 I feel like I'm on the set of a talk show or something. I know that's what I'm thinking. When I look around and see this, I think, I should invite some people up here. I have most fun in these kind of conversations. Because awakening is, it can be gentle if we're really open. And if we come and really, as the meditation was saying, just open our hearts and look inside whoever we're speaking to. What we are speaking is what we most need to hear. So I think you probably have had that experience in groups a lot of times where things just pour through and you walk out and you go, wow, I need to remember that. That was good because you received it. You just showed up with the willingness to be truly helpful like the prayer says. I'm here to be truly helpful and then it comes back to you. It comes to you. You receive the message first to deliver it, but it's always for the mind. So I'm just so grateful that we have such a beautiful setting here tonight. And thank you to Cheryl and Barrett and Dove for these amazing retreats that you put out in amazing venues. Again, you've done it. We all feel blessed. We feel held in this place and we feel very grateful. And then I also want to just acknowledge Helen Shuckman, Bill Thedford, Judy Skutch-Witzen, Ken Watnick for their amazing service to us to be among, we'll call it the first generation of working with a scripture like A Course in Miracles. It's quite amazing. And I know a lot of you have studied different non-dualistic teachings throughout the ages and the Course is like the baby on the block. So we need to take it easy with the baby. We need to be gentle with ourselves as we practice this. We need to be playful as we talked about earlier and we need to have some fun with it because we need to be light. We need to travel light and journey lightly, as Jesus says in the Course. And yet we are not really bound by time. It's just the belief in linear time. It's just the investment that we have in the belief in the past and future, you know, the regrets of the past and the worries and concerns of the future. That's what tries to distract us away from just being present, just experiencing the holy instant. And I think, you know, we're going to go a long way with this Course. It's going to just carry us in this lifetime through miracle after miracle and save us thousands and thousands of years of unlearning. We could call it that it would have taken us if we hadn't prayed and called on this help. So I feel such a gratitude for the Way Show or Jesus and for all those that have said yes to accept their part in the plan of atonement. I think one of the lines that was very important to me from the Course is that he says this Course will be believed entirely or not at all. And so I like that uncompromising quality of this Course. This is not a Course in compromise. This is a Course in awakening. And I was having lunch with Judy Sketch and William Whitson recently and we got on the topic of what was going on when those books came. And basically Judy was the one to be the publisher. She was the one that was given to be the publisher and she went to Helen and she asked a very practical question at one point. She said, okay, how many? Which is a publisher's question. How many books shall we print? And she told me over lunch that Helen said very directly and matter of factly four. And Judy said four. Does that mean 40,000? Is it mean 4,000? She was just fishing for something. And Helen said, no, I said four. And she said four. Who are the four? Four. She was taken aback and she said, for myself and Bill and you and Ken. And that's what's so great about the whole story is because Helen was quite reluctant and resistant and then here she's saying four. And I think she's thought, well, I've done my job. It's your part from here on. And also Judy said that she really didn't have any intention of the book ever being translated into other languages either. So she was really focused on her part. And that's what I took from it. And yet Judy did say during this last lunch, and having a bunch of lunches, whether she said the last lunch, she said, you know, we felt it was very esoteric, all of us. And as you understand, Helen and Bill were research psychologists at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center and they basically thought this book, I don't know how well it's suited for public consumption. They basically thought that it reminded them of the old mystery schools that have existed over the centuries. Like, they thought that's what the audience, we just need to find a mystery school for this book and it will be well received. So they didn't really see the far-reaching impact and they weren't really required to. You know, I think all of us have to remember that we're here to do our part. We have a very specific part that's assigned a part of the plan of atonement. It's called our special function. And we need to keep our full attention on that part because if we start to wander off into other things, then it will distract us away from completing our part. That our part is given. In fact, the course says in the workbook the script is written and that seems to imply a destiny. It really reminds me of lesson number seven. I see only the past. We're watching seemingly a linear script and it's over and done. This world was over and done a long ago. I have friends too, including myself. As we move along with the course, we have a lot of these deja vu experiences. When you're meeting people or seeing situations and you have that feeling like, I have seen this before. I have viewed this before. I think there was one point where Ken Watnick said, all of history is a deja vu experience. Wow, that's amazing. Didn't you just say that? We've got a plant in the audience. I need you up here, Barrett. Just like George and Gracie, you've got to have it. You've got to have it. I think because I read that line, this course will be believed entirely or not at all. That helped me kind of throw all my willingness, all my focus, all my energy. I think too, with the course, because it's like the baby on the block, I think it actually helps to have read the lives of the mystics and saints to kind of have an idea about a date of Adanta, some of these other ones. And many of the way-showers from ancient India and the Gurus and everything, I think that actually gives an important context to non-duality. I think if you try to work with the course and you don't have that context, you can lose sight of the mark that this course will be believed entirely or not at all. It's quite easy. The ego is quite ingenious at making distractions to put off enlightenment and put off self-realization to another time, another lifetime or whatever, and that's really not what this course is about. This is really about giving it everything you've got. And so for me, in the parable of David, I was very shy and quiet, and they always say that Moses stuttered and he had to deliver the Ten Commandments. Gandhi was shy. It's interesting when you look at some of these characters in the dream, they had to really let go of a lot to give themselves over to this. And we're really asked to let go of everything. The ego will tell you that's a sacrifice, but really we're not letting