 I live as Jesus and the Apostles live, you know, just giving everything away freely. So everything I do, I was told many years ago by Jesus that this world, there's many things that you can buy and sell in this world, but salvation or enlightenment is not one of them. Just to be happy, to freely give that happiness away is really an honor, I think. And that's really what all of us are moving towards. It's just learning to let God's love flow through us so freely that we don't have any expectations about anything from anyone. You know, we're just there to like give the, like a flower sends its perfume and its fragrance off into the wind. It doesn't tell the wind where to blow it or you know, which direction or whatever. It's just very much of a giving mode and that's the mode where you realize that you're it, that you have it in your heart when you give it away so freely. So these are very intimate discussions even though sometimes they're smaller groups than this. This is a pretty good size group, but we can still have the same intimate feel in this group. And I certainly hope that during the week as things unfold, whether you're here for just a day or a weekend or for a whole week, that this is really important time to pour out what's on your heart. And to me, spirituality has to be very practical to be useful. So instead of just kind of having a lot of high ideas, it's like having it put into practice in your life, in your daily life is very important. So if you have issues, if you have things that you're dealing with, this is a place to bring them up, throw them out on the table so to speak and let them be used for enlightenment or for clarification for everyone. Because that's really what this is about. It's not so much about bantering ideas and concepts about. It's about really coming to live in that experience where your trust is so strong that you just kind of flow along every day, moment by moment. And it feels as if like every moment is just given to you clean and fresh. Like it's not a repetition of something that's gone before, but it's just like, this is what I have to be doing in this moment. It could be anything from working in a flower garden or going on a hike or a walk or speaking or going and giving someone a hug. It can come in many different forms, but what we're here to do is come into that experience and raise those questions. There are no questions that are off limits. We don't have any kind of taboo areas where you can't go into that area and everything. And to me, living this experience, it's very much a transparent experience. When you're in alignment with God, everything you do is very transparent. Because you have no secrets, you're not trying to guard anything, hide anything, protect anything. It's just, you know, you're an open book. And people feel that. When you meet them and they feel like you're an open book, Jim's always saying that Catherine, people see her coming. It doesn't matter whether it's a grocery store or whatever they look at. Airport. They look at her face and they're like, I can tell anything. I can unburden my whole heart on this one. And they do. And that's the kind of feel we want you to have in this kind of group, you know, that you can share whatever. I have, in all my travels over the years, you know, in doing these groups, and I've done like thousands of them, that's what people feel, why they feel energized and they feel a sense of lightness, is they feel like they can pour things out and take a look at things without a sense of judgment. And people tell me, like with Catherine, all kinds of things, they'll kind of start to tell me and they'll have a searching look in their eyes, like, are you going to judge me if I tell you this, my deep dark secret from the past that I've kept locked up or whatever. And then they kind of look in your eyes and they kind of get to feel, I can tell this. And in that moment, in the telling it and not being judged, it's like it loosens. It's like that's what the forgiveness is. Nothing is held against anybody, no matter what. So that's also part of the feel I want to have with this whole group. And, ah, here comes Paul. We have some live music. I think I see a fleek flute case in his hand. Sorry to break in. He keeps expanding. Beautiful. Welcome. Yes, welcome. What we've been doing, and you just walked right in, is we just went around the circle and everybody was sharing. It's a very casual, relaxing way, their name, where they came from and the reason that they're here. So that everybody feels like they know everyone and you've walked in right at the tail end of that. So that's perfect. They kept expanding and expanding. And Paul, Walter Susan, also live in Alburton and play at that corner. I was actually surprised. Somebody called me this morning and said, they were gathering. I thought it started on Monday for some reason. So I had things to do and I really wanted everything to be here. So it's always good to be here. Sure. You've got your fruits along too, so. Yeah, I didn't always want to do that. I did anyway. They have a boom box that I think also we have some fruits, so we may have a little live music interviewed in here. It's great too, with these, when you have a weekend or a full week, spontaneous things can happen. And even though I do a lot of gatherings and sessions, sometimes there are smaller groups of one-on-ones that go on for hours and hours and hours. I was with family recently in New England for about 20 hours. And they came and the whole family, the father, the mother, the two children, they said, oh, our life has changed forever. It was like the whole course of their life was changed because they said before they came to the gathering, they were like pickering in the car, like a family arguing. And then they got there and spent about 12 hours, 15 hours the first day and then later on some more hours. It was like when they went back, it was like a violent reverence. And that's really what I would want for everyone here. Everyone wants to let go of this chattering judgment in the mind. Everyone wants to feel connected and joined. So much so that, you know, you feel so loved and you feel it just radiating through the center of your being that you don't have to, you know, listen to the ego and go out looking for scraps. A scrap here or a scrap there. You know, it