 Welcome, everyone. We are grateful that you can join us here for this live streaming and on Google Hangout. And thank you to our tech support here and Eric for getting us all set up here tonight. It's very cozy and comfortable here in the Living Miracle Studio. And the title tonight is Back to God, Experiencing a Course in Miracles. Kind of a short version of Unwind Your Mind Back to God, Experiencing a Course in Miracles. So our friends Lisa and Jason, they're on a tour. Their tour is called Unwind Your Mind. So we said, our gathering is called Back to God. So those of you who are new to us, this is a book that's just coming out. And it has just come out. It's published, but it's kind of building a momentum. And it's a pretty big book, but I think we can cover all 528 pages or whatever tonight easily. Because it's basically 3 books in one. So no problem for us. One live streaming, we can cover the core of it. Because we really want to go into the experience and extend the experience. And really, I guess, oftentimes people do ask how. Is that one of the questions that you were getting preceding this live stream? How do you go back to God? How do you return your awareness to the awareness of God's love? So that's really one thing that we can address. And really in the books, I guess for some of you, this book was really taken, has come out of the Teacher of Teachers website, miracleshome.org, that's been about 20 years in the making. So we're going to be addressing some ideas in here and really bringing in our experiences to it too as well. And really, it's 3 books, but the first book is Laying the Foundation. And then the second book is Unlearning the World. And then the third book is Transfer of Training. Which you always have to spark in your eye when we get to transfer of training. Because that's probably where your mind's at right now. That's what you're most excited about. So we would like to talk about this experience and experiencing the essence of the Course in Miracles tonight. And also, we would like to leave some time for questions. You can type those questions in, Eric is standing by. And we can perhaps handle some of the questions that are typed in from around the world. And then also, we have, I guess you could say, a studio audience, a few studio audiences. It looks like a monastery studio audience and one in Mexico and one here in the Camus Metaphysical Center. So you can also unmute your mics during those segments and just ask any kind of questions that come to mind. Because we're just here for the joy of sharing the experience and really just living in a consistent state of mind where you feel one with God, one with everything, connected with the universe, completely wholly connected without any blips, any little segments or waivers. And this is the whole package tonight. We'll be talking about the whole package. So we might have some new people on. Maybe shall we introduce ourselves in case there's new people watching? Saying who are these characters? Okay. You want me to start? Yeah, go ahead. Okay. Hi. My name is Frances. Yeah, I feel really grateful to be able to have the Course Miracle as my enrol to a profound opening experience, opening of the heart and opening of the mind to have a consistent experience of this vast, you know, what we call it, the experience of God or the experience of peace, the experience of freedom in the mind. So, yeah, the Course in Miracles is something that myself and all the people here in the community, we use as something we practice 24-7. And that is actually what attracted me first to this community and by David's teaching is that this is total. This is something that, you know, truth is true and truth is total. And when I first pick up the Course and try to practice on my own, I felt there was like almost like internal conflict living in the world and following all the laws of the world. Yeah, at that point, it was very much into health and, you know, focusing on what I eat. And when I pick up the Course, I just thought, you know, so many aspects of my life I could not live with the integrity of myself. I cannot live a life that I believe food is a cause or anything else is a cause. And at the same time practice the Course saying that the mind is the only cause of anything. So, yeah, so that was just what really drawn me to the community and in the last few years just being here and really immersed in the practice aspect of, you know, the metaphysics of the Course and also the metaphysics that David put in this book just has been pretty amazing. Yeah, it's really pretty amazing. So, it's me. Thank you. Thank you, Francis. And I'm David and I've really just given my life over to apply myself to have an experience and then having the experience, just extending that experience without exception. And so I'm thrilled to be able to have that as life's calling because it is life to me. That's what life is, is this experience and you can't really live apart from it or think apart or be apart from it. It's just an ongoing experience and we will be mentioning the book, A Course in Miracles tonight. We do it quite often. There are times when we just talk about our experiences and the ideas without mentioning it but most of the time when we make reference to it or talk about it, it's just another pathway back to God, one among many. But even though it's one among many, it does say in the book that you will believe this Course entirely or not at all. And so that's good to know in the outset. That's a good idea to kind of open your mind to, that you will believe it entirely or not at all. So it's not something that you can kind of do half heartedly or haphazardly or partially. You can't really experience truth in a partial way because truth is whole, it's holistic. And also this line in the Course that really struck me at the beginning was this Course has everything that you need. And if you take those words literally, then you can give yourself over to it in a way that if you apply it, you don't really need another book or you don't really need to devote your life to reading lots of things, which I can say I was doing when the Course came along. I was trying to be as open-minded as possible. I think that was very helpful. But there was an energy and a direct contact that I felt I made when I opened to A Course in Miracles. And so this is something that we've used. And I have to say that in my immersion in A Course in Miracles I felt such a direct contact with Christ and with God and with the Holy Spirit that it did have this strong feeling washed over me like, wow, this is the last book that I ever need to read. I had that feeling. It also washed away any kind of thought of a future of writing books because I feel like God is the author of reality and then this book was such a reflection of that presence. And it was so clear and so direct that I thought I would never need to write a book. And I still have that feeling I don't have a need. And then when I look at this book, I kind of open it and look into it. And it's really a book of dialogues because the teachings have come through me very verbally. And so it's not like a book that just kind of talks at you. It's just dialogues, questions, answers. It's kind of been like a synopsis of how my life has gone since I cut the course. So even though books may come out with my name on the cover or something, a number of books or whatever, and people may have a little page, say author's page or whatever and this and that, I don't really identify with any of that. And when I look at the books that even have come out, here's another one over here. And I look in here, this one's called Going Deeper and it's the same thing. I open it up and it says Friend. So what about Holy Relationship? It's a question. And oh, here's another one. Sarah's got it all stocked up here. This one's called Reading to a Course in Miracles. The same thing. It's just a bunch of dialogues. I have a friend in Florida, she says, when are you going to write a regular book? And I just have never had any intention of doing that. And it all started with this feeling when I was working with the course like I thought, I'll never need to read another book or write another book. And at the time I remember I quit reading the newspaper and quit reading the stack of books by my bed. And I was just taken and taken into an experience and then after that I remember one point when somebody was asking me something about this book or that book. I just said, I don't read. Just like in the movie, being there with Chauncey Gardner says I like to watch. I just say, oh, I don't read. And people go, what do you mean? I don't even think of it as like an activity anymore. If something crosses my eyes or people will write a letter to me or an email. But I don't even think of it as like reading anymore. It's just all, everything's all blended together. So that's part of the experiencing a course in miracles that if you go fully into this experience of we'll call it God or oneness or divine love or whatever, then your mind is not in the same state of mind that it's previously seemed to be in. And it's delightful. It's a delightful experience. It's a delightful way to live. In fact, it seems like in the end it's the only way. There's nothing else there. So we can talk about that. And we can also talk about like those three books contained in this one book on one your mind back to God. When I say the first one, Sarah was saying like even just reading the table of contents of each of the books, it's kind of like a wash over your mind. But even if I just use the title of the first book inside the book, Laying the Foundation, what does that mean to you when you think of your own experiences opening to spirituality? And you have talked to me in interviews before about how initially your encounter with a course in miracles seemed to have a pretty much of an intellectual component because you were a student, a very good student. And when you read it, I guess that was part of your mindset at the time about learning concepts or learning something from a book. And you've talked to me a little bit about that, that's how it started out for you. It seemed like you had a large course in miracles meetup group in Sydney and then you pretty much felt like you were guiding the group by teaching the concepts. But how does it now that you know about these three aspects, laying the foundation, unlearning the world and transfer of training, what does that bring to mind when you hear laying the foundation really experientially for you, what do you feel was laying the foundation? Maybe even beyond teaching it intellectually because I know people who try to read it, teach it intellectually, study it and everything. And some of them feel pretty chaotic. If you said to them, did that lay the foundation, they may say, I don't know, maybe it's helping move in that direction, but what does it feel like for you? What was that laying the foundation? Well, because I know the content of this book, I remember years ago when the content was only available through audio online, I was really just listening through and the title was very attractive to me at the point and I was thinking, oh my god, laying the foundation, I really want to lay the foundation. I want to lay a very solid foundation so that I can undo the world and transfer the training and this is very important. I can't miss this step. That