go of anything significant. It's more like we're just integrating. We're awakening to wholeness. We're not losing anything. There's no loss involved in this at all. So for me, I had to really question everything. Even things about the Course, I know people are fond of talking about the Course as a self-study book. But when Jesus says in the Course, the ego enjoys studying itself, that's like a beware. Beware even of self-study. We're here to collaborate. We're here to join. We're here to find, actually. But we really need to be open to our brothers and sisters. We can't think of this as just an intellectual endeavor as we're hearing in our meditation. This is far beyond intellectual understanding and concepts. And I've had people say to me many years, I get that concept intellectually but, and I said, if you throw that word but in there, you've just negated whatever you had at the beginning. You can throw that out, too. The Course cannot be understood intellectually and therefore it's a Course in relinquishing every concept and every idea that you've ever held. Buddha had it straight. Jesus had it straight. Empty the mind of everything you think you think and think you know. And the only way that we can do that is through trust. We have to trust the Spirit is guiding us and leading us. We can't trust our past learning. We can't trust jobs to support us. We can't trust opinions. We can't trust research. Now that we know in quantum physics that all of Newtonian and all of empirical research is all a projection. All of Newtonian physics, based on the belief that there's an external world and you can learn something about that through empirical knowledge. It was a lie. Quantum is now lining up with all the mystics and saints and poets and Rumi and, you know, it's really beautiful but we really have to let go of everything. Whenever you even hear the words research supports, you can write away. Now, we're into intuition. We have to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. I have a friend, Frances, and she basically is living a very mystical life. I'm really honored. Actually, I live with a group of mystics that are really all over the world but every one of them actually hear the voice for God. It's quite an amazing community. We always hear about the Essenes and the Apostles and the Franciscans and everything. It's just an amazing thing when you live and work and collaborate with a group that really hear guidance. Actually, it's quite a harmony. It's quite a living experience. It's quite a reflection, actually. I think, wow, what a reflection. This is the happy dream. We can commune. We have nodding heads. We don't have democracies or take votes or what's your opinion. We've gone past that from living this course, from applying this course. It's an amazing daily mystery school of not knowing anything about this world and feeling gloriously happy. One of the members in our community, I was just speaking at Boulder last night, one of the members has had two levitation experiences and she wasn't even really impressed by that. Levitating. It was like a natural thing. But the stillness is more important than the levitation. We've had symptom removals, raising the dead, the things that actually come about, that we hear about from Jesus and people say, did those things really happen? But those are just reflections and witnesses and demonstrations and you are entitled to miracles. So when you're doing those lessons, it didn't surprise me when those things started to happen. It didn't surprise me when revelatory experiences happened because he starts right off at the beginning of the book, at the beginning of the text talking about miracles and revelation. The miracles are the means and revelation is the end. It shows you a glimpse of what this is all about. It's all there. And the book is there, I think, to assure us and reassure us to not be frightened of love, to not be frightened of the light. When we have those experiences, the ego may shudder and the ego may tremble, but you should not be afraid if you experience angels, daily angels. I think a lot of us are starting to feel we have daily angels showing up. I find myself saying that in my mind. Angel, thank you. Angel, angel. Angel, angel. So we're here really to accept the Atonement. That's our sole responsibility. Sole responsibility means it's the only responsibility. We were joking earlier about responsible for the heat. Cheryl and Barrett were coming in there and apologizing for the heat. We may think we have financial responsibilities. We have relationship responsibilities. We have responsibilities to family, friends, and the Holy Spirit is very practical. Jesus is very practical. So they will unwind your mind from these false concepts that the ego made and take your mind into a glorious state, a heavenly state, but there will be an unwinding. There will be an exchange of self-concepts for who you believe you are. You'll have an exchange, he tells us, in the self versus self concept section of concepts and you'll just go seemingly higher and higher up the ladder as you have more expansive identity concepts where you just have these aha moments and these oh, so glorious moments where you do not feel you are the same as you were. You just gasp, oh, I am so much more than I thought I was. Wow, it just keeps happening, keeps happening, keeps happening. And something that Jesus emphasizes, and I really like it, I'm really grateful that Dove and the One Mind Foundation is sponsoring this because we aren't going to come to experience the fullness of light and love and joy and oneness until we can experience perfect equality in our experiences on Earth. Dove is ringing that bell, he's been ringing that bell. I remember Dove from back in the AOL days, you know, ringing that bell, I think C.C. Cobb was our contact, both of us, she was saying Dove. And, you know, what that means is you get so much into this presence, so much into this love that the idea of a head or behind disappears. The idea of inferior, superior disappears. We have to let go of our concepts of teachers and students because Jesus tells us that we're teaching all the time by our thoughts. That's why he tells us, teach only love for that is what you are. We're teaching every second. And teaching is not with words. If your words and your actions and your behaviors and your facial gestures all match up with this happiness and joy, with this state of mind, you've done really well. You can say, I'm on my way, I'm on my way. But we are perfectly equal. And therefore it's our state of mind that really is teaching us. We're teaching and learning from our state of mind. We have to come to self-honesty just about what that state of mind is and really love it, be drawn to it. Wow, horses. This is cool. We've got a great party going on here. It's like a picnic, they're waving. They're all waving at us. Talk about reflections of the quality. Horses go by and waving people. Hey, you people in there. So let's not put anybody up on a pedestal. Neither should we condemn anyone because behaviors aren't the whole picture and because everything that we see is an outward picture of an inward condition. If we see something we don't like in the world or in a behavior, it's