 And each of us our main purpose is to forgive. It's our only purpose. It's found on that word, because I think there's a whole lot more to it. Well, forgiveness, when I've been asked about the question, when you first, a lot of times when you first work with a chorus, you'll notice in the workbook he has like lessons where he'll say, picture someone you have a grievance against or something, you know, and he'll say, you probably have thought of him now and then, you know, surround your friend in life and then transfer the life to one you, whom you call a friend. So, he's actually got like guided visualization exercises right in the chorus that are helpful. I would call those more introductory. I mean, I think that if you really get into the chorus and you really start to say, what is forgiveness really, you know, that you start to see other things. For instance, he'll say, you forgive your brother for what he has not done to you. Not for what he has. That's not the way Ego sees it. Ego says, I've got it right here, black and white. He frowned at me first. He screened me. He called me names and he walked out. You know, there's the memory. There's the visual memory. That's a sin. Now, and it's true. The Ego says, face it. It's true. He did it. He did it. There's no denying it. You saw it with your own two eyes. Now, basically, the Ego's forgiveness is to forgive what's true. So, here's this perception, you know, what somebody did to us and everything. And basically, the Ego kind of says, dresses it up because I'm a good course student. You know, because I'm elevated in spirituality, I was the kindest of my heart. Even though you don't deserve it. I'm able to forgive you. And Jesus kind of says, get off it. You're kind of like, have not forgiven this at all. That's the Ego's version of forgiveness. Forgive your brother for what he has not done. Now, that takes, you know, you really got to get into the metaphysics of the course. That's where this whole thing being in a projection and being illusion is really important. Because what I can't stand to look in my own mind and see, I project out in the form of a behavior. In other words, these attack thoughts that we're holding in our minds, we project out and we call forth witnesses to bring to us exactly what we think. So, if we are thinking guilty thoughts and we're thinking these attack thoughts we'll call forth witnesses and we'll see proof, you know. So, you can see where forgiveness in the end comes down to letting go of the attack thoughts. That's lesson number 23. I can escape from what I see by giving up attack thoughts. And that's as clear as you can. After he sets the groundwork on the first 22, he really comes through with that. Another thing is forgiveness is described, we've already talked about how there's, I call them forward thoughts or real thoughts in our mind, which is the Holy Spirit's thoughts. Your mind is very powerful, the Holy Spirit says. You're very powerful and your mind is causative. And the backward thoughts are, I'm a little victim in this big world and I'm teeny and I'm a hopeless victim, helpless. And those are backward thoughts. So, the more we get real clear what forgiveness really is, is just turning cause and effect around in our mind. So, we let go of all the backward thoughts and all we retain are the thoughts of the Holy Spirit. And that's been our peace. So, the other thing too about it is it seems to be a process. And I would say that as you work with the Course, it seems to be one of the most deeply rooted beliefs is the belief in linear time. So, as long as that belief is way down there, we'll say that's on the first floor of the World Trade Center. As long as that belief is anchored down there, it's going to seem like it's going to take time to do this. Now, the whole basis of the Course is to start to see that all, the Master Switch shows that all of the branches of the tree or all the floors in the World Trade Center are identical. You know, they're just different fragments of the same ego belief. As long as we believe that they're different and that some concepts and beliefs are like we were saying earlier are more valuable than others are important. That is like, I'll hold a few back from the Holy Spirit and it seems like I'll go through the tree and say, I'll give you this one, this one, this one, this one. This one, this one. As long as we retain some beliefs, it's kind of like saying that we want to hold onto some illusions. And the truth can't be reconciled with illusions at all. Jesus at one point in the Course is pretty late so as you will learn this Course entirely or not at all. It makes sense, you know, why He's so non-compromising. He knows that if there's a hundred branches on the tree and we give up 99, we're still not going to be at peace because we'll still have one quick dangling down there. You know, He's saying it just takes one complete instant. So that's really what the Course of Miracles is. It seems like a process, but the deeper you get into it, the more you see that you can recognize these backwards and forward thoughts and you say, all the backward thoughts, I don't want any of them. You know, I don't want one of them and then that's where the release takes place. So that's kind of a deeper way of looking at forgiveness than just kind of like, well, I'll say I'm sorry or I'll make amends or, you know, something at a stand level. What does David Hofmeister's mind do all day? I watch. I mean, how do you perceive the world? What do you think about it? Well, there's a quote, I was going through the Course today and there was a quote that I found on Teachers of God and this was one that really resonated with me because this is kind of how it feels for me a lot. But it says, Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God's teachers. They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die. Yet they are not deceived by what they see. They recognize that to behold a dream figure as sick and separate is no more real than to regard it as healthy and beautiful. Unity alone is not a thing of dreams and it is this God's teachers acknowledge has behind the dream, beyond all seeming and gets surely theirs. That's really kind of what it comes down to more. It becomes like a natural detachment because they've talked about the Zen, the Buddhist and the Yogi's and everything and talked about a state of detachment. But the only thing about a lot of the past of the world is they've talked about you've got to do this, these rituals, meditate 14 hours a day and sit this way and hold your hands this way and this and that. And the Course is basically saying all you have to do is hold on to the purpose of forgiveness and let go of these false beliefs and you will become detached. It's