships on a day to day basis. And I had thought prior to this that I had been very just purely loving and the patience of a saint. And I'm creative and I could follow what the kids wanted to do. I was a master at being able to just respect their ideas. I was just like in the groove in California and then I came out here and started my own. I wanted to start my own. And so I started my own in home day care and it just kept me like a truck. The very first day I was completely exhausted. I was burned out after the first day and I've been doing it now. This is my fourth year. As of this week after the Course in Miracles which isn't particularly easy for me. It's not like this feel good thing like the Sunday service was super feel good. I've gone three weeks in a row ever since I came here. But then Course in Miracles feels more like oh boy I got a lot to let go of. I don't know I just feel like I'm a baby in the whole thing. So I just wanted to prelude it with that. But after my Tuesday class what started happening is when I got triggered and you had mentioned hooks coming up. That's kind of what I wanted to go back to because that's where I'm at right now. I feel like it's a absolute necessity to get past reacting to these hooks. When stuff came up, this little voice came in and it said it's anger. That's what it is that keeps coming up. Anger, anger, anger. I mean even just yesterday I got mad twice over kids spilling their milk. So during the week after my Course in Miracles experience on Tuesday, every time I got mad at something just internally felt triggered, felt angry, felt agitated, this little voice came in and said what are you afraid of? And I thought that was kind of cool. And I just wanted to sort of put that out there to see if it sounded like I was I don't know, I just wanted some confirmation that yes I should listen to that voice which obviously I should because what was happening is I was hearing that voice of what are you afraid of and then I was able to go deeper beyond the anger and I realized that all of the stuff that I'm afraid of is absolutely an illusion. It's things like I'm afraid that I'm not good enough or I'm afraid that I'm going to have to work too hard or I'm afraid that my house is going to get dirty. And all of those things that I'm afraid of kind of boil down to I'm afraid that I won't have control, I guess. I don't know. I've got a lot to do still on it. But it does seem like a really good question for me right now. What is to say what am I afraid of when these things come up? Because as soon as I asked that question then it made it so that I was a little bit less attached to the anger. I was able to kind of drop the anger more. And I guess my question was things like judgment. I feel like what do I do when I judge myself or other people which I sort of like have vitually been in constant habit of doing is just judging everything. How do they see me? Are they worth, I don't know, just some sort of judgment. Are they safe? Do I like them? Do they feel loving? Those kinds of things. I'm a lot of times judging and I guess I feel kind of like so, well I have been very, very stuck the last four years and just after this week starting to feel a little less stuck by asking that question about what are you afraid of. But with the judgment thing I still feel pretty stuck. So I guess it's just, I wanted to sort of talk a little bit more about that. And so what do I do when I have that judgment? How do I reframe it, turn it over to spirit? Well the course is saying that we are too confused about our own identity so we have to do it through a brother. And that's absolutely true. I hear a lot of people say that how do I love myself is all about loving myself, forgiving myself. But I say you can't do that except through a brother. And that's really the doorway that is pointed out by Jesus throughout the course is forgive others because that's your way to get in touch with your own innocence. So we don't even have to talk about how do I forgive myself or this self judgment. Let's talk about how to forgive your brother and whether there is a willingness to forgive your brother. And I think for myself I know that if we really look deeply all this judgment around the brother all these projections is actually out of this very deep unconscious guilt. It's guilt, guilt of our self identity and guilt of the separation from God. But that is completely pushed out of awareness. So we don't even know where this motivation of judgment is coming from. You think you're really a disliked person or afraid of a situation is not there at all. So the root is very, very deep. So in order to undo the root we have to give ourselves over to the Holy Spirit. So in a way to notice this judgment is one thing is bring that to the awareness instead of hiding them. But out of the other way to undo it we have to open our mind to say it's not just a quick turnaround in the mind. It's not a mind game to say okay I'm afraid of making a mess in my home so I shouldn't be afraid. That's not the way to do it. The real way to do it to open yourself completely to the Spirit and say you know you guide me and sometimes when these questions come to the mind it's great. What am I afraid of? And yet be open that the solution may not be where you think it is. The Spirit will guide you to open up to other things and they're all part of the solution because it's so tricky. It's like that movie Now You See Me or these magicians the trick of the magician is you know it's not really where you think it is. It's all smoking mirrors to distract your attention to think the problem is right here. I'm afraid of this I'm afraid of that but we have no clue how to undo this fear because it's not here it's not there so to be open to be healed we really have to open to allow the Spirit to guide us. I have this one person in our community I remember a few years ago when we were living in the same house she and this other person just had this constant clash and for reasons they think they know the reason they just don't like each other's faces all the time this other person is very strong personality and the other person feels threatened by it like they clash up every single details and there's no way to heal it they can express they can talk about it cry about it there's no way and then just I was talking to her one day just as I was talking I heard what is your situation with your husband and she was just saying you know she was separated from her husband for years but she does not feel to get into the divorce or she does not feel to look at that area or there's a lot of strings in her life but she moved to the community and completely put that out of her mind I don't want to deal with that area of my life but you know when something that is still in the mind that is ready or the spirit want you to look at to address not necessary to change the situation as a goal but just to start to see what is you're afraid of to look at those things those areas but we say okay not now I don't want to look at it then the protection all going on to this direction and we're trying to solve this interpersonal conflict there's no way to solve it we don't even know where it's coming from so gradually we just allow play together and allow the spirit to show just be open that we don't have to push anything or make anything to happen but just allow your mind to open and truly follow the spirit when you feel the prompt to look at certain areas address certain things do not you know push away from your awareness and that is the way of healing the healing is holistic it's actually not this specific situation this specific conflict being healed is your mind completely being healed in all areas and we don't know which you know relates to which so it's like a complete surrender I don't know the problem so I don't know the solution but you know so let me just look at what is the surface and hand it over and then allow the healing to come through yeah and it's the sense to that I've used this preschool analogy to kind of convey some real deep metaphysical ideas from the course because this whole idea of judgment you know if you took the sermon on the mount and you just boiled it down to two words it's judge not really it's just two words it's the core of the sermon on the mount you know 2000 years ago and the human race has been trying to practice that with not a lot of success it's almost like they can tell intuitively almost sentimentally that that is the way they've been given the key to the door but they just haven't a heck of a time finding how the key goes in and turns because it's not unlocking so I would say this first thing we look at this thing of judgment because we're told judge not how and when or what was the purpose when did judgment seem to arise we know it's of the ego but what purpose does judgment serve so we could say that there's this thing called the fall from grace not in reality because love is still love but the seeming fall from grace is described in the bible and all the primal religions everybody has their own story of the fall from grace so the fall from grace is the beginning of consciousness which is the domain of the ego and the mind in the state of heaven is so loving so joyful so harmonious so peaceful obviously there's no problems in heaven it's just pure eternal love and gratitude and joy but the fall from grace is from a state of joy and happiness and love into a state of chaos and conflict now where does judgment come in because there's no judgment in heaven so the judgment started to come in in the chaos and the conflict judgment is a device that came about after the separation in order to bring stability and control into a chaotic situation so it is an invention of the ego to try to stabilize chaos because if the mind is in total chaos it will give up the chaos to go back to the love so you see the ego invented judgment as a way of minimizing chaos without letting it go the ego wants to keep the chaos so it minimizes it uses defense mechanisms and defense mechanisms are always designed to reduce fear while keeping it reduce fear while not letting it go so judgment you see why Jesus is saying judge not because he's saying if you want to return to the awareness of the kingdom of heaven you have to let go of the defense mechanisms against it now let's go to your question because this was recorded for the whole universe here it's a very good question it's a very basic question what am I afraid of and then you mentioned a few things were going on in your mind one of them was fear of loss of control so I would say we're on to it there in the sense that judgment was a mechanism that was invented to bring control into chaos to minimize fear and therefore control in the ego system is extremely important that in fact the ego would say without control without rules and control all would be chaos and Jesus is saying without rules and control all would be love so you see we have two different advisors in the mind now one is saying give up the rules give up the control you've got pure chaos and the other is saying give up the rules and control the judgments you have pure love now this is important we'll go back to the saying of what am I afraid of now the answer to that is something that I remember asking Jesus point blank one time what is it give it to me straight what am I afraid of and the answer was so astonishing