simply something we need to pluck out of our own consciousness. If we see an enemy, then we need to pluck that out. We're not going to find that perfect equality unless we are good at plucking, plucking, plucking judgmental thoughts, plucking opinions. Wow, I feel like the only reason I ever talk about the parable of David is because they're just symbols of trust, of divine trust, hitting the open road for five years with no financial support, no organizational support, just going out like the Sinyasis from India, just going out there and seeing what shows up, talking to Jesus, listening to Jesus. This is fun. It builds your trust. It takes you beyond economics. It takes you beyond fears of survival. It takes you outside of careers, outside of jobs. I really took an early retirement when the course came. I still had student loans to pay, but Jesus, you're going to go here, you're going to work at this. We've got to clear this up first and then your mind. I'll use you in ways you can't even comprehend, so don't even ask or don't even try to figure out the future. I've got you. I will go before you and make straight your path and leave no stones to trip on, no obstacles to bar your way. To go beyond the words of that beautiful passage, the promise to go into the actual experience of divine love and trust leaves you in a state where you don't have a care or a worry about anything at all. That's what this is about. He says, can you imagine how wonderful it was to have such a quiet, tranquil mind? That is what time is for, to learn just that and nothing more. He's inviting us into stillness and we have to trust to do that. We're not going to be able to carry on this past learning, this old conversation of what have I got to do and how am I going to do it. The Holy Spirit and Jesus are the how. There's a lot of books that are written about the Course in Miracles and I love them. We've been blessed by them because they can clarify things, point things out, give you examples. It's so great to have Gary and Cindy here. Disappearance of the universe. Did that boost anyone's appreciation of the Course in Miracles? Yeah! You better believe it then. You better believe it. Art and Purse, thank God. Because you need examples, you need pointers and you also need some crystal clear metaphysics. I think one thing that Gary and I have talked about around the world is you've got to have clear teachings on the Course. The ego is going to try to distort this and turn it and twist it in all kinds of different ways. I'm pretty fond of saying that the really spiritual awakening, the authentic spiritual awakening is 1% principle and 99% practice. But you've got to be clear in that principle. If you don't have a clear principle and you're practicing an erroneous principle, even with 99% practice and diligence, you're still not going to hit the mark. You're still not going to have the experience. Also, there's a lot of books that are supplemental to the Course, I think some of you have read Carol Howe's book on Bill Thetford's life. What a blessing. Everyone heard about Helen, which was helpful through absence from Felicity, but I was a good friend with Carol Howe on my travels to Florida. She lived here in Colorado. Had Bill coming over here to Colorado to Denver to visit her quite often. I had a lot of long conversations with Carol, and that was helpful too. We need way showers. We need those who practice the Course and live the principles. Even though Bill showed up at a lot of Course groups in California, he didn't have a lot to say, but, oh, could you feel his presence? Everyone I've ever met in California who is at those gatherings talks about the presence. Some people don't know this about Bill, but he left Helen when he moved across to the West Coast. He was with Jerry Gimpolsky and Judy and a group of them up there, but he left them too. He went down to be with the Luckets down in Southern California. Has anybody here had the pleasure and the joy of meeting the Luckets, the initial teachings? My God! My God! My first trip out around the country in 1991, I stopped in Sedona, and there were these two people sitting up front with a big crowd doing a garden party and wearing baseball caps. He was retired, military. And then I listened in. I was like, wow, thank you, Holy Spirit. This is great to hear these people. They're really experiential. I really like that. We all took off and I thought, I'll just follow along. I just happened upon the whole gathering. I didn't even know it was there. And I followed them down towards the creek beds of Sedona. They were baptizing people. This is a course of American students. They took the course all over the world, all over the world. I was go places, Australia. They say, oh, the Luckets were here 10, I mean, 15 years ago, 20 years ago at the same beach. I'm like, ooh. I'm walking down. I'm just following. At the time, I didn't know they were going to take people to the creek beds to baptize them. That's stretched pretty far out. But I was following along the crowd. All of a sudden, this woman, I think she was all dressed in purple and she had the baseball cap and she came swirling around me and she planted the biggest kiss on my cheek. And it was Eulalia. What an expression of joy. Actually, the Luckets were Bill Thedford's teachers. He literally had gone through studying it and practicing it. And when he left Northern California, he said, I have to find joy. I have to find fun. He was really diligent with it, but he needed to find the fun factor and the Luckets were that fun factor. And I spent some time with them in Hawaii. They're still alive up in the 80s. And I had lunch with them one time and a friend of mine, Jason, was like saying, how do you practice the course nowadays? What are you doing? They said, we still sleep on, we switch opposite sides of the beds every night because we don't want to get too associated to one side of the bed. Practicing a course in your 80s, living it, loving it. We don't want to get too accustomed to having our own side of the bed. No ownership, no possession. Let go of familiarity. Let go of everything you think you know, everything you think you think. I love it. I have such appreciation. I was taking a group of people around and I called it the Legends Tour. Stopping a visit, Jerry Jim Polsky, the Luckets, Carol Howe, Judy Witt, all of them. Bob, you know, it's a great tradition, it's a great reflection because there's a lot of devotion in that first generation and every spiritual tradition has the elders. In the Native American tradition the elders are important, the elders of the tribe. All traditions have the elders. There's an honoring of that reflection and that's what I feel in my experiences with them is just being with them, I feel an honoring and a thank you and that same thank you just rings out across the whole world. It just grows in your heart and it spreads to everyone that you meet. And I feel it's important to talk about those things. Another thing too is there can be a lot of books written about the Course and I know right now they're talking about Trilogy and Way of Mastery and Course of Love and there's been a lot. I've been around with the Course for three decades. Has anybody seen