 Hello everybody, welcome to this evening, this is a very special evening we have with David Hofmeister and Francis, and I know a lot of people travel quite far as well, there's a number of people from Aramaa and Dublin and Van Kielsen and Kerry as well, so I think you're all here for this very unique evening, and just one thing maybe just to have everyone switch your phones off or put them on silent just for the evening, and to tell a story about David I first had the pleasure of interviewing David about 12 months ago at this stage and it was very spontaneous and organic about how it happened, and I thought if they need to be really touched me as a person who I'd be saved, and just recently David was coming to the park and he made contact with me just to say to meet him, and I got the inspiration to ask him really late to pay the gathering for him being in car, and I feel as if we're very honored to have what David and Francis here this evening, this afternoon to share their words of wisdom and insight, so I would like to give them a warm round of applause please. Yes, just so great to be here, it seems like it's a very spontaneous visit for us and to see such a big warm welcome here in Cork it's just it's just amazing for us, we are very very grateful, and I think this afternoon will be very profound because hopefully what our joining and what our dialogue can do can help demystify spirituality because I think all of us have have come through our lives and in various ways we've been touched by by institutions and by philosophies and religion and spirituality and many of us are even being touched by the new sciences, the quantum physics that's come along and for me it all merges into one experience, so I am and quite comfortable talking about quantum mechanics, quantum physics, religion, all types of philosophies, psychology, spirituality, movements, avatars, saints, the bible, atheism, I mean I actually have a wonderful experience with everyone that I meet and I've been gifted by the spirit to go and speak in over 40 countries and I have so much fun with everybody on the airplanes, I was just flying across Europe diagonally from Finland over to Barcelona recently and there was an electrical engineer from Finland sitting next to me and we just were jabbering away for two and a half hours about all kinds of topics and for me there's an experience of a state of mind that is so spectacular that it doesn't really matter how you get to it, it doesn't matter what avenue you take or what means you use, the most important thing is to come into an experience of really grace, of going with the flow, of living a life of trust and it doesn't even matter what you call it trusting in, maybe you call it your higher power or god or intuition maybe you call it I trust my gut, it doesn't really matter the language the wording doesn't matter we're here for happiness we're here for joy we're here to live a life of peace these states of mind are natural to us we were created in peace we were created in love and happiness and joy and the struggles and the addictions and the conflicts that we seem to go through is just allowing this unconscious darkness to come up and be released back to the light so that's really all that's going on here we're just releasing unconscious darkness to the light and that's not pretty it doesn't even feel pretty for any of us we can be honest you know it's been in some cases it's felt horrific or terrible it's felt very sad and lonely at times and so forth but I realized about 30 years ago that that I think the only purpose I had in my life was to go through a healing I couldn't make sense much of the world I would look around the world and say I just don't get it there's a lot of things I don't get and then the more I called out for help and healing then the less and less I got about the world but the more intuitive I became so that I could hear inner answers and I could hear inner guidance and so for me that was the most important thing because I feel like we're all going through healing process and we're all here to help each other so we're here to support and nurture each other we're here to be buddies for one another along the way so it started to ignite in me emotionally back probably when I was in my 20s and then probably in the mid 80s I started to feel like a huge acceleration I call it like an awakening happening in me just happening very very strong and it started to dismantle my perceptions of everything that I thought I knew about everything it just became more humble faster and faster and faster then in 1986 I was out at a humanistic psychology conference in southern California and I came across this book called A Course in Miracles that was channeled from Jesus and it had a text and a workbook and a manual for teachers and all I know is when I opened the book up for the first time I felt like like experientially like a tsunami of love just hit me I was just like what was that it just literally knocked the breath out of me it just took the breath out of me and I remember I could barely formulate one question and I I could barely get it out because the breath was knocked out of me I just was like who wrote this book I got my four words out losing my breath because I had a feeling that this transmission or this book was not from this planet not from this solar system not from this galaxy this was it was coming from beyond time and space and it was reaching into my heart and it was saying yeah you want you ask for healing you prayed for some healing let's get busy we've got a lot of work to do there's a lot of darkness to clear out not just personally but it's like a universal human race you know it's kind of like a like a crude planet in the in the call of the galaxies some of you are familiar with ramtha jay-z night and I think that 10 000 year old man that channels through ramtha referred to earth as the boonies we're out in the boonies here on planet earth in other words we've got there's a ways to go we're still having wars break out and and viruses and all kinds of skirmishes going on and and if you read the news it's it's more than every other week or more than weekly it's almost like every day or every other day we are reading about acts of terrorism around the globe it's quite an interesting time to be alive where or that's permeating through our our consciousness on such on the daily basis most of us in our lifetimes aren't used to that you know it's it's a bit odd but I think it's a giant wake-up call so I feel like it's all part of this celestial speed-up that we're here to heal and now it's the the turning up the burners for us you know the water's on the boil and we really need to face some things so what we're going to talk about today we're going to try to put spirituality in the most direct simple practical terms because our feeling about spirituality is if it's not practical if it doesn't have a practical impact on your daily life then it's hardly worth it you know that spirituality whatever principles you find helpful in guiding you towards the light in opening your heart to love need to be practiced need to be put into practice with everything that we think and say and do we can't be making exceptions and putting our spirituality into some kind of theological box where we on sunday morning we put on our clothes and we bring it out and we we try it on for a few hours and we stick it back in the box it's not going to we're not going to heal if our spirituality is in a box we need to come out of the box we need to come out of all the boxes whatever boxes we believe are real and we need to to transcend our categories our judgments our concepts and move into an actual experience so we'll be talking about our experiences as well yes hi my name is Francis as David just talked about we actually when we were in Finland recently doing a week-long retreat and at the beginning of the retreat everybody who came to the retreat expressed the reason of the intention for them to be there and pretty much everybody said something very very similar he said that they seem to have a pretty okay life everything seemed to go on okay there is no drama no chaos and yet they want freedom and they somehow feel their life is a compromise and yet they don't even know exactly what they're compromising in baby lives so actually it was in Finland when Miho called me to talk about this afternoon and the possible topic that we can explore together so I said what about we explore a life with no compromise because spirituality can be like David said it can be something very high concept very intellectual if we just basically explore concepts or ideas and I know for myself I came through or came to spirituality not because of my background because I grew up as an atheist I had no interest in anything about oneness or God I didn't even know it but it was through this living a day-to-day life and realize you know this is that I'm dealing with on a daily basis I was going through a lot of pain and suffering and on this unsatisfaction and David and I actually talked the other day he said his wake up call one day was before he came across of course miracles was one day he just calls and asked himself how many of the daily decisions are made based on fear of consequence and that was a huge wake up call and for me it was something similar because I realized my life was lived as a fear of consequences day in and day out you know all the decisions that I was making all the choices that I was making the relationships that I was maintaining or getting into you know most of them are based on fear or consequences not based on inspiration not based on love not based on anything of a higher purpose so yeah so that's why we thought this is a good topic that we can explore this afternoon because eventually when we know who we are that is the only compromise is that we compromise our identity that is the only compromise and yet it is so suppressed into the unconscious mind that is not something that we are aware of every day to say I compromise my identity today that is not in our awareness anymore so in the way that the way that we practice together as we live together is to actually look at our daily decisions and how to bring them into the light yeah just just in terms of basics when we talk about a personality self the personal self that you seem to know every day the one that you present to the world or including the one that you the thoughts you have your your doubts your fears your emotions whatever patterns and addictions that are part of that personality self if we look at the word personality we can go back to the latin word persona which means mask so it's almost like imagine that there was this place called eternity or heaven or nirvana and then you fell asleep and started dreaming a dream and you came to the land of the masks where it's almost like halloween except every day is halloween here and when we have all of our versions of candy too and we play a little trick or treats uh every day with the games that we play reciprocity i'll do this for you if you do this for me we have reciprocity in our relationships with our with our boss our employer you know i'll do these things you pay me this money you give me some time off give me some vacation i'll work so many weeks a year and we'll produce something together and i'll be able to live my life and you live your life in relationships it's you know there's a bit of okay i don't really want to do that but we'll do it your way today but tomorrow we do it my way you know it there's a lot of compromise that goes on even in interpersonal relationships and it's just been accepted as a norm like oh yeah that's how the game is played you know and we've been raised with that whole teaching nobody can have everything you can't have it all just be content with your lot in life and your little bit and uh there's something inside of us that's like oh there's got to be more there's got to be more than the daily the daily grind there has to be more than all these repetitions that we go through some of you remember that uh beatle song it's just another day you know that song is about the monotony of of what seems to be the human condition facing yet another day get out of bed brush your teeth get a shower gets rest and then boom and then usually in that day you're going to have to deal with a set of problems most everyone is in a position where there's a set of problems and even if you have a good day and you sail through pretty well and you solve all the problems then you got to wake up the next day and face the next set and it's no wonder people from time to time get depressed or they've tried to distract away from this what they call existentialism you know the despair of the human condition which involves work which involves pain suffering sickness loss scarcity lack and so on and so on and so on but what i have to say and what we're going to talk about today is living a life of no compromise where moment by moment you follow your intuition moment by moment you are in alignment with spirit instead of trying to go we go equally against spirit because all perceived suffering is when the mind consciously or not goes tries to go against the flow against the divine order against the harmony and the joy that's our natural birthright as spirit so we have taken journeys in which you you have higher and higher levels of trust and when i say higher and higher i mean trusting that you're deciding with spirit with god even around the minute things in life in other words there are no small things we we also think there's big decisions and small decisions but our life is a flow of continuous decisions we're not even aware sometimes that we're making the decisions ever has a day when you just start crying and you can't think of anything that you're crying about you really think i have no reason to be crying like this but you just have maybe a deep emotion of sadness coming up into awareness and there's there's a decision going on everything is a decision now we're learning from a course of miracles that our decisions are based on our beliefs and so we have to get down to our core beliefs because if we have a lot of core beliefs and unconscious assumptions then it's more like our life as a human being is more like a robot that's just acting out a lot of these decisions many of which are unconscious so the first thing that i found in my life was i'm going to have to find a way to bring this unconscious up into awareness and i'd heard different ways you know people use like rebirthing and roughing and there's all kinds of techniques uh breathe different breathing techniques uh or just living your daily life that actually will bring it up too in fact if you really want to bring it up really fast i i think a combination of meditation and relationships will bring it rocketing into awareness if you have the meditation practice and you're involved in interpersonal relationships there you go you can use ayahuasca you can use other drugs but i think those are the fastest right there if you if you use the combination of silence and relationships