 I began traveling and sharing this joy and this happiness and presence 25 years ago, and I came to LA 25 years ago, so I'm back, I've done a circle, a big circle, over 25 years, a quarter of a century back in LA. And it's interesting too because presence and spirit, it's such a flow that the way that I made it to Los Angeles in 1991 was not necessarily with the intention to come to Los Angeles. I was just on the road traveling, and I started out in Cincinnati, Ohio, and I seemed to take a southwestern route down through Tulsa, Oklahoma, and past Lake Steff, and kept coming and coming, but as I went along, I had so much joy and so much happiness that people would come up to me. This was before the day that smartphones and GPS and so forth, the people would give me little strips of paper and put it into my hand and say, oh, if you're going west, you must meet my relatives, you must meet so and so. So basically I just started collecting little scraps of paper with handwritten notes, little love notes, and phone numbers and names and addresses that were basically out west. And so when I finally kept coming and coming and I made it out to the LA area, I just was so happy to be out here. I just felt so at home in LA. I felt the vibration matched my vibration at the time 25 years ago so perfectly, and I actually had a map of Greater Los Angeles, and I took all my scraps of paper out that had to do with the Los Angeles area, and I started to plot them onto the map. So I could see that the script was written, that everywhere I was going to go and everything I was going to do was all part of a pre-arranged plan, and I got to see it visually on the map. It was actually a line, and I saw the little invitations, the places I would go, and coming back here 25 years later it's been the same. I just was in Mexico. I got this strong feeling to call Makita. You can raise your hand and say, hey, how'd you like to come with me to California? Meet me in California. I was in Mexico. And then Zakaria had messaged me and said he'd love to have a gathering, and then a little bit later saying, oh, I could come and pick you at the airport, so we have been camped out on this beautiful spot since about Wednesday when we arrived here. Very simple. It was just like being taken in and welcomed with graciousness and love. And then when Chris was there at the restaurant, we had a lot of synchronicities just at the restaurant where Chris took us. Nikita and I had just been the last time we were here in Thanksgiving to the very same restaurant. We were meeting a friend, Maria, and she was late. She couldn't be there for a little bit later like she was at the last time. It was just like a deja vu experience, but some of the names changed, but the same restaurant, and it was really just like, wow, very surreal. And so to be invited to come up here and just share from the heart, it's just really a great honor. Thank you for extending the invitation. And Alexander living right down below with the beautiful music. That's just beautiful. And we have another friend who will be singing a little bit later. She's just on her way. Christa. Christa will come and bless us with her music. So I thought what I would start off talking about today is just the context that truly we are created as spiritual beings and beings of perfect love and light. And so anything that we can comprehend, any steps that we can take, anything at all that helps us to come back into that memory of that vastness, that light, that love, that joy is extremely helpful. And you might say that the mind that believes it's here in this world is just falling asleep and is dreaming a dream of linear time. And so this linear time and these judgments that seem to be passing through consciousness are part of a, it's an addiction. Or we might just say it's just a bad habit that we have to kick the habit. And some of you might have seen that movie, what was it, the capria, the inception, the layers and layers. They have to have a big kick that wake them out of it. A huge kick actually because there are so many layers and layers of dreaming. And that's really what we're here to do. We're here to help each other remember something beyond this linear time and dream. Today I got up and I was reading a lesson from the course and it was lesson 199, I am not a body, I am free. And to go into that presence, to sink deeper and deeper into that presence really is just to give yourself permission to sink into a happiness that is not dependent on time or circumstances at all. You might say it's like sinking into a state of mind where you're happy for no earthly reason. You can't even come up with a reason for that happiness. And today hopefully with our interaction here we'll be able to take a step deeper into that. Into that happy go lucky carefree state of mind that is our inheritance. When I came out to LA it was my first trip 25 years ago to LA and it was by car so I was having so much fun when I first encountered LA traffic. It was like discovering a new flower or something. It was like petals of red all lit up in front of me. Like seven lanes of shiny red streams in front of me and I was just almost took my breath away. My first traffic jam in LA because it was so new. The woman that was traveling with me she kind of was pretending and like with her hand and said here's David in LA traffic for the first time. Because it was exuberance and so much glee and I think there was she even recorded a bit on a camera like a video. And that's really the key to it is the newness. And of course when I was out here when I came out to the Malibu area I had a lot of adventures out here but they were very, very spontaneous. And that's part of the joy of the moment is when you give yourself enough permission to really not have a plan but you trust that you're in the flow and that you're in the right place at the right time. You're always in the perfect place at the perfect time. It's very, very carefree. Talk about the days of the hippies. This is that hippie state of mind where you can really give yourself over to it in a full way and really relax without concern for the future. Recently I was reading these lessons that I put out on YouTube and Spreaker and I think I was around 194. And the way Jesus was describing it it's like we're going so much further today towards our goal just by the very simple thing of placing the future in the hands of God. He's telling us that if we're willing to let go of all this intense future planning we're making space for the Holy Spirit. We're making space for the Spirit to come in and ignite our mind to take it from a darkened mind into just a blazing, blazing mind just filled with light. Instead of thinking you have to do all these things to make yourself ready he's really saying it's just the willingness to give yourself over to not know what your future is going to be. To not think that you have a plan. I love not planning. I am so willing for the universe, for Spirit to use me in any way that is helpful for the good of the whole. You said that earlier. You said there's no time to plan. There's no time. Yeah. It's like that old song the who did I think it was the guess who did and I always I would sing that to the ego. No time left for on my way to better things. I found myself some wings. No time left for you. You know it's like say no time to the ego say I'm through with this programming and through with this conditioning. I'm not going to think about freedom in some kind of a long convoluted way complicated. Why would freedom be complicated? It's our birthright. We should be able to be free and soar this very instant. And it's really great when you actually give yourself over to it. Because the Karya was talking a bit about he's had a trip coming up to India and there's a lot of joy with the trip. But when you get into the logistics of the airports and searches and luggage and logistics of moving the body around a little heaviness could come in. And the spirit just doesn't want us to feel that heaviness. The spirit wants us to feel light hearted, happy, go lucky, joyful, free always. That's our natural state of mind. That's how you might say we make a joyful noise unto the Lord. That's how you know people are so concerned as if God is some kind of an anthropomorphic God is watching over you and watching you in time and space. But no it's when we exhibit the attributes of our Creator that that is the most pleasing to our Creator. You can only imagine if your Creator created you to be happy and you're happy then that's pleasing. If the Creator created you to be joyful and you're joyful then that's pleasing. It's not that you have to do a lot of stuff to do the right things to please the Creator. It's more your attitude, your attitude of that happiness is God's will. It's honoring spirit. It's honoring oneness. It's honoring the source through that. So to me it's been quite an adventure. I'd say beyond reading scripture such as the Course, beyond practicing and doing lessons and things that are very, very helpful. It's all like a trampoline to just bring you into a state of happiness which is really your choice. There's nothing that can keep you from that. And the most miraculous thing for me was that I could give myself over to that and say that everything else will be taken care of completely if I do that. That's what I call divine providence. And I'm not talking about a personal divine providence like having your own special angel watching over you or a guardian angel. I'm talking about the way the whole universe works when you really open up and you see that everything's in perfect order. You call it divine order. Everything's working together for the good. Nothing's out of place and there are no mistakes in that divinity, that divine order. What could be more happy than to have an experience that there are no mistakes? Because mistakes come with guilt. We call them errors. In some traditions they call them