the Course of Marigolds? Some of us have been around. We saw the Course of Marigolds. It's kind of a humor bringing in a lot of humor. But my intuitive feeling is that this is a very, very, very deep course and we really need to practice the actual principles of a Course in Marigolds. I got to a point when I had this extreme clarity in my mind that then Jesus said here, look at the here, look at this and I would even be out on a teaching tour and I would go through a TV store and they would have news of some war that broke out and then he would scoop it up and use that and mention it in the talk. But I was pretty oblivious. I actually traveled so much that I was unaware when wars would break out. I had so many Course in Miracles gatherings. People would have to say, did you hear about the war? Actually, yes, I walked by a TV store today and I heard just enough and the Spirit would use it. But I would say one of the things I really want to focus on is that the practical application requires practicing the Course and the whole workbook of a Course in Miracles is actually based on transfer of training, making no exceptions to the principles. It's an amazing teaching and I would say for most students and teachers of the Course, there's more transfer of training errors that seem to come up than teaching the errors that are part of the metaphysics. That's why I say it's 99% practice. We're here to get the gist of it and we have 31 chapters to really help us get the gist of it, but then we've got to get into the laboratory like in science class and get in there and get those test tubes out and start mixing those elements and that's our life, our worldly life. We're here practicing. It's grist for the mill, as it used to say. Everything's grist for the mill. So another thing I like about the way the format of this is set up is that here we're going to have the official roundtables. I saw Craig's name on there and Dove. I like that. I think it reminds me of Socrates and the amazing Socratic dialogues where people would come together. They could raise any question, bring up any issue, talk about metaphysics or concepts or anything, talk about practical application. I think it goes faster when you come with a willing, open heart for discussion when you say to yourself, well, I'm trying to practice the course, but I've got some questions and I've got some issues. Is it all right if I raise them? Yes, it is. It's a big yes. Raise anything. Any fear, any doubt. That's why in this Course in Miracles Monastery I have in Utah, we have two guidelines, no people pleasing, no private thoughts. We're not so much into rituals or vows, but we want to encourage open expression. Don't hide it. Don't repress it. Don't deny it. You're not going to heal it if you are pushing it out of awareness. Let's welcome it in. Allie Allie Income Free. Come on. Darkness, yeah. Attack thoughts, come on. Come on up. Dark night of the soul. Come on, bring it on. I'm into ascension. I'm into spiritual awakening. I'm not going to dance. I'm not going to do tap show, tap dance around these issues. And to me, that's why our community is quite telepathic, why we have such harmony and nodding of heads. Why we can feel things before they even seem to happen is because we've been very good at exposing the darkness. And there have been great teachers. I think of Ken's focus for all those years about exposing the darkness. That's really the first half of forgiveness is exposing the darkness. But if you really study the course, Jesus tells you that exposing the darkness isn't the whole picture. As important as it is, and practically speaking for most human beings, they'll spend most of their lives doing that, really what forgiveness is, is looking with the Holy Spirit past the defiled altar to the light of the Atonement. That's what forgiveness is. There's one point where he says, do not see error. And he puts it in italics. Ooh. Do not see error. How am I going to do that except with the Holy Spirit? That's what forgiveness is. That's why you forgive your brother and sister for what they did not do. Because it's the Holy Spirit that looks past the defiled altar to the light of the Atonement. And the only way you actually can live a happy, joyful, peaceful life is to be so aligned with the Holy Spirit that that's all you're doing. You don't even see the error. You're not going to get into an argument around error because you don't see it when you allow your mind to be lit up by the Holy Spirit. Now some teachers and different ones talk about guidance and you can hear the Holy Spirit, you can't. Absolutely. I and everyone I work with has had the only sole goal of hearing the voice for God. In fact, Jesus says that that's the only purpose of the body to let the voice for God speak through it. And you know coming from a shy guy, Gary and I both were shy guys. There's no doubt about it. Very shy. I think both of us would sit in that category. And yet we tend, now the Holy Spirit's got us being spokesmen for God around the world. Doesn't matter how shy we were. The Holy Spirit said, no, this is too important. You have one function for your body. Now step aside and let me come through. And what do you think disappearance and the following books were about? What do you think the teachings are all about? The ego uses the body for pride, for pleasure, for attack, and basically you have to let go of those ego uses and let this communication device be used as a communication device for God. That's how we wake up. It really works. I'm happy. You know, I just trust it. I think it's Jesus. He knows what he's talking about. He's gone through the keyhole of time and space and come out the other end, so I will follow the instructions. He's given a really good set of instructions. We just need to practice it. We need to let go of these self-concepts of who we think we are and what our limits are and what our fears are. And say, I'm going to trust and I'm going to let you come to me and come through me. Like Helen, she heard, it wasn't an audible voice, but she heard a train of thought that she was clearly aware that it wasn't Helen Shuckman. And so she followed. This is a Course in Miracles. Please take notes. Thank God she followed and took notes, shorthand notes, and Bill and Ken and all. We have a great course. But I would say, too, that my life has been completely devoted to listening and following that voice and amazing miracles have happened, daily miracles, many, many miracles. That's what you need. You need to be miracle-minded. You need to be habitually miracle-minded to be consistently happy. That's the formula, so to speak. Consistently miracle-minded takes you closer towards that revelatory awakening experience. Guided in terms of where to go, what would you have me do? Where would you have me go? What would you have me say and to whom? You know, really to get into that mode and make that your life. And that's the beauty. I think we've got some amazing speakers this weekend that can testify that it works, that can just testify and witness. Because nobody can do this for anybody else, and we've come to experience there really isn't anybody else. There's just one mind that's got to get this. And if we're willing to totally