you're going to have so much mirroring going on that you've got a whole plate full every day and then some and and so that's what makes it so difficult when you truly engage on planet earth instead of distracting away with drugs and distractions when you really say i'm going to face my feelings i'm going to be aware i'm going to be honest with myself you're really saying to the spirit bring it on like let's shift this baby into gear enough of first gear or reverse some of us feel like we've been in reverse for years okay let's go forward first gear okay let's go higher you know we really are are saying bring it on uh dan was part of a of a retreat that we did um occasionally i just i decided to do like a four week or a six week retreat so dan over here with the striped shirt he was part of a six week retreat on the island we always do this on an island so there's really no way out and here we are in ireland so that's good this this island can be awful we did it in new york warm Mediterranean thanks and then after six weeks a lot of stuff gets flushed up because when you're doing a six week retreat it's more like you might even say it's almost like living together in a community because when you start to you're you're cooking together you're taking walks together you're praying together you're watching movies together it's like you're with your family in a six week retreat it starts to feel like you're there's a sense of home a sense of safety of comfort which is important actually when we're bringing up this darkness so that's the direction that we're going to move in today is we're going to start to look at what francis was saying compromises that had been out of awareness you have any examples of that yeah because when we talk about compromises um you know a lot of the times like what is truly compromise what is the compromise that we're talking about because the first time i remember around i came across a personal course and i was very drawn by the book i was talking about the book in a study group every two weeks until someone from the community who lived with david at time and he came to my group and she said you know when we live together we live a life of no private thoughts and no people pleasing and that scared me when i listen when i heard that i thought oh no i i cannot do that i can't imagine living a life of no private thoughts and living a life of no people pleasing i i couldn't even imagine what it would be like you know because without knowing the daily life in this world there was so much build on trying to get external validation and trying to get external approval and trying to keep a separate mask going you know and every day life every day decisions is about maintaining that mask and maintaining that kind of that validation that we seek from different things and different people external to ourselves so when that true practice got introduced it was a shock to the egos very very shocking and scary sounding to the ego but that was the start of a a life of practicing a practical you know practical education of no compromise yesterday we were actually in London visiting a friend and she went through this AA program for addiction and she said you know the most scary thing was when they have to take action you know there was a set called make amendments with people that you heard or you attacked in the past and the most scary thing is to actually take a step to call them it's easier to say yeah i submit that or surrender or give them over to the spirit i would forgive in my mind but that's what i've found as well you know this spiritual path is not just a work of a mental work you know our lives are not separate from our eternal state that would be a misunderstanding to think our life is completely separate that i can live a life without any change and i just do the internal mind work because what i have found is that when i commit when i make a commitment to say i'm going to really make some shift in my mind and how to go about being honest and being authentic with myself that my life follows and i have to make those kind of decisions because of course miracles is very very practical it actually laid out 10 characteristics of teacher for god at the back of the book and the first one is called trust you know that is the foundation of all the other characteristics you have to practice trust every day and the second one is called honesty and when we talk about honesty this is something that we really have to practice being honest with ourselves being honest with our lives being honest with other people in everything we do and when actually when the book talks about honesty it's not just saying you have to say what you mean it actually talks about total consistency what you think and say and do are completely consistent you actually will not perceive external conflict if not because you have internal conflict going on this is how radical we're you know the practice is going to take us it's going to take us to this complete consistency in our mind and our life is actually a platform for our for us to practice to apply these beautiful spiritual principles you know this is what we're here for this is what i have myself i've been using my life for every single day every single thing i say and i think and i do i will have to watch whether they're consistent or there is any temptation to hide to manipulate to twist you know and that is what we call a practical application and our our lives cannot be separated from practicing these spiritual principles so when we open ourselves to the guidance and we say okay whatever it takes i want to go through the experiences i have to go through to have the healing what we can say is is that the mask the personality self that we thought we were and the world that surrounds that personality self is part of a giant mask you might say the cosmos is part of a cosmic mess that our spiritual reality is being blocked by the cosmic mask you might say that there in the bible we can say there was there was a veil that was drawn over the face of christ there was a veil drawn over love and light and when you become identified with the veil you lose awareness of the perfection of that abstract love and light and everything that's going on every day is helping us it's actually part of a giant plan where it's all working together for good our ego doesn't see it that way it's it's going to judge against a lot of things during the day but it's actually all working together to wake us back up to that love and light and so the mask will seem to undergo changes as we go through changes in consciousness because the mask is just reflecting our consciousness whatever we believe about ourselves we see as a motion picture it's like put into motion in the world so the world is nothing more than a motion picture of the beliefs in our mind it's an outward picture of an inward condition when we're fearful we see a fearful world when we feel shame we see shame when we are feeling very guilty we call forth witnesses to guilt the world is just reflecting back to us our consciousness and that's good because that we can see that that's our step in empowerment of coming back to choosing again to making different decisions to letting go of our egoic separation beliefs and coming back to a unified belief which we can call forgiveness where you could call it the unified field if you're talking in quantum physics terms we can come back to that unity unified awareness the buddhist might say unified awareness being mindful it's talked about in different traditions but it's the same experience we're cleaning the lens we're polishing the lens of the mind so that we can perceive the world differently we want to reach our full potential we want to come back to the empowered state of mind where we are flowing in that love and flowing in that happiness and joy and and that will require you might say cleaning the lens and and being willing to loosen the mask now to the ego this this is not good it it wants a separate sense of self in fact it will use relationships to reinforce the separation that's why the ego uses relationships to maintain conflict to maintain doubt you know we've we've all had those relationships where there's some kind of a conflict or a grievance starts and then it it can quickly go into breaking down of communication and then i'm not talking to so-and-so and then this could even go on for months or years and then people seem to notice that they develop cancer heart disease heart attacks all kinds of things that seem to be in the physical body but it's just a break from source it's just the ego using the relationships in the body to reflect the separation belief when we give our relationships over to the spirit we're basically saying hey i need a new configuration here i need a new way of relating and i want to go into full communication open communication honest communication where i can use the relationships as reflections of my consciousness to wake up so they suddenly go from being used against us to maintain the hidden unconscious beliefs to being used as mirrors that reflect what we're still holding on to and what we need to let go of and once you make that switch in your mind of purpose from separation to healing then you start to develop a gratitude no matter what's happening no matter what somebody is acting out in front of you you start to feel grateful for the opportunity to forgive for the opportunity to release whatever needs to be released whatever attack thoughts whatever grievances are still buried in there it's almost like thank you my brother thank you my sister for coming into my life and giving me that opportunity and what it does is it's it's going to take you beyond the mask it will take you into states of mind into mystical experiences of of transcendence like the johnny depp movie some of you might have seen johnny depp's movie transcendence beautiful movie these experiences show us a glimpse of our reality it's like we get a little taste of what heaven is like and once we get a taste we are on we're on it we're in the tractor beam to use a star trek metaphor we're in the tractor beam and we're we're scottie scottie beam us up you know take us back home like like the the movies you know the wizard of odds there's no place like home there was all these symbols start to come to us in a rapid way so as soon as i started i mean i had the revelatory experiences where i literally pierced through the veil entirely i just went right back into the light and those were like superchargers because with the direct experience of the light then it i was more certain than ever about what my life's journey was about it was about awakening to that light it was about going beyond the glimpses and coming into a stabilized full experience of the love and the light and then the symbols in the world started to be reconfigured and rearranged for me so like when i was growing up i had i had the same kind of dreams and hopes like most human beings have for the future i had future goals future ambitions but the more i work with the spirit i became more and more content with the present moment and more willing to let go of thinking i i could control how the future would go and control the goals that i had in life and peace of mind became the goal not achieving this accomplishing this accumulating this we a lot of us have done that and we still feel a sense of emptiness after we've achieved our egoic personal goals we still feel an emptiness and we know there has to be more if we achieve it and we still feel empty so i went through 10 years of university and and seemed to accomplish things some achieve some things and still i knew there was more now all of us were raised with the reflections of the belief in linear time and and our sciences that we grew up with in our we read about it we use our laboratories at school we learned about science all of our science was based on Newtonian physics some of you know isaac newton linear time and paracism the scientific method what's in the world we have to measure it and experiment with it and try to deduce what's happening and what deduce our information from the world now quantum physics is saying well we hit it all backwards the world's just a projection of our consciousness and we need to be exploring our consciousness we need to go on consciousness out of seas and adventures we've done you know majela and we've done christopher columbus and now we've even done generations of star trek what are we now on our third or fourth generation of star trek episodes we've been exploring the galaxies going where no man has gone before and we've all collectively been enjoying meeting the klingons the romulans the borg you know we've done our our adventures in space even through star trek now we have to go on the consciousness adventure what do we know about the cosmos well if you if you listen to amazing teachers like quantum physics teachers like brian green they will tell you that the cosmos it may look like it's in motion and may look very dynamic but it's actually all just part of a script that's over and gone what do you mean over and gone that contradicts our human experience that the past is different from the future because the past has already happened and the future has not yet come even though we've had psychics and some of you might have remembered nostradamus predicting things very accurately centuries before they even happen how could nostradamus know in such detail about things that weren't even invented back at his time he saw flying things in the sky and he described missiles and he described a lot of technological events that were not around at the time he was seeing all these visions because nostradamus wasn't seeing the future he was seeing the past everything that we think is coming in our lives is part of a prearranged script that actually has already happened and that contradicts our human experiences big time you know if our science teachers had told us that we'd say yeah why should i study for the exam then and why should i why am i here taking all these boring classes when i could be out dancing in the in the grass and hula hooping instead hula hooping seems more fun than these scientific experiments but we are starting to realize now that everything of the cosmos is is already past it's it is over that's why when you have a deja vu experience and it's kind of a striking experience because you swear you feel like you've seen this before like that's the darndest thing i've been here before i i just did this position and you were wearing the same and that dog was barking you know it's like all of a sudden it's like what is this because it contradicts our human experiences what do you mean we've been here before you know that that contradicts everything brian green i think he and a lot of other quantum physicists have basically mapped the entire cosmos and it looks like a loaf of bread our entire cosmos looks like a big loaf of bread and where you perceive you are let's say we perceive ourselves as in st peter's church north main and we're sitting in a in the church in this coordinate