 And it's very much like the analogy of living in the present moment, like when Abraham Maslow studied the self-actualizing people, he found that they were so in the moment that they were so in the joy of the moment that there was no split between means and ends. So for example, an artist's painting was not thinking, I wonder how this painting will turn out in the future. I wonder if I can sell it, I wonder how much money it would bring. I wonder if it will go down in history. All these thoughts involving time, they're just in the joy of the moment, of the here's the paint coming out of that canvas and it's just joyful with no sense of future end. And that's I think what you're describing with that metaphor, where if you have a gift or ability that kind of washes through you and flows through you and you're not looking for any attention, to draw any attention to a personal self, then that's where the bliss is. And also that's where the contentment is. For me, I love traveling with the gatherings and stuff like that because to me it's one continuous gathering. We may put times and say this one starts at two and ends at six, but for me it's all the same. It just goes on and on. I'll probably end up going out to dinner with people after this and we'll have a good laugh somewhere. And then continually it just goes on and on whether I'm waiting in a train station or a plane station. You don't segment life into spiritual times and everyday mundane routine things. You don't make that distinction because you're just radiating your gift of joy and your happiness. I was just in Spain saying, do you recommend that people read a course in miracles? They said, oh no, that's not my job. I like to care less when they read a course in miracles. I said, my job is to be happy. And then if somebody happens to pick something up like a course and says, I've got some curious, I've got some questions here about this and they ask me, I'll be glad to talk and to answer them. It kind of fits into Cathy's question too about this idea of beliefs. Like if somebody believes something and they start questioning you, the more you go into this transformation you realize that this whole world is a world of beliefs and that nobody's beliefs are correct. Because it was made to be a world of separate belief systems where every human being that walks this earth, whatever, 6 billion, each seems to have a different belief system. They may have certain ones that have a lot in common, but I'll guarantee you even soulmates will have disagreements about perceptions and beliefs. They may go for weeks or months or even years, but there will come a time when one soulmate will turn to the other and say, you believe what? I thought I knew you. Because that's what this world is. No two people see the same world. I mean, that's how the ego set it up and that's why there's so much conflicting belief and arguments is because no two people see the same world. But the good news is, is the Holy Spirit sees a forgiven world and the Holy Spirit's in your heart, in your mind and always accessible. Saying, come join with me, come up here and above the battleground and I'll show you how lovely it is. And that in any instant we can always join with our higher self and feel the bliss and non-attachment and peace that comes from being lined up with that higher self. And after a while it becomes more attractive to do that. In other words, you start to say, what else do I have to do with my time but join with my higher power? I mean, why try to go against the ocean and build the sandcastle when the ocean's going to come wash, wash it away anyway? Why not join with the waves or, you know, get into the flow of it? So that's, those are good questions that we're looking at here because what I'm saying is the more you get into the experience, the more everything is like you're on autopilot and you're just in this grand flow and people, like Kevin was saying, what do you do with those situations? I thrive on those situations. I have to say there was a part of me that enjoyed it because I enjoy the course. I feel the love. I want to extend the joy. And I certainly didn't want her to feel threatened in any way, shape or form. And I was, I'm in a stranger's home and she's asking me, you know, in a kind way, can I ask you some questions? Probably from the standpoint of trying to save me. We're all saved. There's no one that needs to be saved. We all are in the mind of God. We've never left the mind of God. But you can't help but notice people's reactions to those ideas. And I love that situation. Well, I recognize the parts of my mind that needed to be healed. She was just a reflection of my own mind when I blessed her and I forgave myself. That's all that needed to happen. It was not a, everything happens for a reason. That was okay. So it really was, it really was a perfect experience. It was a perfect experience. It's very good too because it's like a version. There's a course workbook that says I will step back and let him lead the way. And the course is experiential. It really is a practical one. We practice it everything that comes our way. Okay. I surrender. I surrender. And I definitely tried to find the common ground. I mean, what she would say. I would be like, oh, of course I believe in Jesus Christ. And of course I think the Bible is a book of love. And of course I tried to be as, you know, extending as I possibly could. But, you know, she gave me quite many questions and I shared my answers. And you're just like