that after I heard this answer I said I don't get it we're going to have to come from a different angle because that does not compute that does not make sense but the answer to what am I afraid of is love terrified of love when you believe in the ego and the ego is the belief that there is no God and no love then it generates a projection onto love there's a terror of love that's why there's a terror of the Holy Spirit and that's why all of us in unity and religious science all these beautiful new thought religions are talking about love and follow the spirit and everything why isn't people like talking about listening to the spirit more than actually listening to the spirit there has to be some kind of enormous resistance imagine it's the spirits available to you God's voice speaks to me all through the day and you're still praying and saying I'm not sure quite what the Holy Spirit messages here there has to be some kind of resistance going on there's a terror going on of listening to the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit is a representation of love and the great terror the fear is the fear of love so when I asked Jesus what give it to me straight what am I afraid of he said love I said I want love I want loving relationships I want more love in my life with my cat I want love love love I'm a lover and you're telling me I'm afraid of love I just that's I don't get that can we come from another angle okay if I'm defending against love if I'm defending against love I'm afraid of love I'm going like this to the light what am I defending for if I'm defending against love I must be defending for I must be trying to guard and protect something and he said yes the self-concept the image that you've made that's unlike love you're trying to protect an image that was made to take the place of love I said now that is helpful that I can relate to because I can see I've got all kinds of pride and attachments to concepts and images that I believe I am no wonder I'm afraid of love if I'm protecting that image and what is that image but control again it's protecting that control mechanism that was invented by the ego because there's a fear of if I lose control then what you know the ego is saying chaos chaos and there's part of the mind that must believe that so I would say that A Course in Miracles is just a 1200 and some page book that is just an eloquent dissertation on one thing the serenity prayer underneath that big book that's this thick is simply the serenity prayer now there's three aspects to the serenity prayer that which you can control that which you cannot control and the wisdom to know the difference to me that's why the 12 steps work that's why the serenity prayer and 12 steps is such a healing mechanism for so many people all over the planet because it really is the Course in Miracles in a simplified form and the wisdom to know the difference between what you can control and what you can control is the Holy Spirit or the higher power whatever you want to call it Atman whatever spirit now what can you control well Jesus tells us in the Course that you can control the direction of your thinking in other words there's thoughts that align with God we call it the right mind and then you have thoughts that align with the ego or denial of the wrong mind you have choice you can control the direction of your thinking he does come right out and say that you can control the direction of your thinking it's going to take practice you know we think it's difficult to change behaviors you know like stop smoking lose weight behaviors are nothing compared to changing your mind about your mind letting go of an entire belief system and thought system that's based on control and opening to you don't know what which is really the spirits trust me relinquish control and all this love the spirit keeps saying all this love all this love and the ego is going don't trust hold on to your control because you're going to have total chaos so I give the preschool example of the preschool teacher who comes who goes away from the class for a while and the class is unattended and when the teacher comes back she opens the door she goes into the room and it's been a major food fight it's been lunchtime there's ice cream on the ceiling there's food and ketchup on the rug the girls the boys it's a major food fight the teacher has just gone away for a while and she comes back to the preschool class and she walks in and her first thought is chaos this is a preschool especially if you own the preschool you're in house preschool and you come back and spend like a major food fight it's just everywhere it's hanging from the wall from the ceiling it's just they've got into it and the first thing the teacher does is he throws out her arms stop and what the teacher will try to do in what's perceived as chaos a major food is to bring order into chaos okay all the girls over there in a line all the boys over there in a line drop it whatever's in your hand you see the first inclination of the preschool teacher after the chaos is a parent is to try to bring control and bring order in the chaos that's what the ego is trying to do that's what the judgment is all about is trying to bring order in the chaos and we all know this you know when you finally move out of your parents house you get your own house you're not living under their rules anymore my way or the highway now it's my way you come to your own my way you get to pick the color of your paints on the walls you get to put the style of the room dress the way you want to dress you know you're in your own little kingdom now your own little kingdom you're not under mom and dad's rules anymore you can control your life you always have to obey mom and dad's rules you make your own rules that's the same thing that ego make your own rules live your life anyway damn well want to you know it's the same egoic autonomous I'll do it my way and it's going to be better I'll have a more ordered life okay I came from a dysfunctional family but now I'm in charge here and I'm not going to live dysfunctions I'm going to order it and control it my way and then you have a spouse that comes along and then you've got the same thing reenacted over or maybe you get a pet maybe you have an animal you have a pet in your house and the same thing happens you know you see the reenactment of the separation where it's a struggle between the creatures to gain control it could be husband wife it could be the parents and the kids I've gone into families where there's like teenagers and I go in and I meet with the parents and this and this and they'll say what do you see David what's going on here and it's like sometimes the teenagers are literally running the house the parents have become the slaves now instead of my way or the highway it's flipped around the teenagers are living the high life and the parents are literally in the servant role and so I'll call the spade a spade because I want everyone to realize their full potential and escape from this idea of who rules who and just come to perfect equality and see God is the one in charge and when we follow God's law of love we experience our self as love so these are just examples where by the preschoolers are just the reason you may get stressed out is because the ego inside wants a sense of order and control and these are symbols and mechanisms being used by the Holy Spirit to trust to come inward to the guidance that Francis was talking about and to actually let go of control entirely first it starts out as guidance so you may have guidance people say why do we have boundaries, why do we need to set so many boundaries and I say well that's just kind of fear that's why boundaries are limits and you have to set them out of fear but the Holy Spirit will work with that and can help you in guided boundaries or guided loosenings so that you become more confident and trusting in the spirit and can let go of this self-consent of being a preschool teacher who has to be in charge or it could be a parent-child relationship or it could have any number of things but we can control the direction of our thinking and the second part of that is in the rules for decision Jesus comes out with this beautiful sentence he says you have no control over the world you made isn't that a lovely sentence no control over the world you made I even have an early teaching I did back in the 1990s called no control over the world where the whole talks about the serenity prayer you know some of you know the serenity prayer and you know those 12 steps you know life became unmanageable you know it's out of control and it's a surrender or letting go of that attempt to manage and control that brings us back into the grace into the spirit of grace that we were created with so this gives you like a sense of what this is all about really you have a huge opportunity there and the stressful part is trying to still exert the control over the world we'll call it and the spirit is just saying listen we can do mind training here and you can actually control the thoughts in your mind so fully that when the light arises in your mind and you give your full a sentence to that light that attack thoughts will no longer be able to enter judgments will no longer be able to enter your mind of light because you've so fully given it over to the source of light and to the Holy Spirit that literally you don't that whole idea of control just starts to fade away where there actually comes a state of mind where you don't even have to control the direction of you thinking you become so aligned with God that you simply be as you were created. So as a preschool teacher would the response possibly be okay go outside and go at it with the food fight? I mean like can you briefly give an example of how the preschool teacher guided by spirit might be able to respond? It could be a parable from the life of David David wasn't ever a preschool teacher but David was in the College of Education at the University of Cincinnati and it would go out to different classrooms to observe and when David would go to observe these many many different classrooms it would be this sense of noticing that some classes had all these rules written all over the place and the place seemed like chaos. In other words the children were not following any of the rules and then I'd walk into a class I go from classroom to classroom just observing how the teachers and students were interacting. I went into one classroom and they were the most kind, sweet, loving, it was amazing. It was some of the same kids even. I would follow them and it would be a wild chaos in one thing and then they'd be, their whole behavior would change in another room and I'd say fascinating what's going on in this room. There's such a sense of presence and honoring and respect and then some of the same kids that were in the chaotic throwing paper wads and everything over here and they just, oh they become like angels in the next classroom. I'm fascinated because I'm just always observing. So I would spend time talking to the teacher saying well what's going on in your classroom. It's amazing to watch the relationship you have with the kids and she would say if you don't even have any rules, there's no rules on your walls. There's rules all over the walls over there and there's paper wads flying and nobody's respecting anything. What's going on over