we're in something we're watching something that's already long since over and we're witnessing it as if it's happening to us right now and brian green would say well you're just in a coordinate inside the bread you believe you're living and you believe the bread's still in motion but they can even go back to the big bang they can see where the big bang occurred that's where the bread the loaf of bread came from was from the big bang and then you can go through the whole thing and somewhere in the middle of that loaf of bread is this august day in cork a time in space and we are having a quantum experience reliving this day now how do we bring that that that kind of depth into practical day-to-day living that's where it gets fun that's where we start to practice what Einstein was discovering in day-to-day life Einstein was having fun with this you know that's why he he would use the same soap to wash his hands and shave with because it was too complicated to have multiple soaps you can have toothpaste he's like oh it's too complicated he would sometimes forget to wear socks and everything he was too excited about discovering the relative nature of time and space and how all this relativity really wasn't real he here was Einstein years ago calling this cosmos this world an optical delusion of consciousness isn't that fascinating coming from a scientist an optical delusion of consciousness how do we come to that state of mind where we are carefree we're not talking about careless but i mean we're happy go lucky we're carefree we're light-hearted we're joyful we're gleeful our children you know excited that we can go through life not feeling like a drain not feeling like oh how do i make it through to the next day and i gotta deal with a whole new set of problems but how can we actually live that state of mind that transcends the loaf of bread we all know that our life is more than a loaf of bread and we all know that where we come from and where we're going is much bigger than anything that we perceive in our little through our little mask you know there's something much much bigger that's where it gets exciting that's where every day becomes a lesson in trust where you're able to loosen from the mask and when you loosen from the mask you don't take things so personally you're again you're able to maintain a stability and a calmness you're able to see miracles in daily life not just a supernatural miracle once in a blue moon or here or there uh right now the catholic church has just decided that yes mother Teresa deserves to be canonized as a saint but you have to have verifiable miracles to be canonized by the catholic church i say we're all saints in training i say we can we can do this we can actually go into this state of mind and live this state of mind and i've seen it over these last 30 years it's just been shown to me and given to me over and over and over why you know what what sometimes people ask me if it is all over and gone then what is what that why doesn't matter why what are we doing here but what matters is you know our experience because if we still live a life and we have this emotion we have fear sometimes we have fear sometimes we have pain sometimes we have suffering you know this really indicates that we don't really know this the experience that David just talked about is not in our awareness at all and on the contrary what we're living from is a very limited very limited perspective and from that very limited delusion of perspective we feel like we're a human being living a life that have that has a beginning and has an end and we have to accomplish things to accumulate and get in order to have a maximum experience as a human being you know we completely get lost in what our time it is kind of earth is for and what is going to bring us true satisfaction and happiness is completely lost so basically this life becomes a life just itself to believe a life that has a beginning and end and we are just going through experiences after experience itself is a compromise that belief of what we are and what we here is due itself is a compromise so no wonder you know when we go about our lives every decision would make if it is to just bring some human experience through external forces then that's just going to be compromised because in the end we actually do not know what we want and we do not know what's going to bring that to us so that's why we were saying you know there is something that is fundamentally that's very very important to us it's not to just live this repetitive life of trying to accumulate more money in order to have some kind of freedom of this body no you're not just to get a job so that we can pay our bills and then when we retire we have some set of money that we can travel a little bit around the world and that's that's satisfying that's it you know that's not what we're here for that's not what we want truly so for myself you know I was so lost in this kind of conditioning I grew up in a very normal family and went through all the educations and had a very good career and even though the experience was experience of fear of dissatisfaction but all this external world was telling me you had a very good life you actually should be very satisfied most people don't have what you have so you know it's kind of a try to convince myself this is good enough accept it accept it and until one day I just said to myself actually I have never really been happy in my life and it was very sad to realize that and it was very sad as well not knowing you know the potential and where to go from there I think what opened up from that realization and that pause was you know this book across the world came to my life but not only that it was this practical application and a huge support that came to say you know you can do this but you have to be willing to let go of what don't serve you anymore you can't hold on to the things that bring to your pain and suffering and then hope for a different experience so that's what I did I actually decided I'm gonna you know live a complete different life by following my calling because there was a calling I started to you know show up in my heart I didn't really have one before and I decided to go for that and I decided to let go of all the things that I do not for a secure life and at that point it was very very scary because I couldn't just tell the people or my family number in my life that I'm going for my god for god or I'm going for my colleague and they will say oh good on you go they said you're crazy you're insane and for myself as well I didn't know where it's going to lead you know all the practical question of what about you what if you got sick what what about your security what about your insurance you know who is going to take care of you what about this what about that and I was so fearful to hear that because at the time that's my own fear I didn't know how to answer all these questions but I knew that I couldn't live like that anymore I couldn't continue on without feeling just dying inside so I thought okay I'm gonna jump and I started I didn't even know you know what it meant but at least I can start to live a life of no prep no private thoughts and no people pleading and let's see where it takes because whatever David described before was so far and so vast it was not my experience and I did not know a way that can lead to that and yet that there is a way that can lead to that and this is not through our you know conscious planning and conscious control this way that can lead us to that total freedom of the mind and true freedom is through the following the Holy Spirit following our inner guide and this is the commitment and this is the no compromise that we are talking about because every moment we can choose to follow the ego or follow the Holy Spirit and there is really the only compromise there is in the practical level are we in this moment choose to give our mind and our thoughts over to think along with the ego or to allow the spirit to guide us and show us you know if we choose to allow the spirit to come and guidance guide us and show us we can't help but let go of our ego in thinking we cannot have two at the same time we have to only have one so it is like over nothing in every moment and then for myself I have to say to just to allow myself to start the open up to share the privacy and secrecy in my mind is an essential first step to open my mind to the spirit why because the reason that I didn't have any connection with the spirit was because of guilt and because of hiding there was so much guilt and protection going on I was completely identified with the ego I was terrified to allow the Holy Spirit to come in so I was the one who choose to close down to say no no no you know there's so much darkness inside there's so much attack thoughts in my mind I cannot even you know fend them the possibility of being guided so for myself the very practical application at the beginning was to allow myself to dare to be honest you know to myself but dare to be honest with people around me and I cannot separate these two I cannot say I'm only going to be honest with myself and not because they're not really me no that's that doesn't work you know the practical comes from allowing myself to start to open up and share what is going on why why does that matter share what's going on because we truly don't have private thoughts we don't have private thoughts the reason we think we have private thought is because we're trying to pretend we're separate from everyone else and we are separate individual mind and you are separate into individual mind and we think different thoughts and I can hide from you and in that way I block this experience of knowing that we're truly connected and yet that is how we grow up with that's our conditioning nobody question that we all have separate minds and separate you know separate thoughts so to go against that to start open up and share that really brought me an experience that I've never experienced before and that is beyond intellectual understanding what I experienced by opening up was to realize actually there is no private thoughts people are thinking the same thoughts whatever I think who there is in front of me and that is very very powerful and that is an initial start of this spiritual awakening you know we have to allow ourselves to go toward this opening up this total transparency as a initial step forward toward feeling one and connected with everyone and eventually of course by giving our life over to the spirit every moment of the day then that is the true happiness we can bring into our daily experience yeah this is is really exposing the trick because the ego tried to project a world of externals and then convince us that we should go for those externals and even people that go through addictions you know they'll tell you there's a hole in their soul there's an emptiness there they may try to fill it with alcohol with drugs with sex with shopping there's just you know this we could call this whole world distraction bill and the bible said hold no graven images before the lord thy god it wasn't talking about golden calves it was talking about the world of images that tempts us to look for happiness in externals not realizing that these are all just thoughts in our minds and we have to come back to consciousness to have a resolution so the spirit is very gentle the spirit will work with you that's been the fun for me of coming across the course in 1986 because really that was like an answer to a prayer was can you give me something direct something very direct i don't want my spirituality diluted give it to me straight just give it to me straight i'll come i'll do whatever i'll give you my heart i'll give you my life i'll give you my future but just give it to me straight so the course was like an answer to that prayer and then i guess the deepest wish of my heart was i'm okay it's a book i want to hear you directly i want to hear your voice directly i mean conversationally mount i love you always even until the end of time i've heard that it's in the bible i want actual instructions where do i go what do i do what do i pursue what do i let go of and that answer came after like five years of immersing with the course where hallelujah i could i was in direct communication with jesus now life would be easy it's easy when you make contact with yourself jesus just being a symbol of representation of the christ that we all are the i am presence not someone from 2000 years ago christ do i have to learn aramaic no it's in english i'll talk talk to you in english you you believe in english i can work with that yeah but what about my life what about my career what about my future yes yes yes it's give it all to me i'll handle all that that's that's what how it works you give me all of that and i'll give you my love in terms of practical daily guidance who to call where to go what to do what not to do oh what fun life has been i've had really a good run of the last 20 25 years with jesus in a sense of i was told at the end of my when i was in my late 20s i was told i would have no career in this lifetime isn't that wonderful beautiful oh that's lovely i'm like thank god i don't know how this is going to work and practically you know money doesn't grow in trees jesus he's like yeah i know you believe that but stay with me so that was the fun part because that anybody who's like in their 20s has some career thoughts and they're pretty heavy usually like what am i supposed to be doing with my life what is my purpose how am i going to make a living i don't want to flip burgers for 40 years you know that's where we come up with careers because we want better jobs and better jobs with better perks and better wages so we can buy more things and do the things that earthlings do you know accumulate things and sell things and buy things and have fun buying and selling well jesus no no it's not going that way at all you know i will he tells you right in the course if you will be a miracle worker for me i will arrange time and space for you oh that's an adventure did our parents ever tell us don't worry about your grades don't worry about achieving and accumulating and planning for the future just follow jesus and let him arrange time and space for you like a good little boy a good little girl no they weren't they didn't know about that if they didn't know they probably would have said something you know at the dinner table don't eat your peas you're a divine being report card i don't care it's all part of a pre-arranged plan anyway hey you got an f you know i just said are you happy wouldn't it be great to have just parents every meal time are you happy are you happy if you say yes they go great if they say no they can how can i help you how can i join with you how what can i offer you you know beautiful being of light how could anyone ever tell you you were anything less than beautiful how could anyone ever tell you you were less than a whole you know how about being some to at christmas instead of eat your peas at the dinner table and finish finish your cauliflower