just becomes so full and rich in your in your life that it's just like being through you wherever you go and that's really what the intimacy is. And for me, it's just been going on so many years that now I get invitations to other countries. Just got back from a couple different trips to Europe and Canary Islands and it just shows you that it's not, it doesn't even have anything to do with language. You know, when I'm over there, translators show up and there's such joy. You could be going around fishing cones, you could be on the beach, you could be doing all kinds of different things. It doesn't have to be a life where you feel like you're just grinding out an existence or just trying to make ends meet or whatever. It can be a life where you just give your life over to God and then all of a sudden things start to happen. Invitations come, people offer you things. They want to just share your happiness and joy and it's kind of like Southern hospitality where people open up their homes and they say come on in here. There was one time when I was staying with Jim and Catherine and they lived in like a little retired pilot's community. They had their own little runway strip and we went around, Jim and I went around into all of the homes one by one just going into their kitchens and living rooms and having these it was such an intimate kind of experience and very simple but really radiated from Jim's devotion to this path of just being open and friendly and welcoming to everyone and therefore you can imagine going to a community and just going door to door not with something to sell but just getting welcomed in from kitchen to kitchen from living room to living room and just having these beautiful, joyful chats, that's what that experience was. Can I ask you a question? Do you ever go into situations where the reception is not that way? Where there's a huge amount of resistance or the mind is very close to I mean, most of us here are probably familiar with the force of miracles I'm kind of in the Bible Belt in Carolina and you had an experience just last week where I left myself out of the house and went to a neighbor just a couple of doors down I'm in a rental home and so I don't necessarily know the neighbor but there was a car in the driveway so she happened to be reading her Bible which I commented on and she asked me if I read the Bible and I said well I have read the Bible and there I saw the conversation where she asked me if she could ask me and I was very open to that idea but in the answers that I was giving I couldn't help but notice the horror and just the shock almost that I actually was sharing what I believed and so I was wondering obviously when you come to a circle like this with people that are familiar with the force there is that longing there is that openness to letting go and joining a more clear understanding but when you're in a situation where it's very apparent that there are thousands of ways to get to the same place but that's not how she sees it at all it's like how do you join in that situation Good question when you're around the country and the world you're not studying Course in Miracles even though a lot of places I go like this was set up kind of as the Course in Miracles gathering more and more and more over the years it has become the case that the majority of my time I mean hours and days and weeks is spent on the road with people that had never heard and in fact when you travel a lot and you go to restaurants with waitresses, waiters you go to rest areas grocery stores you're in hotels you're on the road taking a bus somewhere in the back roads of Argentina with workers farmers I find myself in huge arrays of situations where people A. don't know about Course in Miracles you mentioned the word metaphysics in their language they might say what's that? They have no clue for me that's what the whole joy of that is the Course is leading to an experience not that you have to stop judging but that you actually get to a point where you realize that you have no capability whatsoever of judging anything almost like a chancee gardener kind of being their kind of innocence and typically nowadays when I travel when I was in Argentina recently this year this woman I went into the rural it had taken a lot to the rural areas away from the cities and the people lived such happy simple lives and we kind of looked into each other's eyes we didn't even have to speak the same language we were like beaming I was taken back to this little meditation this woman had a white long dress on she saw me and she just came running over giving me a big hug and then she took my hand and we went off running like two children skipping her dress flowing behind and we were running across back towards this hut in Argentina and finally this man stopped this was her husband who are you running off with who is this guy running through the fields he's come to share about love and spirit and everything and he embraced me and I was taken back to this meditation hut and we sat down and our two little children came following in and we all sat there in this meditation hut and the kids kept looking into my eyes and then they were giggling and laughing and then the mother translated what they were saying he is like us he was like we were all just in a little childlike sense of glee just experiencing the joy of the moment and the kids recognized me and they had their mother translate he was like us and encounter I did a gathering there most of the people there was maybe two or three people there who had heard or studied the course and most of them had not and yet we all just rejoiced and laughed and the spirit flowed through in a way that when they asked their questions it was just a universal spirit in all of us answered but I didn't even have to use a lot of Christian symbols or anything okay she asked me do you believe that Jesus Christ died in the cross for your sins do you believe in the devil do you believe in hell she was asking very specific do I believe that the bible is the complete and only truth I got that two days ago myself and when my neighbor I was telling her about there was an experience that Jeffrey and Kerry had us do the last time I saw them I wanted to know who's eyes would be hold the Christ and I was trying to get her to come here and tell her that's one thing we