looking at something and they're like in horror over what you're saying. So it was also something that you noticed as well. I was going to say that the Holy Spirit has led me back to the Course in Miracles. And I didn't, well I opened it to the first page before I am not a body. Because I've had a number, a number of physical ailments that I have by the grace of God overcome. And I have let them go. And I have been led to books. I can, a book will just almost jump off the shelf with me. Which will be just exactly what I'm looking for about letting go. And there's a little book of letting go by Hugh Praker. I missed the time he said he was a former minister. But it's very much about being honest. And I don't think he mentioned the Course in Miracles in it. But it's totally in line with Course teachings. And there's another book that I came across just recently called The Disappearance of the Universe. And I'm wondering if anybody in here had seen this book by Gary. I forgot. I don't see that. I find that extremely amusing and also enlightening. And I can open this to a certain one. But I went back to when you said when I felt that I needed to go back, I got my original books. And I just opened it to that one. I will step back and let him lead the way. And so I've opened it to that one. And the one about judgment. And so instead of going through it one of the times, I have just opened the book. And it's always been exactly what I was looking for. Exactly what I wanted, what I needed to hear. And it's like, this is a lesson that I came to learn. And God has provided me this opportunity to learn it. And it was right funny that I had an experience a couple of years at both of them, you know. Why couldn't they get the thing done? And also, this is something that I picked up from one of these books that I had been reading. It could be reflecting something that you have in your past, some shadow that's inside of you. And so it dawned upon me that I have at times misplaced a bill or something or other and I was searching madly for this bill. So I'm just being a mirror to me of what I have attracted that which I don't want, you know. And so I started to laugh. And so I said, Ron, come here and let me hold your hands. And I said, look into my eyes and say with me, I'm the mother child of God. He said, yeah, I'm the mother child of God. I said, and so is everyone. And he said, and so is everyone. And I said, and I claim my inheritance now as God's beloved child for guidance and I release all negatives no matter what. And he said this way and we both laughed at each other. It was wonderful. It's that moment of surrender. No matter what, however the situation was set up when you just reached a point where you can look and say, this is nuts. This is really crazy. I'm making myself upset over nothing then. And I thought, what a sense of humor God has. He gives me two opportunities to forgive. And so then I called Tessa, the girl. I went home and she had put the check in my mailbox when I got home. So I think we're both there. But I told Tessa the story. I said, you know, I appreciate the lessons that evidently I came to this earth to learn. As Carolyn Lace says, we do come to learn lessons. We have a sacred contract. So apparently one of the things I came to learn was I am not a victim. That's another thing that I love out of the course. I'm not a victim of the world I see. So I was feeling like a victim that they had not done their part on time. And Holy Spirit gave me double opportunities to see my good things. That's what true, the word gets passed around a lot in this world called abundance. But true abundance is really just being in the present moment, being content, knowing all as well, knowing that you're safe. At the beginning I went through lots of those kind of experiences. Just lots of them, lots of them. Because you have to let go and you have to see the blessing. There's a blessing in every single encounter. And now it's kind of fun because once you get confident in that and you're in the flow of that, things happen to me like a woman was supposed to pick me up in Munich at the train station and her car broke down and didn't get there. So I was in a sea of people that I don't speak the language, just going around looking into people's eyes and enjoying the encounters until I finally, I was guided to go back to the train station for the train had been and the person who was supposed to pick me up was a thereby recognized Southern woman and she was like in deep prayer because she was the one that had been told to come and pick me up instead and there she was praying, Heavenly Father I've lost David. I'm missing him at the train. He's here in this big train station now and it was my responsibility to pick him up and bring him to me. Please Heavenly Father bring him to me. So I saw her and came over and just tapped on her shoulders. Praise God, it's a miracle. I thought I'd lost you this and that but he gets to be fun. Everything, you can't get lost. You can't be in the wrong place. I was at dinner in the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa with all these people most of them just, they just spoke Spanish and they were having all these Spanish conversations and I was sitting there happily eating my meal looking at all the smiling faces and the gestures and the way the hands over there just articulate you know all the messages and everything I'm really enjoying the whole thing and later on this woman said to me you know it must, don't you feel like