was my intellectual mind was telling me this is important. But at that point I guess the mind is active and is full of questions. It doesn't really settle down into this full trust of the spirit or of the divine providence. It has so many questions and so many suspicions and so many doubts and it wants to find some kind of things that I can hold on to and some kind of answers that can at some level resonate. For example, what is karma? What is reincarnation? Does the Course teach that? And what is miracle? You know those kind of questions right now after experience, just practice, practice, practice the principles for years, those are not the questions we talk about every day but those are the foundations that has been laid solidly and especially at the stage when the mind was active and really wants some kind of answers in the form of concepts and experience, other people's experience and all these concepts around the world that we have learned throughout our lives and how does that relate to what the Course is teaching? You know it's almost like it needs a bridge to allow the mind to just really okay unwind or relax and that's what I, now looking back that was the foundation was just those other questions because you can see in that first book there are just all these questions that I guess your students or your friends have collected and asked you over so many years around you know relationships, around life, around bodies, symptoms, health like all of that and that's been really helpful. So I think that I'm sensing too that this laying the foundation is essential and also it seems to have a lot to do with curiosity, like sometimes they say children, some children are naturally curious, they just have a real kind of open sense, what's this, what's that mean, what does this mean, why, why? I mean I remember we were going to a movie theater one time and a mother and her children sat behind me and really every five seconds of the movie, an hour and a half movie, every five seconds of the movie it was like what's that and why did this, it was just question after question after question and I have to say it wasn't at all annoying or irritating to me, it was actually delightful, I mean I thought how delightful to be in a movie theater and hearing this flow of cadence of really curious questions and I think that's a big aspect of laying the foundation is giving yourself permission and allowance to really let your natural curiosity come up and I mean by curiosity it can be about everything, it can be about all the assumptions of the world or who you seem to be in the world or your roles, your situations, maybe some crises that have happened to you or maybe you're even a little curious if you've had some mystical experiences and you wonder what was that, where did that come from or why did it go when it left or I think it's part of laying the foundation is like a natural sense of curiosity and it's interesting that these books that I just was holding up have been mirroring my own curiosity that I had a curiosity at the beginning for God or for spirit even though I didn't really know what, didn't have a direct experience but I did have a curiosity and then I allowed myself to ask questions and question everything really, I mean I felt like the course was just like a cheerleader, Jesus saying to learn this course requires willingness to question every value that you hold, not one can be kept hidden or it will obscure your learning, one sentence and I thought wow that's amazing, I want to question everything, I've never had anybody on earth say question everything, later on I would come across wonderful teachers like Krishna Murthy that seem to have that same kind of vibe, like have a curiosity, have a childlike curiosity to question everything and a student of his, Tara Singh who was also into the course that was an early inspiration of just having that curiosity so it certainly is not the end but it's a great beginning and I think when we interact with people in our communities and we do talks and gatherings around the world they're very much open discussions, it's like heart to heart discussions, it's not really like a lecture or somebody telling somebody else something, it's more just a curiosity that we come together and we're drawn together and then we explore topics together or we explore what's underneath these perceptions and we have an openness, I think you have to have a bit of openness and willingness to be truly curious, if you already think you know then it's like the portal is closed and the mind is closed and really you can't go on an authentic journey to who you are if you've already got a set of beliefs and concepts and assumptions that you aren't willing to question so to me that feels like that's really important in laying the foundation so we would say to everyone you know we welcome you in that I have always found it delightful when I'm talking to somebody or I'm talking to a group and someone comes in and they just have this energy of like what's going on here and they jump right in or even children jumping into discussions and things you start to realize that there really are no interruptions in this thing we call life it's just a reflection of where your mind's at and when you have an openness to be curious and to start to accept your emotions and let them come up and also to be curious about what's underneath those emotions and I think you're on the road to authentic awakening. And then once we started getting into unlearning the world wow that's a whole new shift of gears from curiosity because a lot of times people who even studied the course will study the book for weeks or months or years sometimes decades even it's been out long enough to now be decades so people in study groups going around and reading it and maybe raising some questions and then occasionally getting into some pondering and discussion trying to come up with answers which is typically what you do in education you are taught that you can raise questions but you also are looking for answers but usually the answers go around and around and most of the time in a circle because they're just theories or hypotheticals or pondering and then someone will say let's read the next paragraph and then the next paragraph answers all the questions and people are sitting there like what's going on here this is amazing we thought we just tried to answer that we all pondered and then the books got the answers in the next paragraph and then it goes on and on like that until after they've read it for some months or years they're more hushed sometimes they'll just come together and read and let it kind of wash over them and then not even interject all these bantering kind of questions because they know that if they keep reading on something's happening there's a transformation of consciousness happening so you know we're really grateful for the course and for those initial times I used it kind of like an I Ching I would pop the book open I would have the question in mind or the prayer and then I would close my eyes and I would just pop the book open and get the answer that way so you know like almost like letting a genie out of a bottle and having all the answers just spoon fed to you there's no set way to do the course the workbook has some instructions but as far as which book you're drawn to first really depends on where you're at in your mind there's not a structure in that way but once we start to get into unlearning the world then I think trust you mentioned trust what does that unlearning the world involve in this book well I think unlearning the world is really more like traditional Buddhism for example is empty your mind of everything you think you think and think you know and there's a lot of traditions that talk about emptying out whatever you think you have in your consciousness emptying out the contents of consciousness and so the title of the book is unwind your mind back to God so in one sense the unlearning of the world is part of this unwinding like you've believed things that aren't true you've taken on assumptions you have a whole set of beliefs none of which are true and you have to start to unwind from that belief system in a sense that would be too to pop out of it so it's more of like an unwinding and as I've sent some review copies of this book out to friends I've had more than one say what a perfect name for a book because that's exactly how it feels my life is going I feel like I'm unwinding from the world and then they see you know unwind your mind back to God and they're writing into me now saying this is perfect it's a perfect title but it's really it's more of like an unlearning which I always thought was kind of fascinating about a course in miracles to call it a course in miracles when we think of a course we think of learning and like even you working with a course in miracles and teaching the concepts teaching what you would learn and learning the concepts from reading the book and then teaching them to strengthen them at some point I think you start to realize that it's kind of a clever way of drawing you in but that you're not learning a damn thing you're working with this and you're starting to see oh my gosh I'm actually unlearning everything that I've ever believed in and unlearning the world the world is just synonymous to the ego because the world was made by the ego so it's a pretty good synonym I mean it you have to see it in the context of the course which is that it's a linear world and it's a time-space cosmos and that eternity or spirit creates like itself so spirit creates like spirit or eternity creates like eternity the time-space cosmos is not eternal at all and it isn't spirit at all it's not changeless it's ever changing it's spirit's eternal and changeless and it's very temporary and everything we know about the cosmos now even with physics and quantum physics it's all telling us it's really not spirit at all there could be something underneath it or something at the essence at the core of it but as it's perceived with the consciousness and the mind and the five senses it's certainly not eternal so that is what needs to be unlearned and in one sense it's part of this emptying out that they talk about in Buddhism also in the course in lesson 189 in the workbook you know simply do this be still, lay aside all thoughts of what you are, what God is it sounds very Buddhist and it's wonderful when you're working with the Course with all the Christian language because it's a lot of people who have an experience of Jesus or Jesus is teaching through the Bible think that Jesus is a dualist a dual teacher and then when you get to the Course surprise, surprise it's completely non-dual it's using words from the dualistic world of the ego but oh where the direction it's going it's not going to maintain duality at all when you work with the Course and you learn it entirely as it suggests you're not going to be left holding heaven and hell or love and hate it's just going to be a total experience of love there's only love God is but love and so am I my identity is love so it's going to undo all dualism even the non-duality teachings have been around in ancient China and ancient India and the Course is nothing new in terms of non-dual teachings it's quite practical at giving you a workbook lesson to unlearn the world unlearn the ego and that's I think for us that have taken the Course it