sins. But there's a heaviness with that way of thinking. We don't have to think like that anymore. Today we're here to celebrate giving ourselves full permission to let go of that old mode of thinking. Fault finding. Mistake finding. Kind of putting yourself on linear time and judging yourself, evaluating yourself. Crazy thoughts. How do I stack up? Am I good enough? You know, all the things that people deal with around worthiness, those are all part of a block, a deception to hide from awareness, the happiness that we are. So these gatherings, sometimes I like to call them shatakwas, especially when we're out in nature like this. I like the word shatakwa. It's like a talk of enlightenment. We're just here to share the vibrations of happiness and joy and enlightenment. And to come at it from a very practical approach. Meaning we're all in this together and if anybody has topics or curiosities, questions, they're really for all of us. It's just more and more and more opportunities to be clear about who we are. To be crystal clear about who we really are. Every single second of every day is just an opportunity to be crystal clear of who you are. And everything that you perceive in the entire world is actually coming and starting from that point in your mind where you start with who you are. And if you see yourself as limited, then you perceive a world of limitation. And if you experience yourself as having no limits, then that's exactly the way that you experience the entire world. That's what it means to see the world anew, is to hold no limits on yourself, on your identity, and therefore you see no limits in the world. You have that much power. The power of decision is yours in your mind and nothing can hold you back from accepting the highest good for everyone. The joy that you are, the happiness you are. So, yeah, I always just like to open it up to everybody and it may give you a little exercise today. I have a little chair here because of the size of the microphone if you want to come up and have a chat. Something you've wanted to have a chat on for a while. It could be anything. It could be a persistent condition that you seem to have in your life that you go, bummer. I don't like that. I wish that was gone. Some kind of curiosity that you've had where you thought, well, if I could ever just sit down and really talk this through, I would really want to get some clarity on this thing or that thing. It could be regarding relationships or health. It could be regarding some conditions around living your life or your lifestyle or the body. Anything is open game today and I promise you whatever it is, it will be a blessing to everyone. Because we're all in this together and we're all here. Rita, you want to come up? Come on down. This is our solution to our mic. It's really good to be here. It's so beautiful. I've been working the lessons every day too. They're so helpful. I've really been struggling with the body. Being in California, everybody's had at least three or four cosmetic procedures, a lot of women. As we get older, there's a lot of, well, for me. Because I've had cosmetic procedures in the past and I don't want to. I don't want to have any of it anymore. I'm going deeper into the teachings and it's such a contrast to start to consider doing anything like that with my body because the body is not even here. But I keep getting pulled back and forth. I go deep into the teachings and I'm so peaceful and then I'll look in the mirror and I'll go, oh, you need some work here. I'm sick of it and I want to go to the next place. It's almost like the ego is when I really want to just let it go and surrender. The ego is just right there. I'm so grateful to talk to you because I really want to get beyond it, the whole body. Okay, that's good. That's a great question. It's interesting this morning my phone rang a couple hours ago and a man contacted me from Portugal and he is losing all of his five senses, every one of them. They're all just going. It's not like a car where you blow a flat tire. All the tires are blown out and he's 23 years old. He's vacillating between mystical states of mind working with the Course and listening to what I'm doing and really going for it, really in a deep way. He'll give his mind permission to go into these mystical states and the ego when he comes back, the reactions are stronger than ever. It's almost like the ego is so terrified of that love, so terrified of that light that his experience with the body has been physical pain, intense physical pain throughout the body and so he's just like vacillating between these euphoric kind of ecstatic experiences we're calling mystical experiences and then down into those and then the condition seems to be that he's just losing awareness of all these five senses like they're just going away. And so he was very strongly prompted to call me today. He called our monastery, he got my phone number and called me and we talked for maybe 20-25 minutes. He was just feeling more of a draw to come closer to where I'm at, if possible and he was saying, I don't have much to offer because my five senses are going but I just feel this deep sense that it might be supportive to just be around the presence of love where there's nobody judging the loss of my skills, the loss of my abilities, the loss of my ability to take care even of the body, to let go fully. So yeah, and he just said, and I just want you to tell me that love hasn't abandoned me because the feeling isn't somehow, as he's losing awareness of the five senses that he's been forsaken, like he's been left to die and then when he goes into the mystical states he is very aware of that love but when he comes out of them then that's where it's very intense. So I think it's great how they say, there's beautiful sayings on Facebook like follow your vibe and you will find your tribe. There's something of that going on too because the more I gave myself over to this and became less and less aware of the body going into states where I couldn't even feel the body also things where people would say take care of your body. This is your body to use and it wasn't long ago, I think it was about a year ago I was down in Mexico and I was having lunch with my friend Gary Renard and Gary was saying, you know there's only one thing I regret and he said I wish I had taken better care of my body and this is the one who wrote Disciples of Universe. Now that's what got me into the course actually. Yeah, a lot of people and what I have found is there was a point right around that 1991 when I came out here to LA the first time where I just took a deep breath and gave it all over I gave the body over, I gave my circumstances, my lifestyle, resources, skills, abilities my future ambitions, my goals for this life, my little things that I called my little whims or the things I just gave it all over and it was such an ecstatic experience and I have to say that these 25 years have been so delightful because before that I was going to the gym, I was exercising and I actually, first of all, gave myself permission to let go of the whole concept of exercise and these people, you know, we read about it, it was on the news, you know, and this and the yoga and all these things, it was like, I think I need to give up exercise I got to say, I joined a gym and I got, because I hadn't, I'm really, I joined a gym and it was funny because this is when the ego really had me and so I joined this gym and I went in there, I couldn't stand it I couldn't stand it, everybody that I looked at was like pumping their muscles and looking at their body from all these angles and I said to myself, well you don't belong here anymore this one man was so into it and I said, you need to smile and he was like, well I don't smile when I'm working and I just thought, I just, you know, so that's done it's all done, it's good I know that I'm in a transition to completely surrender all of it but it's good to be able to talk about it because I know I'm not alone all of us are, you know, moving towards the same thing is to just let it all go this is our tribe and this is our dialogue now when I let go of exercise, I mean you can't just let go of the form of it you have to let go of the whole concept of it so I thought, because it does you no good if you let go of the form of what you think you should be doing and you still keep thinking about it some people who say, oh, I never locked my car anymore and I said, great, I think about it all the time I said, well you should lock it then if you think about it all the time I said, yeah, it's very distracting I'm like, so worried to get back and there won't be a car there I said, no, don't stop locking your car if you keep thinking about your car and whether it's locked or not and it's the same with exercise when I gave up exercise, I had to give up everything I ever knew about exercise and that's what the Buddha told us empty your mind and Jesus says the same thing unless the money and I and all stuff about gems, cardio, diet vitamins, nutrition but it's all tied in as if nutrition is causative with the body eat right, you feel better eat right, you look better, skin tone it's like you can't just let one isolated thing go when I let go of exercise I had to let go too of this conditioning that the body would atrophy I haven't exercised for 25 years I don't even think of it and there is no atrophy going on it's like, oh, what a load I'm telling you the stuff that we have believed in here and then of course eat right that we were reading through the other night the laws of nutrition are mentioned right there, he goes through I am sustained by the love of God and I am under no laws but God he really gets very specific and I love it when Jesus gets specific so that's been fun too the food has been so good here at this place I had to go buy a whole bag of snickers bars you don't like the kinds that you get for Halloween I had to go down to Topanga Canyon I had