here? She would say well at the beginning of the class before we get started on the first day of the semester or quarter or whatever, I talk to them about the golden rule because I believe in living the golden rule. I think it's important to live the golden rule. So I talk with all the kids about how important and valuable the golden rule is and that sets the town for the whole year because it's her value. It's her mind that she's bringing it. The gift of the golden rule and the kids just reflect that. Some of the same kids that are throwing stuff in that one they come and there's a respectfulness. So in terms of how far are you willing to go with this, I remember I had a student of mine back in the 1990s and she and her husband had two children and a little boy and a little girl and they said the student was saying to me daily we just love you, we respect you and this would be really helpful for our children. We want to take a vacation away from our kids. We want to go off and buy a pilot's license. We want to fly away. We'll fly away for a whole week and we would like you to come up and live in the house with the kids. We think it would be such a blessing for the kids to have you live there and then here. We'll just leave you some money you can decide whether you want to do the food going out, recreation, movies, whatever you want to do in the house. We totally love you David. We totally trust you. We turn our children completely over to you because we're going on vacation. We need to get away for at least a week. So they did. So when I got there it was pretty quick that the children right away, they knew that mom and dad had boundaries. They could get away with the rules of the house and this and this. So I think initially when I got there they knew me and they loved me and everything but they went fishing to try to find out what my boundaries and limits were like they do with adult kids will do this. They'll fish. You know when we were in school we had a substitute teacher come in. We knew what we could get away with and not with regular teachers but when the substitute teacher come in we tried to fish to find out how much we could get away with. So this is what the kids were doing. They were fishing. They were looking for David's boundary. Where is this guy's boundaries? Does he have any boundaries at all? Mom and dad are gone and we're here for a week with this is great. So day one we played. We took the living room apart all the furniture we decided to make like it was like a submarine and we get sheets out and we put the furniture at a range and draw things over so they could go all in the submarine and we would play. We would rearrange the furniture parents trust in me. They give me the house. They give me the kids. They give me the money. You know it's like let's have some fun here. Let's be inspired and so we played and we played and then finally I mean we played so much that we hardly thought about food and then finally when the kids are like we're hungry. We're hungry. So what do you want? What do you want to eat? Mickey D's! McDonald's! Is that great? Monday night Mickey D's. Tuesday night Mickey D's. Wednesday night Thursday night Friday night Saturday night Sunday of course they give us the money there's no problem with all Mickey D's every day because why? Because it's just what's in the flow given. I've got no preferences. I don't believe in nutrition I don't believe in any of those. I've got no qualms about anything in the world. My mind is emptied of the beliefs of this world. Hence, no boundaries. Hence, we had a ball at Mickey D's. We did a playland. We had our burgers and fries when there were apple trainers, whatever we had. So that was that. Then as we went along the children got so happy. They were like in paradise. They were just like this is great there are no boundaries and limits. It's just pure joy. And so we continued to play every day the kids got so happy wasn't the word. I would say giddy. The kids eventually got giddy because there was such a joy of being spontaneous in the moment and living spontaneously from inspiration that we would just be inspired from one playful thing to the next going to our Mickey D's. And it was a very inspired week of playing and rejoicing. I think maybe halfway through the week the kids were both so giddy. They were just giggling and laughing and giddy and everything. That I think the girl she went and she spit and I remember one of our play sessions. I just remember this goober flying across across in the air. It's like in slow motion. We're just in such clean. At that point I hit a beer. And I do remember the goober flying across and landing in the beer. And then as soon as that happened the little girl and the little boy looked at me like and when they saw me smiling and laughing they saw obviously there was no boundary around goober's either. I mean I heard they spit on Freud with some of his talks but see he took it he didn't believe in God. He took it personal. Somebody spitting on him was seen as an affront. It was offensive for Sigmund Freud to give a lecture and have somebody spit on him. But not for me this is David, this is the parable of David, a new day. So as soon as the spitball and as soon as the goober landed and I left it was a spit fight. They just spit all over the place and everything like this. And that was our next game. And then we went, showered and cleaned up and went on to our next thing you see. Nothing is offensive. Somebody Jenny wrote to me about that was when I think in one of my books, my meaning in scripture or one of the books I had put, when you are offended you are offended in Christ and she was wondering what that meant offended in Christ. And what that really meant was that we are never offended by what people say or do. We're afraid of love and we're denying our identity is love and that's where the offense comes in. Christ is always there. Christ is always present. But whenever we have an offense we need to pluck the offense out of our mind at the Holy Spirit pluck it because it's always some self-concept that we believe in. We believe we're human. We believe we're a man or a woman. We believe we're a teacher or something, a student. We need to pluck that offense and come holy empty hands unto God to know the Christ which is really not offended. Christ is never offended in anything because Christ is spirit and spirit can't be offended. So I gave this example because that was how it played out for me in that particular parable in that particular scene and then eventually the parents did come home and the kids didn't want to let the parents in the house. They were like no we don't want this to end. Why don't you go on another vacation actually you know. But then I sat down with all of them and I said no this is beautiful because this is, I explained a few things and what the purpose was and what the potential was. That was just a learning opportunity for them. So it's not saying that you should try any of these things in your classroom but it is saying in that direction whenever you notice a feeling of control coming up or a feeling of frustration coming up or the anger that we're never upset for the reason we think and anger is really never justified. The ego would always have us justify the reasons why we're good and angry and they should have known better and none of that. But it's just a huge opportunity for forgiveness to let the spirit guide us to release the limits that we place on ourselves and the judgments in our own mind and then live in a state of happiness and glee from not buying onto those beliefs buying into those anymore. Okay you just said something about forgiveness in the moment when you're frustrated with these kids and the anger is coming from somewhere else and you said it's all about forgiveness. Do you have to have a specific action or a person that you forgive or can you just kind of do a blanket or all-encompassing version of forgiveness? Is that okay? Yeah, I would say while the mind believes in specifics Jesus says we have to practice with specifics. You have to use what you believe in. So it seems specific as you're practicing but actually you go fully into what it is, you find out it's not specific at all you're shifting your identification with the doer, with the person and some of you know like before agreements, Miguel Ruiz, one of them is don't take anything personally. That's exactly what forgiveness is. It's going so deep into your mind and freeing your mind of all these misidentifications, all these false ideas of who you are and emptying your mind like Buddha and Jesus both said and coming into that place where you're taken there by the Holy Spirit to a place where you're not identified or attached with anything of time and space, anything of your time anymore. It's very much like Francis was just saying that when you try to do it like in terms of saying telling yourself to say the words, a lot of people do that with the course they'll take workbook lessons or they'll take something and they'll try to tell themselves or even with the observer they'll try to say okay I am the observer, I am the observer but there's still beliefs underneath that have to be exposed. That's what happens with mantras in the East. Mantras are used to try to focus the mind and give the mind something to latch on to and everything but until you're taken by the Spirit on this process of undoing then you thoroughly can't completely forgive as long as you still have unconscious assumptions, beliefs, and grievances. So that's why the prayer of the heart should always be Holy Spirit show me the way you lead the way, be you in charge. I would but follow. Instead of trying to figure out what the future pathway to God should be based on our past learning we need to be more humble than that because our past learning God is nowhere. For two thousand years we've been trying to judge not and our past learning is so anchored in there that it's literally like a covering over, it's like a film that's covering over the light in our mind. So we have all these examples of how our seeming lives in form have not turned out anything like we thought. When Francis was growing up in Beijing, her family system was basically if you can't see it, smell it, taste it, touch it. It doesn't exist. There was no teachings at all that there was a spiritual reality. It was almost have a good education, get a good job, be safe and secure and attain and accumulate in this world to empower yourself as a person to live the best life that you can and then you'll die. So you might as well make a pretty good life of it before you die and that was the belief system and I had a pretty similar one. I was raised in a Christian church. We didn't talk about feelings. We didn't talk about thoughts and beliefs. If the race riots of Chicago came on you could bet the television channel would get changed because I did it was raised as a child in the 60s and there was Vietnam and race riots going on and all kinds of things and I'm sure as a lot of families it was like change the channel. It was protectionism. We want to keep you in a nice, safe wasp family. White, Anglo, Saxon, Protestant, cocoon and let's not talk about that or anything that was controversial it was like kind of brushed under the rug and we went to Bible school and we learned the teachings of the Bible and Jesus and everything but there was