alienated or isolated when you're at a whole table of people and they don't speak your language is this giving you all these symbols and sounds that you don't even understand and I said oh no, I was thoroughly, I thoroughly enjoyed that whole dinner and it's because I said that's the way it is for me all the time I really don't, even when I travel across English speaking nations most of this talk is like chit chat and gossip and everybody's talking about the same old, same old and I'm just kind of tuning into the presence of love that's there and even now when I pick meditation tapes I'll pick pick them in other languages so I don't even try to follow the words I just enjoy the rhythms and the sounds and everything like that so it's a different way of orienting your mind instead of trying to follow all these gyrations of the ego dropping nuts if you try to follow it and figure it out it's more you just relax into this presence and intuitively you let that guide you about where you're supposed to be what you're supposed to say or if you're just supposed to smile because a smile is like a universal symbol I can go into a lot of countries and just smile and laugh I enjoy the smiles and laughter because you feel the connection and we don't need to always have conversations we just need to feel the presence of love in our heart and let the spirit use the words if there are to be words spoken I'd like to go back just for a second it's Kathy right we're speaking of her encounter with a fundamentalist Christian and frequently some states as fundamental Christians are oriented to have a platform and they want to present their platform not in front of you get you to vote on it and if you're oriented to the platform concept even in basic things like families and corporations and partners and whenever when you lift those things up as like things in and of themselves they can become idols where you become so attached to that that you feel like you've got to protect those things and guard those things and get that energy in and what I think we're learning from the course is really it's an unlearning it's letting all that stuff flush up and let it come up because you've got to go through the darkness to the light without judging oh I'm a failure or I'm not doing this course well or I'm not going to be spiritually successful let it all come up and then that's what my journey has been it's like let it all come up I kind of wouldn't even look into my mind come on are you hiding in that dark spot come on over there come on you actually encourage it to the point that you realize that you're never going to be peaceful always unless this darkness, this unconsciousness is allowed to come up and then when you really get into it and you really start to get to the light at the end of the tunnel then you start to approach what I would say the curriculum of the Course in Miracles is which is looking error not seeing the error, judging the error analyzing the error still saying what I'm doing or saying look at those attack points I did it again but actually reaching a point where you've gone so through those dark clouds that you reach that point that Jesus talks about in the song of prayer where it's in italics do not see error do not see error most of the Course is taking a look at what you believe and that's most of the books that are written about the Course are taking a look at what you believe most of the writings that I've written for the last 13 years are questioning what you believe and taking a look at what you believe but I have to say now coming into the light that all of that was the preliminary that the actual curriculum is getting into the joy of purpose where you literally become so right-minded, so focused so single-minded that you are not going to see the error your mind becomes so unified that you're not looking for scraps anymore of differences you become so clear that love is content and not form that you're not looking for those differences anymore and because what would be the point if you're unified you've got no need to call forth the importance in the world anymore and to me that's why I say the Holy Spirit needs happy learners that's what the joyful experience is and that's really what this is all about is to become so single-minded and so focused that you don't notice anything like that anymore in fact you get so into the joy that you absolutely, positively cannot have a problem I've been telling more lately in my recent gatherings like one time not too long ago I think it was in, I was in Pennsylvania and I was driving along in this car a friend of Rustin had a car that she had donated to our foundation that had a bad gas gauge so the car would run out of gas when it got about to the halfway point, halfway full but I had to use that car for months and months because I was traveling all over and everything and so I just hopped in the car to drive to the east coast to do this gathering not remembering anything about the gas gauge so I was driving along in Pennsylvania and I was up, we just got up to the mountain and started to come down off to this high place on the highway and Cante was on the cell phone talking and the car just started sputtering and sputtering and I was just looking at it and sputtering and sputtering and she was just talking away on the cell phone and finally the engine just kicked off so there was no engine and some car started to slow down so I pulled over to the right lane it's a highway, but I'm going it's down the mountain so I'm