or no dessert they were telling us how loved we are well there is a spirit in us that has always been telling us all our lives how loved we are it's a small still voice but the ego is speaks loudest and the ego speaks first and the ego is like like a loaded bunch of crap it's it's past conditioning laid on thick and it tells us we're not worthy and it tells us we're not enough it tells us we're never going to get anything get anywhere and make anything of itself and we've all had to face that voice in our mind it's the voice that that says ah that's why you're sick ah you're going to die anyway you know it's it's a very depressing voice it's a death wish and it's very important that we transcend that death wish in fact that's the only reason that we're here is to heal and transcend that death wish when jesus said be of good cheer i've overcome the world he really meant that good cheer he glad he had tidings of joy and happiness that's why the gospels came to be known as the good news you know if you just read the old testament you might be a little shaken up like i was i like the psalms of david the lord is my shepherd i shall not want you know i like that was like poetry to me but there's some pretty dark stuff in the old testament and then in the new testament was more be of good cheer your sins are forgiven i have overcome the world basically the holy spirit is like is god's representative in our mind even when jesus seemed to be crucified raised from the dead and the send back to god he said i will send you a comforter yeah we need a comforter as the human race is in great need of a comforter so for me the first step was listen follow listen follow and all the me listening to jesus was all about was was about me building trust me having experiences that i could trust that it wasn't governments that were providing for me and it wasn't parents and it wasn't jobs and it wasn't all these things that we think are our source that provide for us there is a little small still voice in us there is a presence of love that when you say yes to it it will arrange time and space for you this holographic universe is just putting in its hands it will send in people it will send in books it will send in songs will send in hugs it will send in laughter relationships it will come rushing in when you say yes to it when you make the slightest turn towards this small still voice and you say i'm yours it's like thank you now i've got something for you and there's going to be miracles and that's what the last 25 years have been for me is miracles upon miracles upon miracles and then what happens when you start to get soaringly happy when you really get so happy you can barely hear like Fred Astaire and Junior Rodgers you can barely keep you want to go dancing across the furniture in your living room or wherever you go hopping around because your feet are moving like Fred Astaire is because you can't really keep them on the earth what happens when you get happy then then it even gets better because then you start to be the dreamer of the dream you know if some of you know from psychology they have this thing called lucid dreaming when you're aware that you're dreaming isn't that fun does anybody have the experience of the lucid dream isn't that fun it could be like a dragon with flames coming out of the nostrils and you're like ha ha ha you know there's a part of your mind that's just laughing because the flames can't get you you're the dreamer the dragon's in the dream and you're the dreamer you're invulnerable well that's what that's the only thing of course the miracles is asking you to do is come in do the discipline do the mind training watch your thoughts practice forgiveness hand over those grievances hand over those dark beliefs and come into an experience that you're dreaming you're lucid dreaming this world it's a very quantum kind of feel you're like you're in the field the roomie talked about there's a field i'll meet you there you're in the field with roomie and and then it's fun then the world becomes fun then the world becomes your oyster because because the higher power is a ranging time and space and it does seem more like a like a happy fairy tale you know that's i've always felt that's what the world becomes is a happy fairy tale so once that started happening to me then i i had okay this is great what now it was i want to use the puppet of david i want to use the mouth to speak for this state of mind to speak for this voice i wanted to speak the practicalities of this this isn't about some airy fairy high in the sky state of mind this is about the present moment that's here with us the presence of love and god is with us right now i had experiences from years ago back in the two in the two thousands a friend of ours kirsten came and i got to play marriage isn't it fun to play marriage it's hard to be married in a contractual way but what if jesus came to you and said hey i'm going to get you some rings i'm going to sit in a beautiful lovely lady and you guys are going to go down to south america as a married couple you know it's like a skit now jesus has his reasons too some of you know south america is what 95 catholic some of you know about the south american culture the family is big it's different having a single man say something than having a man and a woman speaking to you the spirit uses the symbols to reach the mind that's behind the symbols and so uh we went to get the rings and we went down there and we were used in argentina and uh and columbia and so on and so forth and it was very healing in fact uh my friend kirsten she kept such good notes about all this that now what how many 10 12 years later she's just published a book called i married a mystic it's just it's just hot off the press now so for like 20 some chapters you get all the good details of what was going on in that marriage skit and i'll tell you what was going on it was a lot of forgiveness we know that what relationships are really for therefore forgiveness you know we say i love you but what we really mean is i'm gonna hang in there and i'm gonna try to forgive all my judgments of you and i hope you'll hang in with me for a period of time and i hope we will be lifted up in in awareness higher and higher to the light through that you know we may say we may throw the love word around but that's all gonna that's all coming out in the details about diet about exercise what is this holy spirit used to teach you about finances about control about possession you know all the basic things of daily life marriage is as good a backdrop as anything else to heal you don't all have to go sit under the bodhi tree and meditate for 15 hours a day a marriage will do it to you that can that'll knock the ego out of you in a pretty quick way if you hang if you can even hang in with the long love after two years that's enough where's the nearest cave i'm gonna go i'm shaving my head and i'm gonna become a buddhist you know it can scare you you know because it's so intense the emotions are so intense another thing was i always liked music so a lot of times i will break out into song i could just sing you old kinds of songs i think that's maybe going to be my next project from the holy spirit the music lovers guide to enlightenment we we can all collaborate on on a pathway to god through music because we know music is pretty powerful or reach god through star trek you know wouldn't that be fun uh those are the kind of things i was getting from jesus a movie watchers guide to enlightenment i've been traveling to 40 some countries talking about this showing movies in these countries talking about these same ideas for years and years and years and first it came out as a book and then now it's come out as an online uh movie watchers guide to enlightenment online and i've got people all over the world that are using that tool that i had so much fun doing experiencing that they're using that as their pathway to god imagine using movies just the same as you would use meditation using movies the way you would a prayer life using movies the way you would use fasting you know sometimes just giving you some traditional means for reaching god fasting meditation prayer and so forth if you like movies uh this is tailor made for you and you can sit back and the spirits commentary is so deep and so profound that probably you end up like me just crying at these movies because these movies are just modern day parables that the spirit can use to wake you up and maybe it's more enjoyable to do it through movies maybe people don't like to sit for 15 hours a day and try to meditate maybe they don't like the fasting in this and that and they say can you give me something that i can enjoy that i can relate to that's the way it has gone for me that's very things that i could give myself over to i was into sports too i mean i i played basketball i played football i played tennis i was into sports that's what i like about jesus he's not like no more sports ever don't ever touch a golf club again you know people think that if you open up to god it's like never anymore wine alcohol no sports no exercise just sit there and meditate forgive you know it's we think it's going to be a nasty road if we say yes to god we're going to really get a nasty we're not going for a really difficult experience it may seem difficult to the ego but what i found is the spirit uses your interests uses the things that you enjoy to wake you up so instead of giving up golf what i did was i would go out and learn to get into that the zone get into use the golf as a meditation then i transferred it to other things baseball i transferred it to basketball i transferred it to tennis i read the zen of tennis and i had jesus had me reading the zen of tennis and going out not keeping score 15 love 30 love jesus like come on you can cut that out i want you to go out and use it more as like an open-eyed meditation i want you to go out and get into the joy of of the present moment through the tennis you see so there was an active component some of you experienced it maybe through dance movement that was my movement tennis the spirit is so practical the spirit will use if you like technology the spirit will use your your desire for technology in ways that you can shine and share and express openly like when we go to china before we went to china they had these groups groups over in china called qq groups and they they use it for online communication oh as soon as we were over to china two or three times talking about no private thoughts and uh no people pleasing oh the chinese they love this work using our technology for that oh the board's got lit up and very lively they weren't hiding anything but but when you don't hide these private thoughts it's really between you and spirit it's just like when you hold on to judgments and grievances they're just thoughts but if you push them down into the unconscious mind you're just basically saying i'm guilty why would you hide something unless you believe they were true by exposing them in presence you know not just saying everything that comes to your mind but but by actively learning to expose darkness with a with a trusted friend we know how that feels when you can talk to take a walk with a trusted friend and unburden yourself instead of getting hammered or instead of being told how dare you say that or how dare you believe that our friend what they smile at us and they they give us a hug and rub us on the back and they go you're not in your right mind that's not you they just they get a big smile on their face because why because they're a symbol of love and acceptance they're not going to you know say an unkind thing to us because they're there to love us they're there to look beyond the thoughts and every time we do that we start to feel freer oh that feels good i just unburden myself i need to do this more often maybe i need to go for a massage maybe i need to go out and start doing service and extending love and hugging people maybe i need to start communicating with my my partner in a deeper way trusting that it's going to be safe that it's not going to be used against me we're going against the ego when we start to communicate and open up in a way where we can have safe loving communication and even expose our darkness maybe not with anything like say you this you that but i'm feeling this i i want to share this you can keep you can still own it so to speak and and bring it up without putting it out onto somebody else with the old stuff you know the ego stuff you made me so mad that right away your friend tends to suck i could feel you were judging me you know when we start to put it out as a projection right away we're blaming and and they tense right up but this is more of a way of exposing when i went to china to the first time i started to run these expression sessions over there in a society that was quite systematically repressed and it was like an explosion of energy they put me in the middle of the i do a big circle and they put me in the middle with a chair and then they would one by one come up and tell me their deepest shames their darkest secrets the things that they felt so bad about knowing that i wouldn't judge them and over the years people have unburdened themselves during my retreats and gatherings and one-on-ones they just tell me their deepest darkest most shameful hidden buried secrets and before they do they usually give me one last look in the eye like can i really trust you or you're going to lock me up and they give me one last look and then they see in my eyes that no matter what they're going to tell me they could even tell me that they could say i'm a mass murderer and i've killed 25 people and i buried the body and such i mean they know that i would not judge them no matter what they tell me because with Jesus and the Holy Spirit who knows this is a loaf of bread it's already over and done there's not going to be any judgments i'm not going to take it personal and that's why they can unburden themselves that's why they can tell me whatever they this guilty secret that they were like sitting on like a time bomb afraid to do something i met one guy one time a young man who his mother kept saying go talk to david go take a walk in the forest with david she knew that he was like he was really unstable and he was guilty and he had had really difficult relationships and this and this and finally she's like go go go out to the forest with david so out in the forest we go we're walking out in the forest and then finally after about 15 20 minutes of walking in the forest here comes his guilty secret he tried he told me he tried to have sex with an animal and that's what he was sitting on that's what was ruining all of his relationships with girls with with women he couldn't relate because he was sitting on a keg of dynamite that he had this memory that he felt so guilty about that he couldn't share with anybody and it just stifled him it just absolutely stifled him the best part of it was me giving him a big long hug and then hearing as the years went by from his mother oh he's dating now