 We're all in a sense, the people I've gone in the Course. Initially when I first got involved with the Course, there were a lot of those passages about sprawling process and time, and we were reading some the other day that the separation occurred over millions of years, and it would take millions of years to heal, perhaps longer, you know, and you can look along those lines and go, hmm, this is a big mess. This is a big mess. And then, you know, it talks at other parts about healing in an instant, and about how many teachers of God does it take to save the world? One. And it says, when my mind is healed, all minds are healed, and it's kind of like, right, where do these things go together? And to me, as I talk about it, it really seems, he just wrote a book of metaphors, or like a metaphor of a ladder, where he's kind of just saying, grab ahold of any rung that you can, wherever you think you are, I've got a rung waiting for you, you know, and you can just hop right on it, and then we'll start climbing from there. And it's like, but if I kind of got there and feel like I've been climbing, climbing, the little voice has just always been saying to me, it's my lesson, and it only makes sense that it's my lesson, if there is just one mind and one ego, that it certainly seems a lot of times when we get in the metaphysical circle, well, I was doing good handling my own ego, but then I met so-and-so. I mean, and there ego is like, you wouldn't believe it. And I've got all kinds of things to deal with that, because I just got to get away from them. I got to have them in my space. And what the Course is really teaching is, is that there's just one ego. You made up an ego, you know, for yourself and for everyone you meet, he says in the text. Well, that takes all those discussions about, so-and-so you know what their lesson was in this, and you know, I think they missed the lesson. I really think they missed, you know, she's like, all that just goes out the window, and now it's like, oh, it's always my lesson. And when you really think about it, you really can stay with just that idea, just that one idea. What an acceleration, you know, because then you don't try to start analyzing and figure out other people's, you know, he says at one point, it's dangerous to analyze the motives of your brothers. It's dangerous to your mind to try to analyze the motives. And then, how have we lived? I mean, doesn't that, isn't that part of the judgment that goes on all the time? I wonder why they didn't show up. I wonder why they seem so excited about this and then they never come. Or I wonder why they spent so much money. They said this, but they do this. You know, all this stuff is just like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, finally it's like after a while. And that's just blah, blah, blah, you know. My peace of mind is too important to give my holy mind to any more of this blah, blah, blah stuff. Could you address the whole idea that they're giving you these things? Okay. It's stated in many different ways, of course. All that I give is given to myself and giving and receiving are the same. The fundamental thing in the mind and the deceived mind that blocks the realization that giving and receiving are the same is still the belief in sacrifice. It's very, very deeply rooted. In other words, there's a section in the Teacher's Manual where it talks about the question that's posed to Jesus, what is the real meaning of sacrifice? And Jesus starts out and says, you know, this is something that you have to look at very carefully. It's also referred to, if any of you have read the stages of the development of trust that the Teacher of God has to go through, that it talks about some of the early stages, and then at one point he'll say, You have not come as far as you thought you did. Because the idea of sacrifice is still central to your belief system. That even when initially I think we get into this and we start to see, Well, there's some things that I used to value that I can do without. So I'll chop them out of my life. I'll get rid of this, this, this. I don't need this anymore. And yet it's still, a lot of times in our life, it's still at a form level. And our mind really believes it can still discern between the valuable and the valueless. And so it goes through a phase maybe of relinquishment or there's one part, one of the early stages that says it will seem as if things are being taken away. You know, really it's just your mind is devaluing them. And then out in the world of form it seems like, see, I lost my job. I lost, I had an auto accident or something such as such was stolen. And really it's like there are no accidents. The mind is just starting to see that the world of form holds nothing that it really wants. But the belief in sacrifice is so deeply rooted that as you approach that light, as you start questioning these concepts, the ego starts to shriek. It's the closer you come down to the base of the ego, the premise that the ego is based on. And the ego will shriek and shriek and shriek. And basically it's saying that you're giving up what's valuable, that there still is something that's gleaming and glimmering in the world, that if I completely let go and just go into that light, that the ego is saying there's going to be some loss involved. You're going to have to give up something. And basically it's because the mind still believes that the world is something. But as soon as it can see that the mind isn't something. Yeah, the world isn't something. Then it can give up the world. But as long as it believes that there's value in clinging to something in the world, then that belief in sacrifice is still anchored in there. And so it will be perceived as a sacrifice. So it really doesn't have anything to do with per se of selling all your possessions or divesting the body of things, or going off to the mountain to leave the world and trying to escape by removing the body. But it has everything to do with letting go of false concepts and beliefs. So giving and receiving is just a basic metaphysical law. In heaven Jesus says what you extend you are. That's the one law of heaven, what you extend you are. That the Father extended the Son and the Son has creations which are the spirit level. And what we extend we are in a continuous line of creation and spirit. Spirit begots spirit begots spirit. So giving and receiving in heaven, I mean, there's just, there's no difference. See for me that sounds like being and giving. Being and receiving is the same. We see it as interchangeably. Can you say being and, can you say that giving and receiving are the same, is the same thing as giving and being are the same? Yeah, I mean, in the ultimate sense too, it's that same sense what you extend you are. I mean, I think in this world we're more familiar with things