 There's a line in a course of miracles that says your brother is the mirror in which you see the perception of yourself. As long as the perception lasts, notice that end part. Your brother is the mirror in which you see the perception of yourself as long as the perception lasts. It's good that Jesus put that thing in the end there because you could forever get stuck in the mirroring concept. You can get stuck in any metaphor and the ego would have you freeze down and get stuck on the rung of the ladder in the metaphor as long as the perception lasts. As long as there's still a perception of a subject and an object, as long as it seems like there's something outside of your mind, the mirroring is going on with everyone that you meet, too, not just your partner. Someone at the grocery store, the person that you glance at as you're walking your dog down the street and your eyes meet, every seeming casual encounter, long-term relationships, work relationships, everything, your dog is mirroring, your cat is mirroring, the music that you listen to on the radio or the headset is mirroring and it will continue mirroring your thoughts as long as the perception lasts until you have a realization that it's all you, that it's all unified is a better way maybe of putting it and that quantum field or that forgiven world or that unified perception is the goal of the course, that's the forgiven world. So as long as the perception lasts, you are getting lots of opportunities every moment of every day and if somebody's acting out and you go that's weird, well there's still something weird that you believe is in the quantum field. There's no weirdness in the happy dream, there's no weirdness in the quantum field, everything is just unified, completely connected, but if you say that's a little weird, that's a little strange, did you see what they did? Did you see that look that they gave? Can you believe this person is still doing this after all these years of studying the course? Well that person I thought they were a saint, but then I heard, but I said no, it can't be real so I let it go, but then I saw with my own two eyes, you know it's still personal, personal, personal, personal, but your brother is the mirror in which you see the perception of yourself, as long as the perception lasts, as long as that subject-object split, observer-observed is still held on to, which has nothing to do with reality, it's totally a fabrication, it's totally egoic. So as we get into this contact like with relationships, again your partnerships are not your classrooms because the classroom is the mind, you're watching your emotion. Jesus says in the Course, the one right use of judgment is how do you feel? If you're not supremely happy, if you're not consistently supremely happy, there's some forgiveness lessons going on and what's happening is you're trying to hold on to some thoughts in your mind that God did not create and it's intense to try to hold on to thoughts in your mind that God did not create, these are called judgments and self-concepts and then it's so intense that they seem to get projected out and acted out by your cat, by your dog, by your partner, by all the people, by the politicians, by the Course in Miracles teachers, by your favorite gurus, they will get acted out all the time if you're not really seeing them for what they are, just as false thoughts that have no validity and no reality whatsoever. So isn't it great that they're acted out? Especially if you're not aware of what they are, you need the help of having them acted out. So always gratitude and appreciation is always an appropriate reaction when you start to see how wonderful everything in this world is. Now there's also a part in the workbook where Jesus says, everything that I think and say and do teaches all the universe. Everything that I think and say and do teaches all the universe. So you're teaching based on what you think you are. If you think you're a mother, the whole world's a mother. If you think you're a father, the whole world's a father. If you think you're a Course in Miracles teacher or student, the whole world's a Course in Miracles teacher. If you like a Snickers bar, the whole cosmos likes Snickers bar because there's no world apart from what you think. Ideas leave not their source. And just like Christ had never leave the mind of God in heaven, these thoughts in your mind like desiring Snickers bar are reflected in the whole cosmos. You may think it's your body that's craving Snickers bar, but remember the cosmos is no different than your body. It's the whole linear cosmos is a reaction, is an outpicturing of how you see yourself, what you believe about yourself, the entire cosmos has to act out. And you have to realize that's a much larger context. Some of you might remember from the workbook that lesson 152, the power decision is my own where he basically says you may believe that this is what he's teaching right now. Too all-encompassing to be the truth. He says, but truth has no exceptions. So the mind is that powerful. Everything in the cosmos is coming from thoughts and beliefs in the mind without exception. So when it comes down to these relationship things, this gives us a broader context. So whenever you try to see it and solve the puzzle from a personal perspective, and you say, well maybe there's a reason that I'm playing the mom role or the dad role, maybe there's a reason why I'm in the teacher role, maybe there's a reason why I have this specific partner and not that specific partner, or maybe there's a value in the role that I'm playing. Remember this, the Holy Spirit has to give you those roles as part of the unwinding of your mind from time and space. It has to be a guided and given role that you still believe in, but that's going to actually help you loosen your mind from the grip that the ego has. And you can tell a lot of us have been guided to do things. We've had work roles, we've had relationship roles, we've had parental roles, we've played the child in the family, sometimes we play sibling roles, sometimes we've played roles in society, but everything the Holy Spirit's going to give you in terms of roles is going to be unwinding your mind from what? From all the roles, because God didn't create the roles. The ego made the roles. If you're in a relationship and your partner says, well, we've been boyfriend and girlfriend for some time now, and I'm really not into labels. I don't know if I want to continue on with those labels. It's not just the words that change the change things in the world. It's literally when we start to let go of the concepts in our mind under the Holy Spirit's guidance that the whole perception of the world starts to soften and loosen and the control starts to leave. We start to feel love and respect and connection when we start to loosen from those roles, not by changing our name, not by changing the words and saying, well, I'm not going to ever use that word again. It's too limiting or how people change their name. I'm not going to be Betty anymore. I'm not going to be Fred anymore. I'm going to be Starlight. We may think that we can come up with better names for ourselves, and it's fine. It could even be guided. We're not saying there's anything good or bad about the names, but truly the healing occurs when we start to loosen from our belief that we are the role. Because what does it say when we believe we are the role? It says we are the doer. And how is the doer ever going to be the being? Are we forever going to be stuck being human doings? Or are we going to go for human beings and then finally beings, a perfect being of love and light? You see where it's heading into abstraction. It's heading back into vastness, which is what our creation is. God created us as the Christ. The Christ is a pure idea that lives in the mind of God. It's an eternal light, and it just goes on and on with love and gratitude and joy, and it's just a perfect creation. That's our reality. So why would we cling to these self-concepts that the ego made up as a substitute to try to play tiny when we're so vast? Why would we try to play small when we're so absolutely vast? We're not at the mercy of the world. The world is in our mind. So in my early years with the Course, whenever I'd be upset at a politician or something in society, I didn't like the way the government was going. I didn't like the way the planet was going, something, something. I would have thoughts in my mind which were being triggered about the world. Jesus would say, you still think you're in the world? I'd say, yeah. Yeah. I'm ticked off too. I'm not happy. And he said, the world is in you. It might remind you of Christ of Murdy. I am the world. The world is me. You know, it was he was teaching the unification of consciousness and awareness. So if you