a lot of protectionism going on. I think in the 70s I had to go back and rediscover the 60s because my parents weren't presenting me a full picture of the 60s. I was simply seeing reflected what I believed in and there was a lot of protectionism so then I had to get into opening my mind in many ways which was very helpful on my own and initiating that and I see it as a spirit behind it all just slowly opening my mind up until finally the course came into my life and that was part of really open, taking the blinders off really taking a good, honest look at what was going on in my consciousness and that takes me to forgiveness it's a holistic way of forgiving. We really need to reach a holistic state of forgiveness and be seen as not really about the specifics. Like for example if it was like a tree, you have to start with the leaves and the branches because that's all you know. You could say the tree trunk is not real and there is no tree but if you believe in the tree and the branches and the leaves you have to start with the branches and the leaves and start tracing it inward. That's what I was doing all these years seemingly going starting off with the leaves and I would really listen and watch and observe my feelings and my thoughts around all the leaves and eventually I got down to the tree trunk and saw that I'm looking at a tree right now and saw that all the branches and all the leaves were just offshoots of the trunk and they were as illusory as the trunk was but the spirit is so practical it knows that we have to go through an awakening process where we're slowly convinced of the reality of love and the unreality of fear and Jesus says don't be afraid that you'll get hurled into reality it's good that we're not hurled into abstraction. We just get piece by piece based on what we were ready for. You just had to get the other version of hurl coming in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've always wondered though, what would it be so bad about that? You need to get this one. What would be so bad about that? Getting hurled into reality was so terrible about that possibility. Well I think it gets come back to this fear of love for example imagine that it's really impossible to be hurled because the mind is so addicted to the darkness that it really couldn't be hurled. For example, if you had a child who was asleep and dreaming and was having a nightmare and you walked in on that child and say you were the mother and you walked in that child and the child's tossing and turning clearly having a nightmare and you went up and you just tried to just shake them to snap them out of that nightmare as quickly as possible so you could just go and shake them in the bed. What happens is if you go and shake a child who's having a nightmare the child will incorporate the shaking into the dream. It could very well be perceived that there's a monster that's got a hold of them and they're interpreting that they're being shaken and grasped by a monster. When you're in a dream you know how you sometimes incorporate the alarm clock and you need to get up for something that's just right incorporated in the dream. When the mind's asleep and dreaming it just does that. It doesn't want to be awakened when it's in a nightmare. So what Jesus says is when he says, you know, don't be afraid that you'll be hurled into reality it's basically saying that you can't be hurled into reality you're too frightened for reality and you're not going to make it that way that would just be more traumatic than beatific, he says. So basically you have to go from nightmares to happy dreams to waking up from the dream. You don't go from nightmares into reality and you can see the gentleness with that. He's just describing that's just the way it is. You have to go through a transition of happy dreams. So in parable of David that's just the way it's gone. It went from kind of denial of repression of shy, extremely shy like a wallflower and then I had to go through a transition of years seemingly where there were tears the face was wet with tears and the dog licking the tears, the salty tears and progressively through relationships. You know when we go into relationships in this world the ego wants to get something out of the relationship. You better believe it's looking for something and when it doesn't get what it wants then it will break off relationships. We'll say there are many fish in the sea and you're not one of them anymore and it will simply move on to try to get what it wants. But progressively as you get more into giving and extending and away from the getting mechanism you do start to awaken. Your relationships start to be lighter, more gentle, more free flowing. You start to come into the happy dream. You know they start to reflect where your heart is. So it would seem like people do say you know let's get it over with as quick as possible. Like I have heard of course miracles say that you know that Jesus hurl me. Just hurl me. You don't hurl me soon I'm going to kill myself so hurl me. You know you see how it's still there's a bargain going on and it's still not a recognition of how addicted the mind is to the darkness. It's saying wake me up, snap me out of it but it still has a clinging going on that has to be loosened up. Okay just a little bit ago you said you have no control over the world you make. Is that right? You made it. But I think that we have complete control over the world you make because it's through our thoughts and actions that we make this world. I mean maybe not even our actions but our thoughts. And yesterday I talked about you know we can choose to turn to the light or we can choose to do other things. So I feel like our world is what we make it so we do have control over it. What do you think about that? We have control of our state of mind but the linear world is like a script and so saying you have control over the world would almost be like going to a movie theater and saying you have control over the script. What script is already in the canon it's just a projection of something that's already done. The movie has been completed. It just has the illusion of as if it's unfolding and playing in the theater. But I use the example of times of going to see the movie like Gone with the Wind and you see it maybe 20 times and after about 15 times you're starting to get a little irritation up at Fred Butler the way he's speaking to Scarlett. You know frankly my darling I don't give a damn. It would be like saying you've seen it 15 times and you start to get to that scene and you go red red I'm a little tired of this. You treat her you treat her like a lady and you get up to the scene again and he goes frankly my darling I don't give a damn. Because it's in the script it's the past. Everything in the linear world is part of a prearranged destined script. So when we have books and movies like The Secret that show the power of the mind, the power of thought and the power of manifestation it really kind of implies that you can make the world to be any way you want to make it. You have complete control over it. Not so actually some people will tell me that gee the New Age thoughts as you can create your own reality isn't the course teaching the same thing but the New Age teachings are teaching about creating your own reality. No. It's not teaching that at all. It's basically saying that God is the creator of reality. God creates your reality as spirit and the most you can ever do is accept your reality as God created you. You don't have the power to invent yourself to be any way that you want to be to make yourself over to redo yourself to manifest different worlds different things, explore different realms, all the exciting stuff like on the Discovery Channel. No, no, no, no, no. The course is not teaching any of that. The course is teaching God is the creator of reality. God is the author of reality. You can accept God's authorship and you can humbly accept yourself as the Christ which is the way God created you and you have no power whatsoever to make yourself any way different. You know all this stuff in this world about uniqueness and diversity. No, no, no, no, no. All this stuff about all the great choices we have. The wonderful choices. Most of us were raised with choice being a good thing. We wanted to be, we didn't want a deterministic world. We wanted to be able to choose to be however we want to be. That's the end of the slogan of the army isn't it? It's all that you can be. I don't think it's talking about the Christ. If it is, that's good. But if it's talking about becoming a good killing machine and being all you can be as a killing machine no, no, no, no, no. Some people I mean the people I've worked with over the years I went through all this darkness and then the people come and they go through such darkness. I mean really dark stuff just really dark and they'll say David when does it end? When does it end? It's like a dark tunnel where you just go in there and it's darker and darker. Is there a light at the end of the tunnel? When will it end? When will it be over? And one time I said to Suzanne she said can you give me a very concise description of the awakening process and I said yeah. Damn, damn, damn, ah. I forgot all about that. She reminded me in recent festivals she said that's what David told me. Damn, damn, damn, damn, ah. The damn, damn part is the part when you still believe in linear time and you're still hoping that this is going to work out in linear time and even some of these really neat philosophies like The Secret for example and Manifesting. Maybe the Abraham Hicks you know there's a lot of teachings right now that I say are more at the foothills of taking you towards the mountain. There are actually good stepping stones and there's really nothing wrong with manifesting in the sense if you see the purpose underneath it is empowering your mind of seeing you're not a victim of the world you see that actually has many gains to it and that's why I never poo poo, power of positive thinking or manifesting or whatever but then when people come and they say can you give me the full extent of it because I remember one time I was in Michigan and I was giving a talk I think up in Lansing and I was talking, talking, talking and we said let's just take a break and we took a break in the mid-afternoon and this woman came up to me and she said I'm the manifesting lady I manifest everything. I can manifest cars, houses, soulmates, diamonds, you know she just turned the break she told me she'd spend her whole life she could manifest anything in this world and has done so many times. So I talked to her and I said well that's great, that's really great and I said I think when we come back from the break I want you to start witnessing and telling all of your manifesting stories because I think that will be very empowering for this course group and it will help show the power of the mind and then I'll take it from there I'll take it to the next step. So she did, she gave the full manifesting thing. A lot of people in the group they were so fascinated by that they didn't want to put the course aside. They didn't want to take her course then the course. They were like ooh this is good, this is good stuff. I want to learn how to do what you do. Forget the course there's no no let's just take it where this is going you know we aren't stopping and manifesting