did last time and she said they won't make me hold hands with anybody else will they and I'm like no you don't have to do anything I can't look at anybody else's eyes because when I do I see evil and it doesn't exist but I couldn't I with she went right back to the bible to be God's only word and only one way to be forgiven and for everything I do know I couldn't respond appropriately I ended up holding up my tent and you know the comforts I just do was over but I could certainly use some help and we can come out we can come at some of those questions she was asking me because that would help to run with that and I really felt comfort in my answers with it but you can't help just sort of look at the way you face they're like horrified to actually believe these things and so it was just a reflection of my own sense of judgment my own sense of the times in my life when I've been less than open to other people's paths so whatever it might be I mean it's always a reflection of my own mind at the same time I'm trying to understand how to share when somebody asks me point like questions I can't really control how she chooses to receive the information yet I did experience less than complete peace in that situation and at one point I finally just said you know it seems very obvious that we have very divergent ideas about getting to the same path and she said well if you haven't accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior and I said well I just don't believe I just don't believe that and I kind of ended the conversation when a dog outside barked and I said I think my husband is here to bring the keys to let me in the house and I wanted to ask you I mean certainly it's much easier when you're in a situation where everybody's like wanting to expand the money wanting to know, wanting to join wanting to feel the love but that's not how that particular situation was and so what do you do yeah and do you have a comment I'll take your hand up yeah I was in a book club meeting at church and there was a medic at this church and the book was for five people who didn't even have him and a discussion ensued about heaven and one person said you know when judgment day comes I just want to find out that I'm right and he said I don't think that's going to happen but then he said well what do you mean of course it's going to be a judgment day I don't think so and what I realized well doing that was it was my judgment first that's the only thing that I would see that was the only thing that was real to me was my judgment first was my judgment so what I realized was because she said of course it was going to be a judgment day so most people would take that as you're wrong but I took it as you're wrong and that's all I saw she might be right I don't know the answer so me judging her for her beliefs is just you know that's what I took away from it I'm not going to feel good about that yeah that's a good lead into where the answer goes for the question David just this week I was reading one of David Hawkins books I think it was an eye for an eye and he was describing the state of affairs of the world of religions and actually from a very high space what's going on and I thought it's so perfect you know how screwed up you know the world of religions are it's just perfect what an opportunity and you know my parents sent me to Catholic schools and I should be grateful you know but you know original sin and crusades and limbo limbo purgatory purgatory but you know I should be grateful but you know the way that when I read David Hawkins he puts it into a perfect description of what the opportunity is the opportunity is perfect I mean the way the religions are screwed up is perfect I mean it's an opportunity it's just like you walk into that opportunity you don't see the problem the opportunity is so enormously perfect I just had that experience reading of this it's just beautiful the world is a paradise of wonderfully screwed up and funniest way stuff yes opportunity with a big O because what I would say is that in general what you find is the more you're able to let go and just let tune into that voice and let it flow through you you will inspire joy and it's not like you will inspire joy and those that believe like you you will inspire joy across the board I think for me it started early on way before I started the course I remember as a child or as a teenager like we'd be at the house I'd be at the house with the family and I would see these people coming down the street Jehovah Witnesses were coming down the street to come to the door and my family got to know me after a while they knew I was going to open the door and invite them in the living room so the family, the brother, the sister my sister, mother, father would run and hide in the back bedroom as the people would walk down the street and I would open the door and we would have this wonderful encounter in the living room and then when it got quiet and my parents and my sister knew that and they would zoom their positions at the TV or whatever whatever they were doing but for me that was a practice because already I thought whoever was coming somebody cares enough to go door to door to talk about something whether it's avon salesman or somebody even with the vision they care enough to go trapping out through the weather and the heat and everything my feeling was always I want to join with them and I would always give it over to the spirit and say I have a clue how to join with them but I really want to join with them I want us all to feel a sense of joy and this is Jehovah's coming in and it didn't matter what they were presenting to me I got so much practice over the years I seemed to get different missionaries and people that would come a lot and the family would always do the same thing but I ended up, at one point I was with two Jehovah's Witnesses and I was sharing and they were asking me about the Bible it was a literal one I would start to just let it flow through me and one of the two turned and said two Jehovah's Witnesses, one of them turned and said that's exactly what I've always felt and the other one just turned and looked like what are you saying are you agreeing but it got to the point that there was joy because I would always focus on what do we have in common what joy what can we rejoice in and when I would focus