if you're struggling with your partner and you're struggling with a relationship, just remember that you aren't in the relationship. The relationship is in you. When you're struggling with a family, you aren't in the family. The family is in you. Remember, everything is a concept. And we're here to bring the darkness of the concepts to the light and let them disappear. We're not here to try to become spiritualized humans, spiritualized men. Don't you love that when you're having a conversation? Did you meet so and so? Yeah, I did. They are so spiritual. The most spiritual person I met. Doesn't that strike you as funny? Spiritual person, spiritual person, person, persona, mask, spiritual mask. That's the most spiritual mask I've met. And I've been living for 57 years on the planet. And that's I've met a lot of masks, but that mask is the most spiritual mask I've ever seen. Of course, when people get into my guru is better than your guru or my avatar is more realized than your avatar. And, you know, it's like saying that the masks can somehow be realized. How can a mask be realized if it's just a mask over our one self, our unified self? So it really is great when we get into those questions about relationships because you have to remember the underlying context that the Holy Spirit will give you everything you need and will renew it as long as you have need of it. Isn't that wonderful? That's really wonderful. But the Holy Spirit would not have you linger in time because we're not created to be time beings. So when we start to get to a point where we start to feel like we're compromising in a relationship, and you've authentically been really looking at everything that's coming up and going, yeah, there's that issue again or yep, that's just acting out something I'm still holding on to and you start to really honestly take a look at your thoughts, look closely at your thoughts. You're doing a lot of mind watching in your mind training. That's beautiful. If it seems like there's a context or a role that you've been playing for days, weeks, months, or even years, and you still are deeply identified with that role or concept, then you have to be open to really giving that to the Holy Spirit saying here, here's something that I've been attached to or connected to or believing who I am for a long time. You take it from me spirit. And if I'm supposed to stay with it for a little bit longer than use it, you use it for your purpose because you would not have me linger in time. You would have me transcend time, not just play small and use the role as a defense against the awakening. You see the difference there? It's really a question of purpose. It's like you have to give it to the Holy Spirit and say, be you in charge. That's how the workbook of A Course in Miracles ends. This holy instant, what I give to you, be you in charge for I would but follow. The only way we're going to be unwound from this world is to be so devoted to the Spirit using everything just for the purpose of dissolving the ego, just for the purpose of undoing our self-concept. And that's really the question. That's what's there under the question. I was just talking to her friend recently and he was telling me this example with the mother event, that the dynamic between the son and mother relationship, how frustrating it has been for him. It doesn't really seem to be any specific but just the tone of voice, the way she would talk to him. Her experience was so out of proportion that he could not understand why he felt that way and how to forgive that because there's almost like no reasonable specifics for him to forgive. It's just these huge out of proportional emotions. Then we did come down to this mother role. Mother role has been there the whole time and he was expressing his desire to be equal because the role has played and has maximized and now he wants to relate in an equal way but does not want to relate in a role anymore that's in the past. And then the more we talk to his story to say maybe I have been playing the role too. She is just mirroring back what I've been playing. So I must have been playing the son role. And that is in a way true because we cannot see the role that we're playing is very, very unconscious. So the only way we can see it is projecting in our words and that's why all these people and relationship is served as a mirror because we can see what other people are doing but we can't really see that the pattern that we're doing it. But rather than just saying that I'm upset with the mother son role so let me look at where I'm playing the son role that's for sure but also I think there could be other roles that that has been maximized that we keep playing and then we just project all this frustration outward. So I was just talking about how there are many, many roles as spirit of giving us over time but they have been outgrown over time and if we keep playing it without even aware of it and just all these relationships and people will reflect back. And today in our group actually someone expressed this frustration of having been a helper for a long time and really want to help people but also this authentic feeling of not really feeling the compassion or relate to the story that people are telling and yet fail the responsibility. I should feel sorry for them. I should relate to them and I feel guilty for not even feeling anything. And that is actually in another way to say that there is a role I need to play even not necessarily a fixer but just how to relate to human beings. If someone is upset, is crying in front of me then they expect me to comfort them. Then I should play out these expectations and this is my role to be a good person or to be whatever but honestly I don't feel anything but I can't trust my feeling I should trust the set of rules that I was brought up with you know and that's exactly the frustration because we are outgrown this kind of concept and restrictions in our mind as we go on this path and that's why it is very important to start to express and look at how we honestly feel and start to use that as a guide instead of you know the rules and should be in the society because then we get locked into this kind of role, role plays. It's very unconscious and spirit does sometimes the guidance seems to be counter the roles that we're playing because you know I remember maybe Kim last night brought up this this feeling of with his father his father wants to to be liked and yet he felt maybe there is an urge to say I don't like you but that's not loving and definitely not a right response from a son to a father but you know that can be looked at whether it's guidance but to me I remember I had this experience when I first moved into the community and after a while I was given a little small leadership role and I was given a team and all the team came here this girl that met me the first time said to me that I hate you because she she does not like that I'm going to be overseeing her but this is so directly to my face that I hate you and that's something that I thought I would fear the most is people telling me that they hate me but I didn't expect what actually comes with that was an experience of relaxation of I do not need to please her at least because that's not going to work she already hates me from the start and that gives me a real freedom to be myself actually that's how the relationship went between us because from the day from day one I somewhere in my mind gave myself permission just to be myself and not to expect someone will like me or look at me certain way and that isn't isn't that what we want is this permission of freedom just to be you know not play a role not play a set of rules and not even to to be liked or loved and that's actually where we're leading to just just be honest with these feelings and and trust that the Holy Spirit is behind everything and is guiding us you know for what is most helpful and that you can feel the strength of not trying to please and not trying to live up to expectations from the past there's so much heaviness there's so much weight from trying to act out these beliefs and expectations from the past and it doesn't matter how long it's played out some of these roles like when we look at mother daughter roles or father son roles or parental parent child roles they seem to be reinforced over many many years and you know sometimes people are in the course going well yeah maybe my mom is that's just a concept and just a role but tell her that the next time she comes over well the thing about it is these are the kind of experiences that all of us have been going talk a bit about Jackie and Kirsten and the unloot loosening of the the mother daughter role of coming so deep into an experience that it transcends these roles of the past they're just it's as if they never