ghosting down the mountain and I'm just kind of looking at the car probably like Mr. McGeeley I have no clue what's going on but it's still working she's still on the phone she hasn't even noticed that she's still talking this is fine it's like a hang lighter or something we weren't going 65 we were losing a little bit of speed so I just continued to drive and drive with it and then it came down and then there was an exit so I pulled up to the exit but this was one of those exits that curls around like this and then there was a little stop sign but I just kind of cruised past the stop sign and then there was a road and the road kind of curled down it continued to go down so I just cruised along like I was in an amusement park so I'm cruising along and then I came to the gas station and I pulled into the gas station still at this point unaware that I was out of gas still if I was aware that I was out of gas I would have pulled right up in front of the pump but I didn't I pulled right over to the side and I got out and just kind of looked at the car and then I went inside and these people came out and they said get back in the car we'll push you to one of the pumps and they said maybe you're out of gas and they put gas in the car and there was a family a man and his wife and kids that were staying there but he was looking at me during this whole thing because I was kind of sitting there with big wide eyes real clueless and I could read his lips and he's saying you ran out of gas a gas station I could read his lips and he was smiling on his face like what luck you must have out of gas and at that point it dawned on me it was like oh the first time I had was I can't even run out of gas anymore it was like that feeling like that's the way it goes when you get more unified in spirit you can't make a mistake there can't be a problem it's just holy encounters you're taking terror you can't screw it up anymore what this course is about is aiming your mind to the point where you're so into the spirit that you're oblivious of error because darkness and light can't coexist even the bible said perfect love gets out of fear that's where this course is aiming that's where Advaita Madasa where all of the spiritual work that we do in the east and the west and everything is aimed at this state where you're in a state of happiness as a happy dream instead of an up and down dream so that's why we come together because it's a time saver so to speak we can really join together and we can discuss this weekend this week topics like relationships topics like sickness anything finances scarcity anything that seems to be an issue if you just feel a stress about time like there's not enough time in the day or not enough time in the week it could be anything that's on your heart I say bring it up and we'll look at it together and the more we really are able to do that it's like it gets funnier and funnier like that story we've been telling it just gets lighter and lighter and lighter because you can see that there's really not a real problem you really go with this all the way to see that all your problems have already been solved and that's what we're here for to really have that experience David, based on all they have a stretch of any at 7 I've not stretched for it okay is that a thinning stretch okay that's a good idea what's the salesman always the salesman quick gotta be quick okay so you got a little taste of what we do this is the kind of thing we'll be doing all week whether we're here in sessions did you make the announcement too about during the week we're not sure they're scheduled to be here but there's a possibility we may be meeting at a clubhouse so we'll let you know tomorrow and if you come and we're not here we will make sure and have a note either down in the lobby or on the board down there so that you'll know where we are we're going to be here for sure tomorrow for both sessions and possibly a Monday morning session because they're going to be using in place maybe starting Tuesday afternoon or Monday afternoon next time okay we'll be spontaneous and close see what discurs yeah David for some reason I like group meditation smart power for me individual meditation and Neal Donald Walsh and book three I think Neal Donald Walsh and book three was channeling highly evolved beings don't use oral speaking I mean they're just psychic you know without speaking they can conduct most of their lives apparently and that'd be like La Maria Atlantis and other planets so I just wanted when we sat down here before anybody started speaking to me that was like real powerful and then only one of my course miracle group does group meditation that's the best thing for me but how close are we to getting to nonverbal communication you know Neal Donald Walsh and channeling he doesn't cause this primitive this you know but there's nothing wrong with being primitive he's not a judgment when he says it's primitive but I think we're getting closer to nonverbal communication yeah that's definitely the direction where it's all moving more to I might say a telepathic harmony and even books that have been around for years like Marlon Morgan's what seems to be an advanced civilization in this world with lots of technology and cell phones and computers and whatever and lots of privacy and secrecy still security on phones and laptops and so on and so forth it's really when you get into the spiritual journey it's inverted because the whole point is to become more trusting to realize that there