here that's just a step on the ladder of coming back to the power of the mind and the power of thought. I said imagine if you could manifest anything at all and you've got really good manifesting forms any kind of form. Partners, soulmates, biats, you know on and on and on multi-billionaire whatever you want to do imagine as you kept doing that do you think that would ever satisfy you even if you were an amazing manifester and they all were like no there's definitely something beyond manifesting. They all were aware of it. They couldn't kind of go in their minds and they could play that out and they said no we really would want like lasting peace. If we could have a gift that was even beyond manifesting whatever form we want to be with one lasting peace. I said yeah and that's exactly what this course is about and it's about awakening to the kingdom of heaven to everlasting peace eternal love and so they said how does that work though? Why is manifesting so alluring and where is the shortcoming? Can you tell us the shortcoming of manifesting so we can kind of get over it in our minds before we have to play it out and I said well it's all about living your time again. Whenever you say you want to manifest something when you want to bring something into form there's this belief that you have a mind and thoughts and you can actually use the power of that mind and thoughts to bring something into form. Money soulmate, a car, a house, a diamond bracelet something or other. But you're presuming you know the form that is best. You're still looking at the past which is a past of images and you're deciding you want something that you've already experienced that you've already deemed valuable and you're trying to bring it into form and you're really perpetuating linear time and perpetuating the dream by trying to bring it into fruition again. We can manifest the stuff we do. We have, yes. And the ego is never ever satisfied with what we get. Yes, that's exactly it. You have used the power of your mind to make up a world of unreality and the ego is still not satisfied. Yeah, I want to talk a little bit also about the choice because a couple of years ago I had this mystical experience and in it I saw the world has completely finished. It's gone. It's finished. So what is going on now is kind of like an echo. The source of the sound is gone and the echo is just reverberating in the mind. The mind is reliving it again and again not letting it go. It's holding on to the idea of it's still happening and then pretending that I don't know the outcome and I'm one of the characters in this whole thing. But the truth is it's already gone and in that there is absolutely no choice in this world it's already finished. So when I was in that experience and actually when the experience finished as I remember I just said there and thinking there is nothing to do what I'm here to do and there is only one thing to do which is to see it as it is to see the force as force and not to pretending that I need to be stressed about it I need to create a better script because it's already gone so that to be able to see that it was very clear there is only one thing to do which is forgiveness. Forgiveness gives me the vision to see the force as force to see everything as it is. So in a way there is nothing in this life that needs to be done instead of forgiveness forgiveness is our only function only function. So when we talk specifics we talk about general things to forgive. Yes whatever comes up it's all for forgiveness. There's nothing else to achieve in this life. There's no purpose, there's no goal to achieve the only thing is through forgiveness we see this thing as already gone and finished. There is no choice that's the only choice to choose forgiveness as my only function in this world. And also I lost my train of thought. What do you add to that? And also only function. If you just kind of take that in from the moment you go wow that's really simple that's really the simplicity of I just had one function then think about all the things in the world that you seem to have that you seem to possess that you seem to own or that seem to be under your control that's an illusion because you can't really own it possess it control it. But to channel everything towards forgiveness just to say wow if that really is my one function then that would mean that everything would just need to serve that function. And that to me is like this that is like my calling experience. When I felt Jesus was calling me I felt like Jesus was saying give me your mind let me use your mind and let me use everything in your world and it was like one of those like Mother Teresa had her calling when she was on a train she was chugging through India and all of a sudden it came upon her calling she felt her calling and to me I had that moment back probably in the 1980s where I felt like I felt like there's a calling that happened here and Jesus was basically saying give it all to me let me use it for a purpose that's for the good of the whole. Let me give everything that you seem to own and possess give me your hands and give me the use of your body give me your skills and abilities give me your resources give me everything that you have in your mind give me your ambitions give me your future goals give it all to me and I will use it as a blessing for the whole universe and that was kind of a that's that moment you were just talking about where it's like suddenly you know it's not about what's going to happen in the future it's that sense of I'm no longer in the driver's seat trying to drive my own car I'm a passenger in the car and Jesus is driving the car and that there's something freeing about that conversion moment. Yeah and why do we want to change anything in the world because I believe the external world determines my happiness you know whether how the external world turned out would determine my inner state but the thing is forgiveness gives me everything I want like Jesus said in one of the lessons what can you what do you want that forgiveness cannot give you so to be able to see the force as comes back to our true identity is the true happiness and to see this world you know if we hold our identity as a dreamer as a dream character and there is an external world going on there's always always always going to be pleasure and pain they're the same thing they're both guilt they're both guilt as believing I'm this individual just by that belief there's guilt and guilt split into pleasure guilt and pain guilt the good guilt and bad guilt so in this world you just get trapped into I hope I get more of the pleasure guilt but really it's the same thing and then there is no choice even in that way you know how do I feel there is no there's no relief in this world you know forgiveness gives up the opportunity to bring to put a mind completely back into our true identity you know onto this dreamer of the dream not the dream character and that's where you know we actually don't even have the question of I hope the script will turn out a certain way because why why does that even matter to me you know it doesn't determine anything yeah you know we talk about what is your purpose but to the dream figure to the human being the purpose is completely out of awareness you know the human being sentimentally since I think sentimentally I'd like to keep reading this blue book however many years it takes and eventually choose the right purpose but as long as you're identified with the dream character as a figure on the screen you're not back at the point where you can make a choice you have to be the dreamer of the dream before you can allow another purpose to be given for the dream as long as you believe you're a dream figure you've forgotten that you're dreaming you know how it seems like real when people say what's happening in your daily life your real world it's not talking about the real world like of course it's not you know when you're talking about this to somebody and they go come on get real how you going to pay the bills how you going to put food on the table get real I mean when I was in university I had all these superstitious around me and I was questioning everything I was really taking but this was before Jesus came on board with the course I was questioning everything everything church I was questioning everything I was questioning every belief every value I would take nothing because some expert said it was true I was pondering and questioning like the ancient Greeks did you know I was sitting around in the pools and questioning the nature of what was presented to them instead of just assuming things to be so and finally the graduate assistants to people around me said David just stop it stop it it's annoying it's absolutely annoying to be questioning underlying assumptions with everything some kind of philosophy you're not even in philosophy what the heck are you questioning everything for you know what are you doing get a life man you know it's like stop it and I said okay let's go with that a bit get a life what do you mean by get a life it's like get in debt like everybody else get a mortgage get children get you know get a partner you know get a career come on man get a life and I said oh so that's a life so that's what I should be getting is all of that and I said what happens when I get a life then what you'll do what all the millions and billions have done before you you'll grow old you'll get sick and you'll die absolutely unacceptable absolutely I was probably in my 20s in graduate school looking into the eyes of my friends and my graduates if that's a life I'm sorry well the last person that kind of let go of that life for eternal life was Jesus Christ but I think I would rather live the life of Jesus Christ if eternal life is where this is all heading I can go for it but I'm not so interested in getting a life getting a wife getting a mortgage getting a debt credit card that student loan debt you want me to get more of a life than that yes yes get more in debt get really deep in the debt sorry I don't like the way your story ends I don't like the sickness and death part it doesn't seem fulfilling it doesn't seem like that's my destiny to just go the ways millions and billions have gone that way before what makes you think you're so different you don't really care about being different I just don't think that the death part is destiny I think there has to be more than death there has to be more than death and then the course came in my life almost like as an answer to a prayer like and yes and here's your training manual for giving an opening to eternal life so you know when you put it in that kind of context you can see that you do have to kind of repent and turn away from the past the ways of the world those you know the ways of the world are many and the pathway to truth is the straight and narrow I said well I'm interested in the straight and narrow actually sounds pretty good I just need to be showing what that is I want to really be honestly showing what the straight and narrow is and I'm willing to take it okay could you review the pleasure and pain is that just in one ear and out the other I don't get that well and of course Miracle Jesus says it's impossible to seek for pleasure without finding pain and so it kind of relates to the thing I was talking about in the bible eat drink and be married for one day we