oh he's got a girlfriend now oh he's having such a happy life now isn't that fun i get to hear all of the after effects of the miracle of how his life was changed how he he took off in a way where he could begin to relate and use relationships like all of us need to use in his mirrors and that's how we come to healthy relationships by having open transparent communication by building trust by dropping the mask by really seeing that there is a deeper intimacy that we all share it's a spiritual intimacy it's beyond sexual intimacy it's a spiritual intimacy that we become very still in that we don't have anything to hide when we have nothing left to hide we become very very still so maybe we can open it up here because we we love these gatherings because we do they're very interactive and we come and we just give share what we share but yeah we're very interested to hear what's going on what what you have going on in your soul anything that you want to ask and we would like to yeah just address that directly yes we spoke about the experience having already happened but we've been fixed so where do you stand in on the thinking that there's magic in the machine and there's by our choices and decision making in moment by moment we have the option to create a new future i could have come today or i could have stayed at home tomorrow would be different based on the decision yeah i think there is a a whole paradigm that kind of i would fall say falls under the you create your own reality thing and there's many many teachers and in fact if you look at books like the secrets and many many teachings basically saying you can manifest your reality i would say what what i learned from jesus was reality is is divine love and light so so the mask is never reality and and what we have the ability to create is far beyond perception and far beyond images but like i was sharing earlier everything that we witness in the world is a reflection of our consciousness and so when we talk about making choices in the moment what i've had to do with his work with jesus to start to realize that firstly had to teach me the power of my thoughts and the power of my decision could seem to have effects and consequences in time and space and that's where you can call it vision boarding or visualizing a different future when people say create a different future from the past those are all beautiful stepping stone ideas but what i when i work with jesus closer and closer what he started to do was funnel down the power of the mind to basically saying well even when you rearrange the time and space and like change things seemingly informed with your thoughts you're still attempting to change what has already happened so you're still believing you can affect the change in the world and so the teaching was seek not to change the world seek rather to change your mind about the world if you're going for spiritual enlightenment that will be a step along the way because most of us feel like we've been victims powerless helpless you know we weren't aware of the power of our mind and thoughts so the first step is there was a bunch of experiences like where i would like you lived over in china he had me going into different cultures that i didn't speak the language and dropping me into different countries i felt like a little bit like james bond getting dropped dropped out of the airplane and i'm being like okay what do i do now because i had to learn to trust like i'll guide you every step of the way i'll tell you where to go who to see what to do what to say so all of that time space stuff was about learning to listen and follow just listen to your intuition and follow but basically it would be like thinking we can make an effect and and change the world would be basically kind of like mary in i think use mary waves and use the analogy of like rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic you know and and and you know we've most of us have have watched that movie you know we love the music james horner and and and kate and leonardo you know we love that movie titanic but it's kind of interesting from that movie because the man who designed the ship this big steel ship was on the ship and you might remember that scene where he was down there and there's parties going on and food and everything and they got the engineer right there and and they say we fit in iceberg and he says how many compartments because the ship was built in compartments so it would stay afloat he said how many how many compartments are filling up with water and they gave him the answer and he said we're sunk see there's an engineer you know he he knew the script was really he he was like i can tell you where this one's going down we're all going down he knew how many compartments were filled up and he knew that the ship could not handle that and was like well jesus kind of knows about our time and spaceship too and and it's going down too some people were concerned about the world and everything remember it's a projection of our mind and our i am this is never going down because our i am one with god is is untouchable i am one with spirit there's where our strength and invulnerability is but what jesus was teaching me is like francis was saying about keeping it practical you always have a decision in your mind but it's it's between one of two options and i love it when jesus christ starts to get real simple with me and real direct because then i'm like i'm paying attention so i've got a powerful mind i have the ability to choose not in reality because it's pure oneness but in the dream state i have a split mind and every decision i'm making every moment of every day is either between the ego or the holy spirit the holy spirit's trying to take me back to heaven so every decision i make with the holy spirit i feel happy joyful peaceful and every decision i make with the ego is is part of that death wish it's still a decision to remain separate so you see how he's taken all these decisions that we make in a lifetime which is millions we make millions of decisions in a human lifetime and he's going let's cut the chase you want to be self-realized and enlightened yeah well you're making a choice between the holy spirit and the ego and the purpose that you choose in your mind is so important he even uses examples in the workbook where he says uh when you make a call using a phone you're trying to reach someone who's not in your proximity see how he's practical he's telling it he gives it to us a human example when you try to use your phone to reach somebody who's not in your proximity you know that's what you think communication is he says but the real question is what do you want to reach him for see that's where jesus is saying when you call somebody what is the purpose of your call that's good am i calling my mother to extend love or am i calling to complain am i calling my boss to extend love or to try to get out of a day of work you know you see the purpose is everything and he also says in the course he says the only problem you have now is that you still believe that you can run some aspects of your own life apart from god you'd like to say okay uh give me some help with my relationships and i've got a sore neck i can use some help on that and uh yeah it's kind of gray here in our sunny day i have a sunny day and then um what about finances don't stay out of my bank account jesus i can thank you very much i got a job took me a long time to get it and i'm doing very well in that area no jesus says no the only problem you have is you believe you can run some aspects of time and space by yourself that jesus the christ the holy spirit wants to guide you with everything everything that you experience in time and space can be rearranged perception can be arranged and that's really what when we say we want a different future from the past we're really saying can you help me with this distorted veil with this distortions that i'm seeing in the world i want to see with a new vision remember steve winwood steve winwood song bring me a higher love oh you know that's what we're asking for we're just saying bring me a higher love and he's saying i can do that for you if you'll bring all of your thoughts and beliefs to me i'll bring you a different vision of the world i'll bring you a clarified a unified a harmonious perception of the world if you'll just bring your hidden thoughts and beliefs to me open up take the lid off and start opening up now a lot of us say we're not even sure there is the holy spirit you know a lot of us grew up thinking well that's that's a nice christian term and we're in ireland so the last time i was in quark i was not too far from here at a co-op and it was freezing cold it looked like a football game a soccer game because everybody was sitting in there and their breaths were coming out we're all huddled around and as soon as i opened it up to questions like this some man said speak to us of the devil oh i love cork nobody's holding back that's the way i like it speak to us of the devil and i did i talked about satan is not some kind of force satan is just this ego that we're we're feeding we're giving our minds energy to this belief in separation so it's not some kind of a guy with a pitchfork living in a bunch of flames you know it's it's this belief that we've given our power our beauty beautiful mind over to this crazy belief so really the answer to your question is is in order to see a different future which is a symbol of seeing a different world we have to we have to give our heart and soul our mind over to show me the purpose show me how to live in alignment with my source show me how to live this purpose and and what's even better is in the course of miracles he's explicit about it he will tell you the difference between the ego and the holy spirit isn't that what you'd expect jesus to do tell you the difference between a lie and the truth between something that's harmful and helpful i don't know about you if you're going to have a way show or i want a way show or who's transcended the ego i want a way show or who's who is the living christ presence who can who can interact with with my perception of the world and who i believe i am and show me that i'm much more than this human being that i'm a spiritual being i don't want to have actually done it you know to show me and to me that we we talk a lot about a course of miracles because it's just the pathway that seems to drop into our laps and so i mean i used to read 20 20 different have 20 different spiritual books going a week for me but but once the course came into my life in 1986 i could easily set down all my other books my standard books even the comic strips and even i mean everything newspapers magazines i basically just went oh this is too important for me to be dilly-dallying here i want to know the difference between the ego and the spirit so i can actively choose choose the spirit yes for me i've really thought i've had a pretty good experience of energy that's you know it's up to me to feel you know a lot of my never-experienced in this world it's not even a lot but a lot of power of thought in this and you know huge inspiration well so it's just you know with energy um and also one thing that happened so because of my personal experience even though i have been a teacher of philosophy and foods and wonder all my life i've had an incredible experience really you know consolidated my sense of experience with food in knowing for me that all i can see is that there is something um so you know then the sole question of what is the purpose of the ego because the ego you know seems to to create you know such a stark psyche and suffering with humanity when i know that there is a different way to be a different energy that is of love and beauty and truth and absolute bliss and where there is nothing where where where everybody's needs are there everything needs i mean more to to manipulate the other because they're laughing and i mean everybody feels full so i i i have an awareness of that truth um so i think in my personal thing you know i i'm trying to understand is this other than this opposite energy that exists in the cod mode is this a way to for us to stimulate or experience being a human you know to understand actually the greatness of what our truth is i don't know i'd like to ask you a question yeah that's good that's an excellent question you might say some people will have used like for ego edging god out like an acronym for edging god out you could say that that the ego is a belief but that in reality or in perfect oneness there are no beliefs so so you might say it's kind of a figment of imagination it's interesting because that's a that's a very important question that i think most everybody comes to you know like what is this ego what what am i dealing with here and basically there's a part where this whole course of miracle comes and there's like 1200 some pages and jesus is speaking in first person about the apostles and it's just amazing presence pouring through this whole book but there's a part of the book called the clarification of terms and basically the question does arise to jesus like what is this ego what is the ego and jesus says that that the ego will ask many questions that this course has no answer for how did the impossible happen to whom did the impossible happen and many versions and he says there is no answer like in a conceptual way but there is an experience like and that's what you're talking about you've had experiences where you have just knowing this it's with that and jesus says an experience will come that will end your doubting so we might just say that the ego is like self-doubt it's like for not knowing our true i amness and taking on a human identity a mess we talked about a persona is part of this doubt about identity when really we were created by god to be an eternal being of love and light this doubt of time and space this doubt of identity is what the ego is now then he'll go on to say that you can never understand the ego i love that when he says that because he says you can forgive it but you never understand it and he even when he's talking about the ego he'll use like ego quote he puts dynamics ego dynamics like in psychotherapy or psychoanalysis you know we're familiar with ego dynamics jesus puts dynamics in quotes because he says what is like a puff of nothingness what is the denial of god or denial of love cannot really have dynamics you know it it doesn't have a life he sometimes even uses sentences like he'll say what is the ego what the darkness was where is the ego nothing and nowhere you know you see how he's he's pointing out that you can't really separate from god you can't do it it's not it wasn't part of god's will oh i'm going to create you as a perfect loving being of life if you want to you can throw it all away the even the garden of Eden you know the story in the bible where adam and eve you know it's kind of like it's kind of like the story where there's adam and eve and this paradise and all this beautiful lush and everything and then there's a snake that's there some