were you go so into the moment so into the love and the light is so vast and expansive that it's laughable to think that you could ever have been a mother a daughter a father a son it's been fun with with you with your because your biological father passed away but but with your mother it was very much fun to watch Francis because you know we would go over to China and you know there are there were hundreds of people wanting to come together with us in very large gatherings there are people wanting to have dinners with us lunches with us it's like the Beatles we were more we were more like John and Yoko landing in China a country with how many people in China 13 13 billion people we land over there like John and Yoko we'll get our story right here so we go over there and we're going around and this and this and this and then you know I think initially when we went over there your mother was like saying oh when am I going to see you are you coming to visit me you know the things you might you know she doesn't get back to China often you come to visit me can you come to stay with me and we've got the schedule and it's just packed by the Holy Spirit you know all these places were supposed to go and people were supposed to meet and teach and so I think I don't remember how the first time we went there did you even come in contact with her at all the first time in Beijing I don't remember either I know that it's it's far from this whole idea of being a dutiful daughter you know you're showing up it just is a extending for the whole universe you know it's and there was one point where her mother was like can you can you can you and and then princess is like looking at it's quite a full schedule imagine saying them on my schedules really I can we can have dinner for one hour you know out of all the visit me and then even the visits were very purposeful because all the encounters Francis really had no time she was not guided to use time to go back into typical human kind of issues and then the her mother would quickly start reflecting her devotion to presence and purpose by showing up when she show up for an hour meal she would have all her questions written out how and they weren't about this aunt this sister who did what who married who and who got divorced and you know the typical stuff that goes on in these encounters it was they were very deep profound questions this was from a woman who was an atheist she's reflecting back the devotion and the desire for awakening and then there were even mystical experiences as as Francis stated her true empathy and her teaching function her mother flipped from seemingly being an atheist woman who was just you know into material things and so on and so forth into actually having mystical experiences she she reflected the mysticism of the mind so it's not you can't think of of people as if you know them if you really know who they are it's very tempting to think I know I've been living with them for so many decades and they're not going to change you know they're this way you can't teach a an old dog new tricks you can't have a change in these relationships when actually if you're devoted to this purpose so much and you give yourself your mind fully over to it then those characters will flip the turnaround and will light up and sparkle just like everyone else in your life because they are all reflections of your purpose your mind is that powerful that it will flip around and it was you know quite amazing each time there we would there were just brief encounters that you would have with your mother but then it wasn't reflecting the mother daughter relationship there was even one time when she had gone online and and this man Albert had translated all of these deep teachings I've done for many years into Mandarin and it proliferated all over China so people came hundreds of miles over a thousand kilometers long pilgrimages to come and be with us we would say leave all sell all you have give to the poor and go to the light and they would turn into sinyasis we actually had sinyasis springing up around us who would say okay I traveled taking a big train ride and I have all my possessions with me in a suitcase and one guy named hoped he actually hoped a Chinese man actually had all his belongings down to one suitcase he was so devoted and following the spirit and then he wanted to follow us from Shanghai up to Beijing he had to take a high speed train and they told him you can't take your your luggage because he's down he's down to one suitcase and they say you can't take it we said what did you do we asked him when we got to Beijing what did you do he said well I threw it in the I threw it out in the train station he said you threw your last belongings your luggage he said yeah but I did walk up to the janitor and I said in this suitcase you can have anything you want in it when you open it it has a book in it this book his course of miracles book he even threw his book out this book will change your life forget about the clothes and the toiletries imagine telling a janitor in a train station this book will change your life just go into this luggage and off he went with another friend of ours another sinyasis off they went to Beijing when they arrived at Beijing we said what's going on in Beijing they were being hosted at this spiritual center where the woman was a multi-millionaire and she was sent to all these deep non-dualistic teachings including the course of miracles and everybody in her center can stay for free all and the volunteers stay for free and she pays to bring in teachers to teach she gives them airfare she takes care of them if every single person that's there volunteering is there completely free with no stipend no money involved and these two are sinyasi friends end up at in Beijing city of a huge city they end up at this very center where they are perfectly taken care of not surprising at all when you see how powerful your mind is you see where this is going you you are not limited at all you can take the parameters off of whatever you feel is limiting you in your life because it's all based on your beliefs and thoughts and you don't have to buy into those anymore so this is just fantastic we're actually giving like the metaphysics of divine providence here you know that that St. Francis and Jesus and the scenes and mother Teresa and so many have demonstrated so beautifully for so many years witnesses to us and now it's time for you to take your place in your mind like they did in the mind and accept your magnitude accept your business it does seem very sticky like with this family concept just because it's just so you know in in trench in our humaneness and even with my mother I know that when we went to Beijing one time and she really wanted to meet David she has never met David actually not till today but she really wanted to meet David and she asked me can I can I see David I said I just look at the schedule and how many people there are waiting to have a counseling or a meeting with David and I said well I don't know what I have to see whether there is time and she said I am your mother and I just came out but you're not special but that's like that's the way I really see her is she her you know everybody's calling for truth but there's someone who is reflecting a such a strong call and yearning to you know have this light and their life is waiting to transform right at that point and my mother also wanted to meet him but more like I'm your mother so it's like okay let's let's just put that aside just for now and yet she is one of the many many people who are calling for truth so there is no hierarchy there is no more important or less but that's the way that we practice you know how to let go of these roles and how to be true to ourselves is everybody is the same she is not less but she is the same as everybody else and the reward of keep doing that you know the reflections didn't come immediately and if I keep wanting something from her like wanting her approval or wanting her understanding I will never get it it's like wanting something from picture and never get anything from it but just to withdraw the attention back to myself and keep practicing it using every time there's these encounters to say you know what is truth myself what is my call of the heart for awakening and then over years she started to reflect back but the reward is not that we started to have a better interpersonal relationship the reward I can tell you is to realize that she is not outside of my mind and that is the most peaceful thing that I can ever have is not something that is finally approved of me but to see that she is not really there that's the goal you know and I actually just recently I remember this funny encounter that I had with her when I was very young there was this moment of