my chauffeur, Alexander and I had to go down there and look in there and Nikita knows it too she went looking in the candy right away it was all kind of stuff so I just got a whole bag of snickers bars I haven't had one yet but I know they're available here if any of you really want to join me today in that, you know but it goes on and on because the laws of economics are part of the whole thing too imagine that does sound a little more like a fairy tale and that's exactly how my life started to feel when I started really, really giving myself over to the Course it's like a fairy tale things showing up, people saying come here, come there, inviting you it wasn't like there wasn't a sense of sacrifice with letting go of these thoughts and these ideas and beliefs it was almost like the spirit just kicked it into high gear with flooding me with the most glorious spectacular life from being quiet and shy and reserved and not having any friends going to high school with you know, my high school friends you could put on the one hand it was so few it was a very kind of secluded, isolated life and then now that I decide to give up exercise give up nutrition, give up economics and everything it's the best life ever it's just like, wow we have been hoodwinked of coming to planet earth we were really hoodwinked in a big way and we can't hold on to any of it I mean we won't get the we won't get the freedom if we hold on to even little people not even one little thought you know, I was taking vitamins this morning I thought, oh brother, what are you doing? but what's good is I question all of it so, you know, I'm I have friends that are my best friends are nutritionists and she wants me to get into this program where we do genetic testing we're going to go around and we're going to encourage doctors to swab and then genetic test them and all the meds that their patients get will be the right meds for them and I thought, God, what are you I finally told her, you know, I just can't do it anymore I can't do any of that I'm studying the course of miracles there is no body and she, you know, you say that to somebody that's nutritionist, you're studying the genomes and she just looked at me like okay, Rita, well, she loves me you know, whatever, wherever you're at whatever you're doing, you know, but anyways, it's good to be here with my tribe it really is thank you thank you for sharing all that because basically we from a course of miracles perspective that everything you think and say and do teaches the whole universe and so every single thought you know, we were taught that there were healthy thoughts and there are definitely things we should definitely be concerned about I have to say, I have such a carefree state of mind I have such a clueless I've gone so deep into cluelessness like Bill Murray, the man who knew too little I'm the man who knew nothing in fact, I've forgotten that I'm a man I mean, it's just gone so deep that you just let it all go and what it is is that it's been the most glorious experience to have that peace, that calm, that tranquility that bubbling spontaneity that joy to appreciate everything as if you're experiencing everything for the very first time I don't know if some of you remember that movie that Adam Sandler did with Drew Barrymore, 51st dates nothing beats a first kiss nothing beats a first kiss they do it over and over and over if you watch that, I watched that on the DVD nowadays, they download and stream them but they had DVD extras everybody that made that movie was having fun the producer, the director, the actor the actress is everyone when you watch the extras, you can feel the vibe they're over in Hawaii they're just playing and laughing and they're putting together this very profound movie about time and memory and letting go and trusting opening your heart up and they all had so much fun and that scene where nothing beats a first kiss it really conveyed in all these different scenes these first kisses because for Drew Barrymore and her character in that state, Lucy everything was brand new her long-term memory went out and she just kept feeling like she was experiencing the day in a brand new way the same day over and over much like in Groundhog Day and so if we've had a memory problem if we've been dragging the past along and feeling all this grievances and unworthiness and guilt and shame and playing that same old dark programming thinking out day after day I don't think you can actually call that living I think this we would qualify more for a zombie for a Hollywood zombie movie of being all the walking dead if we're drooping and moping around and not happy how can we actually call that life I don't think it has anything to do with our creator I don't think it has anything to do with spirit or love or happiness and yet to be so practical in other words when I started to just let go of thinking I had to even put any attention whatsoever into these things the same with education I'm through with nutrition I'm through with economics I'm through I was even through with like navigating which was more fun for me to come out to LA and not have a plan to just be wherever I am and just enjoy whatever's in front of me then to come out and put something out in the future like you throw out a concept and then you have to try to hit the target that's the only problem with traffic traffic would be no problem at all except we've got some kind of crazy notion in our mind that we need to be somewhere but we're actually everywhere we really are I mean I really feel now like I'm everywhere it takes away all this anxiety about having to be somewhere I even had experiences during these last 25 years where somebody would set up a gathering and one time I was in Washington DC and the former I think it was the former embassy maybe Cambodian embassy or something like that where I was supposed to do this gathering and we just got caught in Washington DC traffic so we were just creeping along creeping along and the time came for the gathering and the time it just went round and round and I don't know whenever we got there we got there and all these monks were there who were part of the center and they all had these white robes on and these beautiful hoods and they all came in we just showed up hours and hours late seemingly from the world's perspective and they all had candles and it just turned into a mystical experience I felt like oh my gosh it couldn't have been any more wonderful more mystical than it was and the Coorsley Miracles does teach us that you're always in the right place at the right time he always uses double negatives you cannot but be at the right place at the right time I'm just giving you the positive twist but the actual quote is you cannot but be at the right place at the right time imagine just breathing into that just relaxing into that that you're always in the right place at the right time your stress level is going to shrink your anxiety is going to shrink your concerns, your worries are just going to go down, down, down, down if you accept the idea that you're always at the right place at the right time just that one idea takes it away you want to come on up let's go into this deeper I just want to rewind a little bit yeah so so last four years I've told you about my life to the Coors and partially because I've heard one of your online videos and it was beautiful just that I found it I read it straight for two years I think that's something you said and so I said I'm going to do that and I've had some really wonderful, wonderful moments but as I feel like I progress that effing voice is very loud it's trying to take me down and the more I progress the louder it gets so I guess I'm asking you for guidance yeah I'm glad you're bringing it up what's your name? Jim well I'm glad you're bringing it up Jim because that is really again that's for all of us that when you start to unplug from a parasite we'll call this a millennial parasite because it's poor millennium the mind has been having its energy seemingly sucked by this parasite of a belief which we could call a tiny mad idea but it doesn't matter even if it's a tiny mad idea if you believe in it wow if you have a powerful mind and you give a powerful mind over to a tiny mad idea that's where that effing voice comes in that's where it comes from and so I had this similar kind of experience when I really was devotional like that then I had read in the course that when you are loving the ego will go from suspicious to vicious that the more loving you become the more you come into this light the ego is going to pull out all the stops it's going to be like it's ready to fight World War 3 to prevent you from being happy because it's whole existence depends on you being fearful and guilty if you start to unplug from it it's not just going to sit around and say oh well it's going to spring seemingly spring into action become louder, become more vicious and therefore when that part comes in occasionally you can have experiences even reflected in the world occasionally it seemed pretty extreme I was talking with the group in there in the living room last night about some of my early years with the course and I was working as like a job coach or a case manager, trainer of adolescents and young adults and I was working with one and you know his behavior got more and more wild and erratic and then it was Friday the 13th and he had this weird thing going on in his eyes I was thinking I don't even believe in demonic possessions but I think I've got a demonic possession right in front of me and the whole group of people in the restaurant where we were working I was training him to be a bus boy as part of his rehab program they all got spooked and then I suddenly felt like I was in a Jack Nicholson movie it just the night Friday the 13th and later it got into that night the more crazy and spooky I suspected Jack to just show up through the door any moment and basically I said