 Everyone in this world seems to have his own special problems. Yet they are all the same, and must be recognized as one if the one solution that solves them all is to be accepted. Who can see that a problem has been solved if he thinks the problem is something else? Even if he is given the answer, he cannot see it's relevance. That is the position in which you find yourself now. You have the answer, but you are still uncertain about what the problem is. A long series of different problems seem to confront you, and as one is settled the next one and the next arrives. There seems to be no end to them. There is no time in which you feel completely free of problems and at peace. That is a good starting point for us. Whether we talk about personal issues and problems, perhaps there are feelings of anger or hatred or grievances with a person, or perhaps there are medical problems or seeming problems with the body, different aches and pains or different diseases and sicknesses, or whether we are talking more on a collective scale of social issues, abortion and gay rights or on and on and so on and so forth, there seems to be a wide array of problems. What we are going to do this morning is bring it back to the mind and redefine the problem, redefine what we perceive to be the problem. The first thing we have to do to really talk about bringing it back to the mind is kind of get into a little bit of a discussion about what is the mind and how is that differentiated from the world that the eyes see and the ears hear. The world of change and constant fluctuation and so on and so forth. And we have a term mind. I think it would be helpful to start out by saying the mind is not contained in the world. The mind is not analogous to the brain. But the mind is, you could use a Course in Miracles definition, the activating agent of spirit. It is very powerful. It is the place where the mechanism of decision making is contained within the mind. And it is abstract. There is nothing that we can use as a metaphor or a real good analogy that is in the world because the mind is not limited in everything in the world that we see as limited and fragmented in some way. So maybe we can just take a particular type of an issue that you have or a question that you have for a particular and work it back using our framework that we just set up that there are no problems apart from the mind. Why don't we take what I was looking at last week when I was staying with the boys and being in an environment that was much noisier and much more active than I often am. And just having the thought that I still need to be in a quiet, external environment to have my internal environment quiet. I noticed I still had that belief that in some way my internal state of mind was dependent on the volume level or the activity level and the external condition. Okay, so you've perceived the problem as a problem of environment. If we bring that back to the mind and we begin our discussion with the presenting problem is that there are certain circumstances or situations that you're perceiving that are outside of yourself that are undesirable. And if we bring it back to the metaphysics, of course, you see that one of the basic premises is there's nothing outside of you and that the inner world and the outer world are not different but are actually one and the same and simultaneous. And the belief that they are different sets up a situation or a conflict in that it would be better or more conducive to me if I were in a different situation or a different place. So it gets down to that belief that, first of all, that I'm in the environment. I mean, I think if we look and we listen to our words that they really convey what we believe and they can be used as trigger points or as clues to what we really believe to, first of all, to believe that one is in an environment it gets back to the belief that I am a person who is in the world and moving distinct from the world. There's a belief that I'm a person I can act on the world and the world can act on me. And in a sense, the deepest sense, we have a subject, object split. You know, the I, I am a subject in the world. I, you know, the I, I am a subject in the world. I subjectively perceive the world. I have feelings, I have emotions, I have likes, I have dislikes. I have the ability to make decisions as a person and the belief as other people have the ability to make decisions as a person. And so, in the Alderman sense, it's that split between subject and object that gets to the uncomfortableness that you feel in those situations. What, what a lot of seeming activity or noise levels and so on and so forth. The, the problem as defined in the world seems to be, you know, if it was quieter or if it was less activity then I could be at peace. My mind at least could be worse still than otherwise. And so when we listen to how that's described in that definition it's obvious that, that the state of mind, or the peace of mind is dependent on the environment in that case. And to take it one step further as we've just done the environment is something that is not me, that is apart from me. That isn't, in a sense, objectified. There is something that we can call an objectifiable environment. For instance, the house and the boys that you were staying with is being part of that objectifiable environment in which I find myself. That's where this split comes in between the inner and the outer in my mind. It's a very basic split. It's a subject-object split and the subject is seen to be a person and then the object can be another object, another person, the environment. Everything outside of me, in other words, what I perceive as me. Right. Everything outside of what you perceive as you. So in a sense, there's the split that's taking place. And this split is in the mind. This is a choice. This is a way of perceiving that the mind has chosen. Now, to fuse the split, to see no duality between one's self and the world can seem to be like a big leap. It can seem to be unfathomable. It can seem at times to be impossible. It can seem to be as if there's no experiential grounding or basis for that. That can be an idea and so on and so forth. But really, the first step in really transcending that split or letting that split go in the mind is to take a little bit of a look at the dynamics of why. If it's a very basic split that I have chosen to make, why does the mind make that split? And do you have any idea of that from any of our previous discussions? Why, what purpose does it serve the mind to split into a subject-object? Well, I think all the duality that's projected is the mind's attempt to relieve the pressure, as it were, from trying to maintain within it two different and opposing and conflicting thought systems. And so the mind tries to throw one outside of itself and attempt to just ease that and make it feel more comfortable and more manageable and less conflictual. And in throwing it outside of itself, that's how the duality is set up. That then the duality is experienced as being outside the mind instead of inside the mind where it's intolerable. And it doesn't really go away inside the mind, but there's kind of a pseudo-belief or misconception that it will in some way relieve that conflict in the mind to get it outside of itself. You say intolerable. I mean, are you gaining a sense of the force of the mind, of the strength of this intolerance in the sense that as you go along moment by moment and you do experience these instances of wanting to define the problem in the world, it has to be an indicator that there is a tremendous amount of fear or there is something that is really attempting to be run from or hid from or avoided to continually continue the projecting game of blaming or of, in all kinds of ways, trying to define the problem in the world. The mind insistently trying to define the problem over and over and over again as being in the world. Are you talking about just the fear, the basic fear that's in the mind, the fear of God, the fear of love and the fear of the punishment that's deserving from the guilt that comes from. The fear that having separated from God. Yeah, and that can seem very abstract or a lot of times a common thing is people say I'm not in touch with that. I don't really see that I'm afraid of God or I'm afraid of love. The metaphysical connections that you've made, this is what it comes down to in this hypothetical or presenting problem that we're talking about of wanting the environment to be in some way different. You know, in some way stating the problem is I'm not at peace and I could be at peace if something were different in my environment and it's not throwing it out. It's like one teeny sliver or one presenting problem of that, but this is the core of what goes on in this world as a defense against coming to know that there's only one problem. So is that a question? No. Oh, okay.