shall die it was almost that's more of like make the best of it and pleasure and pain sounds a little bit like duality doesn't it and so I remember when I was going through Course in Miracles I was reading the text and I was reading the subheadings you know you're going through you're reading the chapters the first time you read it you come to the subheading attraction to guilt ooh I don't know that doesn't sound like a very appetizing subheading but it'll surely get better the next one let's read through it and get to the next one attraction to pain attraction to guilt, attraction to pain no wonder they didn't call this a course on love this chapter sounded pretty morbid but let's move on to the next one attraction to death attraction to guilt, attraction to pain, attraction to death and in those sections he talks about it's impossible to seek for pleasure without finding pain anything that reinforces the dream reinforces the reality of the body is perpetuating the ego it's perpetuating the dream now just think about pleasure and pain for a minute when your body is in the middle of a migraine headache pounding migraine headache are you really thinking about God is that what you're thinking about at that moment or are you thinking about Eccedron or Tylenol or some morphine to try to escape the pain that seems very real you're not thinking about God it even works the flip side when people talk about well when you're having an orgasm or you're thinking of God some people will try to pull that one off I'm sure there are a lot of monks and nuns that thought why did I take this call and I could have there was even a friend who was a spiritual teacher and he was trying to come up with a name for his book and talk about marketing you know what he titled the book cosmic chocolate orgasm marketing but marketing for what is what I could say cosmic chocolate orgasm now what she was referring to is this pain and pleasure thing is we cannot understand anything from the surface of consciousness like we went to a movie yesterday Josh you said after the movie how did you find the movie chaotic it was a chaotic it was a disaster you can't understand anything at all from the surface of things because the surface is just a projection of a dualistic belief system so you won't find the answers on the surface but what Jesus does is he goes below the surface and he says you have to look at the purpose of things and then you can make a decision that's how you can really free your mind you can release the ego's purpose in your mind and accept the holy spirit's purpose and once you accept the holy spirit's purpose it will give a new purpose to everything it will transfer to everything and everyone in your world so what he does when he's describing pleasure and pain is basically says that the purpose whether you're seeking for pleasure or seeking for pain you still are reinforcing the reality of the body because what because the spirit doesn't experience pleasure or pain and remember you're trying to release your mind from the ego and come back to the spiritual awareness of everything so that's the big trick of this world the ego has made fools go it's made pleasure as something very attractive and therefore when the mind is attracted to it it doesn't realize that it's attracted to guilt there's a section on the attraction of guilt you can see this is the dynamic that the ego does not want raised into awareness because as soon as you raise it into awareness you will say this is ridiculous I'm not going to be a slave to this mechanism anymore I'm not going to reinforce the reality of the body I want to reinforce the reality of the spirit and when I'm reinforcing the reality of the body then I'm just saying I want to sleep like cypher put me back into matrix put me you know he wants to go back and he wants to go back and sleep I want to be an actor yes Mr. Rayden remember the first matrix and it's very seductive so what Jesus does is he says you have to be clear on the purpose of the Holy Spirit versus the purpose of the ego and he says comes right out and he says the ego's purpose for the body of the world the ego's purpose for the body is pride, pleasure and attack he comes right out and gives you the ego's three purposes for the use of the body pride, pleasure and attack and then he gives you the Holy Spirit's purpose for the body the Holy Spirit uses the body solely as a means of communication that's right the spirit wants to smile for you, laugh through you, hug through you offer kind words of gentle love and encouragement for you isn't that what we like to mess about Gandhi isn't that what we liked about Mother Teresa and resonated with isn't that what we resonated with Jesus be of good cheer I have overcome the world I think the woman who was caught so to speak in the act of adultery and they brought her before Jesus what did Jesus say to her? I condemn you not even when the men had caught her in the act of adultery he wasn't going to judge her and when he said go your way and sin no more all he was saying is go your way and stay in alignment he did not judge her and he offered her a blessing that's all the Christ could do there was absolutely no judgment or combination now that's using the body for the spirit Jesus was a prime example of giving over 100% of the mind consciousness for the spirit to use and the body was like a little puppet it was simply acting out going through it, speaking through it, gentle kindness raising the dead, healing the sick it was a very powerful demonstration but you see how different that is from these egoic drives it simply keeps the mind asleep and dreaming and that's not the goal, the goal is to wake up so the guilt part of that is the identity of engaging in what the ego wants versus what the spirit wants I don't quite understand where the guilt comes in the ego is guilt so anytime you use the body or the world for the ego's purposes it's simply to reinforce guilt so for example it's not so much we were talking about food and that was one of our discussions at lunchtime it's not so much that people feel guilty around certain foods or certain fatty foods or so forth that's more on the surface where the nutritionists say don't eat these foods and do eat these foods for good foods and bad foods, stay away from the bad foods and what happens when you eat the bad foods, guilt and I mean you see that I think I saw it was like guilty cookies they're starting to put it in the titles guilty pleasures and guiltily delicious and the association is simply simply delicious, you see how this works the thing about it is it's not that there's anything wrong with these ice creams or things, guilt is just an error to be corrected it's not guilty foods, we shouldn't feel guilty about eating certain foods but it's this thing in the mind where there's the pursuit of the pleasures is the attraction to the guilt because it's the purpose for which the ego would use the body and the world that's where the guilt's getting generated, now you say what's the alternative well it's miracle working, we're called to be miracle workers and we've got lots of examples of that but I can just say over the last 20 years that as I just got into my miracle working function joy is important, joy is what comes from miracle working and there's even a part of the Course in Miracles where Jesus says you cannot tell the difference between joy and pain, that's pretty strong it comes right out in the Course in Miracles and says you and your deluded state of mind where everything's twisted around and mixed up and you don't know anything, you can't tell the difference between joy and pain because the pleasure thing comes in because the mind is confused, joy and pleasure and as Francis said, pleasure and pain are the same, what do you call it, pleasure guilt and pain guilt the guilt is in both ways but you can't tell the difference between pleasure and joy therefore you can't tell the difference between pain and joy and therefore when you seek for pleasure and find pain you're all confused like what's happening here, where is my escape hatch when you're still choosing guilt and you don't realize that you're choosing guilt, there's pleasure for guilt and pain for guilt you see, so this is part of the sneakiness of the ego it's quite ingenious, it's quite deceptive and so what's the alternative, what am I supposed to take a vow now and that's it for length this year or no no, my new year's resolution no pleasure, no more pleasure no physical pleasure, no psychological pleasure, no pleasure I want bliss, I want bliss this year, I'm going for joy this year actually that's my new year of resolution, I'm going to have a joyful year a joyful, blissful, graceful, happy year you can't go at it from trying to take a vow like people take a vow of celibacy and poverty you can't take a pleasure vow what you can do is get it to your function which is miracle working which will inspire joy, that's why it's called a course in miracles, it's not called a course in letting go of pleasure, I don't think that would sell 1.5, 2 million whatever, wouldn't translate to other languages but it is a course in miracles because miracles are our function, Jesus, Holy Spirit inspire miracles in us and through us and joy will take you like nothing else, when you start to feel intrinsic bubbling up joy, Carl Rogers joy as we were talking about definitely, where there's such an inspiration and such a helpfulness that it just becomes your life, you think I don't know what I was doing before but I was lost and now I'm found and now the joy is bubbling, that's inspirational that literally takes you away, because if you had joy do you think pain and pleasure would matter to you if you had joy that was inspired by your source you wouldn't even think twice it would not be a sacrifice at all to you not a sacrifice of nothing you read the section on the manual for teachers, what is the real meaning of sacrifice Jesus comes out and says, God's teachers can have no regrets on giving up the pleasures of the world that's a direct sentence from a course in miracles but it's because you're coming into joy, you're coming into your joyful function make a joyful noise under the Lord, the Bible that's your salvation, that's where your healing occurs and that's where you're literally lifted up, you know like love lifts us up where we belong, you're literally transcendent of the ego's tricks when you follow your miracle working function so this course is not merely the escape from pain and fear and anger, this course aims at the experience of joy and that's what I talked about at lunch when I said Bill Fletford left the east coast and he left Northern California saying, I have to find joy that's got to be the ultimate experience of a course in miracles is actually going into your joyful miracle function and that's, I would say for both of us that's kind of how it's gone, you know in the sense of the things, you know how they send water off the duck's back the things of the world, the pursuits of the world fall away in your miracle function because you simply have no need of them anymore who would want limitation when you could have an unlimited awareness who would choose the tinker toys of time and space when you're called by eternity, you see, it's the juxtaposition of that, we have lots of parables about that, that's why we share these things, because it's