glimpse of maybe truth when I was maybe five six years old I just suddenly get confused about I said to her I said I feel I am real it's me I'm real but do you feel the same are you are you there too are you real like this me this feeling of me do you know what I'm saying and actually she said to me she said I know what you're saying and I can't answer you and it's like someone telling me she doesn't know whether she's real or not actually but the answer was so surprising to me that I actually let it go at that point but now after decades I remember that little encounter and this is what happens finally we are actually together for a mission that is so holy that is not to play another daughter role to have a good relationship on this planet earth and on timeline we are to see what is real and we're doing this together and we might say too that that she was just curious when we were over there and so all these writings and teachings I'd done for so many years had been translated into Mandarin and were very available on the web so her mother started checking it out she's an atheist but she started reading all the teachings and reading and reading and reading and then she had an encounter with Francis was like well I did read and David is teaching that we are spirit that the world is not real and she went she recanted the teachings just like if you were studying the course her mother who's an atheist recanted all the teachings to her and then just said you know if this is true then who are we to each other if I'm not your mother and you're not my daughter you see how just encountering the teachings came into a sincere question of the heart if I'm not your mother and you're not my daughter then who are we to each other very sincere question being reflected back and then the answer the answer that actually I just want to say at a point my mind was so blank I didn't expect that question from my mother I didn't know how to answer it to make her understand or make her not upset or so my mind went blank and yet the answer just moved through in a very direct way saying our relationship is the dreamer of the dream and the dream character and she's like what and then I went into this dream analogy of night night dreams and how you dream up the whole world and all the people and this is how actually what our relationship is and I went on and on and on for a long time actually but she was just right there with me was so engaged at the end she just made one comment she said so who am I it's the only real question isn't that and I said yeah wow just a sincere encounter yeah just totally sincere there letting go of the roles for an instant just you know let's really connect here this is too important love is too important for us to banter around these little things what's your niece doing is she doing okay in school and what about so and so did they get over that bout with such and such and you know it's a you look at the human kind of conversations you know it's just daily mundane how are you doing let's catch up okay what are you doing or how are you doing are you in a relationship are you gonna tell us about this it is it how's your brother doing how's your skin all the things is just catching up on on nothing what should do about nothing and then you wonder why you sit there for like two hours and you feel frustrated why are you perplexed that you feel frustrated with these kind of conversations unless you feel some kind of obligation and duty well she did raise me she did bring me into this world you think the Christ was raised by humans the Christ is an eternal being Jesus even in the Bible with when his mother would appear in the crowd or whatever what wouldn't even pay any attention to her who is my father mother sister brother he that does the will of our father in heaven his father mother's sister brother there wasn't even any special attention paid to the apostles a lot of times he'd be out there teaching his universal teachings and then you know sometimes they'd be off in the upper room or some other place and then word would get out that Jesus had done a teaching session it's fun to read some of these things in the orantia book it's kind of gives you a more intimate snapshot where the apostles would come up and they would say hey we heard you taught this out there in the boat today or you've taught this in public why didn't you tell us first about this you're out there teaching the public and we're 12 guys we're hanging in with you with this whole ride and you're telling them this and he would he would say well this is what they had the public could hear this is the way I explained it in parables for those that have the ears to hear and then he would take the time to explain this is what I mean and this is what in the context of the upper room he would talk to them what they could hear his own followers you see how loving eternity is just kind of doesn't try to force anything on anyone it just offers what it can offer you know even for the guy that said I would follow you and you know and and then Jesus you know they says but oh but I have to go to the next town to bury my father can't can't come right now you know and so Jesus says let the dead bury the dead and people think that was harsh that was eternity speaking if eternity is talking to you why are you talking about a dead man in the next town if the I am presence is saying follow me what what you're going to hold off ago deal with a dead body so what if it's your biological father they carry the dead let the dead bury the dead it was a very compassionate thing to say like you don't want to waste a moment when you can step into eternal life with me and and really follow what I'm saying this I'm offering you eternity and you want to go bury a dead body in the next road you know so you know it's it you see how important this is that it puts it in a much higher context away from the people pleasing now sometimes I get questions about this people pleasing stuff I say no you David you're teaching no people pleasing but how do I tell the difference between people pleasing and the part of the course early on in the text it says is somebody ask you to do something outrageous do it how do how do I know that I'm not people pleasing when I'm doing that something outrageous for my brother and then it qualifies it under pages later as long as it doesn't bring arm to you or another but the the course was written for in a much broader context so when you start to look at that's when you're just starting to get away from thinking you know who you are what you are what's right what's wrong that that's answering an outrageous call is a way to to loosen your mind from the grip of control that's so strong but when you go much deeper in what kirsten was talking about these deeper teaching learning relationships that go very very deep into some of these you're actually going to have to release these roles and concepts and it actually could be almost the flip side of that do something outrageous if your brother asked you to um like your mother asking I want to have you come and visit me or can I meet David or whatever the answer can seem to be outrageously no actually if it serves the whole universe you see it's a different context for it but these are all we're getting into a lot of subtleties in working with the course because when you go much much deeper the whole points to unwind your mind from everything that you go believes and go all the way and you start sounding yourself more like the I am I am presence the eternity of you of of your Christ self starts to speak through you and uh and it's kind of humorous I just think it gets funnier and funnier and funnier one time I was visiting the biological family of David and I was there and they've heard and I'm speaking and teaching and off doing what I do for years and and one of my friends had come down to visit me from endeavor academy and he had given up his earthly name which was Howard Howard Carpenter and had taken on his new spiritual name love joy divine so I invited him to come I said oh I've invited to a birthday party or something so I take him along to the birthday party and he goes around talking to a family and they would say hi what's your name he I'm love joy divine to okay David's friends and and then he actually went to a couple of my family went up to one and he would say I'm love joy divine and so are you people don't like it when you tell them what their name is usually you ask what their name is who would say so anyway he went around and I said it comes over to my biological sister Mary Joe actually her her name is the combination of Jesus's parents Mary and Joe and he goes up to her and he goes hi I'm love joy divine she stuck her hand on she said hi I'm the biological sister and and I just laughed I mean I think