of us who've read the bible there's a snake in there in genesis and then there's a tree and uh i was raised christian so i'm like hmm what's this tree the tree of the knowledge of good and evil hmm sounds like duality uh there's paradise and then there's this tree and then god says adam and eve don't whatever you do don't eat from the fruit of that tree over there not about you but that would tick me off if i was in paradise having a great time you know just really enjoying paradise and maybe there was a snake there that i was unaware of but i would still be a little bit ticked off about this tree like for example what is this tree doing in paradise that might be a question we could ask from genesis you know well why did you put the why did you put you did a great job with paradise but this damn tree you could have done like why would you put the tree and so i'm i'm like everybody else i'm kind of like i'm reading the course and jesus says god didn't put that tree there okay that's good you see god is love and love would not put a tempting tree in the middle of paradise that makes sense to us right you know if if god has anything to do with that damn tree i'm going to have some issues with god but if god had nothing to do with the tree of duality good and evil you see so i love that he's just being really straight no god didn't god couldn't do this god did not tempt you and god is not testing you even that's not testing you tempting you god is love and who you are in reality is love and this self-doubt that you have so in a course of miracles i mean i look through the whole book and i say okay are we going to have a redoing of this tree thing and snake thing no there's no tree thing and there's no snake thing in the book but he does give a little tiny version of of his version of genesis and this is what he says into eternity we're all as one that's how he starts the story out that's a good way to start a story right into eternity we're all as one they're crept a tiny mad idea at which the son of god remembered not to laugh that's what he says into eternity we're all as one they're crept a tiny mad idea i wish the son of god remembered not to laugh now i had a guy i was giving it in united states one time i was i was giving a talk and i gave that that line from the course and this guy just burst into crept he started screaming crept crept crept like he was very angry at at the idea of a creeping idea even in paradise you know so what i usually do to answer that question about what is the ego is i talk about the two scribes or the scribe of the course and and her collaborator they were taking down these notes from jesus about this book and at some point after they've taken down the shorthand notes for a number of chapters they did go to jesus with your question after they've taken down so many chapters and these jesus excuse me excuse me can we just ask one tiny question before we continue on with your book he's like sure how did this happen in the first place you see because there's something in our mind that thinks if everything is so perfect in heaven how do we end up with with this world like in this world apples come from apple trees oranges come from orange trees and we would think that spirit would come from spirit so how did we get flesh and disease and sickness and other than that beautiful energy you're describing that pure unified glorious energy and when what his answer was he said to them very practical you can tell by your daily emotions your daily roller coaster of emotions that you experience that you believe that it did happen you believe you've ever heard like self-fulfilling prophecy you believe that it happened it didn't he's here to convince us that's what all divine guidance is convinces of the truth but the ego is the belief that the separation actually happened and if you watch very closely with the Course he'll talk about another idea called atonement which is really the correction that all jesus did to resurrect it wasn't his body resurrecting in the tomb but all he did to resurrect his soul or bring his mind back to the divine mind was he he accepted the correction that the holy spirit offered and now he's he's helping us do the same thing it isn't that wonderful that the answer to sin is correction that sin isn't like a black mark on our souls you know that we have to pay for for whatever it's it's simply an error to be corrected and he was like that's why he's called the way shower that's somebody who transcends error is is one who is an excellent teacher an excellent way shower yeah i suppose like i i do deeply believe in inner alchemy you know and i do believe that there is symphony and beauty and everything and that there is divine symphony and everything so like we as people we learn a lot from our traumas you know and like there's a very famous quote from even god terence maxini it's not those who inflict the most but those who suffer the most we shall prevail so we learn and evolve from different traumas and that's what gives us our many different learnings so even when it comes to the ego i don't like obviously in ego to control yes problem but i do think there's a bit of a beauty in it as well because more often than not your ego will lead lie you into troubles but you will learn from those troubles as well so you can learn a lot from your ego as well you know so it's not like obviously like like an over activity you're thinking you're better than that there's nobody better than anybody but your ego can get you into trouble sometimes but you learn a lot from those troubles so do believe there is a source of knowledge from it as well to stop like i like i just said the correction of the same is how you evolve so sometimes when more often not any problems that people face is their ego has got them into the problems but they have learned from that problem as well to evolve more and as we actually evolve as people like you know i suppose and another level too as well like when it comes to things like the ego like i definitely don't think i'm better than anybody around like that but i do like to have a clean underpants like you know i do you know it doesn't mean i'm trying to take over the world it's just you know just a bit of self you're looking after yourself like so i do think so i don't like the one thing i worry as well is that you have people and they kind of they're learning about the ego and all that kind of stuff and you've other people projecting their problems that their egos on other people and all this kind so see people believe in many different things and problems with ego but if you believe that your ego is bad you're creating an internal conflict within yourself so you're creating some sort of uh let's say a bit of a duality and i worry that you are creating a bit of a duality then in the outside world so i believe in looking at the beauty and everything inside you and looking at it from a true inner alchemist perspective so look at the beauty of everything the problem is the solution we learn from our traumas we learn from all the bad things that happen in the world so i don't see it as that bad but that's only my person thing you can learn a lot from everything the same way you can learn a lot from sadness you can learn a lot from from all of them from fear from anger so that's just my own thing so i do think we can learn a lot from it you know it's kind of like that's kind of like the question is is there something good in the devil or is there something good in satan and what we learn from the course is is since the holy spirit's the answer the correction the the loving light the one that helps us the helper the comforter that the holy spirit can use anything that the ego may so for example even if it's the whole cosmos is a big bang projection of the ego and it looks like a like a loaf of bread not to worry because the holy spirit can use anything the ego made so when we talk about the ego it's it's it's kind of like an iceberg where it's it's just like the iceberg that the titanic it they didn't see the the surface part but there is a big part underneath and they rammed into that part and it just ripped the side of the whole ship and the ship sunk the ego is is unconscious so what you're talking about is is we all have a desire to see withhold us to see the goodness and everything we something inside us knows there is a good there's a good beneath whatever we are seeing and we want to find it and so that's the way that it's dealt with in the course it just basically says it's just a miss it's a miscreation or or a misinterpretation but those can be corrected and so in that sense where you're what you're talking about that's kind of the way I've come to see the world is that that everything is working together for the good and absolutely without exception and and that's where we can get into an experience of that that purifying energy that was just talked about or that love and that light and that becomes the practice to see the good and everything you know so I see where you're going with that does the ego have any goodness in it or whatever Jesus is pretty direct about that he's basically saying that ego is a death wish so so is there anything good about a death wish it's kind of like that old fairy tale does anybody ever remember the fairy tale of the princess and the pea remember that one the pea is underneath all those mattresses and it's amazing that she's so sensitive that even on top of all those mattresses she's like something's not quite right but there's so many mattresses that she can't really put a finger on so to speak but it's down there so it's like that little pea under there that that's the way it is with a death wish so for example one of the ways that people sometimes try to deal with a death wish is is deny it or ignore it or cover it over or distract away from it but the example I use is if somebody came to you and said okay here's a little vial and there's a little this is a vial of deadly poison and if you take this poison you will die it's so strong you'll die immediately and you have to take the vial because that's what death wish is it's Freud called a sanatose death wish so basically the ego is like death is real and you're gonna die and that's part of what people call human nature everybody's gonna die everybody is going to die not every not the spirit but the body and so and if you could throw can you could do you could do anything you want with the vial of the the poison but you still have to drink so some clever guy says okay all right I have to take the poison okay it's a death wish but I can do anything I want with it before I drink it right I'm gonna mix it with the ocean I'm gonna mix it with the ocean I'm gonna dilute it but it's like throwing this little vial into the ocean let it splash around for a while in the ocean then I'll take a sip from the ocean that's what time and space is it's it's an attempt to dilute the death wish but I agree that the whole point is to see the goodness so for me that's the practice of all authentic spirituality is to to see the love in your brother see the love in your sister open your heart up to a higher vision so no matter what they're saying you're doing no matter what you can find the goodness that's there because that goodness is there and to me that that's been the whole point I appreciated with the master Jesus exposing the ego because if it's hidden how am I going to be healed of it if I'm not even aware of it I'm glad he he exposed it but what he is saying is ultimately you have to make a choice between the error and the truth or the error in the correction and he's helping us zoom in to to the correction and to me that's the whole point of spirituality is to accept the correction he even comes out and says you are not responsible for the error thank god you are responsible for accepting the correction for the error isn't that beautiful I mean to me that is the lightheartedness of of what this is all really about I have to give my mind over to the correction yes it's all about the healing and for me I've enjoyed the the parable of David it's almost like there came a point back in when I was in my 20s where I said okay here I give it all to you take my body take my money take everything that I have in this world and let it be used for the awakening of humanity I gave away my ambitions too whatever I you know when you're a child you have to imagine how your life will go and what you'll do and your desires and I had to give all that so I basically gave it all away and then I said now I'll just take what you give me you you arranged the life of David and time and space it's been a great ride too love yeah I really have enjoyed it because basically it's been about about see the good in everyone everyone you meet has a has a gift to give you find the gift everybody is bringing a blessing find the blessing with help you know there's definitely a lot you want me to do what I don't like to travel oh yeah 40 some countries you know I I like you know I had certain preferences that's part of the ego you prefer life to be a certain way and then the presence of Christ is saying no let all things be exactly as they are come to total allowance and total acceptance find the good in everything and it's been a great ride too I have to say I really have not had a bad day people say how's it going in this experience I have not had a bad day for so long that I don't can't even remember when that bad day was it was back there somewhere in the past but but that's that's what we're entitled to we're entitled to live a life of happiness and joy where we don't really need to have bad days we may believe that certain things are good and bad and then you you know the ego would tell you oh yeah you're gonna have a lot of bad days and you better get used to it I don't I haven't had a bad day I can't even remember and I had a friend from Canada one time that she came to one of my gatherings and she said David said that and I looked him in the eye and he said I believe him and then she started to get excited about the possibility of giving her life over with such devotion that that she could come into an experience where she didn't have a bad day I think it's practical I mean it's actually practical to have a happy life although this is like the puppet so the puppet you know it's not the puppet having the life it's it's more it's far beyond the puppet David could you talk a little bit please about forgiveness and especially what you were talking about there about having a wonderful life and just allowing yourself to have that wonderful life but to have the power within you to have unconditional love to be able to forgive people that are toxic in your life but that you don't want to use your ego and saying oh I'm better than them no it's not that at all that's not where I'm coming from it's just really and truly having a fundamental unconditional love to forgive them let them go with love and as Francis said not people pleasing because this is what absorbs a lot in in my own personal life is allowing people to have that that control and I know it's making