was the start in many cases a real authentic start of really unwinding from this dualistic belief system and then as we talk about it in practical terms you know if you think about how the life of Francis seemed to go or the parable of Francis you know you started coming to like week-long retreats or I think kangaroo valley kangaroo valley was like 10 days or 12 days and eventually coming and immersing in the community how would you describe that unlearning certainly the life that you had is whatever an accountant or financial planner or the life that you had in Sydney and before started to shift from what it seemed to be it seemed to go through a metamorphosis a big one it's hard for me to describe what happened or yeah I just everything happened I don't know I can't describe any specifics anymore but yeah but that's what I talked about you know being here practice those metaphysics and principles and they're not intellectual concepts anymore like let's talk about the concept so that we wake up through understanding and that's not it didn't work for me and it's not really what has worked for me so really like I feel coming here the process if I can really put in words has been on the side of a lot of the concepts and really just just dive into we're talking about undoing the world but it's actually the process it's through really going into it and without any denial or avoiding of whatever that is arising like emotions and seeming thoughts and stories that just are in the mind and you know those are the process that are really going into it until until they're not sticky anymore and it's not like effort now like you know okay we know they're not right they're not the teaching of the course so we have to not do that no the natural result is that it's gone it's disappeared it's dissolved in the mind and the mind started to open up to this vastness and it's not really confined in any kind of identity or stories so yeah I feel I feel like every aspect of the community and of all these years of little practice and communication with friends here and the focus on following the Holy Spirit which wasn't something that that I actually just got from reading the book myself I feel that was one of the elements that's very unique by coming here that's the focus of the community that is the focus of your teachings and so and that is that put everything into practice that you know following the spirit and talking about the concept becomes you know the way that you know coming here is the way that we follow the spirit and I guess yeah I can say that that has been just so amazingly helpful that I can't even imagine like you know right now I can say that following the spirit in terms of guidance in form that doesn't it's not here anymore the concept of guidance in form doesn't resonate anymore and yet whatever that I'm open up to right now like just the experience of everything is involuntary and just the mind is just completely like go off the screen and this true relaxation and whatever that is happening right now I would not be able to either experience or even envision before you know before taking those steps of really following the spirit and I kept saying that to friends here and to myself like really following the spirit is following that find out this joy that is already there in the heart and just know that it's always there it has been in our heart and just following that without compromise but at the same time it's such an undoing process in and of itself because to be able to follow the spirit something invisible intangible not logical it really requires that we are willing to let go of anything that we you know self concept or self-interest preferences personal views will as I define it like anything that we don't even see the subtle subtle subtle concept that we use to define the self and hold the full self in place and all of things you know we have to let go in order to follow the spirit so that process you know I can see that what it did but I know there are so many things I don't even know that it did for me you know just the washing away has been just so amazing and then it reached a place that you see okay that is the truth either and the truth is not anything that can be talked about or anything that can be used as a formula it's just all that is helpful and the mind just like the last characteristic of the teacher of God as in the manual for teachers in the course saying the last characteristic is open mindedness and that is where those practice has you know lead me to this like the mind is open and has been practicing just letting go of any kind of conclusion of anything and then as you said I didn't learn anything but I feel like everything that I thought I knew you know those I know kind of mind is not really there anymore and just so open to not interpret and not conclude on anything and willing to be in so much collaboration with the flow of life like there is no resistance at any level you know and there is like this deep peace and whatever that's happening is a full yes and and then that is a space that the mind dualistic mind does not tap into it either goes into the low and depression or this mediocre space or it goes to high of some kind of high but there is a realm that is beyond both and that's where this practice has like the mind into and there is no way I can talk and I can foresee you know where this is the place that eventually we will reach by talking about the concept that's why that all these concepts these questions are the foundation are the foundation for the mind to really actually tune into what is the answer from a course perspective not from the ego perspective and then laying the foundation but transfer of training, transfer of training, transfer of training that is what the course is pointing to you know people whoever think the course is a dualistic teaching they are caught up in words because words are all dualistic, concepts are all dualistic anyone who really practice use words as a pointer to really practice will know this is definitely a non-dualistic teaching because that's where the mind is open up to yeah so that really is taking it into transfer of training when you start to realize that none of the concepts are true wherever were and then so it's not so much trying to look for a change in form or even knowing what a change in behavior would be because those are all part of concepts as well this is a new perspective on the world it's like you're just gazing upon the whole world and I mean everything not gazing through the body's eyes but there is one who's watching the world that's beyond the body beyond the five senses and that watching that new perspective on the world is very glorious very happy very still but it's not definable in earth terms or in worldly terms and I think that that's the thing that you know when you see conversations going on there's just assumptions that are underneath those conversations about my mother my father my sister my brother my son my daughter my aunt my uncle it's my my my it's a personality's relationship in a horizontal way in some kind of a concept there just to say I talked to my mother you know is there's a lot of concepts underneath it's that simple sentence to my mother something it's interesting because we were riding in the car the other day and you were describing this conversation that you'd had that was kind of going to how do you know where you're going to go next or whatever and you say well I just feel it and follow the invitation and then the voice at the other end of the phone said I invite you and then it's like well I can't be an invited for the teaching for the presence and everything like this and then there was this oh okay I see I see there was this recognition but it it wasn't a mother talking to a daughter because there is no mother and there is no daughter and that's that vast experience where you're freed of all concepts you know it's presence and it's really not even a dialogue it's just it's a presence but you see that's really how deep this goes that's when we talk about transfer training you know it's not it's not saying well for years I went to the office and now I'm quitting my job so I won't go to my office anymore it's seeing that there is no office and there never has been an office you know it's that deep of a transfer the presence was never contained in time and space it was never in persons it was never even in avatars you know it's a lot of transfer training when you start to see that your saints and your avatars and your enlightened beings and everything that they were just symbols and it never was in them either it's not in anything it's not in the world and that's this but you're very relaxed it's very peaceful it's very still it's not like you can choose whether you're going to take something personal or not it doesn't register there's no person to register with there's no personal opinions there's no personal perspective you know but that's just more concepts and that's really where this is heading not just to talk the talk but to walk the walk and eventually what we mean by walk the walk is it goes so far beyond the body that it ceases to feel natural to try to define anything because God is beyond definition and who we are is beyond definition so you cease to have a need to define and then you have no need to have an opinion no need to make a point anything no need to prove anything it's quite delightful when you're just in that relaxed state of beingness or presence so that's our highest calling you might say that a book has words and it seems to be a human being may seem to pick it up and read it or read a website the same with the course but that could be seen as like a beginning point but then where this goes it has no end it doesn't reach a point in time and space where you say oh I found this form or arrived at that form that doesn't make any sense at all quite delightful and then also there's there's so much stillness that there's so much contentment that there really is no need for words if there's a spirit inspiring and they come in a very natural way almost like pouring a glass of water if it just pours out then so be it but there's no need for it it's not something that you feel impelled or compelled to do and we were talking recently we're just the joy of this collaboration is there but you were saying there's nothing else and so that kind of makes it even simpler too because there's not a sense of biding time there's no time you know to deal with it mm-hmm so we're zooming through all 528 pages here for us you know it's I guess this is kind of like it's almost like an afterthought where it's you know it's it's different from how things seem to be in the world where you you know you get a book and it's a big book a thick book you know then this involves a lot of reading but you know this is more of a reflection that we can just kind of smile at it and look at it and people joke about you know putting a book under their pillow or getting it through osmosis or this or this this has just been a reflection of the presence that we feel and in that sense you know there's a sense of wow if it has a helpfulness anything that is a helpfulness in presence or to presence or from presence it's good yeah it's where these words are coming from it is so it is so felt and that's like where how the communication happens and message is delivered because I think just last