last night when I got home I was praying I was asking Jesus I said come on this is a little steep this is a little steep here and I said what's going on here and he said I'm just showing you the map of your own heart there aren't any external demons there's no evil outside of you there's no devil out there I'm just showing you the map of your heart I'm showing you what you believe in you had a little taste tonight of the unconscious mind welcome to the shadows we got a lot of work to do you're not ready to ascend you're just beginning our work together with the course is just beginning and so that was when I was still working kind of in worldly jobs then but that was one of the later ones where that all kind of disappeared and Jesus said now you're mine don't even ask what's coming next because we're on a ride now we're on a ride to transcend the ego we're taking this high road and we're not going to look back and there's going to be some of those times when it comes up so it kind of fits with what I was saying to Rita about when you get deep into your vibe in other words the course says you won't go on alone mighty companions will go with you thank goodness for mighty companions thank goodness for these kind of reflections maybe it comes even on youtube in the sense that you maybe having a tough time and you just flick on the youtube and then you just get that video and think just that you need to hear in that moment so that's like spirit using technology and I've had even done some retreats where I'll say how many people have come here through youtube and like 90% of people raise their hands they come in through youtube so the spirit is there to support us and they're all just symbols of support but when the ego cranks up it's raucous shrieks is what Jesus calls it in the course and that raucous shriek and that raspy hard dark voice rises in your mind you need everything that you can have to support your awakening and it's no small thing I've traveled like over a lot of miles to just go meet one person or to have a lunch together this guy that was 23 he called the day he was losing all of his senses I could feel the urgency in his voice like I had to call him I had to talk to you today we needed to come to a joining where he could feel the support and the love because the pain and the body got to be so intense and so great and really that's what I like coming out here to California I didn't really plan Nikita and I didn't know what we were going to do here in LA we were just open to whatever running a car or whatever but this and coming up here with Chris and Alexander and all of you now you know this is for me the most important thing in the world I always feel when we're in the middle of just joining together we're two or more together in his name this is precious beyond beyond major beyond words and my mind is not drawn into thinking what comes next you know if this was the last day of my life I would be happy and content I would have no sense of regret no sense of could have done a little more could have gone somewhere else or whatever I even went down to Mexico I'll be about two or two enough years ago they had a quantum machine right over the top that looks like an airplane it's actually a North Korea drone North Korea launched that satellite and it actually passed right over past Northern California right over the Super Bowl after the Super Bowl was over that was kind of an interesting fly by all that work for the shot but they missed the Super Bowl was over by one hour when the thing flew over but actually to reach that state where you really don't care about the future you really don't care at all about the future that's being raised in United States and capitalism and entrepreneurship and all the stuff that we're raised with I think that was the thing that I really felt the peace come in when I unplugged that one like in the matrix you know when all the tubes come out when that one popped I was like oh hallelujah because I was not going to think about the future and when I Nikita knows about this maybe it has this quantum machine very expensive machine and it tells you everything about your body the make up composition and it goes on and on and on and finally it got to this one question and the question for the quantum machine was what percentage of David's life's purpose as he accomplished and 100% the woman just who administers it, she's laughed and laughed and laughed hilariously because I've done this on hundreds of people I've never seen that it's always some percentage but not a hundred but that's how I feel I feel like it's over I remember even years ago going down I think I was down in South America and they gave me one of these hypotheticals like you're into playing David you're flying and all of a sudden it takes a nose dive towards a planet Earth what are your thoughts as you nose dive to crash into whatever the ocean or the glandering I say I'm leading the party we're had a celebration on that plane if that plane is going down we are going to have our hands in the air praising God thank you for every moment and then the person says that's ridiculous no that's me, that's my life I've even had that happen one time I think I was coming down I was somewhere over Columbia and the pilot flew through a thunderstorm and I was having the best time watching these bolts of lightning right outside the plane shooting all over the place it was like a light show you think you've seen a fireworks show I wasn't going to get myself over thinking the bolts would hit the plane and that was my last day on Earth or whatever I was having too much fun to think about the body think about consequences and form and just imagine how free you will feel if you really do give this a go you can just feel it you can feel it how it's freed up investing I'm not interested in investing what is investing if we're going to invest why not invest your mind's energy in following your intuition why not be 100% intuitive with everything you do in your life and that means what you'd have to let go of being analytical I had 10 years of university I'm tired of analytical I burned out on analytical trying to figure things out the other thing with this world is it's like a giant smoke screen so it's just you know I have a friend when we went over to Hawaii she looked around Hawaii and she said it's so beautiful here it's like a screensaver and I thought that's what this world is it's just one giant screensaver and who really gives a hoot about the screensaver really you know it's still there's so much protection isn't even with that you're supposed to try to save the time and the life of the screen it's all this fear screensavers are fear you know it's just thinking that you're going to lose something in the future like have your monitor go out so you want to give extra life but anything that involves extra, extra, extra you know that is the old thing extra, extra, extra what about no, extra I'm through with extra I don't want anything extra there's a part in the course in the beyond all idol section where Jesus starts off the passage what is an idol do you think you know it's interesting when Jesus Christ asks you a question how he would react what is an idol do you think you know an idol is for more something it does not matter more of what oh that's the new definition of idol more you know how much we have put so much energy into bigger better, faster, more new and improved you know that's what our marketing scheme is all about better, better, better everything oh it's good but it could be better here comes the anxiety it's beautiful but it could be more beautiful no it couldn't nope it can't get more beautiful than this nothing can get more beautiful than it is right now so for me that's if you're going to invest don't invest in stocks don't spend in bonds and precious metals in real estate in all kinds of things reader brought up the body don't invest in the body it's really not a good investment it's like this temporary device and who you are is a divine spirit that will last forever and meanwhile while you've forgotten that divine spirit you're putting your investment in what lipstick on a skeleton lipstick on a skeleton or the picture in the frame you know you start Jesus uses this picture frame analogy where you have this huge elaborate frame where the blood shines like rubies and the tears sparkle like diamonds and Jesus is using really graphic language to say when you emphasize the body you are putting your faith, your power of mind, your trust you're putting your investment in an illusion and the picture of who you are is covered over by the frame the frame is so big he even gets a little sarcastic I like that when Jesus gets sarcastic all the stuff that we grew up with we were afraid of Jesus now he's getting sarcastic with us he's doing jokes and he says who stands before a frame on a wall admiring the frame of the picture who of us would go to a museum that just had a bunch of big frames hunks of wood and no pictures, no paintings would you really do that well he's saying that's exactly what you do when you focus and invest in the body you're using your mind's energy to make something important that has no value whatsoever and I say that with confidence he'll jump through the course and he'll say the body has only one purpose it's for communication and then occasionally he slips to that he'll say no, the body has no purpose he yanks that one out too because if you're one mind and communing with your source with your creator what need would you have of a body to commune with the creator of pure spirit you just need a mind and alignment with that spirit or call it a soul in alignment with the source you can call it any words you want it doesn't really matter what the words are so actually what does happen we're starting to have a seeming tribe of those that are going I'm going for it we're starting to be convinced actually by the course you know the Holy