are no secrets and there are no thoughts that can be kept private that basically when you get tuned in with your source that everything that you think and say and do is in line with that source for everyone so you want to just let it fly, let it shine and you're not being selective in terms of who you tell what and so on so forth it's more just doing that so yeah during this week we have so much time that gong that was rang came from a New York City I did a gathering in Queens recently and I was going to be there for about a week or about the same time I'm going to be down here and they said let's build in some group meditations and we want to go buy a gong in Chinatown and I said fine, that's fine, we've never used the gong before but your healing thing is qigong right yeah in fact in the workshop we used to do a qigong every hour we used to go to the qigong yeah yeah the gong so here we are we've got a week to use in different ways and music flute music we've got lots of CDs music's been very important in my journey I know up in endeavor they use a lot of music too a lot of it just like music tends to go right to the heart right to the core of things the words can be very helpful and when you give them over to the Holy Spirit open communication looking at things can be very helpful that's why even the chorus is 1200 plus words used by the Holy Spirit to kind of guide you towards a silent mind towards a mind that can be telepathic and tuned in that literally goes beyond the words and the lessons are aimed at doing that so yes and how close are we in terms of the entire world and the society there are many more words that will be used seemingly for years in the sense that it's really letting the Holy Spirit smile through you speak through you, hug through you letting yourself be like a transparent instrument kind of like St. Francis's prayer make me an instrument of that peace it's I would say for a lot of people that have done it for many years I always tell people that the two fastest ways to flush the ego up from the unconscious into awareness are silence and relationships that's why when the monks and the nuns go up to these like cloistered monasteries and have seen they have all these psychological problems and all this rage comes up and whatever the silence acts as kind of like stirring the mind of the unconscious and bringing to the surface so much of this repressed and suppressed darkness and I think most people know as relationships if you really get involved in a lot of committed relationships it's like it's in your face this stuff just comes up and the temptation to project and to blame can be just intense Karen and Jeffrey aren't with us now but they've just got married on February 7th and their relationship has been just the ego's just coming up everywhere it's at times you can be over sensitized and you need to step back and pull back from it but I would say that it really depends it's more of an individual thing about how close you are to the point of the course where he says our use for words is almost over now you'll know intuitively when you start to feel less and less than the need to speak is you go through your life it's more of a watching kind of thing and there's nothing going wrong when your mind uses that state and it's very individualized it's hard to make a stereotypical kind of judgment about that for everyone so could we have a group meditation right now? yeah if everybody can do that yes that sounds can you do something else on there? yes we could do like a 10 minute group meditation you just come back from stretching and you know just take a few deep breaths and relax in your chair and experience and gestures I used to do meditation for a while a few years back and giving it its experience and it showed me how much I feel like you're finished a little bit so how did they say it's like doing meditation being called a new meditation so I want to thank you for suggesting this what it actually is for the fact that we're all friends it's very helpful it could be a great reminder that way as you keep working with the course or whatever the path is that you follow you find that that's the direction of the mind so you can find yourself going through regular activities and noticing during the day this looks like a nice spot to take 5 or 10 minutes here or there and do more spots of 5 or 10 minutes it's more than your mind naturally gets eased into it it's better to go that way as you do the inner training work with releasing the judgments because if you would try to do it just as a goal try to do 7 minutes or hours a day and encounter resistance it's better not to fight yourself just to be very gentle with yourself and ease into it in the early years when I went off to hermitage experiences I had a lot of expectations about how many hours I would meditate and the ego was like oh yeah, we'll see if you do that and you know if you can't fight it otherwise it just seeks to spawn more resistance but as you keep about your spiritual practices then it's almost like your mind gets more and more ready to take more and more of those periods and I think the symbol of a group meditation is just kind of like the symbol of okay, I'm not in this alone a lot of times people feel that way when they do group meditations it doesn't seem like it's such a like less feel kind of experience when you're sitting around with a whole group of people and you're all going through the experience together so in that sense it's a very helpful symbol for the mind