go for this, then the reflections get stronger and stronger and stronger. Another line in the course was really kind of striking. It said, if you are devoted, you are entitled to devotion. I find that fascinating. You're entitled to miracles. That's one of the workbook lessons. But if you are devoted, you are entitled to devotion. In fact, this world is nothing more than the call to witnesses. So when I'm finding in my awareness and my dreamscape these devoted, amazingly devoted brothers and sisters must decide all to give their lives over to the Holy Spirit to be used for the plan of awakening, I find that spectacular. I have quit counting how many of these witnesses are coming of devotion. That's part of the pathway. If you are devoted, you are entitled to devotion. That sounds kind of Eastern. Anyone knows the story of Yogananda, Ramana Maharshi? There's some devotion going there. I've been to India and gone to some of these places. I love the feel. I love the feel before I walk in the door. I'm going, ooh! I'm into some convents and monasteries. Ooh! I feel, I get the chills before I even get to the door. When I'm in the parking lot, oh gosh, is that good? There's some devotion going on there. And you can feel it. It's tangible. And to me, after studying the course for five years, Holy Spirit and Jesus took me on a road trip in 1991 that basically has gone on and never stopped. But that road trip involved going to the Southwest, stopping in and visiting Robert Perry and his wife then, Susan, of going out visiting Beverly Hutchinson, got to meet her mother, was then the California Miracle Center, now it's Community Miracle Center, and visiting some amazing ministers there. Going up and meeting a woman on Whitby Island who had left the Foundation for a Course in Miracles, worked with Canon Gloria for many years, just lit up rosy cheeks, telepathic, high, flying high in love, going across the country and going to God's Country Place. Yes, before it was Endeavor Academy, it was God's Country Place. It was kind of a surreal. Everything slowed down in a slow motion. Gary and I had a couple of interesting visits there. For me, it was like the Stepford Wives. They started coming out of the woods. This is like a Stepford Wives movie. But it was all telepathic, it was all silent. They didn't bump me, it was surreal going there. But the openness to go around and around and around and around, that was just the first trip out. Because we're always teaching what we would learn. We're always extending what's in our hearts so we can strengthen it in our awareness and that's the function of the Miracle Worker, to follow the Spirit and go and extend love and forgiveness and strengthen it in our mind. So that was 25 years ago for me. That was what I just described. That was a quarter of a century ago. And it was a good start, but there was a lot more to come. There was a lot of darkness. There was a lot of shadow work. There was a lot of deep, dark, unconscious stuff that still had to come up. And that was just, I was only beginning there. And I think that's important too, to be able to talk openly about that because we're here to support one another. We really are here to walk hand in hand to the light. And I mean hand in hand. So that when one of us seems to stumble and one of us trips, we don't fall because we've got a good grip of our brothers and sisters right beside us on this journey. We will not be turned away from the light. We will not succumb to fear. We will not succumb to doubt. We will apply this course and we will learn it entirely. I don't know about you, but not at all is not really an option. When I heard that from Jesus you will believe this course entirely or not at all. I said, not at all is not an option. I'm not going to devote my life to not at all. And I'm so glad, I'm so glad I gave myself over to the course. And now I'd have to say that the course is just one among a lot of amazing pathways. But as I've traveled around the world when I first went to Communist China and Beijing, my teachings had been translated into Mandarin. So people came from all over China. There was over a hundred and what I learned when I was there was it was almost like a momentum happened. People heard by word of mouth to come and most of the people of the hundred were not Course in Miracles students. They just were all excited. Did you read this stuff? Come and see, let's go see this guy. My gosh. And they came and it was quite amazing. Then when I went back they had people with flowers at the airport. Some of you know about Amma who travels. Amazing, hugging Saint from India. And I would walk out and I'd come out through security and I'd look and I'd see people with flowers and I was like, flowers. The first time that I had people start coming toward me and running toward me was when I was down in Kali, Colombia at the airport and I stepped out of the airport and I saw a whole cheering crowd. Again, they'd translated my materials into Spanish so they'd been really working with the depth of the materials in Spanish and they were all cheering. It was a big crowd cheering. I had to start looking around. I thought Paul McCartney or somebody must be on the plane. I was all excited too, you know. Who is it? It's got to be a celebrity. They were cheering for me but it was more that they had just been diving into the course and the materials in Español and it still startles me a little when I go to these places. But what it is to me it's just symbols of devotion. When you have a devoted heart of course you call forth symbols. It's not special or different or unique or anything like that. It's actually natural for miracle working. When you are a miracle worker you call forth the miracles, the witnesses. You'll never be able to perceive the Holy Spirit but you can sure tell that the Holy Spirit is active by the reflections that you see. By the smiles, by the joy, by the laughter that is how you know the Holy Spirit is working in you and through you. You never perceive the Holy Spirit but you will perceive the witnesses. None of us have ever seen the wind but oh, on a hot night like this do we appreciate a breeze. Cheryl, do I get an amen to that? Yes. Oh, all these comedians. So, yeah, I just, as I close for the night I'm not closing. No, it's got, my gosh, there's all kinds of time. I would like to open it up. Do we actually have any kind of a roving mic or better yet a little seat here that people could come up and like a gunk? We have a hot seat. Okay, we'll move the mic over and this is the best part. And if there's a group of you that want to come up then you can, I've got a couch up here and a chair but we've got a microphone. Craig's got it set up. To me, the best part of anything is just opening up for Q&A and I know I think we're going to have panels and all kinds of cool stuff like this but I think when you come and you share from your heart whatever it is you are a witness to the healing power of being open and being transparent and all of us can benefit from that. I love it when I'm watching something and I see somebody stand up and go and sit there with Muji or Gangaji or whoever and be there in presence. So, is anybody, here we go. I like our first going volunteer. That's