Spirit has a major convincing job for a mind that has liked sleeping and dreaming and denying the light for so long to turn around you might say that we're just kind of part of like a wave of those the tribe of those that are awakening we're not even interested in physical or mortality we see that that's a contradiction in terms that used to be I know there's whole communities in this country that are based on physical or mortality so they just live together with that one belief in the courses thing now that's not going to work either oh great I don't even have to try to marry immortality with the body I can let one go and totally embrace another is it practical I love the practicality of this pathway that's why I talk a lot about guidance because when I started tuning into the Holy Spirit I got I got a lot of guidance and I continue it's more like there's been a merge now so it's not like the Holy Spirit or Jesus and David it's just all one thing so it's more like I'm the witness self I'm just watching the whole thing now it's not a one that's receiving the guidance but what a great metaphor that is guidance if you felt that you were a body or human being lost in a far country lost in time and space does anybody remember that TV show Lost in Space June Lockhart danger Will Robinson danger well really it's dangerous to believe in this world it's dangerous to believe in linear time we really weren't told that at the dinner table it would have been helpful finish your peas why because I'm just going to tell you the world's an illusion but we believe we're here and I'm going to quit playing the mom or dad role with you don't eat the peas you don't want to feel it out feel your guidance what do you feel right now if you eat those peas or not feel it out for yourself get in touch with your divine guidance we all have the same divine guidance so let's practice you know that would be something imagine going in to talk to your teachers during the student teacher things that you have to go where they bring out all your grades and everything and oh Johnny's failing this and doing this he's got a C in this and two D's and he's doing terrible he's not paying attention to this and this imagine your parent supporting you going guess he's a divine being grades don't mean a damn thing not a damn thing and he's not interested in growing up and fitting into a system that's an illusion he's interested in being happy and I'm here the parent teacher conference to support my child who's a child of God and then taken to the teacher from your child of God too you may think getting out of this rat race too come on you can come along with us support would you not have felt support you might have even enjoyed going to school at that point because the pressure's off just go enjoy all your friends laugh with them have fun play with them why is it that there's so much playing in preschool and then in kindergarten you know they still let you play but they start to tell you there's something coming and then first grade boom it hits I actually had this little house in Cincinnati called a peace house and one time my friend Mark brought his daughter over and then Mark was with us for a while but then Mark went into the living room and left his little daughter and me at the kitchen table and she just started first grade and she was depressed she was very depressed I said how do you like school and she said I don't like school at all I said what's bad about it is that there's so much homework and so many things we have to study like so many already they were getting into little disciplines in the first grade and all this homework and everything and I said I know exactly what you mean I said when you were in kindergarten you didn't have these worries and concerns did you she said no we had nap time nap time crayon coloring isn't that fun my father was in the other room he was disturbed that the two of us were having that kind of conversation in the kitchen he said Dave what are you talking about what are you guys doing in here we're having a heart to heart talk here important stuff and I've had that in other cultures too where I'll meet with somebody a daughter who's maybe 13 who's already a great artist like a little Picasso you could easily sell her paintings and have plenty to go for at just 13 but when she says to me I want to tell my parents that I want to retire at 13 from school I said well your mother and your grandmother who were course students they'll be able to at least hear it not that they'll be too keen on it but they'll hear it and no he won't he won't be able to hear this he will upset him greatly he was like an Olympic basketball player into achievement and to retire at age 13 is not part of his plan I'm sure for his daughter so we have to be discerning but in the end we need to be discerning for our own hearts we need to be willing to go for this and really say if Jesus is telling me God has a plan for my life if Jesus is telling me that my part is essential for the whole plan my part is essential for the completion of the whole plan and I can't pawn it off and say well maybe that's just for somebody else or if I hadn't been so heavily programmed in this way then I could maybe do it or you can't pawn it off and say leave it to the crystal children leave it to the the ones that have come to this world without the baggage let them carry the load no our part is essential and we we wouldn't be hearing this we wouldn't be reading this book if it wasn't for us to complete our part perfectly so I feel like we're part of the tribe we're here to cheer each other on with that I can say that for me I got happier and happier with the chorus and then people started to find me and show up into my life from this kind of loner life and no friends and shy and like a wall flower as I went deeper into this joy and happiness of spirit then I started to call forth witnesses all around the world in different languages and different cultures I can't wait to see me I can't wait to see them we can communicate well enough sometimes with translators but you don't need a translator for a smile you don't need a translator for a hug I go show up and just rejoice have fiestas and parties and countries where I don't even speak the language because we have the same vibe we have the same joy we have the same purpose we are the same ones we are seeing ourselves as separate and different from each other and also I've seen some that witnesses have showed up that they've been so willing to unwind from the things that you brought up, that Rita brought up they've been so willing to do that that they're becoming quite proficient at taking their mind away from that as an example when we leave here on Monday we're flying up to Oakland and Nikita was working with some of the people up there in the Oakland area and we happened to be here on a weekend so it's a weekend we're going up there and we've got some days Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and one time people started to say to Nikita well we can't start at like noon nobody will come and she said why not why won't people come at noon and they said they're working and she was just like oh god just totally blanked on that she's forgotten that people work she's over there smiling she forgot one little thing and so well what do we do we roll with the flow right we've got evening gatherings oh that's right we'll do the gatherings in the evening you know you have to roll with it but it's good when you start to let go thinking about it like thinking that like when you go maybe you're guided to go to a real powerful movie to the matinee and you take off work to do it well the ego will want you to feel guilty for taking off work it will have you sit in the movie theater and try to distract you from the movie and tell you there are millions of people who are out slaving away at this very time when you are meant to be rejoicing in your lessons not concerned that you're not pulling your weight I've had other people who listen to me long enough they say if we follow what you're saying out the whole world would just collapse and disappear and I'm very very good you're actually hearing what I'm speaking I'm trying to defend no I'm not I'm in total agreement that's exactly where this is heading because if this is false perception if this is availed images it's covering us over from the light why wouldn't we want it to collapse and light up and disappear yeah oh it is and I can say from experience it's spectacular I think that it's just fascinating watching the world light up you know people, witnesses of happiness and all kinds of just fun stuff coming in from every angle it's glorious it's nothing to be feared we don't need to fear like something will be taken away there's no sacrifice in God's plan so there's absolutely not one tiny little glint of happiness at all I'm doing this thing thank you Jen run it out the rooms of my house and so I make a little cash flow there so I I feel like I can go to people's homes and pay for my food and gas to get there if they want to do course with me if they want to have a little mini community and so Carol Ann I put it out on the on the living virtual and living miracles and so that was like my first we just had eight days and it was hard so I want to talk to you about this I don't know how to tell her I don't care about where you've been what you've done or you know what I just want to talk about God and so I wasn't really sure how to say that to her and it was almost like being rude I felt and so I listened a lot and then when I got a word in edgewise I reflect on God about it and maybe I don't need to say anything maybe I just need to listen glad you're bringing this up it reminded me of the time when I just took off going around across the country and ended up having an LA 25 years ago because I think the first the first night out I ended up in a campground somewhere maybe in St. Louis and down in Arkansas