like as you so, so show you reap and the law of karma. And basically what that translates to since giving and receiving, the mind always gets exactly what it wants. Even if it doesn't know what that's what it wants. If it's confused about what it wants it will get confusion. The mind always gets what it wants. So the question is, what do I want? I mean, that has to be our central question. That's why in forgiveness the mind just becomes very single in its desire. I want the peace of God. The peace of God is my one goal, the aim of all my living here, the end I seek, my purpose, my function, my life. There's no doubt that the peace of mind is the goal. While I abide where I'm not at home is the way that I quote ends too. So as long as I believe I'm in the world, I need a single goal. I need a torch. I need something that will light my way home that I can, something positive to focus my mind on and that's peace of mind. So in that sense, it's still a stepping stone because the mind always gets exactly what it wants. When it holds on to a taxa, then it will interpret the things that happen on the screen as victimization, helplessness, powerlessness. But you see, it's getting just what it wants. And there's no escape until I give up the taxa. That's lesson 23. I can escape the world I see by giving up the taxa. But until I really get at these taxa, I will automatically draw forth witnesses and interpret things that happen in the world as unfair. You said there's only one law in heaven. Why is there a universal law, as we've been told? Well, kind of all the way up to law of grace, law of law. It's like it's gone by many different things, but we're seeing that like any of those ideas in the workbook, you know, he kind of is saying that if you can just get one idea, if you can just see the face of Christ in one person, if you can just forgive one person wholly, it will transfer immediately to everything in every one. So those universal laws are the mind, the deceived mind is so, has dissociated from them so much, tried to forget them and everything, that they need to be practiced in specific situations until the mind can come to that final aha experience, which is the atonement that says hey, this law applies to everything in every one, without exception. Like a good one would be, a practical example would be like less than 48, which is there is nothing to fear. Now just look at that, there is nothing to fear. If you would literally take that as your idea and go through your life, whether it's diseases, economic conditions, you know, physical kind of ailments, concerns for others, family members, you know, you can just look at all the different areas and something like there is nothing to fear is the universal law behind it. But no harm can come to the Son of God. But if I've forgotten that I'm the Son of God, then I need to find out what are my blocks, what are the beliefs in my mind that are keeping that from my awareness. Otherwise, he says as you perceive yourself, you have good reason to be afraid. It's one of those things where he says, you know, it's your misperception we've got to really get at. Otherwise, you can say there is nothing to fear until you're blue in the face. The flip side of all that then is that there's nothing in the world that can save me. And there's nothing in the world that's per se more spiritual than anything else. The Course in Miracles, to get to your question earlier about the Course in Miracles and gee, it seems to be in the language a level of vocabulary that everyone can't use, that there's many, many forms of the universal curriculum. And the Course is just one among many. And so, the Course is out here on the screen. The Course is just a projection. The Course in Miracles is a projection. And the Course is a tool, but it's made up of words. It's got a lot of words in it. And Jesus himself in the Course says words are but symbols of symbols twice removed from reality. So obviously, the words just stand for thoughts. And that there's a reality that's in there deeper than even the thoughts. So, to me, it's once again of not trying to get into a spiritual specialness about the Course. Where have been those who have advocated don't ever let the Course touch the ground. Or we can get into more felt things for instance, like with Course groups. And then, should they be closed or open or Course conferences? I mean, you can go on and on and on, that everything is equally an opportunity to look at your own perception. I think, I know we've discussed with Barbara too, the idea has been the sense of even having a sense of community or a sense of a center or something. I always keep saying, this is our community. Coming together with that intention, the community just like a church is not a place, it's not a structure, and it's not even a bunch of people, which is kind of a helpful metaphor, but it's that purpose that we hold in our lives. It doesn't matter about attending this or attending that. In the same way with a sense of community, this is the community. Right now, this very instant that we're doing. We are involved in community. And everything that seems to be happening on the world is kind of just like a whirling peripheral kind of thing. It can take many different forms. But the idea too about as you go along, a lot of people have questions as I travel around like, well, I'm in the course and I'm really excited and this is my path, but my husband or wife, they don't want to have anything to do with it. You know? And they describe it as a big, things would be a lot better if, it would be better if this was different. And you know, it's important to start to say to this, notice the thought. What kind of thinking would that be? If this changed, then it would be better. On the other hand too, it's this sense of people have had a sense of what they've started working with the course and they've been used to reading all this material, all this metaphysical material. And all of a sudden, they start to get a sense that they're really to focus on the course. You know? They're not just let go of reading just trying to do this and that. Because it's ideas are very compelling and it's very systematic. In other words, every idea is built in the course. And you can't, if you look at the course, if you take one idea out kind of like, you know, some people say, well, this stuff about God not creating the world, he doesn't really mean that. But it's like, if you take this foundation idea that God didn't create the world out, then everything is the whole system is built on that. You know, it's like the ideas are very much in mesh. Now for me, that's a little bit different than my readings and other things in the sense that everywhere I've looked, songs and books and films, you know, we had that resonating feeling. I mean, the truth is not confined.