couple of days I think I was trying to I can't remember the context whether to a friend or someone on the phone about something and I explained in two ways and these words are completely contradictory completely different and I cannot reconcile at the level of words but to me where it comes from it's exactly the same but I can hear I can understand why they're completely different receive differently but I just really feel like oh my god it feels to me exactly the same but I can't I can't explain more and that is where the message is coming from is from a place of oneness and it's from a place of no division and no separation and that is if that message is coming from that place the words might be perceived as different but the heart will not perceive the difference it will receive the message and that is what is really important it's just not the words not all these pages but it's where it's coming from so that's really our focus it's our very life sense of presence because I know when it when it's still divided up in terms of the words like when people say don't talk about the future don't talk about the past don't talk about this thing or that or I let go of the story and so on and so forth the miracle is involuntary and so it's the presence of love extending in whatever would be most helpful in any seeming circumstance will just come through it could be a smile or a hug or a laugh or a pat on the back it doesn't even have to be verbal it's just the presence of love is what everything is is what it's all about and therefore the words that it's called the spirit will give you the words in other words the teacher of God does not select his or her words for him or herself the words are given are put there if there are to be words and if there aren't to be any words then that's as well involuntary but the presence is what it's all about so then there's no sense of ever being right or wrong there are no right or wrongs there are no more positions to take there are no more arguments or there's nothing that needs to be pushed or gotten or manifested or anything it's just quite joyful and relaxed because there's nothing in form that could ever change it's not about trying to make any kind of change in form just beholding it with new eyes just realizing what it truly is that it's not apart from consciousness that everything is mind so that's really what we're all about that's what the whole community is about it's not about growing anything making anything establishing anything it's not trying to change the world it's not trying to make the world a better place it doesn't really involve any kind of self-improvement at all it's just a state of mind that's literally beyond improvement it transcends it and that's been kind of there's a number of movies but this transcendence movie seems to come in a lot for us because there's no fighting involved it's just transcending there's no challenge involved it's just transcendence it's just being aware that everything is completely connected in one and then if words are given or something comes there is no travelers in presence like Mr. Brother that was why it was kind of fun when you said you were having this conversation to the world might appear as a mother-daughter but the presence couldn't be contained in such tiny concepts and so it was like oh I travel upon invitation and it was all made very very clear but it was a presence extending it wasn't a mother speaking to a daughter and that's the vastness we're talking about it's not that you still have roles but you're in a state of mind where you don't have a role at all and then the words are just given but you don't even try to find the meaning in the words it's still in the presence behind the words so it's beautiful to hear about that so we're just having this experience really is what what it's all about for us and there are some type questions two type questions coming in and so Eric you want to read them so we have a question that came in from Jane McGrady but it's a question from Peter he says greetings what does it mean to save the world if the world is anonymous with the ego and has to be unlearned thank you and then the second question is from Jamie Belazk is it common for someone to get a particular repetitive prompt that feels like they have to act on it or be stuck that's what I'm experiencing because I tend to procrastinate out of fear and say to spirit this doesn't seem very gentle but eventually do it I guess but I eventually do it okay those are our two questions for now let's take one and then next we'll take Peter's question save the world save the world yeah save the world reminds me of that Michael Jackson song heal the world get a better place save the world well certainly the spirit doesn't need to be saved so because oneness doesn't even have an idea what healing is or salvation but save the world would have to apply towards a split mind in other words if the world is is a projection of the split mind or the belief in separation from God then saving the world is very much the same as salvaging but it goes beyond the metaphor of the world being the ego because it's not like you can really save the ego either if the ego is a puff of nothingness a tiny man idea you can't really save a puff of nothingness you can't save an illusion but in A Course in Miracles Jesus clarifies it and he says only the mind can be saved or salvaged he says and it is only saved or salvaged through peace so that one sentence has two parts to it but it's extremely helpful at getting clear of what the saving thing is because a lot of times we've grown up in Christianity I know Peter you grew up in Christianity over there in Europe and I grew up in Christianity seemingly in the parable of David but we were talking about saving souls as if people had souls individual private little separate souls 6-7 billion of them around the planet and some of them were saved and some of them weren't and you better get out there and be a good Christian and save the lost souls so that they could know Jesus but really persons and souls are it's about the mind that split or the mind that believes the ego is real needing to come around right it is a gift to be simple it is a gift to be free and eventually till by turning and turning we come around right we unwind the mind here we are again we just keep following it and turning by turning and turning or unwinding we come around right like the song does a gift to be simple that's really what the savings about it's salvaging the mind meaning it's coming back to holistic thinking it's coming back to we could say right-mindedness where you see that it's all right-minded inspired by the Holy Spirit and it's all connected and it's all unified it's the happy dream it's the real world and that's the saving there's a good question Peter in the sense that we certainly know that the Spirit or God doesn't need to be saved and the ego can't be saved either how can you save something that doesn't exist but it's this sense that if you have a split mind you're trying to serve two masters the Bible says no man can serve two masters and that which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit there's both flesh and Spirit when there's actually only one and that's Spirit and there never was flesh and there never was separation and there never was duality and struggle and so forth so it always helped me to keep it simple and I love that one simple line from Jesus that only the mind is in need of salvation only the mind can be salvaged and it is only salvaged through peace it's not salvaged through saving the whales through saving the ozone through saving the sinners through saving the lost ones the lost souls or saving the planet trying to save Mother Earth or saving money or all the things that we talk about saving with all those things are really just distractions but the mind that believes the mind that believes it can actually serve two masters that mind is in need of salvation because it's in need of peace so that's that's what that means and then the prompt have you ever had that situation that was being described in the second question where you had a prompt and the prompt kept coming and you had a feeling of stuckness but you felt wow I think I need to follow that prompt yeah definitely had a lot of those experiences and I feel like the Holy Spirit has been really gentle with me and never really throw anything that I can handle at me but there were times where I felt it was a big leap almost like leap into the unknown and there was yeah a lot of fear and in those moments I remember I actually remember in one of those times you came to my dream you were so gentle with me but in my dream you were like don't waste time anymore so far I woke up and then I thought okay I can take this message because it was in a dream it wasn't really that harsh but it got my attention I was like okay don't waste time anymore just you know because when you know that was the prompt there was no doubt the fear level was very high but I knew at the point that this was what I was supposed to do so yeah for me I just wanted to pray like in those moments I remember once I just prayed like please just carry me through this I don't know how I was gonna do that but just carry me through it I don't want me to build up faith with you so just carry me through this just make every single step very very obvious so that I don't have to think I can make a mistake or I can make a wrong step just make it very obvious and I will just be here upon your request just move along and he really did carry me so to speak so yeah so just I would say in summary to your question it is quite common especially as you start to really give yourself over to the spirit and you start to say use me open my heart heal my mind take me back to you back to God as you open and that's the prayer of your heart and you've been used to being kind of in that stuck feeling or maybe a depressed feeling or maybe feeling lack of energy or like you know you're trapped in some way very common experience as far as for human beings and then you open your heart to Christ you open your heart to spirit and you start to get these prompts and then and you feel like it is repeated like it's come come you need to do this now and you have a feeling that by not following those prompts you're just spinning your wheels you're stuck in quicksand you're still trapped the stuckness is associated with not following those prompts and what's happening is that the spirit is calling you and the spirit is prompting you and yet you know there's a fear of awakening it's not even a fear of the means or what will happen if you follow the spirit what if I am nobody and nothing what if I disappear what if I cease to exist as a separate human being a separate individual that part is is terrifying to the ego so the ego doesn't want you to follow those prompts and this is common I know for myself Francis we've worked with many many people to get out of the lethargy to get out of the the stuckness the pattern you have to pay attention to these prompts and I do remember like from the parable of David even back in graduate school before I was even into the course I was getting prompts to transfer to another another program and and yet I had all the shoulds and shouldn'ts in my mind if I would transfer disappointing parents and professors and all these people I would let down and all the guilt I