my power away but I do it for sometimes but could you just talk a little bit about forgiveness please she's asking about forgiveness and and I would say of course that's what the course is about and I've written a lot of books but all of them are are coming to the the old way of forgiveness was that people have done us wrong they've wronged us they've they've said or done things you know we have the evidence sometimes we even got a tape of audio recording or a video recording of it or if you watch the news some of the politicians throughout there oh god you know it's like what is forgiveness well the old way of forgiveness was forgiving people for what they did that they shouldn't have done or for what they didn't do that they should have done you see and and what it never worked even the bible said forgive 70 times 7 I've tried that that's I've tried that it doesn't I've tried it's not it's more than that so of course the miracles Jesus is coming along and he's saying you forgive your brother for what he did not do now you see how that's that's where you're coming to the true innocence like whatever toxic friends or toxic people we hate in our life those were toxic thoughts and we have to let go of the toxic thoughts that's what lesson 23 is like I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts it's it's quite direct he's like saying you've got a grievance your grievance has hide the light of the world you are the light of the world but you're you're unaware that you're the light of the world when you hold on to grievances in fact he says that the ego has a plan of salvation and the ego's plan of salvation is to hold grievances it's actually a voice in our mind telling us as long as we hold on to grievances we'll make it what kind of voice is that you know that's yeah right that's really worked well over all these millennium so basically recently I did I made a book called quantum forgiveness and in it I use I pulled from different paradigms I pulled from the teachings of jesus the course of miracles movies and quantum for quantum physics so there's like drawing from all those so it's actually inviting the reader to watch these the star trek episode in these movies and and go into the experience of innocence and there's some really good ones in there too there's one called Mr. Nobody where it's almost like you see all these lifetimes happening simultaneously but with guidance you can start to realize that that it was all in the mind it didn't have anything to do with what they said or did or didn't say or do it was a misperception yes and sometimes I feel like things shift and sometimes I just feel nothing has shifted so how do you really forgive from a like a really open right of place where you really can shift things because it's very painful to to re-experience wounds and relationships that are wounded again and again and it's it could be frustrating when you have the intention to forgive and you want to forgive and you're trying but it doesn't seem to shift if that makes sense yeah that's interesting I hit somebody asked that question pretty recently and and I I used the example of Dr. Hewland and Ho'oponopono in the answer because people know about the process and and he would go around travel around the world and do workshops on practicing Ho'oponopono and the best part of it was is that some people know you probably know the story of of him forgiving all of the the patients in the the center where he worked for the was the criminally insane not by doing intakes not by counseling them not by even meeting with them he stayed in his office looking at their charts and forgetting every thought he had about everyone in in the institution and then of course they had to shut down the institution he did it so well that they had to shut the institution down because everybody got set free and then as he would travel around to do these different events he would just wait to get the list of the names of everyone who had registered and he would spend long periods of time going through the list of everyone who was registered for his seminar forgiving them before they got there don't you love it this is a guy there's an example what dedication so basically recently i i christ crossed with him all around the world for for the number of years there was one point where i met a friend who said oh yeah he's living out in california i think in seno this and this and he's not doing he's not doing his workshops anymore he's not traveling anymore and everything he's just he's in his his residence in deep deep silence and i thought wow that is spectacular to hear he he brings this whole polo polo he extends the gift he forgives people before they even come and show up and now he's forgiving all seven billion in the silence of his own residence oh now it's that dedication to start to realize oh the forgiveness is going to take place in my consciousness because that's where the thoughts are that these seven billion and some of them can seem to be very toxic we could say that about hitler and musselini and asama bin laden and so on and so forth but it's just thoughts as long as we we aren't at peace with a name or a word or a thought then we're working on what jesus called blessed are the pure of heart where they shall see god we're all going through that purification so i think if you if you offer it up like if you say okay i've i've tried the whole polo polo i've tried i really have tried to forgive but but i still feel the block that's that's where you just go to prayer and you really give it up to the spirit and say listen whatever i need to have this healed if i need to run into this person and meet them if you want me to write something if you want me to call them whatever you get into that real openness and just say you make it obvious and i love that about how how all the time and space gets orchestrated you know there's so many examples of that through history where someone will will face the abuser or or go to prison or or face the one that they the last person on earth that they wanted to face spirit will say no you can do this we'll go offer that and also because of course miracle actually says that everyone you know there are only two um i don't know the word but it's one is call for love and the second one is expression of love so everything can be summarized to one of the two either a call for love or expression of love and the answer to either one is love so it's the same attitude and same answer to treat whatever that comes at us and yet this is you know it has to become an experience because i remember when i was reading this as felt the inspiration and in practical application it would easily become to say okay in action or in form i have to behave a certain way then it becomes like some kind of people pleasing because i have to be loving and the ego doesn't even know what love is so we're to basically say okay if everything is a call for love or expression of love and the answer is always love then you know there is like requirement of me to be loving and yet when your mind is actually not healed it doesn't really know what loving is how to be loving so i found that you know to forgive a brother is very much a self forgiveness and it's really not different that's why you know we basically use our brothers as a way to practice to to purify our heart is you know we look at our judgment word brother and then we bring it back to forgive it but at the same time for us to truly develop this attitude to be able to see okay this is a call for love and to be able to be in that place to offer love back we have to go through some kind of purification in our own minds to release the tech thoughts in our minds as a dedication in our practice as well you know because when the the tech thoughts is there in our mind it's just purely reflected by the by the world and it's kind of a leap you know even to say okay i don't need to to look at what's going on in my mind but i want to be loving i want to be loving there is a gap so in my own practice i noticed at the beginning there was a lot of exposing going on you know the exposing of the attack thoughts the exposing of the darkness in my own mind is the exposing of the ego it's not really different you know people will start to change you know the people who really you know bring up all these attack thoughts will start to change as i allow myself to expose like you were saying you we don't need to judge them as bad we just need to you know give them permission to to rise up to our awareness and as we continue with this practice of exposing and allowing and releasing then i found that i'm more and more in that space of be able to actually see not just live service life can see people any action you know if it is not expression of love it's a call for love and yesterday we were just talking about this either one should bring a sense of gratitude because either one will allow the awareness of love to be back to our mind so we owe a gratitude to either action because that will bring the love to our awareness so if we can see an experience as we keep going you know with dedication of this process of releasing and exposing and we can see our brother is truly a gift they are here no matter what they do they're here to serve a purpose for us to bring love to our awareness and that is that is why you know we can have gratitude in our heart all the time so therefore with the ultimate form of forgiveness and love be the same forgiveness and love to your ego you know and actually if it doesn't have love give it love and create a positive ego like let's say look at this in a macro scale you look at prisoners right they've done something wrong with society we put them in the prison and that's the wrong thing that's we are very ignoring them get over there we ignore you but that's only harming their psychology everything we now know with modern science that the best thing to do is heal these person show these people more love like they're doing that in parts of the world they're doing it in there so they gather if you don't something wrong you're put in the center and everyone get all send love into you they actually change the frequency of you so therefore if our thoughts create everything and our ego creates what's wrong wouldn't the ultimate form of it to send love and forgiveness to your ego send the love of a hasma and actually completely embody the frequency yeah i mean you know the practical application of it is is so much about exposing the darkness to see the nothingness office actually and love is there love is there as we expose instead of trying to top it down say i'm going to send love to this darkness you know the practical applications allow the the darkness which we believe in in our daily experience to be exposed to the awareness and then watch them to be released yeah the ego is synonymous with the fear it's kind of interesting too that when the Francis was just talking about love and a call for love that Jesus says in the chorus that the holy spirit only sees those two orders of thought that everything is either love or a call for love to the holy spirit and and then you would answer with love you would answer a call for love with love and you would experience love in love so everything would be love now what happens is the ego sponsors and says no wait a minute there's a third you're forgetting holy spirit there's three not just two and that third one the ego says is attack and we know as soon as we perceive an attack even somebody doesn't smile at us or they give us a look or something or or we see our parking space that we ask for and then the car pulls right in front of in front of us or whatever but if if we perceive an attack then we get defensive but the holy spirit does not perceive attack so that's what makes that the comfort of the vision that's why we need to join with that presence so in that sense it is like you're saying it's it love is so important and and you it's you said it perfectly where if we're going to forgive shouldn't we forgive the ego yes that's the that is the whole point of forgiveness is ultimately like you were saying all love is actually self-love in the ultimate sense because it's it's our true identities love and therefore we may seem like we're forgiving another person but we're really just forgiving the ego when we when we offer that love that's all that we're doing so there's we're not trying to say that the ego is bad or wrong it's more like we're saying except that even trying to understand it it just needs to be forgiven and then we feel that love it's just so strong love so uh so you were saying there the example of so we see the ego coming in when not this person so the uh the better thing to do would be just as cheese for a partly special yeah that's it that's it that's the whole difference right there one where we where we think we deserve something and the second is where we say I need some help and then there it is and we just kind of glide right into it I've just done uh in my own sorts of looking at madness I used to uh I began we were talking about the trying to forgive and I remember sitting at a table by night when I couldn't sleep and I had all those people that were in my head that I was angry with sitting on the table with me then uh I decided one night it just came true to me that I had a sacred hat put her in the kitchen and this little boy said to me why not put Jesus at the top of it and that moment I had this kind of enlightenment where I saw the three full flame of the sacred hat the tree lights the wisdom the power and and uh it's gone out and I think what came through for me in that moment is what Francis was that I'm going to have to love myself and to do that and then I have to open this three full flame of my own heart so if I haven't that don't the ego is going to keep me in this space of keeping this hat closed and not sharing the love and Jesus at the top of the table kind of showed me that you know and so I think it's it's a very valid point and you know how it has to be open to see that and you first the ego in a way it does help you see that the ego but the other side is in that situation of madness of seeing that he got the ego will tell you to kill yourself and do yourself in and self harm and all that other stuff that people go through but uh at the other side of the ego is the beauty of the partly space again let's get that which of my parents or let's just ask Jesus yeah the the asking Jesus I just in my own experience it always works every single time it works and that's very convincing that's that's where I think too when I think of Jesus it's the heart of service like washing the feet of the apostles uh oh my gosh now that's a leader you know how many politicians are going around washing the feet of their constituents you know I mean to me that's an amazing thing to then there was an assemble of like bending down and washing the feet and to me when we look at all the saints and mystics and avatars the ones that really touch our hearts are the ones that have these devotional lives of service they're so humble I just am staggered that's