at a campground a blind man singing and all kinds of things happening to me but you know the thing that was so important for me was I like the blues brothers remember the blues brothers we're on a mission from God I wasn't going to tell people I was on a mission from God because I might get a few funny looks but I felt like I was on a mission from God that I was just going out to give and extend and radiate and so when I was in that attitude of giving I wasn't really expecting anything to be a certain way but in those subtle aspects even in conversations where we have assumptions about conversations like we like we've come as human beings to like two-sided conversations we don't like monologues generally although I'd say if Jesus or Buddha or Krishna or somebody showed up we'd be pretty willing to shut our mouths and listen if they were speaking to us we would just be like give it up, give it up, here's the mic but that was my thing was I had to keep praying the prayer I had the first edition of the chorus way back 25 years ago but it's the one back then it was on page 24 I am here only to be truly helpful I am here to represent him who sent me I do not have to worry about what to say or do for he who sent me will direct me I tend to be wherever he wishes knowing he goes there with me and I will be healed as I let him teach me to heal I prayed that everywhere I went I prayed before I went to the grocery store to a course meeting to the laundry mat to go meet some friends I was praying and praying and praying I'm just here to be truly helpful and a lot of it in the early those early times was me smiling and laughing a lot and going around and hugging a lot of people but I didn't have much to say in fact the course of miracles for some of you that don't know much of the course it was described by this woman Helen Shuckman and her collaborator her boss at this research psychologist Clubby Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City Bill Thedford when he retired from research psychology he would go around to course groups and from what I've heard he didn't have much to say he would just sit there smiling and smiling and smiling almost like so grateful just to be there and he didn't have much at all to say he wasn't teaching the way we think of teaching with words his attitude was going way before him and he was just bringing such presence into the room loving so loving and he laid the body aside very happily that's what I've heard in fact they did an autopsy they said that right before he passed away he just said he'd forgiven all of his relationships all of them he told Judy Skutch and he was so happy that he was dancing around her apartment like Fred Astaire you know Fred Astaire and Junior Rogers just so happy he was dancing dancing dancing like one of the Dervishes Sufi Dervishes and then he laid his body down in the grass on a sunny California day and they said that his heart exploded in other words it was a symbol we couldn't contain we couldn't contain the love he felt so happy so ecstatic that he just laid his body down in the grass not far from Judy Skutch's apartment and really we're here for waking up from this dream we're here for ascending we're here for having an experience that we're far beyond the body if the body is like a little dancing shadow for a while and we let it hug and laugh and cry and go through whatever it needs to express that's good too let's give it allowance to express whatever it needs to be expressed but let's not think of it as our home the Christ the spirit is not at home in the body I just read that today it's the ego that associates itself with the body it's not the spirit a reincarnation that served me for a while but this goes so far beyond reincarnation so do you see my movies that I do on quantum physics now we go way beyond reincarnation because I come along on a ride with me we go way beyond the idea of incarnating and reincarnating think of it as like a movie or channels that you can change all these channels until you come to this beautiful holistic perception where you see that you're everything and everything is you there's no boundaries there's no distinctions there's no past, there's no future there's nothing but this holy instant and so I would say as you go happily on this new road where you you have something to go and even that money may, you know, the spirit will take care of you in ways but you're just there to bring this light and joy and happiness and to give the situation over in advance to the Holy Spirit and then watch how glorious it lights up like Ho'oponopono I love that about Dr. Hewlin even before he meets the people if people are coming to one of his reaps I think now he's just in silence out here he's just gone to the stillness there's no need for gatherings and meetings but when he used to have gatherings and meet the people he would look at the list and he would practice going up and down all the names on the list everyone on the list cleaning them cleaning his mind of any thoughts of them before he would even meet them wow, now that's the way to devote your life clean your mind of the list before you even meet the people they don't have a chance of having a grievance you've cleaned them before they get in the door you've got them all sparkling clean they're not going to have a chance they're going to have a grievance in there and that's what we're doing so I just joined with you I'm glad you're using the L.M. virtual everything that's there I used the Miracle Distribution Center list in the early days when I came out here and I was just using what was available they're still available too I think but it's cool that you're just flowing with it it's exciting and scary thank you thank you I was just thinking scary she said it's fun yes I think I can address that real directly because when I was in university for 10 years oh the question I'll repeat the question can you see how how the course fits in with the need for a social change the question there it is I know when I was in I wasn't out here at Berkeley and California is quite famous for social change and change agents. It's actually quite an honor to be around a tribe, a group of people out here that have sense that there's a very strong need for change. And even now in our presidential election, you know, I go around and a lot of my friends on Facebook and they're like, feel the burn, feel the burn, you know, they're into change. Let's have some radical change. Let's just do some overhaul here and let's get this planet in the right direction in a hurry. And I feel the energy underneath that sense. And when you take that energy where there's truly an hypothesis for, like Bill Thedford and Helen Shuckman came, Bill Thedford first spoke to Helen Shuckman before there was, of course, a miracle. And he said there has to be a better way of living. And he thought she was going to just laugh at him and make some kind of sarcastic remark. But she actually said, you're right, Bill, and I'll join you in it. I love that where people come together and they feel there's a need for change and they're willing to join together, join the strength that they have, their skills, abilities for that change. The course comes along, though, and the more you get into the course, what Jesus said is seek not to change the world. Seek rather to change your mind about the world. That's important because I had all this energy and I was, you know, save the dolphins, I was into the safety ecosystem, stop nuclear proliferation. I was an activist. So I was big, big time into change. And when he said that, I thought, oh, what does that mean? Seek not to change the world. What he means by that is this entire cosmos is a, is a smoke stream. It's a, it's a distracted device to keep the mind from turning within, you know, how the kingdom of heaven is within, Buddha said, go within, let go of the concepts up to your mind. The world is a distracted device to keep the mind focused on where change is impossible so that the mind won't change its purpose from one of hatred and fear and guilt to one of love and joy and happiness. The ego is so clever that it designed an entire smoke screen to keep the mind distracted away from looking at thoughts and beliefs. And in fact, he's even got a subsection in his course where he calls it the fear to look within. The ego does not want you going inside to your mind. The ego does not want you examining consciousness. It would have you try to make the world a better place. You know, even when we look at pop culture, you know, Michael Jackson, big time. I'm looking at the man in the mirror. I'm asking him to change his ways. No message could have been any clearer if you want to make the world a better place. Take a look at yourself and make a change. There you go. Good going, Michael. You bring it right back. Take a look at yourself and make a change. Take a look at your consciousness and make a change. As tempting as it is to try to make a difference in the world, as tempting as it is to try to make the world a better place, we need to look within to make the change. So what does that even mean? It's like, does that mean I don't try to make the world a better place? Well, the more you understand the metaphysics of the course is that you understand that the world, the entire cosmos, is nothing more than a reflection of a state of mind. It reflects our consciousness. It reflects our level of awareness. It's nothing more than a mirror that Michael Jackson was talking about. If you kept looking in the mirror and you kept trying to reach out and touch the mirror or change the reflections, you would quickly start to see that's kind of silly, because it's what is being reflected that needs to change. If you keep touching the mirror or trying to fix the mirror, it's not going to work. If you went to a movie theater and you saw a drama, or let's say as a war film or an emotional like a family drama or so on and so forth, and