it's all just humorous because whatever whatever came through her in that moment was just this context of the form is the form call it what you want you can still use the words mom and dad but there's something underneath that's eternal that is who you really are and that can come through in gentle loving wonderful ways which is really just your eternity expressing as you release these false concepts of who you thought you were and it really frees your mind so we're not here trying to say you know you should you should go and try to perform miracles on your on your family or in those roles it has to be guided by the Holy Spirit Jesus is the one who inspires the miracles he'll tell you where to bestow the miracles and and when you get into the joy of this involuntary flow it comes through it in just amazing ways but it's truly in a doing and I'm just started to read the course again and I'm reading the principle of miracles and I don't know which number it is but one of them is miracles or everyone's right but purification is needed first I just wanted to talk to that because I'm wondering okay what is it appearing through the purification and what is it that I am asked to do to get this because my miracles doesn't always feel so involuntary and it says also that when you get that they should be because otherwise they could be misguided and yeah yeah sometimes the idea of readiness comes in I remember with Jesus at the beginning I think I asked the question that a lot of people ask of Jesus and that's am I ready if you have you sure you picked the right one to be your miracle worker here and Jesus assured me oh you are ready because it is I that I'm doing it through you it's not like you have to have some kind of resume and be a proficient miracle worker when it is Christ that does it through you but it's also the sense of miracles can't be performed when there's a sense of fear or doubt they can't come through you know you can't be a channel you can't be an instrument if you're in fear or doubt it's almost like you feel off or block block the inspiration it's still there in potentiality in full capacity but it's just blocked so I think for me willingness was very important in the sense that if you're willing to be used if you're willing to surrender your day if you're willing to to really have the prayer of your heartbeat use me and you have a sincere and authentic openness to be used and temporarily you can step aside from or suspend the fear and the doubt because that openness has to be there and then the other thing is the sense of still wanting to control some aspects of life who needs a miracle where it should be bestowed it all has to be under the direction of of the one who's completed his part perfectly the one who's in charge of the atonement is the one that is going to perform the miracles it's not a human being performing miracles it's more of like people sometimes say how do I get out of the way and let divinity shine through me share through me and then with that willingness it's you allow it and then you start to gain more confidence as you keep allowing it as you keep allowing it more and more your confidence in miracle working your confidence in being used and being led grows much stronger as well and it just keeps growing and growing and growing so it's not like there's a formula with it but I would say willingness goes a long way at the beginning for me I just would wake up and open up to the day and just say okay I want to be inspired today let this day be used for miracles let this whole day be used for extending miracles and the ego was still coming in like well okay fine great great what are you gonna do now what are you gonna do now and you know it's always wants to be in charge it wants to lay the day out it wants to it's got its own ideas of what's practical and its own things based on all this past learning but it was just a surrender and open up in my heart to be used and then I little by little started to relax into it more like I would feel my heart welling up with joy I would feel like a light almost like a tickling in my heart like a little feather like somebody had a chain a feather in my heart chamber and they were just tickling away and and I thought wow this is amazing this is wonderful I really have to continue to open up I want to follow so much that that tickle grows stronger increases it was a very experiential thing for me it wasn't trying to read the book and necessarily analytically find the answers in the book because I've done that for 10 years in university going in that way but just kind of easing the way into it and I think that's part of the value of us being here is because we've Kirsten and Francis have also had those experiences where they came they joined in and ease their way in I remember when when Kirsten first came over she had had like two head injuries she was receiving disability and and yet she followed all the signs and symbols that were saying come come come to America basically she just left she thought she would become visiting and helping for a few months with secretarial things but it you know when she would say what can I do I would just say answer the phone because I had a global ministry going on from this tiny house and the big internet ministry and all the staff everyone had left except for the cats and two cats there three legged cat and a four legged cat who did not answer the phone they wouldn't do emails who didn't clean except their litter box I was cleaning the rest of the house they they wouldn't do anything but purr and love and cuddle and make these gorgeous little faces and everything but they're not in an internet ministry or they were not interested into a global ministry and when the when person came the phone kept ringing and they don't answer the phone either so I said answer the phone and there's were people calling in from around the country in the world that were calling out for help help me was really what was happening and when she just got on the phone just by answering the phone and and being prayerful to be used she started having all this heat coming in her body this body getting so so hot having to take cold showers because she was answering the phone and went from head injury to really just showing up and being used by the spirit in a very very concentrated and direct way in terms of this like like a real quick activation of of the miracle function and the same as a friend was just sharing you're at the monastery when you first came over but then once you went to this house that were put in the stewardship role and it was like you were activated in kind of a rapid way because people would be in your face I don't like this why are you doing that what what what makes you think you can tell me what to do you're people pleasing the messengers you're just like a puppet doing what the messengers are telling you to do and then all this stuff in your face in your face and then then you had to pray you really actually had to pray it wasn't even if you were raised in atheism it doesn't matter in that situation with with all this in your face you have to pray you know in order to deal with it and then it seemed to be that activated you so these are just examples about if you really if it's the prayer of your heart to be used by spirit oh be ready because I like that scripture for those who much is given much will be asked and I never knew what that meant until I said yes to God and it's like much will be asked it's it's amazing how you're put you're activated and you're used in ways that you can't even fathom you can't even imagine and the purification is happening all the time just through the willingness to to watch your mind and practice forgiveness and see attack thoughts for what they are and you know it's just sort of reminded of the journey that I went through with my biological father and the ego set all the roles up the ego you know the projection of the whole world including all of the relationships in it were of the ego and so this father figure in my life in Kirsten's life was an authority figure and he was the one that was looked to for safety for security for approval for permission to do everything you know from being a young child and and that role between father and daughter there is investment in it like the ego's investment is in it of an identification that feels safe like I know who I am in relationship to you you make me who I am you give me my reason for living for being in this particular father figure has been very strong and insisting that he is the father he will always be the father and for myself as I went through this realization that who I am is not you know these roles in this in this world I had to look very honestly at where the investment was in my mind that was holding on because I would keep getting