but isn't it also practical benefit and experience and more aggressive and do more people together it's noticeably different than I think it's a vibration that starts getting magnified because you're resonating on each other how you can feel if you do a lot of group meditations and you actually come together for that purpose I know there have been people in the course groups that have actually decided that that's what they want the course group to be meditation group with some sharing of experiences because a lot of times there could be lots of talking and lots of venturing around and I did a group in Florida one time it was Panama City where I went to the community church and I was sitting with everybody we had a big lunch there and I was sitting and this man sat across from me and he said I hear you're doing a gathering later in the week I would really like to attend and participate in that gathering and I said oh Fred come come the whole table grown as I offered this invitation to Fred and I was like what is this invited into the course group and they said well and he said oh I don't know if it's going to be such a bother for everyone in there and so we kind of explored it at this lunch table fairly Fred was a professor of philosophy at the local university and he would show up at the course meetings and have all these deep ontological questions which the people could not answer and felt very uncomfortable every time Fred showed up and asked his questions like about judgment like how practically do you live in this world without making judgments you know he wanted to explore that so everybody grown because they perceived that he was a a distraction they really didn't want him at the course meeting but I was saying no please come and to the gathering and show up and he did come in the first half of the gathering he was completely quiet because he again didn't want to be disrupted and afterwards during the break he said I really do have questions about judgment and about a lot of things and I said you ask your questions I said this is for everyone and this is what we encourage going deep and getting deep into questions you ask any question you want you ask as many as you want so the second half of the gathering he cut loose with launching into these questions and I don't know what all came out of my mouth but the whole energy of the whole place went way down it was almost like the spirit of love just completely descended on all of us and everybody by the end of the gathering there were no more words everybody was eye gazing just looking around and looking in everybody's eyes with such recognition and such deep peace and love and the dog who regularly attends the course meetings was looking up at everybody with these real totally eyes kind of like now this is the experience deep and you guys banter this stuff theologically and conceptually the dog really had to look on his face like now you're getting it for the first time it really did look like that the dog was in a way to look like and that's what we're aiming for we're not aiming for bantering concepts around it's really for going for the experience so I think group meditation can be very helpful and very useful I was meditating on today's lesson in quiet and kind of voice it was a review lesson what I was going to say is that at the academy everyone does lessons from January 1st I feel that many millions of people are doing the lessons from January 1st and every day so when I do my lesson in the morning I'm group meditating millions of people around the world this is a beautiful experience when you have that connection and also I was going to say that is a meditation it's a total meditation but it's an active meditation you have these wonderful incredible words that bring you to this space so it's not meditation where you're letting your thoughts go it's an active meditation it's a meditation around whatever it is not a body, not a spirit it's a meditation on those words incredible it's an active meditation I didn't realize that people sound at the first of the year well for me I guess it's a perfect whatever you do is that's kind of logical so it makes sense that you're kind of doing a disconnected group physically disconnected and important but obviously I always suggest for me you're going to start doing the lessons start from the first lesson and then after you finish that if you want to just continue doing lessons you can do it from January 1st to January 9th but I guess it doesn't matter everyone's happy with it if you didn't know 10 Walk Next Organization Foundation has the daily lessons starting in the first lesson 1 on the 1st of January online you can listen to it and just want it on you have to know read it to you can listen to it over and over and it's great that is a good symbol of again I was just over in Spain that's what they were doing they said oh I listen for the day mother and two daughters you know all doing it synchronized there are 365 lessons so they can be done they're supposed to be done one after another but a lot of people do in that way starting on January 1st and meeting up with other people online or in travels and sometimes households or couples working them together like that it's kind of a good synergy kind of just another symbol of ok we're doing this together and at times the ego wants the mind to feel like it can't do it might as well just throw in the towel so these are all helpful symbols that you know we're all in this together so I'm glad you brought that up