you became so sad or frustrated or just felt like you were all pent up with emotions, and you got out of your theater seat and you went down and you started hitting your hand on the screen like a bad movie. This is a violent movie. Stop it. And you started to have ripples on the screen because you're pounding on the screen because it's too violent. Too violent of a movie, people would say that's ridiculous. You paid to go into a violent movie, now you've got to deal with it, you know? Deal with your emotions. Don't get your paws off the screen. So this is what we have to realize. These are the deep teachings is that you can't change a projection because the projection is a projection of thought and that all these images we're looking at, including the sun, the trees, the grass, is this grass? It makes my point. Lay there in the plastic or whatever. You have to see that you can't change the effects, the projections of the world unless you change your thinking because it's your thoughts that have put the projections in place. So when people get upset at Osama Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein or various politicians, we could be tyrants, dictators, and so on and so forth. There's a lot of projection and anger that gets put towards these men or towards these women as if they're villains, they're evil and everything. It's missing the point that Gandhi made actually years ago where he said if there is such a thing as a devil, Gandhi said he's running around in our own hearts. He lived back at the time of Hitler. Gandhi lived right at the time of Hitler and here he is teaching if there is a devil he's running around in our own hearts. In other words, he was pointing to the same thing, that we must come to peace. We must come to inner peace before we can perceive a peaceful world. If we're going to, let's say, end pollution, why don't we end the pollution of judgment in our own minds, in our own consciousness before we're concerned with fumes? I don't care at all about fumes. I was telling them yesterday that I had one of the most mystical experiences in Argentina when I was in a taxi cab and it was so hot that the window was rolled down and a bus came beside the taxi cab and it didn't have an exhaust pipe on it so all the black soot from the exhaust of the bus hit me as I was smiling looking out the window. It just came head on. I just got hit with a black wave of black soot. Never had so much fun in my life as having black soot in my face. Why? That's getting into mysticism here. When you get into the glory of the Lord, you relieve your mind of the pollution of judgment, of definitions, of concepts, of categories and then you're in the glory, you're in the rapture when you're free of those concepts and judgments and then everything is beautiful. That sounds like a race even song. Everything is beautiful in its own way. That's how I felt with that soot. I actually was in glee in the soot. I've used that example sometimes because I discovered that that same energy that I had under the activism, I needed that. There's something really good. There's this altruistic, this drive for healing and wholeness that's in all of us and I couldn't deny that. I had to say, bring that on. Let that be like the Niagara Falls, let it pour. But as far as the direction, I aimed it at cleaning my mind of every scrap of comparison, every scrap of judgment, every scrap of taking a side. Even Gandhi. I remember I was reading Gandhi's autobiography and I was fascinated reading about his amazing life and one time he was on a ship, I think he was sailing between England and India and Gandhi got sick and I thought, why is Gandhi such an amazing man, how did Gandhi get sick? So I asked Jesus because Jesus always has the answers. Why did Gandhi get sick? I said, he was such a peaceful man. For millions of people, what an example, why did Gandhi get sick on this boat? Was he seasick? Jesus said, no, he wasn't seasick. He took a side in the war and I was like, oh my God, Gandhi took a side, yeah, he took a side from the allies against the Axis and he got sick. Now that kind of teaching starts to tell me how deep this goes, that if we take a side on anything, we are buying into the ego which is guilt and fear and darkness and we will feel the effects. Those aren't our natural emotions but we will feel what the ego feels when we identify with it. So I got a lot of practice in this lifetime because, you know, in these last 25 years with the Course, they had this strange thing of a Course in Miracles lawsuit that arose and then there was a second lawsuit and a third lawsuit and I was just like, man, fourth lawsuit, there was a fifth Course in Miracles lawsuit, the sixth and the seventh. There were seven Course in Miracles lawsuits at one point running over the ownership of these words from the Course and I kept traveling around and everything and I would meet people and they would say to me questions like, what do you think? Which side is right? I say, what book are you reading? That's not the book I'm reading, you know. Which side is right? Who's in the right? Who's in the wrong? You know, we get lots of temptations to take sides. Even when there's gossip, you know, somebody starts a gossip and then they ask us, what do you think? I mean, they're asking the wrong one and they ask me because I'm just like, I have no opinion and I have no opinion about anything. I have no opinion about politics. I have no opinion about the ecosystem, the stratosphere. Nuclear weapons, no opinion, abortion, no opinion, you know, across the gamut of all the things that I took a stand on as an activist, I now have absolutely no opinion. Well, people say, don't you think it's important to take a stand? I take a stand every moment for love. I take a stand for laughter, for humor. I take a stand for oneness beyond duality, beyond dualistic concepts. I love not having opinions and I don't feel embarrassed by saying, I don't know. I'll say that all the time. They'll give me the big, long thing and they're waiting for my wise thing and I don't know. Even about these details of quantum physics when they get into different things, you know, I like the quantum field. That makes me smile, that everything's completely connected and that everything is energy. That I have a very clear understanding. But when it gets into theories, people can offer their theories, I don't know. I could go on for hours and hours giving examples and metaphors of how wonderful it is to just let go and let God. How wonderful it is to be clueless about the world, how wonderful it is to come to a clarity that you can never understand anything about this world, anything. Why? Because peace and understanding go together and cannot be found apart. And peace is a perspective, it's a purpose. It's not anything to do with specifics. The Holy Spirit is really good at using specifics to point to the light. But that's only because the Holy Spirit would have you merge with the light and see yourself as that light, not to linger and dinker around with images. So yes, over these last 25 years, my perception has flipped. They sometimes say, David has flipped out, yes I have. I have flipped out. They also say, David, some people say, David has lost his marbles. I've lost every last one of them and I'm happy about that. They will say, David is not all there. That's true. I never have been there and I'm not going there either. I'm in here and now and I'm not leaving. And all these things have flipped around because I was aware that the world through egoic perception is backwards and upside down. It's like trying to live in an upside down world and it's no fun. Living the things you might say right side up, so to speak, with purpose out front. The love, the forgiveness, the peace, the harmony. You put that purpose out front and then watch how everything gently comes into alignment with that purpose. And if we hold sickness or pain or suffering or competition in front, then we will see a conflictual world. And it seems to be a world in need of healing, but it's really a mind in need of healing. So it's just a big, it's a big turnaround, it's a big flip. The world is a projection of an internal condition. So when that internal condition has been corrected, then you see a peaceful world. But I could totally agree with Mother Teresa when they asked her one time if she would come to an anti-war rally and she said, no, I won't go, but I will come to a pro-peace rally, she said, because she was not anti anything. She was going into that state of mind that's not against. She wasn't looking for something to be against because she was what? Ending the projection. She was saying, I'm not going to keep projecting something that's really a projection of mind and then battling it as if it's a real enemy. Does any of you see that movie that was about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, Jessica Chastain and Zero Dark Thirty? The best part of that whole movie is I watched the whole movie and then when she finally had to go identify Osama bin Laden's body, she opens up the zipper bag and just a look on her face. She didn't have to say a word. It was like, what have I been doing? What have I been chasing? It just had this look on her face like, wow, I put a lot of effort into chasing an external enemy as if Osama was the problem. Osama was never the problem. The ego set it up, the ego projects its hatred out onto persons. There's never been a single evil person in history and there's never been a good one either. I'm talking some pretty deep stuff here but if you forgive the world, you will see that it's the mind that's holding. We don't even have holy people. Those are metaphors along the way. Just like social change is a very helpful metaphor in the life of David. I was glad I got into Heal the World, Make the World a Better Place. It felt good. It felt like an expression of something that needed to come through me and I was grateful for