why when I would read about different ones like st. Francis over here oh my gosh I was so taken by how humble he was and and Jesus and the gospels how humble and I feel like if we give our hearts over to that life that humbleness and service and devotion how can I be of help with everyone we're thinking that we're we're praying that with everyone that we meet then it we can't help but feel gratitude and Jesus even got specific with the scribe of A Course in Miracles one day he he told the scribe he said I love you she's like okay and he said and I'm just going to do this one day of your life but I'm going to at the end of the day I'm going to go through and give you pointers imagine having Jesus Christ giving you pointers on a day of your life I'm going to go through a day with you when you came down there you were going to catch a taxi there was another man there who was going in the same direction you should have offered him a ride in your taxi Jesus went through an entire day of Helen Shuckman's described's life with pointers starting off with I love you like this is all for instructional purposes I'm not criticizing your decisions I'm just going to show you how helpful you can be in the course of one day imagine if you did that every day you know imagine he's just there to help us in a real practical way and he did he she liked green pantyhose he guided her where to get in New York City green pantyhose I'm like you I like I like clean underwear I actually I basically I have to tell you a story I before I came over to Europe I packed a small suitcase inside of a larger suitcase because I knew I'd be taking little trips like this and so I I packed my underwear in the smaller case and then I did so then when I was in Barcelona I just grabbed the smaller case but I didn't really check on the underwear and they weren't dirty but they were tight so I came to cork with a very tight pair of underwear and I didn't know it till I I had them on I was like in a girdle or something so I had to forgive that pair of underwear because I like uncomfortable you know clean too if at all possible but you know that it's every day you know it was like okay okay you pack these over there in the United States but go for the comfortable ones you don't need to be suffering you know that's the kind of attitude we just just keep following that connection that guidance and then we start to get confidence with it like oh yeah you're right there with me all along and it feels like a strong connection the more we practice it and exercise it you're clean and his clean might become too completely different yes Einstein Einstein might say that your underwear are very relative I wanted to ask you David if the course of miracles so your your daily practice are your tool for living like this I mean are you have you wondered what are practices that you with all this talk is easier said than done yeah but a practical yeah I started I started reading the course in 86 and then at some point yeah even the course says at one point lesson 189 he's got a paragraph forget this world forget this course and come with holy empty hands until you're gone you know he's like he's begging he's like saying can we not just have a connection here and go beyond the words and beyond the book so actually I carried it around around around wherever I wore the cover the gold letters off of it this is that was yeah a number of years ago I know I don't I don't have a practice actually anymore it's it's just a state of mind so so I do nothing kind of in a repetitive practice way I did the workbook lessons you know there's instructions don't do more than one lesson a day and as best as you can you know try not to make exceptions to the lesson because that's the ego and no I don't I don't have a spiritual practice in fact that to me that's what I I talk about it's a state of mind and in that state of mind you know it's it's not like I go back to the book there may be like for there was a number of years where I would there was four particular workbook lessons that were so helpful for me that they were in my mind memorized and it was five six seven eight those four I'm never upset for the reason I think see how helpful that is if you if you toss the book five six seven eight I'm never upset for the reason I think I'm upset because I see something that's not there which sounds a little bit like hallucinating there going on I see only the past which we talked about you know oh I'm seeing only the past my mind is preoccupied with past thoughts so I would use five six seven eight when I had like some discomfort when I was feeling fatigued and I was feeling ill at ease you know feeling off in some way I would go I'm not upset for the reason I think because the ego will always try to put it out on time and space like oh you have food poisoning or you only had three hours of sleep or you know it always is going to come in with its story the reason why you don't feel good it's got a whole story built in there and then five six seven eight we're just saying no no let's forget about that story here so it was practicing kind of internally but I would say too that the whole point of a course of miracles is not to be a lifelong course of miracles student or teacher it's just to get in touch with your internal teacher your internal guide and then once you establish that connection then basically that's it and the book has done its job it's like those Dixie cups remember those little paper cups I don't know if you have them over here but we have these things called Dixie cups like a little dispenser of cups and once you get your drink you don't keep the cup you throw it away now we we talk about recycling but we we were taught just take your drink and throw it away it's kind of like with our practices and our books at some point when we get intuitive we get back with that intuitive voice then it's served its its purpose you know we can say okay thank you book but I'm not going to go around and you know I don't worship the book or you know when it's time to let it go yeah that's that's where it's pointing I did get to see a beautiful movie about the Dalai Lama recently where this group of progressive thinkers sociobiologists and quantum physics and all these progressive thinkers from the United States took a big trip over to India to go visit Dalai Lama at his house and then they got to India then they had to take this long 12 hour bus ride or something got sick we're we're tired and all this all the progressive thinkers were getting put through the the wind the windmill the grind of the mine by the time they got there they they started to try to talk the progressive thinkers were going to talk amongst themselves they were arguing sniping each other you know it's the ego was coming up big time and then Dalai Lama there oh oh oh you know he's just smiling and they're like you know now they've got another Dalai Lama's house after this voyage all the way across the ocean in the 12 hour bus ride it was a really good movie about how the depth of the presence is just yeah beautiful pure kindness gentleness love and joy and then and then trust the process that everything that needs to come up well i saw hand back there in the back well the best way to ignore it is to is to expose it so so for example it's like when people say let's sleeping dogs lie you know if there's something that is even annoying you or irritating you or whatever then don't miss that opportunity you know don't think oh well it's not so bad at least i'm not raging i'm just annoyed don't don't listen to that voice that tries to make a hierarchy of upsets just use everything and then when you do it's kind of like instead of sleeping the dirt under the rug and having lumps in the rug you know you you get the sleeper in the vacuum out and you start to love yourself by caring for your state of mind so that even if you're a little annoyed or irritated that you take the time to to forgive that's probably the best way we've got one right here hi i just wanted to ask the gender is never referring to the feminine or to female even i noticed that frances was speaking earlier she referred to and forgiving her brother yes and and you know i've looked through the course and there is not one single reference to the feminine aspect if so to speak yes so it's very good yeah it's another very good question um yeah the the course came i think not only did the course come first as an answer to describe ellen shuckman and bill who were having trouble as research psychologists in their daily life at columbia presbyterian medical center but but i i actually feel that the the course came as a correction for the patriarchal system throughout all of history like for example christianity it there's it's so patriarchal uh when you look at it so so i could see that jesus was making a higher correction like here come to me for the correction in your mind but i'm even going to use language i'm going to use the masculine pronouns to undo the the patriarchal system and and to me ellen shuckman was was a woman and she was described she's the one who took it down on shorthand she actually uh after she had described the the text the workbook the manual for teachers the whole hundred and twelve hundred some pages there was a pause there for a while and then um her friend ken walknick came to her and said uh she kept talking about prayer and jesus is really helpful with prayer she gets me green pantyhose and he gets me the kind of coat the winter coat that i won and ken said i think there's a little more to prayer than him getting you pantyhose and and coats and everything maybe we should ask jesus so they asked jesus can you tell us more about prayers so that she started taking down from him and here he comes because that was one of her questions like there's no feminine pronouns in the book here he comes with sister her he actually used those the feminine pronouns just to show that the form didn't matter i think what he was doing was he was using uh the basically religion christianity he was using psychology and he was using education most of his terms are drawn from those three he's also using shakespearean blank verse he loved shakespeare so he did verse after verse line after line in in shakespearean blank verse and uh and i have been asked that question a number of times um many times around the world and and i think he was making a statement that spirituality is should not be tied in to one gender or the other so he's correcting it in the same form that that kind of went awry you know the ego kind of really turned it into very patriarchal teaching and this was like his correction thank you it's a good question yes well we know from the bible and the sermon on the mount he said judge not best you be judged he's got a very interesting line in the course of miracles where he starts out the sentence the one right use of judgment when jesus christ starts out a sentence with the one right use of judgment that's got my attention because i know he's all about non-judgment but he says the one right use of judgment is how do you feel now that's he's being as direct and as simple as he can by saying that your feelings are like your barometer they're like your your thermostat for for whether you're following the spirit or the or the ego but remember also the ego is so ingenious and tricky that it's made up a lot of emotions to make it complicated so you know sometimes when you feel embarrassed you know you know how embarrassment feels that's a form of fear but it's a very different form of fear than rage or you know guilt or shame you see how the ego and the other thing i would say is the ego made up pleasure so in the course of miracles jesus says all real pleasure comes from doing god's will which means really got to do a lot of tuning in but pain and pleasure are both inventions of the ego both reinforce the body is real think about it when you're having an orgasm are you thinking of god and flip side is when you have a migraine headache are you making all glory to god pain and pleasure are part of a very tricky deception that actually jesus says you have to go to so depths of miracle working and get so into the joy of being used in the miracle that you actually transcend the pain and the pleasure so that's the simple answer that's the short answer but we're i see some one more question here we go yes that's a very very good question we probably could spend a week on that question and and and sometimes we spend six weeks talking about that and a woman came to one of our six weeks retreats diagnosed with cancer and she left in total remission so something even like cancer for whatever basically yes everything in it seems to be in the physical world is a reflection of consciousness and so there is no symptom that for no pain no suffering that cannot be removed from the miracle that's what jesus was really demonstrating when he healed the sick raised the dead cast out demons didn't matter whether it was leprosy you know or Lazarus was not only dead but the body was he was in his grave close he was in the in the tomb for three days smelly body jesus rolled the stone away you know he was just demonstrating this there's no water of difficulty in miracles it transcends everything of what we call the physical realm and as you go deeper into miracles you start to realize that's a huge realization that that there is not really a physical level and a mental level that that this entire world is mental sometimes people use that as an insult like oh she's mental he's mental you can say yeah i am mental and i'm really working on my mental to clear out my mental from these judgments and grievances so it seems like there's a projected world and it's an outer world and an inner experience but actually the more you do the workbook lessons of the course you start to feel it's all unified like everything and the black holes are are in mind the the quasars the things that we think of as distant galaxies are all in mind and and this is just a world of ideas but that takes a lot of practice you know you're not asked to do that the beginning you're asked to just practice your daily lesson with the people in your life and it may be meeting somebody who has who has symptoms you know or having symptoms that seem to be in the body but there's probably part of louise hey you can heal your life jesus really one of his little pamphlets he almost was like speaking right right to louise he was saying basically yes a careful tracing back of a symptom to the unforgiveness in the mind can still brings you to the point where you have to forgive in other words even if you went okay i i'm sore back and i'm concerned about money issues and support like louise says still he's he's working at the level of mind to forgive the thought of lack or whatever and so even the tracing back can can be a step but ultimately we have to go even deeper we have to be willing to let go of of what we're thinking and believing okay we did it thank you for coming coming out and especially to dave and francis for giving his honor and presents here in carthage thanks so much