this reflection of I will always be your father you will always be my daughter so when I started calling him Roger instead of dad was a big trigger and brought up a lot of this intensity and I would notice in my mind just wanting to push him away and say you're so unsupported of my spiritual journey I need my independence from you but this reflection kept coming and coming and so looking at it just with such honesty and I could see where there was this reciprocal relationship that had gone on and I've been dealing with the intensity of it since I was 15 years old where if I wanted money I mean it went back further than that but I could see it so clearly if I wanted money I needed to ask him for it and there'd be both this like thank god he has it to give it to me but I have to ask him like I'm at the mercy I'm in this weaker position with him being the authority figure and then as I came to being 19 and I moved out and I started my work and and yet I didn't have enough money to pay the rent I was at teacher's training college and so he offered to give me a hundred dollars a week to help pay the rent but I had to go and ask him for the money in person every time so there's this this like love hate reciprocal thing that was going on and I remember since the age of 15 having the same conversation look you're you've got to let me go you're holding on to me I need my I just want my independence and it was going on year after year after year and then as I came into this spiritual journey more consciously I could see and feel where the compromise was and the part that I was playing and I could honestly see that I didn't want to let him go because I didn't know that I would be provided for by God and so there was this little hook in my mind that was yeah I don't want your money I don't need your support I'm living in divine providence now I'm going for God but stay there just in case he was most definitely a plan B just even in the deeper recesses of my mind that's all of the words and the spiritual you know and it was quite shocking when I really saw that in a deeper level even though I'd taken all these steps and I was experiencing a lot of divine providence there was still this hook in there and then he would offer to yeah to support the spiritual journey more and I wanted to receive this support I wanted to receive this love but I still could feel this ancient underneath it yeah but not from you you know if it came from another source I could tell that's the Holy Spirit that if he offered it it's like oh so it was still there so there's been just this washing and washing and each time I go back there to New Zealand to to be there I could just really watch where there were the nuances of compromise in my mind and where I would stay you know listen to this conversation that I could feel myself dying and and just be willing to speak not from a place of you know you're of a ego I don't want to listen to you anymore which was what the thoughts were in my mind but Spirit help me help me here I'm calling for love like I need help to somehow undo this reciprocity and this feeling of obligation I have even within conversations to free my mind and the opportunities then just were provided by the Spirit where the next time I went back I was offered accommodation either with Course in Miracles friends with David 10 minutes up the road or there with family and so I got to actually play it out and I would go and stay with David and our Course in Miracles hosts and I could feel this guilt but they're missing me they want me to be with them I'm letting them down and I'd feel myself like when I was distancing myself from you know the symbols that were helping me see this guilt like you're making me feel guilty just by being here and so I'd expose all of that and express all of that and then go and stay with the family for a couple of days and feel all this guilt like oh but I'm not with David and I'm not with the Course in Miracles friends and here I am with the family and it really got to show me that the guilt was in my own mind he wasn't making me feel guilty and that helped with loosening from that even the projection onto you know if I could just wipe you out completely I'd never have to see you again it would be easier so just the willingness to be there and face that and then just speak you know communicate it of really what was in my heart and I remember one conversation I had where I just said I shared that experience that I was having and I said I feel guilty when I'm here with you and I feel guilty when I'm there with them but I'm feeling like I right now I feel like I'm being here and my heart's calling me somewhere else and there was this joining moment where you say oh my god I don't want you to be here and guilt I only want you to be here when you really want to be with me thank you so this relationship was really my relationship with God that I was healing it seems to be with him as a father figure but this father relationship really is my relationship with God and this whole projection of this misuse of the father concept you know where there's all this guilt and reciprocity and obligation underneath it like that's what's getting lifted up and over the years the last the last time I was there it was just there was so much innocence and he was like a little boy around me like he was just adorable and by then I'd started playing guitar and so there was these joinings around the Beatles and music you know it just got lighter and lighter and lighter in the light and in the last time I saw him I had done goodbye and I could I in the deepest core healing that I saw was that every time he I had perceived him as wanting something from me including like I want you to be with me wanting that from me and I've been pushing him away I I saw when I could see his innocence I could see that all that he wanted all of that time was he wanted to know that I knew he loved me the whole time was like do you know I love you do you know I love you do you know I love you and I was perceiving it as attack you want something from me he's holding on to me there's reciprocity underneath under this and when I saw that and I had done goodbye and I left and I just wept because I could feel that beyond all of the images of this world including that image in that relationship it was God saying I love you I love you forgive when you forgive everything in your mind you will know that it was only ever being loved and I stopped at the beach and I walked up the beach and I was just crying just in such gratitude and I saw this this red rose washed up on the sand I was like oh my god I carried on walking there was another red rose and another red rose there were like a dozen red roses washed up on the sand up the beach and in the spirit said to me you're forgiving your father in the depth of why this intense forgiveness lesson with a biological father it's it's since it all comes back to God it's releasing the authority problem it's releasing this belief that I can make myself any way I want to be that's all this world is is a reflection of the beliefs that you can create yourself or as the new age says you can create your own reality you can't you can accept the reality that God created you as and for you but you can't reality isn't open for creation by persons so all these ideas of reinvent yourself and give yourself a makeover and this and this and this there could be a an impetus underneath that there needs to be a change but the whole problem if you go deep enough in the mind as you see that you can you can accept yourself as God created you or you can continue this crazy game of trying to maintain and invent an identity that wasn't given to you by God and these masks are never satisfying we may enjoy Halloween to be topical this time of year when we may enjoy mask and going around playing trick or treat but at some point you have to after halloween comes all saints day and you have to actually start playing all saints I always tell people you're all saints we're all saints in training we need to start to accept that and let go of the masks let go of the distractions and actually get into accepting the the saintliness of who we are and I had a little bit of that that played out with biological father and and yet it's great because kirsten shared about her whole story of you were a time when you were a very little girl and you when you five when you packed your bags she was at five years old she packed her bags and told her mother her family that she was leaving leaving home and Jackie to her surprise said okay let's go get the grip let's go get the luggage and package because kirsten had this strong autonomous independence when you leave home not at 12 15 18 at five and pack your bags over some disagreement well I'll just walk out the door and go start