where we anticipated loss or anticipated grief, we have found a happy unexpected lightheartedness instead, wow that was a trade, if you're going to trade pain and suffering for a happy lightheartedness and a joyfulness, that's the kind of trade, so-called trade you could make but it's a convincing job, the Holy Spirit's got one major convincing job with a sleepy mind the mind, the ego thinks it has to give sorry the ego wants to think that it has to give some kind of joy because at the beginning when we studied the ego always think it's beneficial to the ego we have a better life, we have a more joyful personal life, that's the only thing ego can understand, it doesn't really understand anything beyond itself, it doesn't understand anything that is at the level of the whole but not duality so be motivated to study along thinking that it will be joyful and it is true, you truly will be joyful but it's through the collapsing of the ego and everything the ego knows that it will happen, the Holy Spirit is using is using everything I think it's this amnesia thing that when the mind seemed to fall from grace it had a total amnesia about heaven and God, as if there never was a heaven when somebody has amnesia in this world and they forget their identity and they kind of wander around with no clue of who they are or where they are or what they are, this amnesia from Spirit or from heaven or from God is so complete and awareness not in reality obviously, there is no amnesia in heaven but it's so complete that everything of heaven is forgotten and linear time then becomes the known and God and heaven become the unknown so imagine from the ego's perspective that you're reading this book and you're opening, you're sentimentally going I think I like where this is going, I'm pretty sure intuitively that this is the pathway, an authentic pathway back to God but remember it's only the ego that reads, the Spirit doesn't read the ego's actually reading the book along with you and going I don't know if I like that one at all and it's like, it's your companion as you're reading the book, your mind's trying to take it in but the ego's actually moving the eyeball over and it's like interpreting and it's right with you interpreting everything saying I don't know, it's a little bit fishy because this book seems to be asking you to let go of the known to live the physical linear world, everything you've known throughout all history and all your experiences as a human being, let go of the known for the big unknown, God is the big unknown that's why we have atheists because they say there's no proof in this world for the existence of God and then we have believers who say well the heavens and the earth and the devil came in here and there's a war going on and you better be on the right side you don't want to be on the wrong side, you don't want to be on the devil's side and there's all these things that were made up but basically you're being asked to trust in miracles to take you to a place that you don't have in your awareness, this total amnesia has occurred and it's going to be dowling every little step along the way even when you have a mystical experience he goes going to go what was that you better not ever talk about this with anybody you're going to all say you're crazy, you have a near-death experience I call it a near-life experience because you live in a life they're called NDEs in this world, you have a near-death experience and then you don't want to talk about it because you don't want the neighbors to think you're that weird and strange that you had a journey into the light or something, you see how the ego's going to be there every step along the way is saying don't go for this this is just too far out and don't be gullible right, because you're going for this big unknown thing and nobody, nobody knows for sure about this God thing, what if it's a big hoax a student of mine one time who came to me and she said David, what if a course in miracles is the biggest hoax, is the biggest hoax of all time what if the whole course in miracles is just filled with lies, just one big grammatical correct old words trick and I just looked her in the eye and I said you really had that thought she said yes, come on David haven't you ever once had that thought about the course and I said you really had that thought I know I have never had that thought with the course, I mean when I got it and I started opening it up I was like oh my God oh my God, I just had tears coming down like oh my God, I've got an answer to a prayer and I know it in my heart and I never once had that doubt thought that she was trying to present to me, I was really like astounded like you really had that thought like wow, that's amazing that you would have that thought, for me it was such a great recognition, I was really being called home, it was so strong, so you take that recognition that's in your heart and you trust it and you go with it and you give yourself over to those miracles and you say yes Holy Spirit convince me, you show me the truth of this, you show me the reality, you give me an actual experience and that was the prayer in my heart, then when I had my revelation experience I was whoa, I was like big yes and then another big yes and then the third one and each time I had my revelatory experiences I was eye gazing I was in an open eye eye gazing meditation with a friend of mine where we were just sitting face to face gazing into each other's eyes and deep prayer and stillness and then the world disappeared, it was actually through relationship, it was through being open to see the Christ and the brother that the revelations occurred and to me that seemed perfectly in line with what the Course was saying you can do this with your brothers and sisters you don't have to do these long tedious periods of meditation those ways will work and the I need to do nothing section talks about that but your way will be different, a holy relationship is giving you as a means of awakening very specific and then even goes on beyond holy relationship to say he defines what holy relationship is, he says you and your brother are together he's just saying your one mind, you're not your brother's keeper, you are literally your brother, love thy neighbor as thy self, as thy self, it's like literally letting the whole veil of differences fall away and saying oh my gosh when you meet anyone remember it's a holy encounter, as you see him you will see yourself, as you treat him treat yourself what's the last one, as you think of him, as you think of him you will think of yourself, never forget this for in him you will find yourself or lose your system, wow that's intimate, that's like, that can feel the presence of love in that, it's really like saying this is it your whole purpose of life is self realization and know thyself so my question is being that we have students of all different levels and years in the course and things like that just wondering what your advice or the whole experience of advice would be for somebody who says this is just too hard for me I don't get it, it's way over my head, I don't even understand the ones that I'm reading but yeah, they're still interested they still have a willingness to learn just wondering what your thoughts would be I had a student of mine who would welcome me into her house and her heart and she would have her staff she was the CEO of a company, she would have her staff come over to meet me like this and her son and her daughter when her daughter became pregnant she invited me into the delivery room area to be there at the birth of her grandson and everything like this and so the woman who's the student of mine, she just really went for this, she just dove in and she said I'm just going for God and I'm going to just go all the way with this and let go of course there were a lot of reflections around her, like what are you doing you've gone out for deep bend, you've gone way too far, this is dangerous but she persisted and persisted and interestingly enough years went by and her daughter grew up into the year 20s and she went to visit her daughter and it was interesting, her daughter sat down with her and said listen, I'm not into any of this I'm into being a mom I'm into my kids and I'm into the world and I tell you David is your path, the course is your path you need to follow this you need to go for this because it's you and I'm doing my thing and you're doing your thing David is helping people wake up he's helping people wake up from the whole thing and that's his thing and that's your thing and that's not mine she goes through this all and so my friend came back and told me the whole encounter and I said how beautiful, how wonderful how present your daughter even was into that experience of acknowledging she was basically saying I'm not ready David is waking people up, you're ready, you need to be going and doing what you're doing so go and do it and let me do what I'm doing because here's where I'm at, now eventually that was even a little while ago eventually she started ordering books the course book, the daughter and getting into the Samantha Carr and Mystics and quantum physics and all these things in her time she started opening that way but that was a clear statement and I didn't get an email last night because I checked my mail and there was somebody who's into the course but he just got married and his wife, he said my wife's into illusions and wow this is calling me, I've got major resistance going on I'm like lesson 268 or something and listen to that and remember this part of the course that says when you find resistance high and dedication weak you are not ready, do not fight with yourself, isn't that a beautiful line out of the course of miracles I actually opened it up one time when I was going through a period of resistance and I was like wow a tool that tells you to set it down that's really an inspired piece of inspiration so that's the thing once you start to realize that it's not about convincing anybody it's not about trying to make things happen faster for people or having them turn to the right theology away from their dualistic thinking and this and this ultimately it's what Francis was talking about when she had this moment of just starting to see that all the characters just were acting out thoughts in the line, thoughts in consciousness so if you're perceiving a brother or a sister who needs to get it who's definitely not there yet or whatever that's simply a doubt thought that's still being held in mind that is denying that we're all the same you see how it throws it out as that person's got a long way to go or that person's definitely not there yet it's simply a doubt thought of identity, of you being the Christ and projecting it out and having them act it out they're just acting out what the mind's wishes are, the mind still wishes to be a little separate so it has this character act something out of that character or even like in the preschool room you know the little characters just are all thoughts and whenever we see something we say wow they're definitely this or they're that or they're not there or whatever we're still trying to, the ego's trying to throw it out as if somebody can hold us back or somebody's not fully aware of who they really are as if we knew that we were they weren't, see how that's tricky though, the ego is very ingenious, that's