necessarily the microphone. So, hello, my name is Victoria. Can we sit in the water? You recently said, I know it's not real, I know I need to forgive this but I just have your curiosity. You said, Jesus said something about exposing the darkness so that you can fix it or you can bring it up to heal it. So, as a collective consciousness is that why we have our current presidential campaign? Okay, here we go. That's good. Well, that's a good question. You know, I see all these comments and commentary on Facebook but the one that I've enjoyed the most was when they asked Deepak Chopra about the candidate Donald Trump and Deepak, he was saying, well, he said, Donald is doing us all a great service because he is reflecting our unconscious thoughts and beliefs as they are coming up and so we need to see them. He is doing us all a very, very great service by reflecting these back to us and the questioner said, okay, but I don't have to vote for him in the fall and Deepak said, that is part of the collective decision and we shall see what that is. Oh my, Deepak was so clear, clear as a bell so detached because he was simply pointing out the mirroring that's going on and all the courses telling us and the script is written and basically everything that seems to play out and form is a motion picture of our belief system and we're here to heal that belief system. We're here to forgive it and it is and so that's so practical. I loved Deepak's answer because he didn't try to lean for or against and I think it was Descartes who said years ago it's nothing is good or bad but thinking that makes it so. We've got an erroneous belief system and an erroneous system of thoughts of judgments, positive judgments and negative judgments that are all part of this dualistic system that's covering over our light of truth so it's actually if we take that mirroring principle and we take it out to what seems to be a political arena it seems to involve a big scale and that can seem to bring up a lot of emotions too like oh no in terms of the size but remember the first principle is no order of difficulty in miracles one is not bigger, larger, harder than another so that's my take on things and that's the life of joy and mysticism is again being in that flow of all things work together for good there are no exceptions except in the ego's judgment that thing let all things be exactly as they are that's another beautiful lesson from the course and that's the direction that we're being called to Thank you Good question That was good Well we just handled the politics for the night for the weekend You've got some good ones too, that's good Hi there Should I be speaking to this? You can or you can pull it out if you want to turn your head and maybe we can even bring it over to this side that might be good Can we have rehab? Yeah, if everyone can hear you that's good Two years ago my little brother he shot and killed a 78 year old man that had sexually abused him as a child and he then shot and killed a deputy sheriff and then he shot and killed himself and so I was having some troubles with two things One is I feel horrible Why would I project something that's that horrible to happen to my family and then the other thing is if it's an illusion did Ricardo ever exist because I don't want to live in a world where I don't know if he's real Yeah I think what we start to gain from the course that helps us is we start to see that that the belief in attack is in the mind and when that belief in attack is projected to the world we have things like what was witnessed in Orlando and what you're sharing now and so forth From most perspectives including the Bible you know if we look at the Ten Commandments Thou shalt not kill that's still giving us guidelines that are basically behavioral I think if you went in through the Ten Commandments you could say that most of them are behavioral and then the thing about Thou shalt not covet Thy neighbor's wife covet you're starting to get into the mind and what's so good about the course because Jesus said things like verily verily I tell you if a man has a lustful thought for a woman not his wife he commits adultery you see lustful thought he really was teaching that we must work with our thoughts it is our thoughts alone that we must work with I could be hurt by nothing but my thoughts so we would say if we just follow those beautiful teachings of Jesus in the Course and in the Bible he's basically saying that what we would call murder and killing which there's a trembling and a fear is a thought and he's basically leading us through his mind training system to see that this whole world is a world of ideas there's really not an actual external world because projection is an ego dynamic it just tries to make it seem like it's being acted out it's taking form so if you can work with the Course and focus on paying attention to your emotions and your thoughts and just take Jesus at his word like I'm never upset for the reason I think and those kind of things my thoughts or images I have made my meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world if you really go into this mind training system there will be all kinds of hurt of deep sadness of fear, of guilt there will be all kinds of intense emotions that will come and pass through almost like if you were going on a plane and taking off and you were going through the clouds you have to allow all that to come and yet it's a retranslation it's not trying to push those feelings down not trying to deny them letting them come and everything and for me I would say the years before the Course came into my life I think I cried in the basement of my parents' home I think for about 10 years of tears that started coming and it was like Niagara Falls the tears came and came and came it was like some kind of a huge emotional flush that I had to go through is preparing myself for the Course and most people find that they have periods when they're going through the Course that that's what happens I have a friend too I said I think it would be helpful to watch The Matrix and she said I'll try but that's just an extremely violent movie I don't know if I can make it through she made it through like 10 minutes and then I said ok well go back take notes and just journal your emotions and she was able to journal her way through the movie and pause it with a DVD but she worked so much over a period of weeks at letting all those judgments about this violent movie come up that by the end she called me up and she took me to a cinemax of those big screens we sat like in the third row where Neo's nose was you know from that angle and we sat through the whole thing and she just was so happy in fact she enjoyed all the reflections of people around us, their comments of how helpful the movie was to them how healing it was so she in a span of a few weeks went from seeing that it's not there aren't really violent movies the judgment in our mind the attack thoughts and judgments that's the violence and you know I think Ken was using the example one time of micro-organisms that you can't even see in the human body he was saying something about when you take a breath every time you take a step you kill thousands and thousands maybe millions and