another life at five there's an there's an autonomy there there's an extreme value for independence if you're packing your bags at five years old I wouldn't leave her time my shoelaces will dress me at the age of three and two and a half and three very very strong this is it sometimes people say well you know codependency this dependency being dependent on people being dependent on the government being dependent on even jobs is this oh this heavy heavy sticky feeling of being dependent depending on somebody else you know but what I laugh at is that is seen as this creepy terrible terrible thing but the flip side which is just as illusory as the dependence is the independence why do countries celebrate when they're days as independence you know independence from the from being a colony of some other country what's so great about independence really and what's so great about being an independent human being it's just as dissatisfying as being dependent you know it's the other end of the scale it's like a teeter-totter you know where you're where you're up you love playing on a teeter-totter until you get this big friend who sits on the end and you're left hanging in the air then teeter-totter is not so fun anymore because you can't get off without jumping or sliding down we always put down dependency but we don't put necessarily put down the independence that is you're trained to be a mature functioning adult human being when you're independent and you may think that you've got it good when you're independent you've got all those skills abilities you got money you've got more choices money seems to buy more things you know you follow the ego's plan to become an independent human being an independent person and you're still just as dependent on the ego as you were when you felt you were dependent on other people you follow the ego hook line and sinker into having a successful independent life on planet earth and the ego is sitting back in the mind going fooled you again got you with that independent person thing you're going to die because the ego is a death wish it's made up the whole thing like an intricate web to keep you caught in the web there's nothing the ego likes more than having you think you're independent and free when you are as morpheus tells neo and the matrix you are a slave he tells him first of all we just came to see the independence and the dependence seen through the ego is actually just keeping the separation nothing else nothing else that's the only purpose of being a mature functioning independent adult person is to keep the separation going keep the ego hidden in awareness and just like that paul simon song believe you're gliding down the highway when in fact you're slip sliding away thinking you've really met the world on the world's terms oh the world says you have to you have to be a successful person you've got to have money in the bank you've got to have investments you've got to have a nest egg you've got to have all these things for what what do all those things help you with to be an independent person and then you still die you still suffer and die with all that so i sometimes said it's the ego had a middle name and its last name was death or guilt or shame or whatever its ego had a middle name it would be autonomy that's what all this was with roger was the was the playing out of autonomy it's the flip side of that five-year-old autonomous little chris kirsten that would that actually packed her bags went with walking walking walking walking and jackie playing out perfectly instead of like saying you can't leave you're only five you won't survive oh with my little baby no jackie was like okay let's get the suitcase let's pack that bag and pack the bag and then as you went out and you kept looking back to see if you had pulled one up on jackie jackie's like going your way imagine a mother at five and then calling the neighbor saying oh kirsten's leaving home she's uh on her way past your your yard you keep an eye on her and this and this none of that kirsten sold none of that just kept looking back you're gonna let me leave you do you love me at all you're gonna let me walk out you see there was the spirit was using the lessons even at that young age of five to start to break the autonomy some of you saw that movie spirit that was another movie that was big for you the horse that wanted to break the bonds of having a master you know so it's once you go with deep enough into this you can start to see that if the body's a puppet you'd rather get back on the strings like the Pinocchio Pinocchio wanted to be a real boy and Pinocchio wanted to be off the strings he wanted to be an autonomous independent little boy and he didn't want to listen to anyone he left the puppet maker Giappetto and he wouldn't even listen to Jiminy Cricket his Holy Spirit character that was trying to help him and where did he go he went to Pleasure Island and it got worse and worse and worse it turned into a nightmare from this desire to be autonomous and then to believe you don't need any help and that's what Jesus is saying in the Course he says oh yeah you can see this world without any help you can see this world without any help but you need help to see another world you need help to have spiritual vision you need a lot of help to come back to remember who you are as Christ you can see this world without help it's that good old autonomy I'll make a world apart from heaven and I'll yes there were times I'm sure you knew when I bit off more than I could chew but through it all when there was doubt I ate it up and spit it out and through it all I stood tall I did it my Frank Sinatra was actually singing that song on a Las Vegas stage at one point and he fell over face first in his head dressed into the stage when he was singing that song elderly Frank Sinatra not the young 50s mom and when I heard this story I was like what would you expect that to me was the symbol of an ego I'll do it my way and boom face first on the stage so this is what we're saying if you really follow these teachings why would you want to maintain an autonomous individual separate self why would you even want to hold on to being an autonomous individual course of miracles student why would you want to hold on to being a course of miracles individual course of miracles teacher why would you want to hold on to be a famous course of miracles individual independent teacher why would you want to hold on to being an avatar why would you want to hold on to you know all these things that people aspire to in the spiritual community to being an enlightened person is that all that you can come up with when it's all based on autonomy. It's all based on independence. It's all based on control. It's all based on a separate identity. But we're playing it out here in a very obvious way just to show you can let go. You can retire right now from this spiritual search as well. If you see that you're driven by the idea that you're going to become a more spiritual person, you can stop that right now. That's just going to be another lot of effort put into much to do about nothing. You know, even being a spiritual person or a spiritual guru or whatever, all that stuff is just more like spinning your wheels and avoiding the holy instant, which is right here right now. So you see how this saves you time. We're just saving days, weeks, months, years of your life are being saved. Why would you go through these same rituals? A lot of times on the spiritual journey, this is the same with theologies, but in churches and so forth, there's all these rituals. If you put your body in this position and you do these things and you put these certain things in your mouth and you do them so many times a day, or you say these mantras over and over and over, even chanting, even chanting. I have to say, what's the big deal with this chanting stuff? Jesus has a part of one of his lessons, so today we lay aside all of our chants and bits of magic. These are, it's nothing as sacred on this planet. Nothing repetitive will take you back into the holy instant. It's your desire. It's the desire in your heart. You know, this world arose from the desire for something other than God and it's your very desire. It's your heart. It's your prayer. It's the core of you that is so much once to remember who it really is. That's what's going to take you there. That's what's going to collapse time and everything else. The symbols are there and they seem helpful and useful. There's nothing wrong with them, but anything ultimately that involves a lot of repetition, repetition, is really, you're going to outgrow that too. Isn't that fun? Doesn't feel fun to think you can have a spontaneous spiritual journey in the moment without a prescribed program that tells you you must chant and must prostrate yourself