would feel if I disappointed them and this and that and yet I kept getting prompts over and over and over leave transfer transfer transfer and then I kept pushing them down stuffing them back down ignoring them and eventually got quite sick quite ill from stuffing all these prompts down and then it became obvious I actually had to follow the prompt and then when I did I felt like tons of bricks weights were lifted off of me I still had to face reactions and people's looks and glances and glares and everything but after I'd followed the prompt I felt I could handle anything it was just I needed to move forward and I think these prompts you know as you talk to people in our community can seem to be what the world would call major things leaving behind jobs or children or different situations that the world would say you're in that one for life you know it's already got you prescribed of how you're supposed to live the rest of your life and then you start to getting these prompts of it's really loosening your mind and unwinding your mind and unlearning the world and seeing that you're not a person you're not a body you're actually a spirit and you've always been the spirit you are the living Christ but that unwinding involves a lot of prompts and to the extent that you just stuff them back down and try to play religion or play the roles and live out continue wearing the mask and continue the roles when really that's not your heart's joy like you could look at right now in your life you know it's you seemed to have let go but there's no harm it's quite joyful I mean following the prompts when we know the prompts a lot of the times we have a certain kind of spark or resonance with the direction it's going and the fear the inspiration is there and the fear level is high and I know that in my personal experience when the fear was really high we don't really recommend that you push through it or anything but I have to say when you know that's the prompt and the fear level is high the reward is equal is equally high because the fear was almost like the ego you know that movie Oblivion and they have to say hazard zone don't go there don't go there because you're gonna lose or you're gonna experience something really fatal but that is the ego's trick of don't go there because there's some kind of big undoing of the ego that's gonna happening in the mind a big opening is there and by following that you know the mind will open up and the undoing will happen and the ego will lose its control and the reward is amazing I just know that um lost my train of thoughts but I just wanted that's my personal experience I just remember some of the specific fear that I thought it was the fear of my lifetime that I come here to work through and when I really faced that when it was time, when I was ready and really worked through that you know the freedom of seeing that fear is not true there is no fear that is the reward yeah and if you just if you just know that if you keep following those prompts you'll just be carried into an experience this vast experience which is really forget this world forget this course and come with open arms unto your God it's this unification experience we were talking the other day when we were out driving about this crazy idea of what is yours and what is mine or what is yours and what is the church's it could take any form as if there is a tunis there and um the deeper you go when you have this experience you all sense of tunis all sense of opposites disappear and you can say that your experience of the world was completely different than it was when you were trying to hold on to the tunis because then you always are like what is mine, what is yours did I say too much did I say too little did I do enough, did I do too much did I do too little it's always gyrating and spinning when there's a sense of opposites and tunis and when there's this beautiful unification experience which is naturally your natural state of mind because you don't even concern yourself those aren't even questions what's the marital status of the number five it doesn't have a marital status and you start to realize that that kind of feeling applies to everything in the world so you don't try to figure things out anymore because you realize there's nothing there to figure out so it's worth following those prompts like you say the reward as much as it seems to be fear you can know that there's the reward of that piece when you actually follow it the reward is almost instant it's like experience simultaneously as you move through that the mind is opening up and this amazing mystical or peaceful realm that is there waiting that's very very open and this heart opening I mean, yeah it sounds paradoxical but it is in my experience as I was moving through fear I was going through the heart opening at the same time and it can be felt it's really profound okay well maybe we can open it up is there anybody in the studio audiences that have anything to share a comment or a question or anything yes yes I actually released judgments a couple of days I found some difficulties to do so it's like even if I'm in community I'm in here I still need to really step into forgiving really kind of release judgments to like David said practice releasing judgments and the perception will change so it's like release judgments from everything because everything is kind of hard kind of it's like I don't like it or I don't accept it my question is how do I really do that really forgive and how do I really find that kind of point that determination or that determination that I want to forgive what the matter is okay very good if you want to mute it we'll talk to that well let's talk a little bit about forgiveness because as long as we hold forgiveness in the realm of personhood which is the realm of doing things I have to forgive or I'm at the community now I've come all the way from China and I've finally made it and now pressure's on I've got to forgive more so now than ever because I'm now around a bunch of other people that are practicing forgiving and if they're forgiving and I'm not forgiving then that's not good but there's a pressure of got to forgive it's no different as almost if you were a piano protege and you were expected to get a great concert and really perform or Eric's here with us he was known in the community as great singer, songwriter and everything and we finally have a strawberry field and he gets up there and he meditates as the people in the audience are going come on sing something and this and this as long as there's a pressure to do anything or even a pressure to forgive it's almost like it's seen as some kind of an action or maybe even a personal mental action like I, Colin, Dang have to forgive and that's why I'm here and the pressure's on because if I don't well then what could happen? Will I get kicked out or will I fall behind or I'll just be more different than everybody if everybody's forgiving and I'm not it's this idea of even seeing forgiveness in a personal way that puts the pressure on, it brings the pressure on and actually when you really look at what forgiveness is you forgive your brother for what he did not do you can forgive the Colin character for what he did not do and then beyond the doing we'll call it the thinking like if you say, well I have fear thoughts or I have doubt thoughts or I have judgments who is the I that has those fear thoughts and doubt thoughts and judgments it's still this person it's still seen in a very personal way and that's where the pressure is coming on and I remember when I first met you you came to hear me and this was there I think was it Jason the very first time too a very first visit there and following us to Kentucky Fried Chicken didn't we go to Kentucky Fried Chicken there in Beijing and we went there and we said come to lunch with us and so you did and you came and it was more that you just felt all this love because we have so much love it radiates out to everything and everyone and we were like come along walk with us, come have lunch with us and somehow in that beautiful beautiful vast love you felt that you could just you didn't have to hold the mask up anymore I remember you cried and your head went down to the table and the snot was pouring out all over the table and but it didn't matter you could seem to be however you were the behaviors could be anything and you were just love and we just stayed there with you and even in other visits and that's what I felt when you write me emails I feel that you feel this love that's emanating from us and this love is really a state of mind that doesn't need to have anything form change or anything be corrected because this love is not a personal love and it's not it doesn't make any judgment of the forms regardless of what the forms are you might say there's absolutely no pressure in this love because there's no sense that things need to be a certain way and form it's a perspective and looking on the world for a given perspective that just lets this love radiate through so it's the sense that when you say I have doubt thoughts or I have judgments or I can't release them or I can't forgive them that it's just holding on to like this self-concept and when you really feel the presence of love it's not like there's no pressure being put on it's more of a I am accepted just as I am I am loved exactly as I am and to just receive that receive that love knowing you can't mess it up you can't think or say or do anything that would there's always there it will always be there it's just like embracing you and holding you and so all you're really doing is you're opening your heart to that love and when you start to think of forgiveness and you're thinking of it in past terms like when you would study for an exam you had to study that was an activity go to school or get a job or perform something kind of a task in the family or something like this those are all doings like active doings and now you're being asked to just open up to go beyond that sense of a doer doing things right or wrong you know it's two sides to the same coin you can have a false sense of pride about accomplishments and what you've done right and how you've pleased your parents or pleased friends and so on and so forth and then there's the negative oh I've let these people down or I'm this way I'm not worthy I will never make it and I won't be able to forgive they're just two sides of the illusory coins of the world and what we want you to feel more than anything is just that and I know that that's you know we felt that when we were down we met your family and had lunch with your father and yourself and we got to meet your family you know we could it was just the love in our hearts extending to you and at the end of one of our talks I remember your family came up and they came right up to Francis and they said Collins going through these intense emotions and these all these behaviors that are coming and intense things and I just was there long enough to hear Francis' response to your family saying oh that's normal when you study the course and their look on their faces like normal my gosh there's intense emotions but she was describing how there was a love there was an allowance to get in touch with all that and that's so important in healing even though the egos tempted to try to make something of it and judge it was just I thought it was beautiful just watching