on that I would focus on beliefs and differences in beliefs because that's where you start splitting hairs and now I've transferred that now I do that with everybody I meet with people who believe many many different things aside from just one denomination or one this or this or that when somebody asks me something like do you believe Jesus died for your sins or whatever actually the crucifixion and the resurrection were part of a pre-arranged plan that was used to demonstrate divine love and the crucifixion was part of Jesus' teaching example so in that sense really it's true Jesus died to show that there was no sin it was a demonstration but in Christian terms and for somebody who's coming from more of a traditional or fundamentalist background in their terms that's a very important witness in demonstration that's a key thing and it really was it was a very extreme teaching example and even the Course says was to demonstrate that you can't kill the Son of God what a great teaching that you can't kill the Son of God because he was demonstrating for all of us that we're spirits and that we go on and live forever and ever so a lot of the questions that I get asked even like the ones you were being asked I can answer with a lot of joy the other thing about being saved that's a key issue to be saved though from what Jesus is talking about and what's talked about in the Bible about the constant renewing of your mind you really have to have a pure heart to really accept your salvation it doesn't so much matter even if you're working with the Course how you talk about that term saved and salvation you see that it's a big job it's a big part and so and what was the other there was one question there about that's about believing in Jesus but that's one of the second questions the devil in hell you know do you believe in sin or the devil in hell what the Course even teaches is as long as you still find guilt attractive as long as anything of this world seems attractive Jesus is saying in the I do nothing section you know if you still are attracted to the pleasures of the body and the pleasures of the world you still find sin attractive that's what he says in the Course so that's a pretty strong statement as long as we're still invested in this world then whether sin is real or not if you believe there's still an attraction to guilt Jesus is saying in the Course in your awareness there's still something that needs to be released or forgiven or undone so even with that you find the next one I'm just wondering like where the balance is in finding attractions in this world and did not get guilt I mean I have kids I got responsibilities with them I mean I desired to be able to provide for them I just don't I feel like I don't have it all clear in myself where do you draw a line with all that? I need to give them worldly things because we're here it's very much everything with your children with the people that are in your life spouses, families and so on so forth you're always teaching your mind and you're teaching what you would learn and yes this definitely is a world of materialism where it seems like there are a lot of things in the world that are important and attractive and yet I think that even like in relationships where initially there can be attractions in terms of form and so forth the more you go deeper into relationships the more you get to that point of starting to say what's really essential here and things like integrity, honesty, respect open communication no matter how much in the beginning may have been involving the forms it always moves to the things that reflect eternity things that will never go away that those are the things that people finally say those are the important things in life and so typically even in working with children and everything as your mind begins to shift and you start to value the eternal the relationships that you seem to have also seen the shift as well maybe you have friendships that were based more on biology or on common interests liking the same things initially the more you get into the spiritual vibration you find that those things start to shift as well because you're not interested in doing the same thing that you did before the things that used to catch your eye and catch your attention before are not there so it works very much from the inside the transformation of consciousness and it is really a question of what is it for and really looking at why do I do these things am I just going through the motion of the past or doing what other people seem to do with their children or am I is there something deeper here that I'm to go into and that's what this is about I don't know how much what am I really learning with that it's a good exercise what am I really teaching kids learning like competitiveness sometimes setting them up for something can they always learn that one's better than another you know I think the situation can be used in a helpful way in other words like sports things like collaboration together and working can be used by the spirit as well and then as you go deeper into your own spiritual journey you would look at something like the idea of competition for example the course teaches that the Holy Spirit just uses the body as a means of communication solely as a means of communication that's not the way it's been for us in this world we've used the body for many things I was just over in Spain and I was hosted by a family and they had their basketball national playoffs going on and most of the men in the family were all riveted to the you know the TV set and sang to their wives in a ring we'll come into that gathering in a minute but we've got this important game going on and in the gathering we did start to get into the whole idea that's one of the ego's uses of the body it's competition competition is an idea that God doesn't have any awareness of and the ego that's the main stage that's what keeps it going so whether we're talking about competition seemingly in sports or to the extreme war in sports like for example I was using an example that in sports it seems like during competitions the body breaks down and they have to send in other players to replace the one I said well it's not really what the body's doing that's breaking the body down it's the guilt in the mind it's the body for the ego's purpose which