he said so when you get sick it's just the revenge of the micro-organisms he was saying he had some crazy fun stuff but you know that would be an interesting movie revenge of the micro-organisms you know as they come I'll get you back for breathing put my family out with that breath you know but see we have to start to see what's going on in the mind and if you really see Jesus teaching I call it divine rationality there's one point where he says I am not a body and my mind cannot attack so I cannot be sick that's one of his divine logic things it's very powerful if you follow it I am not a body so we have to dis-identify from thinking where this projection and my mind cannot attack in other words the belief and separation from God is a mind attack it's not people shooting or people hacking each other or fighting karate it's the belief that I could pull my mind away from God that's the attack but my mind cannot attack I cannot be sick so the next time you start to feel some symptoms coming on try that one out just come right back in your mind with some divine logic I am not a body and my mind cannot attack because this whole world is a projection of the belief in attack as a smoke screen as a distraction it's like a substitution so that you get caught up into these actions killing and shooting and all those things and that you get so swept away in the projection that you don't go within you don't look within to find that I'm too scared to look inside I don't know what's in there it's too scary but I know that that's where all the answers are too I haven't been ready yet that's it you said it you haven't been ready so there's one part of the course where Jesus says when you find resistance high and dedication weak you are not ready do not fight yourself so again it's all there I had those moments too where I would pop the book open and pray and that's the kind of stuff I would get what kind of a tool to put it down that's a damn good tool if the tool tells you to put it down I haven't found that yet in the Gita so you're very welcome I think that's part of that be gentle be gentle with yourself be kind yes and that love is drawing you to do this healing for the whole universe and you're very courageous to do that and you have all of the love and support of all of us with you thank you thank you thank you that's what this is all for let's do a follow up on politics we've got he says it's not a let's continue on well this is the state of the union yes very good it's probably about once a year what I call the state of the union can everyone hear me yeah you can even pull it off of there that's probably the easiest yes so it happens about once a year the state of the union address comes to me it's like okay not politics as usual it's it's the truth so I don't want to delve too much into the story but I got pulled over on the way here I kind of bless every state I drove here from Chicago hmm I bless every state liberty and justice for all really shortly after Illinois someone call it in the story the most corrupt state of the entire union I probably wouldn't argue that but anyways I was completely calm there was no reaction to me and the police officer how are you doing I'm like good I love you you know I was like where are you going on the moon I said I'm going to retrieve what is it about and you genuinely wanted to know and I'm like well it's of course in miracles basically how do I give it to him basically everything is a miracle how do I and I'm seeing that conversation like this has happened it's the miracle so he gives me the ticket he's like we do enforce it okay and I may not do it did you say that too you just thought it he's watching his thoughts I don't like to see all the time on the open road limb blowing so God's law so state of the union came to me shortly after that and I don't have it memorized so I just I felt like this was going to be shared anyways here it is in my perfect state the united states the state of the union I state on the freedom road cruising through fields of gold driving further and further into there the heart of America the home of the brave the heartland where dreams are made just past wounded flags, half mass trail of tears shall pass God's law liberty and justice love above all union indivisible we are the people here to our call with the angels of the republic we cannot fall us and God we trust oh say can you see this learning was made for you and me my fellow Americans we are free we are free and the weekend of freedom cool thank you yeah I love the title of this weekend weekend of freedom and it was interesting too because the line from the course was coming what do you want freedom of the body or freedom of the mind for both you cannot have that's an interesting line from Jesus so for me these last 30 years have been really an investigation of show me freedom of the mind and release me from my concepts of freedom of the body because those concepts we have we talk about people imprisonment at times or where we feel like we're confined or in the body and we have great witnesses like Mandela and Gandhi who really went for freedom of the mind freedom that's in the core of our being and I think that's a very ambitious topic actually for us all this weekend and beautiful prose it's like a reminder it's like a keynote reminder we're ringing a bell to really go for that experience and the temptations I remember yeah I had a I think I got a Yamaha motorcycle I remember getting pulled over years ago and practicing my course of miracles lesson as the cop was coming around or something it's a pretty old model I think there was some fumes coming out the back or something but you know we practice with everything that comes and that's the glory of it and it is quite a thorough practice to release all of our concepts of freedom that we've projected on to the body one of the sections in the course that helped me out was the hero of the dream section where he contrasts other sections the dreamer of the dream basically saying that's where your freedom comes is when you see that you're the dreamer of the dream but the hero of the dream the serial adventures of the body he makes it sound so fun you know it almost sounds like a soap opera or something the serial adventures of the body are the hero and there's such a focus on was it good, did it hurt you did it help you all the things around the environment, all the things that seem to involve conditions of the body we have to realize that if we free our mind then the body will be useful as long as it's needed and gently laid aside that sounds really appealing to me some of you know Yogananda story of Parma Hunts, Yogananda that he was out there I believe in LA at a museum had given a talk and then was having dinner with his disciples and then said goodbye and then his body just remained in a state of non-decay for weeks that's a pretty strong symbol of a highly, highly trained mind and I see those as inspirations for us that we know that this is a course in mind training we can take heart that we can give our life over to that mind training and when we're tempted to think that it's something external to the world that's causing something of our body we can just see that that's just another victim