that exchange that you had it was so loving she was just being so true from the heart just like oh that's that's what happens when you devote yourself you know deeply to the course and to healing the main thing I want to tell you is is that you're not doing anything right or wrong and even mentally when you seem to experience those thoughts passing through, they're just thoughts passing through you don't have to identify and say these are my judgments these are my doubts thoughts because in the end our objective is to have an experience that we could never have judged in the first place that was never us that we aren't egos we never were the ego we identified with it and that's what brought the guilt and when you start to loosen just let those thoughts be like passing clouds let them go by what do we got today let's watch the parade let them go by that that is truly who you are or that those are your real thoughts because those aren't the thoughts you think with God anything else coming for you she's just beaming at you we love you Colin there he is we see you what do they say he's prompting him and that's the rest of the story yeah I'll see you soon and is it a couple weeks or so I'll be down to Mexico La Casa de Malagras can give you a big long hug yeah I think we can mute it again and I'll share it's forgiveness is really it's just a state of mind and so it's funny that when you are identified with the ego you think about that you have to do some kind of action to get into this state of mind but you already are this state of mind and it's this is the whole thing of a cat chasing his tail or many non-dual teachers have talked about you know you can never experience enlightenment while you still conceptualize it because when it's conceptualized it's always an action it always involves a doing it always involves the future and none of that is it presence is always present it doesn't involve something that eventually happens in the future it's part of the trick so it's like the cat chasing his tail you know and never seeming to quite get there and so you know maybe like you call him like many people have lived in families wanted to be happy and to be free and you were dealing with these creatures called parents and siblings and then you've got these professor creatures and it's quite a place to try to navigate time and space with all these creatures creatures from the black lagoon they're all over the place and how are you ever going to be happy with all these creatures it's like a monster movie you have to start to realize that you don't need to please them and neither do you have a person to please that it's possible to drop it it's possible to drop the whole game it's possible to drop the whole mask but the mask isn't a personal mask it's Jesus tells us it's the whole world that you see the stars are part of that mask you know if you look with telescopes and galaxies and with electronic powerful telescopes or if you look at microscopes and you look at the particles the molecules you go smaller and smaller all of that is part of the mask it's an atomic mask it's a molecular mask it's a cellular mask it's a human creature mask it's a mask that has mountains in it it has oceans it has clouds it's a mask that has stars it's the whole world the whole cosmos is like a cosmic mask I always talk about the bible Adam and Eve and you know and they knew they were naked and then they started to try to find fig leaves to cover up their private parts it's like the cosmic fig leaf this whole time-space cosmos is like a cosmic fig leaf the mind feels guilty and wants to cover itself with and then if you just relax you start to realize that you're really none of it you know, you could say you're none of it, you could say you're all of it from an inclusive perception of everything but not all of it in a linear way it's just all simultaneous and all you're doing is practicing opening your heart and allowing yourself to feel that love it's always been there because it's who you are it's who I am, it's who we are as God created us and if there's one thing I could leave you with it's just relax and don't treat forgiveness like another kind of linear curriculum like learning, studying for a test or don't think of forgiveness as like an achievement that somehow you have to do-do-do-do-do-do and achieve it's you have to softly unwind you have to be gentle you have to let this attachments and these old concepts and old beliefs just be lifted from your mind gently and feel that love radiating growing stronger and stronger but the reason forgiveness is such a struggle for you Collin is it's just that you're holding it still in a very strong conceptual way that's what we've all done that's what's been the challenge but like Francis was sharing earlier in the broadcast it's the sense of not holding on to any concepts and seeing how wonderful you feel when you're emptied from those concepts even the subtle ones you were talking about how even in spirituality or community there can be very subtle concepts that still are not real but if you give even if you give weight to them if you give reality to them even identifying with doubt thoughts and saying I have doubt thoughts you know you're taking your I am this and you're grasping onto these leading passing thoughts and you're saying I have doubt thoughts and that's not it either you have to be much softer and even much more gentle to go past that so we're there with you we're really with you every single instant we're there with you in this moment in every instant you know just calling to you to just let go of those those thoughts don't conclude anything be willing to be a passerby let those go by even that conclusion even that thought I don't like this person I need to forgive I don't like that person that's a conclusion to be honest we don't really know what's going on we don't really know there is some kind of or there is some kind of force or there probably not really the guidance to spend a lot of time or in that very moment you know just like allow that conclusion to be withdrawn and then see really allow what is to show us the reality you know we're not here to tell ourselves I don't like this person but it could be just as simple as that you know in that moment there is no guidance or is not in the script to have interaction you know really and then allow this emotion to come up without any kind of conclusion just washes all this conclusion away and then new interpretation gradually will come to the mind and you realize you know forgiveness is this letting go of conclusions and in the end you're innocent and there's nothing to forgive is you know as a result of all this letting go of conclusions and I know that that email you wrote to me today Colin you talked about how how there's this this kind of authority problem that's in there and it's easy to get projected out to characters that are in the dream and it's easy to project it out you know to the Colin character like feeling like oh I'm not I'm not fitting in or I don't want it I'm a person that doesn't want to do this this this and this but so you feel guilty or then you flip it out and you you can feel more like the rebel like well I'm a decent person but these people around me they're controlling me they're trying to change me trying to fix me you see it's those are the two angles in your email that then the other option is to forgive but but loosen from what that forgiveness must look like or that is some kind of an action where it's just this soft gentle watching like forgiveness is quiet and does nothing it looks and waits and watches and judges not I love that line from the course it looks and waits and watches and judges not it's a beautiful sentence of what forgiveness is it doesn't really say do in there looks and waits and watches and judges not it doesn't even mentioning like an action like I forgave puts the crown on my head or do something because I did it you know it's it's not like holding up the trophy at Wimbledon or the end of a race being the winner there's no personal component to forgiveness and it's so soft so soft and gentle but it's just a way of beholding the world gazing upon the world in a very holistic way and and you're just there allowing those emotions to come up and sometimes being tempted to act on them sometimes not acting on them either way you just have to watch you just have to be a good watcher you know because it's as long as you're identified with doing or not doing or complying and saying yes yes oh steward overseer yes I will do this and then the other part is going no no not now no I don't want to do that I want to conform it's the authority problem it just is held on to when there's a sense of conforming or rebelling those are just more thoughts that are just passing by and there's really no solution in that and if you still go there you know that's where the frustration comes in but if you just step back and say no I mean I like that Buddhist chant I think it was I know nothing say that a few hundred times before you go to bed tonight you can just lay there and I know nothing it's very relaxing you say that enough because it's actually true that's why it's so relaxing something in the heart that's like oh gosh it's wonderful okay is there any more typed in things or just one more question one more typed in question from Chris with a C and she says what happens if you don't follow the prompt is it possible to take the wrong road what happens if you don't follow the prompt well people ask me about pain suffering and discomfort and pain is only introduced to bring about like a contrast or an impetus for choosing again so it's not anything that's absolutely essential to the curriculum of forgiveness but when there when you don't follow the prompt you know that's why I shared that parable of David where actually I got more than psychological discomfort I started to have physical symptoms by just stuffing it stuffing it down stuffing it stuffing the prompt down over and over and so the ego will interpret this as punishment I mean the ego takes pain and it takes punishment and it goes there's a connection here that pain is God punishing you and you see how that fits into that old mentality of sin like that sin is like almost like a black mark it's trying to turn your back on God and you know the Bible says the wages of sin is death but actually when there's discomfort it starts to be introduced into the mind into awareness it's just an impetus to choose again and then as you become more of a happy learner will say or willingly choose to align with those prompts and those guidances you actually have an experience that the pain was never there at all and the suffering was never there it was just a total hallucination it was just a total fabrication it was really fiction it was the fiction of pain it was just the ego generating something and trying to maintain and guard itself but when you expose the ego and you follow the prompts then you start to realize that it was never there it never it could not ever been something that needed to be punished that's just a false ego dynamic that sin or error must be punished and the spirit doesn't even know punishment the spirit's just like this light that just shines and shines and calls the mind to return and calls the mind higher and higher into that awareness but it's not even a concept that the spirit knows about so you know there's