and lay on the carpet and do whatever, you know, it's like at some point it's actually refreshing to think that you can have a spontaneous awakening just from following your intuition without getting into all these repetitions. There's some value. I mean, even the Course, I mean, if you look at the workbook of the Course of Miracles, there's some repetitions, but he never says that you should do this workbook over and over and over again. I mean, I said, I go around the country, around the world, so I go to all these Course of Miracles groups and there's one thing to go in like the 80s and then in the 90s and then in the 2000s. Now we're 2014 and I spoke at the oldest Course of Miracles group in the world, which is in Raleigh, North Carolina. It's the 35th anniversary years ago, Judy Skutch, you know, had come through there and brought the book off the way back, but it was all these things and I would remember going down to with my friend Carrie to travel these groups and she would watch in these Course groups, they would be reading the book and reading the book and then we would go to more groups and more groups and more groups and she said, please tell me I'm not going to grow up to be this old person with long white hair, still reading the book, paragraph by paragraph, as an old person with wrinkles, please tell me. I'm not seeing my life in front of me. We went to Florida, so we were in some retirement communities doing this and people, you know, it's not about repetition. Repetition is a step along the way that could be a value of giving to the Holy Spirit, but she was to say, please, there's got to be more, isn't there something else? So with this repetition of the workbook lessons and so on and so forth, that's again, you really have to be under the guidance of the Spirit. The Spirit wants you to dive into the experience, wants you to transfer the training, wants you to be free of the belief in time and not have you linger in time. And so that's really the value of what we're sharing here. We're just, we're diving into the miracle. We're here to save time. We're not here to perpetuate time. And we're not even so concerned about the language. I don't feel any kind of affiliation with the Course in Miracles at all. Actually, I haven't read the book or carried it around with me for many, many, many years, but it's about the present moment. It's about an experience. And in the end, you have to let go of all attachments and affiliations with everything. It was only to set you up with your internal teacher. That's all it was for. Just to make you be in contact with your internal teacher. I come to realize something pretty recently. I remember some years ago when I first found out that any issue I had with anyone when I really got into it, I come to see that it's about me and God. So if my anger was not about that person, it was always about God. And now the other day that was after Saturday evening, I had this huge holding things that I had been keeping back. And then I found out again, underneath it all, the sadness was not about anything in the world. It was about missing the connection with God. I find that really so very helpful to remind me and to say out loud, deep, deep enough, you see this is about you and God. Yes, it's so helpful because it inevitably comes to that point when you've just seen so many things and you've been just tempted to think it's about this or that or even with patterns that recurred. And I was recently going over the psychotherapy pamphlet where Jesus says careful tracing back from the symptom level of the body to the form of unforgiveness. You know, you can do an association. It was like Jesus was speaking to Louise Hay without mentioning Louise Hay's name in the psychotherapy pamphlet. He was like, I was reading like, Oh, you're talking about Louise, because she was very good at actually looking at the symptom level and the form of unforgiveness in the mind. Then he comes right around and he says, But that won't matter and help you either. Only forgiveness will heal an unforgiveness that what I said, believe it was last night that we're not going to find a solution in specifics, not in specific symptoms and not in specific thoughts in the mind. And even when you make the connection between the specific thoughts in the mind and the specific symptoms, still you're in need of forgiveness. And it's a it's a God issue. It's really a God issue, like you're saying, Mary, and it's not about finding the techniques and cleverly making the connections. But am I willing to let go of believing I can create myself? And am I willing to accept that God is my creator? That's what the workbook lessons. I am not a body. I am free. I am still as God created me. That is the thought that heals absolutely everything. Also seeing that all the relationships are substitutions for the real relationship. And they will never ever feel you. That's huge. But that's not going to sell me books, romance novels or soulmates. You know, Dan Brown is not going to be able to hop on that one. Because you start to see that all specific interpersonal relationships were made to deflect away and find a satisfaction that was beyond God, beyond the creator. And there before we have the Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones. I can't get no satisfaction because I've tried and I've tried and I've tried and I've tried. Then you have to scream, I can't get no. You know, you see, if this is exactly, we're teaching the course through Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones right now. Now we're getting down to the core of it. You can't get no satisfaction other than God. We'll call it spirit. We'll call it oneness. We'll call it whatever you want to call it. But Mary is like, we're coming right down to the core of everything. That's the core of healing is starting to recognize that it was the specifics were never the problem. It was believing that our identity was in the specifics. When our identity is abstract and not specific at all. That's where the issue came in. Yeah. It's beautiful. To the extent to which you do not define the problem, you receive the solution. And that's it. Like forgiveness relieves the mind from what it thinks it knows. Because the mind that thinks it knows something is holding on. And that self, that mind is what needs to be released to experience again the truth. So yeah, we just we're constantly giving ourselves permission to just let go of thinking we know and developing a very deep trust in I've myself can do nothing. But through me, it's just turning the spirit to the spirit for everything, including, yeah, what to think, what to say, what to do, where to go. It's like dependence on on spirit off the world. It's emerging rather than a dependence on something. It's more of an admission of I'm willing to let go, and then receive a gift of the merge, which can be called dependence. But it's, it's really an acceptance. acceptance of the support that's available. In making it simple, we say I always say, listen and follow that's as simple as it gets. That's all I've done in my life is listen, follow, listen, follow. And if we had to boil it down to two songs, which I've just used Mick Jagger's I can't get no satisfaction. That's, that would be, that would be the first step. I can't get no satisfaction, even though I've tried and tried and tried and tried and tried. But then let it be, let it be, let it be, hey, speaking words of wisdom, let it be, see, you could see that beyond I can't get no satisfaction, which is just a good starting point. But doesn't get you anywhere. Actually, just, it's more of a declaration. It's like the ego's anthem. That's not the answer either. That's not the forgiveness. Even all this exposing of the unconscious. That's not it. It's essential. It's you can't bypass it. We talked about the other day, but but that's not the forgiveness. The forgiveness is let it be is accept the truth of it. Accept yourself as the love that you are. That's the answer. That's the words of wisdom. And we don't want to get caught with the core since it became for intellectuals as a pathway to God. You don't want to get stuck in. I can't get no satisfaction. Otherwise, you make a career out of it, you make a life out of it. You've got decades out of it. And all you do is have a body growing old with wrinkles and white hair. Going, I've got stuff coming up. 95 years old. I've got stuff coming up. Let it be. Let it be. You know, let's, we really have to go into the high note. We have to go into the forgiveness. We're not going to be satisfied with analyzing the problem. We won't even be just satisfied with describing the problem. We won't be satisfied with prescribing in words the solution that's still spinning. Isn't it great? We have to be honest with our songs now.