that and then at some point it was almost like Jesus was saying, good, good, good. You have love in your heart. You have peace you want to share that's all very, very good. Now let's really go for it. Let's bring an end to this idea of evil and wrongness forever. Let's go for the atonement. Let's go for the correction that sees that it was all a misperception, that it was all like the Bible says in Corinthians, looking through a darkened glass. Oh, that's what the terrorism was, looking through a darkened glass. That's what the pollution was. That's what the radiation was. You could apply it to everything. You could apply it to food. Do you know what people say, oh, they put all these chemicals in the food? GMOs. GMOs. I mean, there's so much of this, you know, it's like, I just think for the last 25 years I've been traveling all over the country and I just, that thought never comes into mind. I think people would even play with me sometimes because one time I was at this little peace house and I think the people I was living with were going to try to test me or something but they left some, like, old milk, stale, sour milk or whatever in the refrigerator knowing that I enjoyed milk, so I'm not lactose intolerant, lactose lover, I don't even know what lactose is. So I go in and I get the jug of milk and I pour myself a nice tall glass of milk and they're just watching me drink the whole thing down with a big smile on my face too. You know, it's like, this is what the trend said, this is what the mystics have been talking about, you know, when people say, go walk on hot coals, what's the point of walking on hot coals except for mind over matter, except to see that it's all in your mind, that there aren't any hot coals. You know, we need to do this with food too, we need to do this with everything, we need to do this with our economics, you know, when someone tells us, you know, what are you going to do, you're running out of money, it's like, it's not my money, it's not my money, Jesus spends his money anyway, he wants to spend it, I'm just a witness, you know, and I've had that happen where I'll get guidance as to whatever, buy a property or sell something or this and this, but it's central casting, it's all central casting, find out how happy and free your life is when you let central casting do his job. But when you get into possession and you get into ownership, even ownership of a body, watch how stressful your mind gets. That's what Rita was talking about when she came up, the stress is in the ownership part. One time I was out, I always feed all these animals and children and when I traveled around, I had so much fun with them all and somebody came to me when I was playing with a child on a swing set, we were swinging and everything and they came up and they said, haha, have fun now, but see how much fun you have if it's your own child. I'm like, what's that mean? But you know, it's this sense of ownership, whether we own houses, bodies, children, cars, even countries, you know, all this patriotism and pride that comes around, it's like Krista Murdy used to call it, nationalism, you know, just what a disease that is, it's just taking ownership of something that we have no business owning. It's all us anyway, so why should we think we can own a part of it when all of it is us in awareness and consciousness? So thank you for bringing that up because I feel like those are really important topics and issues to go into because anything that has some kind of a stress or we feel unfulfilled, like we haven't done enough, we could do more, we could do better. There's a good motive underneath it but it's just a little bit skewed in terms of what we're applying it to and once we apply it to our mind, to our consciousness then it has enormous benefits and we have, I'd say then we experience such a fulfillment, I feel hummingbird has just come to sit and join us here right now. It's so beautiful. He's like a symbol of our fulfillment and off he goes. You kind of answered my question or I felt it when you were talking but it's with my children, my adult children, almost like I feel I don't deserve to be happy if they're struggling because I have this sense of responsibility towards them. And I guess what I'm hearing and feeling sitting here is, no, my role is to find my happiness, my peace and I don't own them, they own themselves. And as you said, see if I can feel my way into this, it's to be in a state of love and with them, with anyone. And it's that sense of ownership that gets in the way of that. I must quote the great philosopher Linda Ronstadt. Love is a rose that should better not pick it. Only grows when it's on the vine. Hand full of thorns and you know you've missed it. Lose your love when you say the word mine, mine. You know, it's all there, it's always been around us that when we get into a position, then automatically we get into a sense of false responsibility. And I'm not talking about abdicating on responsibilities. In other words, if you're thinking with the ego and you wind yourself into a lot of duties and responsibilities, I'm saying you need to pray and call on the Holy Spirit to unwind you from the things that the ego wound you into. We're not talking about abdicating and just dropping things and walking away in form, but it's beautiful that you brought that up because here you have adult children and you're really showing that the concept of stress or responsibility and duty has nothing to do with really the age of the child. Because I remember on one of my trips to Iowa, I did a gathering at a friend who invited me there and she was going on and on and on about the guilt she felt about her children, the guilt around the children, the guilt around the children, and finally her son came in and she introduced him to him. Here's my son, he was 77 years old, the son. She felt all this guilt around motherhood and the guy is 77 years old. And I thought, okay, it has nothing to do with age here. And then the important thing, though, is if we're not talking about abdicating on responsibilities that the ego wound you in, and we are talking about releasing the guilt around responsibility, then this is where guidance comes in. This is where inspiration from the Holy Spirit comes in. Because the Holy Spirit will unwind us from all false self concepts that the ego has made for us. Why is it important that the Holy Spirit unwind us from false concepts that the ego made for us? Because they're all based in fear and guilt and pain, every last one of them. And we need to be lifted into higher and higher states of consciousness, rinsed the Holy Spirit has to go take our mind through the rinse cycle. Again, okay, one more time. No, keep it coming. Rinse, rinse, rinse. In order to accept the correction for the belief in this world, that everything is funneling up higher and higher towards the atonement. And don't you love it? I loved it when Jesus said that the sole responsibility of the miracle worker, sole responsibility of the teacher of God is to accept the atonement for himself, for your mind. In other words, if this whole linear world is an error, why not devote all of your full-time energy into accepting the correction for the error? Especially since we've been learned from Jesus that there is no such thing really as sin, like a black mark on your soul for eternity, that it's only an error, sin is an error to be corrected. So why not put our full energy into accepting that correction? To me that's so basic. Why would I put my energy into anything else other than that correction? Now that correction, I could say, is like the witness self, it's like the observer, it's like the dreamer of the dream. If you are lucid dreaming, if you know that you're dreaming a dream and you know that the content of that dream isn't real, that's happiness, that's happiness. And that's your responsibility. Your children were part of a responsibility network of being a mother. We're not trying to deny that. It's just that the ego made up that whole system. And we are wanting to transcend the ego. So when people say, well, is it better to have children than not have children? Everything in this world is a mirror. We should be thankful for all the mirrors. When people say, well, I have children, but I would like to devote my life to God. And he's like, no problem. Oh, the Holy Spirit will use those mirrors in a big time way because everything you perceive about the child is what you perceive about yourself. Everything without exception. There are no exceptions to it. So when we give ourselves over to healing correction, then we start to realize that everything that the ego made can be used to walk us back home without exception. And when people are saying, well, you know, I don't see how a nuclear bomb exploding over a major city is helpful, there's a higher perspective that actually goes beyond the possibility of destruction, beyond disease, beyond conflict, beyond any kind of struggle. It's so high. It's, wow, it's the Holy Spirit. It's above the battleground. And that's our responsibility together. That's our tribal responsibility is to go for that. So I think I thank you for your courage to go for this. And I have gone and stayed at people's homes and lived with people where I've met with whole families where we've all come to an agreement that we're going for the highest good. We're not going to stay caught in these petty arguments and so forth. In fact, we have just a relationship video that we just put out. It's all about joining and collaboration. And I think Jason in there says we've been fathers and mothers and daughters and sons and we've been all these characters. Are we ready to try on the big picture and accept the glory that God is giving us that transcends all the images and the roles? I say yes. I say we're just all giving a resounding yes. We'll do a high five with that one. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for bringing that up.