always an incentive a growing incentive to just follow the guidance and follow the prompts and I know that there actually have been Course in Miracles teachers that say well you can't really hear the Holy Spirit and you can't really follow the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit will not direct you specifically and all these kind of things but that was an experience at all as I was going through it I was receiving guidance and specific guidance and so forth and then it gets more like to what Francis is talking about where you just start to transcend even that goes away too but we don't want to just push that and say no that will never happen because the spirit can use the symbols that you believe in and if you believe in words and instructions the Spirit can reach you in that way I feel like following the prompts you know if there's a single answer to say whether there are any consequences in form whether you can make a wrong turn no because the script is written and you can't make a wrong turn so to speak but what we were talking about is the direction in the mind when you follow the prompt not a step to be missed so that's why sometimes it's really not helpful to jump to the concept and then to talk it through it has to be followed through and following the prompt is a significant step in the mind like the thinking of it is to start to relinquish I know to eventually this realization that my will and my spirit well are one or spirit knows what I want and that is a significant step in the mind it's almost like Jesus has these three teachings in the course and saying simply do this and there are three lessons the first one is to have give all to all and does he say inform give all to all inform eventually it's all written but this step of the mind and he said it's a direction that is to be made is crucial and he said this has to be made by yourself is this change of the direction of the thinking and whether you have given how many millions of dollars in the past if this moment the direction of the thinking is not giving then there's no peace now and it doesn't really matter so in terms of following the spirit we still talk you know even though that stepping stone has been transcended so to speak it is still been talked about a lot because ultimately it is a direction in the mind we want to always think along with the whole and letting go of the self that think it knows and we want to align our thinking in every moment so I would say it is important and this book is really good for that because I know I've had many many talks with many people and many students over the years I remember many years ago Spike Lee made a movie Do the Right Thing and so Do the Right Thing it's really think the right thing because you know this book will actually help you really go through this whole book I have so many interactions with students and they are really concerned about do the right thing do the right thing in my relationship do the right thing with my children do the right thing with my career do the right thing with this person I met on the street or someone in my course group it starts off with the students presenting their problems in the behavioral sense because that's where they are including the problems they don't really know that they have a perceptual problem that they're seeing a world that's not even there that they're hallucinating they've already had a psychotic break they think they're normal they have a normal family, normal kids normal job, normal career psychotic and schizophrenic they're listening to two voices they've had a complete break from reality and that's the human condition of the students that happened I just didn't get the psychotic and schizophrenic one the whole human race is psychotic and schizophrenic this isn't going to make it on Dr. Phil I will never have the popularity of Dr. Phil but I never did want that either so what this book does is it gently takes the presenting problems and it brings it back to right mind, wrong mind again just a metaphor the present moment into the present moment or what I would call right mindedness you do see that that's all that there is everything is only present and there is no past or future but this is a practical unwinding from the presenting problems back to the decision in the mind so when you're talking about follow up prompt the question isn't so much about the action do I do this or that it's what is the purpose of my actions what is it for now that is an important distinction to let the Holy Spirit work with you on what is it for because the Holy Spirit is always working with you and what is it for regardless if you get prompts to give money or help somebody out or marry somebody, divorce somebody break up with somebody buy this sell this, give this away those are all form things it's the purpose underneath that's important and that's the value of unwind your mind back to God it's a practical manual it's actually a testimony and a witness of watching how it's done so I'm doing it with these students over the course of so many years starting back in the 1990s and you can benefit from watching it done with them because I guarantee you this will relate to what you're going through too you'll start to see you might even see striking parallels between the examples and the metaphors that are in the book and that was the process and so really it's the Spirit gently being with you and this is like your owner's manual to what's really going on and the Spirit is not so concerned about this form or that form because the Spirit knows that all the forms are the same how could the Spirit be concerned you know, you think oh, I didn't pay this person back or I was angry at this person or I even something more extreme you know, I've had people that have shot somebody or killed somebody or whatever and they're wracked with guilt of the form that they think is unforgivable they just got to suffer with for the rest of their life this is bringing it back to that purpose and then it gives you a new purpose a new way of looking at the whole world the Holy Spirit's way of looking at the world that's where the innocence is but it's never do the right thing it's be inspired by the Spirit and what you do comes from what you think what you do comes from what you feel if you're inspired, if you're joyful, peaceful, happy your behaviors will automatically flow from that state of mind and if you're angry and jealous and envious the behaviors will flow the words, the facial expressions the behaviors, the actions will flow from that so it's really taking you back into consciousness and saying let's look at the two purposes in there the ego's purpose and the Holy Spirit's purpose and the more you look at that the more you realize that you really don't want what the ego's selling you don't want it's purpose because it's just purely death and no matter how you dress it up and no matter how attractive you ingeniously make it look in the end you don't get fooled by the form anymore it's like oh, a death wish is a death wish is a death wish I have no need of that I do not want that forgiveness instead and this is your role modeling this is your characters acting it out with their questions and the answers that come through the spirit through the mouth of David that are written down in here this is just role modeling unwind your mind bring it back trace it back that's one of my favorite songs Carol King, only love is real everything else illusion and the line that I like so much about that in that song is tracing a line till we can define the thing that allows us to feel only love is real classic Carol King it's all right there the whole course of miracles is in that song so you don't if you really get that you don't even need this book save your eyes some reading there the spirit doesn't read okay I see we have no more questions we could open it up to our studio audience live from Camus or from Mexico or from the monastery you're on the air silent mystics that's what happens when you do this live streaming the song the song from Eric everyone is in such a receptive still mode here music all through the air all through the air I like it that oh that's kind of the best we can see Eric, we can see you and me you and me is persistitating you and me can bob along with the song just rely and go slow there's no need to hurry there are masters chasing you just be still and let it go there's nothing nothing about yourself let the light shine on never done you can be at peace one of the questions because tonight we've started to get like in philosophy there's been this debate for many many many centuries of free will versus determinism but it's a state of mind in spirit our will and God's will is the same so it's not thy will but not my will be done thy will is my will in spirit and there there is no will really in form persons don't have will it's talked about as if he had a strong will she had a strong will my cat had a strong will chameleon that salamander had a strong will it's there is no will in time and space so you don't have this free will versus determinism thing free will is true in heaven and that's reality so that's saying a lot right there even though it's beyond the words and determinism when we say the script is written nothing happens by accident there's no chance and it's all scripted meaning it's all the past down to the most minute detail it's all scripted now even that's just a linear metaphor because simultaneously there's not even a script so I have to use some of these metaphors but if we're talking about the script as written it's all already there everything in the past is the past that's what lesson number seven is see only the past why because number eight my mind is preoccupied with past thoughts so what we're talking about when you ask these beautiful questions like you know what if I is there a consequence to not following the prompt there is an emotional consequence there is a psychological consequence if the prompt is coming from the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is your inspiration your remembrance of joy and happiness and love and freedom to not follow that voice that prompting that inner voice that guide that's guiding you home seems to only seems to have a consequence emotional consequence we call it fear and the many derivatives of it not in reality because again everything is the present moment and if you come into the presence of the present moment there is no fear there never was you know it's the linear hallucination is gone and so that's what we're talking about that's how these seeming dichotomies that are talked about sure they're talked about in philosophy they're talked about from people throughout the centuries and even in your course group or your spiritual community can I make a mistaken form no you can't you can't the ego would have you believe that mistakes are in form but there is no form apart from your mind everything is mind everything is consciousness and there's nothing apart from mind there are no projected forms that are apart from mind that's why in the end there is no projection happening here either that's just a device we used to talk about trying to get rid of something you don't want but when you come to total acceptance of the atonement there is nothing that you don't want and then you start to realize it's all mind so when we ask the questions and we say can I make a