thought as if something, not our will something outside of us is doing something to us and so I've had a lot of practice with that you know I'm visiting people and I say you have a cup of coffee or something well it's 11.30 at night you don't want to be drinking too much caffeine you won't sleep that's a cause and effect relationship and the whole course is teaching us that God is the cause Christ is the effect God is the creator the creation is Christ and that the whole world is the projection of this idea that cause and consequence cause and effect are actually real in linear time all of our disciplines everything we've ever learned since childhood and all the way up through university is based on what Jesus calls spurious cause effect relationships that there's causes in the world and there's effects and many of them regard the body don't stay out to the sun too long or your radiation will give you a cancer you see that the sun is being blamed for the cancer when we know that it's just there's some attack thoughts eating away in there that we're not willing to forgive the reflection of that so for me I enjoy quantum physics I enjoy everything that I'm reading I enjoy I mentioned last night in Boulder Abraham Maslow did anyone remember Abraham Maslow as hierarchy of needs what was at the top self-actualization that's know thyself that's what the Greeks were telling us that's what Jesus is telling us the characteristics of self-actualizing people that means and end were the same they were so in the moment so in the the yoga, so in the art so in the even the athletes in the zone they were so in the moment that they were in the joy of that moment and they weren't thinking where is this leading like the artist who's painting or will say being painted through not thinking when will I finish the painting how much money will this bring all those future consequences Abraham Maslow was right on it when he said that self-actualizing people saw that there was no difference between means and end and that's where all kinds of problems come in with reciprocity where is this going to bring me all those fears and doubts where is this heading will I be alone will I be like a bag lady or will I be homeless if I follow this course because we have people like Saint Francis they seem to there's one why don't you come up here Cheryl we need to just come up here for a minute tell us about the trust this is air of your breathing that's right from the matrix somebody told me you were homeless so I want to hear your walk of trust because I guess it was a walk of trust just to come out here and yeah I want you to share that because this is what we're talking about this is trusting in the miracle to be honest with myself I thought I knew what I wanted now I wanted that house and that marriage and most children I wanted it all yet I was miserable and I'm in so much pain and then I lost everything and the outside world and I got to the place where I just asked is this really all there is this is all there is I don't want this I don't and within I would say within a week of me really feeling that I remember what I was doing I was walking down the street I was going to the library and I was just I was like God if this really is all there is I don't want it anymore I had a phone call that day I talked with her in over 20 years she's a court student and she said what are you doing right now well I was just talking to God and I told them I'm done with this I'm done I don't want to live with this anymore she's like you stay right where you are I'm coming to get you because there's a really cool workshop this weekend at Unity I'm like really oh okay yeah I've been trying to get there and it changed my life from that moment on I started studying the course and I started asking a lot of questions and then I started meeting beautiful people and people just came into my path and I was asking those questions and I was really honest with myself and I'll tell you it was scary I was really scared you know I I got to a place where it's like what really? I can't hold a job my kids think I'm nuts and really they do I spent a couple months with my daughter and she's like you know mom you know I gotta love you mom I gotta love you but is this just one more thing you're gonna do the course and she's like and I just have learned to be an example just to be exemplifying what I have learned and what this course has helped me to understand is that I really truly am not this body I'm so much more I'm still trying to figure that out I'm still asking for Holy Spirit to help me and let it be known to me what that really means and get out of my head and out of my heart I think with all the beautiful beautiful people helped me to see that and one of the biggest gifts that I have received is to learn how to develop my trust and yes I did put some people on a pedestal Craig and I have had this conversation you know I with some people and then I had to learn that there is no one special it's not about the special we are all and it's okay to be afraid and it's okay to be emotional and it's okay to say I'm homeless and be okay about it I got some for you later campfire absolutely so very good very timely so really what started to really help me is when I saw that everything outside of me was not going to give me what I truly wanted I just asked Holy Spirit to show me let it be known to me Holy Spirit what would you have me do where would you have me go what would you have me say and do and that is my prayer every single day every day that's good to me and then what happens is we get inspired to do things like this you know trust me this is not just me I woke up with visions of this right here now how this all happened it was amazing but I had a vision of this stage it came to me it came to me I woke up one morning and was like I have to order a backdrop flowers I was joking when they asked me where you want to there's a chair and I said a couch I was like Romano and somebody Aaron is here today Aaron is saying you should just lay up there and put a pillow and just talk to the ceiling I said that sounds very comfortable you're really giving me some ideas these are new ideas for the retreats but it is comfortable isn't it you're pretty comfortable there that's not a hot seat he's relaxed in there that was more for sure like the guest yes Ed McMahon and Johnny Carson yes thank you thank you I love you very good well I think we're wrapping it up just what Cheryl shared it's not so much our earthly conditions but it's our life of trust and trusting that everything that happened to us everything that seems to come to us is for our good and so I think that's a beautiful and that's a beautiful witness because I know that is something that Jesus has guided me through as well kind of moving about not knowing where I would sleep from night to night and it was built to trust really fast not knowing where I would stay I feel like that just prepared the way for everything that came in my life so thank you for sharing that and thank you all for coming I'm so honored to be here with you all and I feel like we're going to have a great healing extending and radiating to all the universe our mind so God bless you and I hope to talk to you again