is competition that then the body is a symbol of that guilt it breaks down, it needs to be repaired it needs to be reconstructed and if you carry that out to war which is a competition sports competition seems like a more mild reversion but it's the same dynamics that go on more that's why countries need to send in more bodies when those bodies are injured or those bodies seem to be killed to promote a purpose or conflict or conquering you have to send in the next replacements and you need more and you need more so you're asking really good questions and in the end you'll start to see that it really comes back to your own mind that as you start to develop more trust in the Holy Spirit you'll realize that you can transcend this idea of competition this idea of reciprocity you want win-win-win situations where everyone feels like they're gaining and come away with something and not this win-lose kind of mentality which in the end doesn't serve let me write to the question she asked about doing things and acquiring stuff because we have jobs and buildings and stuff like that so there's a value to be engaged in life over here in terms of drawing the line can you talk about the role of non-attachable and the value to be engaged in the physical of a non-attachable so we can allow space for divine purpose is that the purpose of your life? Yeah, non-attachment is very much synonymous with non-judgment and you might say that every single day every moment of every day the real question comes down to a question of identity so in other words you've not so much what forms are involved it's really coming down to is it part of your identity so in other words you've had times where you've gone to Brazil to do healing seminars and so on and so forth and you could feel the energy and how everything was getting orchestrated and people were showing up and things were showing up and there was all this vibrancy and everything that seemed to involve organization of gatherings plane tickets this wasn't some mystic life of just sitting off and money, yes, a lot of things involved in that and what this is really about is when you start to realize that as long as you're doing anything for a sense of pride of building up a self-concept for the little me these skills will make me more marketable these, this money will bring better lifestyle to me personally as long as you're feeding the ego self which is the self-concept identity there's pride involved in that and there's attachment involved in that so that at the end of the day when somebody says you know who was responsible for this or who gets all the glory for this if you hold your hand up and say it's me I'm the one I deserve the credit and that's the pride of the ego speaking and there's always attachment involved with that and you may have a little bit of a pseudo high but you always get the lows that go along with that in my case for example when I just kind of gave it over and said I'm going to do it all for the glory of God I'm not going to identify with anything I felt no need to offer books I felt no need to make something where there was followers where we had a big community and so on and so forth I felt no need for anything I mean in terms of like books and materials I thought with the Bible I looked at all the books that have been written already and I looked at the course and I said I think you were saying perfect it's also perfect already there's nothing I need to add or contribute to that so I just have gone around kind of just shining my light sharing my happiness and then I occasionally answered emails and ended up putting books together and I said oh my gosh there's a book published and it's like oh my gosh you know it's kind of a surprise somebody in Australia says can we take from some of those writings and can you do like a monthly column we'll just do it all for you we'll put it all in there and you'll just get the copies of what it's done how simple have a monthly column you don't have to do anything you just pull all your stuff off the internet and occasionally you get something in the mail but what did I say this time ooh what's the topic this way but you see it's like you're not invested there's not a personal identity attachment to it and that's really the key it's not so much simplicity or non-attachments in terms of form because we've had a lot of ascetics that have tried to live these extremist simple lives just one off to the cave just were a little G string some of these ascetics a little piece of food or a wafer here or there a sip of water the simplicity we're aiming for is not a simplicity in form it's a simplicity of being lined up with the Holy Spirit and being tuned into the source now that would be simple that is simple and when I find that that's the key when I'm in the flow of it I get, you know, they buy plane tickets they take me, I was in just within the span of the last six weeks I've been to Paris twice, I've been to London twice I've been to Munich four or five times I've been to the Canary Islands I've been to Madrid twice I've been to Kansas I'm staggered kind of like to watch where this body gets used in all these ways there's a enormous amount of logistics involved in that much travel luggage and plane tickets and gates and departure times and this and that I'm having a ball I'm just like Mr. Magoo just flowing around wow, all this stuff is flowing by and everything because I really don't feel like I'm doing anything and I really don't feel like I feel like it's all orchestrated for me to watch and that's very different from this kind of sense of the personal eye trying to make a spiritual career or journey which can seem to involve the doors closed how do I get noticed here how can I do more of what I want and still handle these bills it's complicated to try to have a spiritual journey and let the ego come along on the backpack or like piggyback along, it's like it seems to be a struggle or a strain when the ego is like like a little leech like hanging on the back for dear life so that's to me that everything comes down to identity if you are really doing it all for the glory of God your reward is very apparent and it's a stress free life and to the extent that pride is getting in there that doesn't matter so much what you're working with there's going to be an experience of complexity and stress