mistaken form there is no form apart from mind remember my thoughts or images I have made my thoughts are still mind ideas leave not their source thoughts don't leave the mind they don't get manifested in something called form you can't really make a mistaken form isn't that wonderful don't you can you feel the weight of guilt Colin are you listening you can't mess it up you can't really make a mistaken form now the ego will tell you you can't the whole concept of form as if it had a behavior as autonomy and form as autonomy the whole cosmos has autonomy it's all mind and so metaphorically if you choose the ego if you choose the imposter if you choose the error psychologically you experience fear or a derivative thereof and I'm going to take it one more step because most people talk about fear pain, guilt, envy, jealousy and everything pleasure is fear too Jesus says you can't tell the difference between fear and joy because that's the pleasure factor coming in there pleasure gets associated with joy but pleasure isn't joy pleasure is fear so if you're devoting your life to hedonism I tell you it's not going to work devoted to meditation instead of sinking beneath all of these distorted miracle impulses and sinking way down to the stillness because really the consequence you'll know psychologically by how you feel whether you're following the ego or not and the more consistently joyful you feel the more you'll know that you're becoming consistently a follower of the Holy Spirit's guidance and prompts and remember those are in the mind so we're not trying to judge the form of this prompt versus that prompt this action versus that action doing versus not doing people the mind when it's asleep it always tries to get out of the doing problem the body identification by doing or not doing and that's not going to get you out those are still you know body identifications the spirit is not a doer it's a being it's a spiritual being so I'm glad you are raising these questions because if you can just hear what I'm saying that you've never made a mistake in form the ego just took the mistake of separation and it projected it out to good behaviors, bad behaviors in the end they're all the same because behaviors are behaviors the spirit is spirit the flesh is flesh so you can see where the spiritual transformation is occurring is becoming spirit identified and pulling your identification away from the form because you'll never find identity in form God knows not form it's a beautiful sentence from the Beyond Our Idols section isn't that wonderful you've never made a mistake in form ever because that again that's part of the trick the ego wants you to believe that you have so that then you can feel guilty and it always is counting the good versus the bad almost like there's something going on psychologically in your soul somehow that you go through life in a linear way of time and space which isn't life at all and you do good things and you do bad things and you hope you've got a bigger stack of good things than bad when you reach the pearly gates and you have to face the day of judgment what a bunch of bunk that's a total setup it's not if it's true it's nothing to do with reality basically you're choosing in this moment right mind, wrong mind more and more of your yes God, yes God right mind, right mind and the more consistent you get with that than the other seeming other just fades away and it melts like the wicked witch of the west melts when there's a bucket of water thrown on her it's not a big struggle big battle going on just a bucket of water the Holy Spirit just dissolves away the idea of wickedness and love it's all really simple I don't understand the complexity this is really simple this is basic if you really feel it's ingrained and you're really wound into a very complex twisted dark thought system you've got a book for you and if you don't like paper teacher teacher's website and you can read some and listen to some and if you don't like to read at all then we have a sprieker you can just put your ears to work you can listen and if you're tired of words all together you don't want to hear them or read them go to YouTube turn the volume down just watch lots of smiley faces peaceful calm foreheads lots of smiling faces left you know how it looks you don't even have to hear the sound you can turn the sound down and if that's too much to then just close your eyes and meditate the Spirit's got away you've got a comment from Karen Moore Klein she wrote the book is awesome love the first part about form and she has a question if you're living in content is it more about living in your abstract mind 24-7 and specifics are there but they are just part of the flow okay that's a good one too yeah specifics are the mind is we could say into selective perception so the more you attune to the miracle which literally lifts your mind to the celestial realm then the specifics start to fade away and become less and less significant and less and less important and more and more just given I think that's a word we use a lot it's almost like this community's got their own language you know we're going to have to have a little what do they call that where they have a thesaurus of terms and what it all means we don't realize it because we talk about it so much then when we we think everybody talks that way when we do a retreat someone they say you guys talk joining what does that even mean joining you guys always talk about joining can we join like something that we talk so much we don't even see this or we'll just be smiling like the other oh it's given and everyone's like what's given, what's that even mean but given is that involuntary nature if the specifics are all just everything's just showing up and you're not trying to dissect things and figure things out and so forth and you're just being present with what's given you could say that about this set we've got this kind of creamy color thing in the pants and blue and the black and the yellow it's just what seems to be but it's just a given there's nothing breaking it apart or thinking that there's any meaning in any of it so in that sense it is kind of more of an abstract feeling because your mind isn't preoccupied with specifics if it's given for you to come down to Jacksonville Florida which it was, we're coming down so any of you viewing around the world hop on your jet plane, fly down Karen Morklin will be down there and Jacksonville will greet you and we'll talk about this book but that's given it's just given and the plane takes were given and the Holiday Inn is given and now it turns out a friend Amy Torres who's probably watching us right now is coming over from the other coast to stay over on Thursday night with us and interview each of us for an hour at the Holiday Inn it's just given, things just come and come and come and we're just welcoming of those things but it's very different than that figure out mode of trying to figure out what to do what to say, what's best what's better, you know very tiring that kind of comparative thinking last time when I did hang out a couple of weeks ago, I had this question which I didn't really see during the hangout and that question is what's your practice of meditation I didn't really answer it but really that is like everything is put into one category they're the same meditation or talking to someone or someone calling on the phone read a book they're exactly the same so there is no practice that is better than the other is all completely like a big flow I used to say a lot about being guided which is the direction of the mind but then it becomes like just a complete effortless flow and if I find myself sitting in the room for a couple of hours like I did today you know that's fine it's not necessarily a practice of meditation where to achieve a goal but it just happens and if I go out, which I did as well today that happens and it's all exactly the same meditative flow and as you said there is no figuring out process so in form it looks like a lot of specifics are involved even in our conversation we might still talk about specifics but the mind is not yeah it's just it's watching it seems to in this world through the ego's fragmented lens that there's this belief in private minds and private thoughts so seemingly everybody has a mind of their own a past of their own and future ambitions and goals and so forth a splintered way of looking at the world but once you get into the flow we're talking about this flow where you feel the unity of it the unification of the whole flow then the forms aren't different they're actually perceived as the same so the question about do you meditate do you meditate meditation is even seen as a doing or as a practice in time by sitting in a posture or position or eyes closed or eyes open if you're doing a Zen open-eyed meditation or whatever the particular form is it could be there's so many different types of meditation and so forth but when you get into this flow which is really a flow of purpose then everything in form is unified and you can tell what is the same your consciousness is the same the Holy Spirit's unified consciousness that's what's the same and the only thing that is different not in a reality is the sense that the Holy Spirit's purpose and the ego's purpose are not the same don't ever let the Holy Spirit you know the ego is going to try to tell you that they can be the same and it will try to pretend to be the Holy Spirit but actually the ego's purpose and the Holy Spirit's purpose are different love and fear are not the same and then this split in the mind between love and fear a split mind gets projected out as if the images are all different too but once you have a unified awareness and you see the forgiven world the happy dream then everything becomes the same and in that sense it's a very vast kind of abstract feeling it's not the pure abstraction of heaven which is literally beyond concepts entirely but it's a unified concept you might say that's what forgiveness is it's the last illusion so that's a key discernment if you go through this whole book and you get closer and closer to what is the same and what is different you know you start to see that the healed mind is the same and the world which is not outside of that healed mind is all unified is all the same and the only thing that was different was the ego and the Holy Spirit but that even collapses in this sameness because in the end there isn't an ego you don't have the unification and the ego it's gone so that's good that was a good question that somebody asked you about that do you meditate that was the question was the practice of meditating very good all we can do is blow your kisses thank you thank you thank you for joining us just that word thank you for joining us and for those of you in Europe that stayed up to the wee hours of the morning there was a request to maybe do something sometime that's just the time zone of Europe so yeah we will definitely put that into consideration yes we'll consider that we felt with Mexico the United States and Australia this would be a reasonable time as far as what they call sleep time so we don't really believe in this but we know that you've been requesting something over in Europe some of you though is that I'm going to try to stay up so if you're still you still can hear me that's fine if you're snoring then that's fine too sweet dreams thank you bye