what this projection thing is all about, ingenuity so David if they're saying let's say I have a good friend who's saying to me I'd really like to do this but I don't really get it what I'm hearing you say is maybe it's just not time for them, maybe if they're not really being able to come into deeper level of learning or whatever it's okay, obviously I think it's okay but they feel maybe it's not okay I should be doing it, I should get it, I should understand it, why might not and I don't really know what my function in that response to that really is, see what I mean I don't know if there's any response the thing about it is if we're teaching what we would learn and our whole purpose is to answer the call then our state of mind becomes that living demonstration to that change of mind that they're looking for, in other words if someone says that, that's clearly a call for love but it's not a call for love, it's our own because anytime we perceive somebody lacking something we're simply not seeing the Christ in them, which simply means we're not experiencing ourselves as a Christ to see how it works so you get loosened up from the form ideas and Jesus does say the Holy Spirit sees everything as love or a call for life and everyone's pretty familiar with that passage in the Course the Holy Spirit sees everything as love or a call for love but what happens after that, Jesus says you cannot do this, he says, he comes right out after he's talking about the Holy Spirit's function you cannot do this because you are too bound to form and do not know what content is that's very helpful that last part of this is helpful so it's really just a call, as you keep your practice going and you keep watching your mind and opening the miracles, opening to be used in miracles becoming more joyful and even more joyful and more consistently joyful you can't change or fix anybody but you can present the attitude the demonstration of a changed mind a mind that is a line of the source and in that you've reached your full responsibility there's nothing more responsible that you can do but that's your full responsibility, is your attitude and it's very glorious because then you see how relaxing that is too you're not responsible for other people's behavior in fact you could go a little further you're actually not directly in control of even the body that you think is your own because remember it's part of a prearranged script and you have no control over the world you may so you can't actively, directly control the body what you do comes from what you think and you can choose your thoughts but you don't even have direct control over the puppet the choice of the purpose the one you align with in your mind the Holy Spirit of the ego is going to move the puppet but you, it's hard to fathom because we're so ingrained with if you're overweight, it's your fault and you need to stop putting food in that mouth you see how the world is always looking at it from a behavioral standpoint if you're smoking, you gotta what? stop smoking if you're drinking, you know stop drinking, stop drinking and people who have gone through alcoholics and alcoholism say, yeah, stop drinking okay, right, yeah I tell myself that, stop drinking you know, you see, you gotta go much deeper you gotta go really deep, deep, deep into the mind and I would say, this is a sneaky one we really had to give up, is this idea of personal responsibility how many of us were raised with the idea of personal responsibility you have to personally be responsible for earning a living even something as simple as that I mean, most of us are all you're personally responsible for everything including everything you do and don't do and this and this now, if you were responsible for the behavior well, I could see where some guilt could come in because this puppet is prone to a lot of different behaviors and if you're directly responsible for the behavior good chance of finding innocence, huh? you're gonna have to find innocence where you're responsible for the behavior imagine somebody like Charlie Manson if you're responsible for your behavior you know, that's Adolf Hitler you're responsible for your behavior you see where guilt comes in from associating the behavior with some kind of standard and you're going to be guilty if you're gonna stay with that but what if you were responsible for what you think and not for what you do because what you do just comes from what you think wouldn't it be better to focus all your effort on changing your thoughts from ego to Holy Spirit and letting go of the concern about the behavior and all the judgments that go on the behavior and all the judgments that go on the body I think how much guilt comes in from judging the body is to this, to that, good at this, good at that you see how the ego's got quite a system going on there and the Course comes along and says you are not responsible for what you do but for what you think and it is this level we must work we must work at the level of thoughts so this was really helpful for me I mean I had to be convinced of this like, you know, my whole life I was a whole parable of data concerned about the body, the body personality traits I'm shy, you know, it's a curse how am I gonna meet girls how am I gonna meet women how am I gonna have a relationship if I'm the curse of shyness the curse going with me you know, you see, you're going nowhere with that you're just stuck you think, oh, personality traits don't change very much although in my case, it's been quite a transformation but those are just symbols it's really how I changed my thinking and then everything else followed suit so there's another line that's important because I've heard people misuse the Course and say you are responsible for the starving children in Africa you are responsible for that tsunami you are responsible for that plague and so on and so forth and what is my answer to that? because people will go, well, no, it's our mind and, you know, we made that tornado and we just destroyed all these hundreds of people in this tsunami and so forth Jesus says in the Course you are not responsible for the error you are responsible for accepting the correction for the error doesn't that lift your heart? you are not responsible for the error you are responsible for accepting the correction he does go on to say do not project the error to time you see how important that is to accept the correction if you keep projecting at the time like, I'll get this someday or sometime in the future this person will make the right decision and I'll accept the atonement persons don't accept the atonement so all the undoing of everything we believe about form and coming inward to accept the correction we are not responsible for the error we are responsible for accepting the correction I could just feel that in my heart when I first read that I said okay, now you've got me to that innocence I'm going to make I'm going to change my mind about my mind this Course is about changing your mind about my mind not about changing your behavior and it's certainly not about changing the world either isn't that a relief? that means we don't have to go around trying to always be fixing the world, fixing people making the world a better place my goodness you probably hear me the recording appease the recording I have found that changing my behavior is much easier than changing my mind yes, I would agree it's at that level it would be like saying though changing the effect seems much easier than changing the cost yeah, I would say it's most people's experience it's easier actually to change behavior, to modify behavior than it is to have a total change of mind in fact, there's one point where Jesus addresses that he says something like you may wonder how long it will take you to change your mind so completely and you may find that this is quite depressing ask yourself how long is an instant you see, that's his answer he gives the predicament and then he gives how long is an instant we literally have the power in our mind to change our mind in an instant and there are even examples it's already done I think it's already done that's why we have the power to do it and even people like Eckhart Tolle who have the heart bench experience that seem to have such a change in your consciousness isn't that a beautiful witness it may for yourself you may have much longer curriculum time involved but isn't it wonderful to have a witness of actually being on a heart bench and having a surrender experience where your consciousness has changed to such an extent that you just start to spontaneously teach it and it's a nice witness 10 minutes left before the hour I just wanted to thank everybody for showing up again if you feel called to contribute more to the love offering to cover expenses to have Dan and Francis here at least feel free to do so but to move into closing the actual workshop I just wanted to invite Dan to take this sort of guided meditation of some sort for the purposes of healing and if we could all just get into meditation because I don't even know this warm experience has been quite meditated I think just feel a nice energy in that direction okay are we back here at the stop? yes and then the movie will begin at the set we'll be right in here I'm going to have a TV set up so that we can watch a movie together and we're hoping that the TV will be taken on for everybody okay everyone just sit back in your chairs settle into a very comfortable position take a deep in breath let it go and feel yourself sinking deeper and deeper inward feeling more and more and just allow yourself to feel natural state of gratitude bubbling up everything you've allowed yourself to hear today remembering that deep within your heart you have all the answers to any problem that confronts you today or that will ever confront today you have allowed yourself to hear the answers the insights to recognize what you deeply wanted and to recognize the presence today the presence of the Holy Spirit the showered blessings upon us all and perhaps the blessing is as simple as a question that you allowed to enter into your awareness you had not even allowed yourself to ask till today and with the question came an answer an answer that will have great application in your life and in your mind perhaps you even experience the calling in your heart a very very deep calling that will bring to you the experience of joy to you follow it where before you may have had plans and ambitions for your future life but now you feel a present trust directing the way you feel at ease with this present trust you feel that you don't need to know about future hypothetical scenarios you feel a loosening of personal responsibility as you accept responsibility for your state of mind where you feel the ego plans for the future beginning to fall away as present trust directs the way you feel you don't have to figure it all out as you rest and with this the anxiety of the future begins to fade away the anxiety of being a responsible adult responsible person duties and obligations begin to loosen as well the present trust all because loosened from that you are personally in control in the simple idea let all things be exactly as they are I just invite everybody to stay anchored in that presence in the next few hours until we see each other at 7pm where we will watch Thanks for Sharing United State Thanks for Sharing