not like you're detached from the forms per se but you're detached from your desire to judge the forms. Because as soon as I judge something's good and something's bad, then I make the world real. It can't be an equally illusory world if part of it's good and part of it's bad and see how that kind of denies that the world is an illusion if I do that. And so it can seem at times too that people can say, what about things like likes and dislikes and opinions? Well, pretty soon you cease to have an opinion if you cease to take sides on issues because you can see the foolishness of opinions and judgments in taking sides. People will say, but what about things like preferences? How do you live in this world without preferences? But it's like they start to fade. It's not like that they've yanked away. That was my old way of approaching things. It's kind of like if you had desires and it seemed to be so powerful instead of wrestling with them the more you stay focused on your purpose it's like they start to dry up and then you can flick them off like some dandruff instead of wrestling and battling with them which is the way it seems for a lot of us that when anybody has been in addictions in any way, shape or form that's sort of what it comes down to. Judgment is our only addiction and really all we have to do is give up judgment and everything else will take care of itself. That's good news. So do you just clear your mind and just be or just watch things as they go by and don't get involved in them or what? It's not so much passive in the sense that the Holy Spirit can work through us and a lot of times I think with a lot of the eastern approach people think of detachment and wrestling in your mind is just sitting there and not doing anything and in the very, very, very ultimate sense if you read the section in the Course called I need do nothing that's literally what it comes down to in the end when you've given up your judgments and there's nothing else to pursue then you can sink down into the light go down into the basement that you literally need to do nothing that's the happy realization that's the end but for the mind it's not trained and it's too afraid to go down into the basement there then what happens is you get onto this purpose and then the thing that you would most want to do to come to your mind from a place of non-investment then you do it just comes down to mind watching and there are times in the Course where you can say search your mind there are other times where you say don't search just let the thoughts bubble up and when they do and if I start to feel a little out of piece or whatever I do what's your name? Jim I do what Jim talked about is I bring it back to my identity attachment in other words I try to trace the the string or the cord back into my mind and what happens is when I really do that whenever I'm feeling a little out of source it's because it has something to do with this personhood identity not with my abstract mind but with my identification with this person so that's helpful too as soon as I can see it I can say oh boy oops and once you've looked at it then it's out of there Steve, so do you analyze what it is or you just notice that it's there and then you just give it out for a while? I don't think analyzing is I think at the beginning I used to do that but what happens with analyzing and analyzing is kind of breaking apart and what happens is the more I get into the Course the more it's like is it backwards or forward? if it's backwards oops you see that takes the analysis out of it if I'm starting to try to find oh compare this branch to this branch you can see how you can get it it can be amusing to the ego to start doing that so it's more of just like backwards and forward covered a lot of ground in there you talk a little bit in relation to health but that's always a big thing for everybody I think sometimes it's you know it is for me to try to walk my way through my feelings about it you know that fears if you get over of being sick you know and I know you know I know the theory as far as the body and all that you know but there just seems to be sometimes a space between theory and applications that you know I'm and I believe that that you know there's a point at which I wouldn't have any questions you know but sometimes you're still back in that area where you have questions and you know maybe someone maybe someone else is very ill or he's dying I try to figure this out you know in my thinking that you know in the coursework and everything but it seems to me there shouldn't be illness because that's of the mind again you know there shouldn't be that and then when you see it and you see someone die then it's very hard to reconcile that you know and you know that they were seemingly in the world at least a very right thinking person you know then in a period of years you know this is from the teacher's manual on how our healing and atonement related basically it's the one third paragraph where it basically says the idea that a body can be sick is a central concept in the ego's thought system so the idea that a body can be sick is a central concept in the ego's thought system and it seems that way in this world I mean it's a common accepted thing that symptoms are seen in that that a body is sick but he's just saying once again it's an idea this thought gets the body autonomy separates it from the mind and keeps the idea of attack in violence if the body could be sick atonement would be impossible a body that can order a mind to do as it sees fit could merely take the place of God and prove salvation is impossible so there's a question about the levels and believing that there's something causative down here at the world of form because I mean that's literally the way that the deceit mind sees things I mean it just still takes something simple like germs we've grown up we've learned that there's certain things that carry germs you know, roaches carry germs and if you leave food out and you know in the bathroom if you don't wash your hands or so and so forth you know the basic view of course is that that's how one gets the flu or cold is through germs they even study it through sneezes in the air but you see how the whole thing is basically saying that there's something that's happening on the screen that these germs are coming and somehow getting into this body and that's giving the body the flu or whatever you can see how it still doesn't jive with what the course is saying only the mind can be sick and that when the mind is sick it thinks that it's made up a self-concept that's different than the spirit it thinks that it's this teeny little self and not only that it wants to be right about this little self I'm unique I'm special I'm important