 I got a handwritten in red, red letters, a handwritten letter from Dale, and it really touched my heart and I thought, wow, I should read this on the birth of holiness retreat because here's someone who's in prison and he's working it. And I look at you, I see all the faces out there, you're all working it. And Dale's working it but I'm just bringing Dale up here because I don't think Dale has so many popping heads going on in his life. He's watching his thoughts, he's diving in to his mind. He is a captive audience for spirit and he's been reading the books and these letters are always straight to the point. He doesn't mince words, he just pours his heart out and he pours his soul out and he's writing. And the reason I thought I would bring it up at this session is I'm down in Mexico and I don't know much about Mexico Postal System but it's not easy for me to reply to a letter like this from Mexico but I'll get my chance. But I think some of you may want to write to him after you've had an experience of what he is, who he is and what he's going through because that is an opportunity for him, for all of us to deepen in our practice. So here's what he wrote. He wrote this on, right around Thanksgiving, he wrote this on November 25th, 2018. David, hey buddy, yes it's me again, smiley face. Let me explain why I write to you. I know that no matter how crazy my letters may sound, I know that I won't be judged and I know that each time a letter is received, I am seen an entirely new smiley face. I also write you David because you are my guide and I need confirmation that I'm not off course or losing my mind. I've sincerely considered speaking to mental health because there aren't many people at all in my circle that I can speak to about this in prison. Prison has become metaphysical, no it's not metaphysical, it's metaphorical, prison has become metaphorical for me. So he's reached that point where he's realizing that the whole prison scene is just a metaphor for his escape from the ego. He's reached that point where he's not waking up in the morning thinking another day of prison because the metaphor is the situation is just showing him what all human beings come to at one point like this world is just a metaphor for the imprisonment of the mind and the need to wake up from this ego belief system. David in this sense I am only underlined concerned with going home. Capital H-O-M-E underlined. So he's talking about heaven. He's talking about what Swabha was just singing about, you will find heaven. At this point I am only underlined concerned with going home. I really no longer care about going home, smaller H-O-M-E. So the metaphor of prison now he has completely taken it on board and there is no sense of wanting to leave prison. There is no sense of wanting to be released. There is no sense of wanting to escape like some of those other Shaw-Sank redemption we've seen some other movies. There's no, no, he's not even like Timothy Robbins trying to plot a way out. He has, he is no longer concerned. He has no care about going small H-O-M. I think you understand what I mean. I do. I'm not sad in any way, nor am I depressed. I feel joy and happiness within my being and can be peaceful. Loving and forgiving to all I see. My questions are, are all of these characters and personalities only me? This is what he's pondering in prison as he's watching, watching the world. Like all of us are watching the world, are all of these characters and prisoners and personalities only me? My own self reflected back to me, question mark. Everyone in my life is in my own mind. This is why the how I see them in my world, my dream is so important, question mark. That's an important line. This is why the how I see them in my world, my dream is so important. There are people that read the course and they really struggle with certain paragraphs. Like for example, there's an amazing paragraph in the course. I am responsible for what I see. I choose the feelings I experience and I decide upon the goal I would achieve. And everything that seems to happen to me, I ask for and receive as I have asked. There's no blame and victimization in that. In fact, if you can accept that without reservation, you will be exceedingly happy for eternity because you would never blame anything or anyone in the world. But he's heard my talks because a lot of times people take that first question, that first statement from Jesus in that paragraph I just recited. I am responsible for what I see. And they think, oh my God, if I'm seeing competition and starvation and a world that's just falling apart and I am responsible for what I see, whoa, that's hard to take responsibility for the perception of the world in a distorted way. And what I tell people is really what Jesus means by I am responsible for what I see is Jesus means I am responsible for how I see. How I see the world, that's my responsibility. I don't have to say, oh, I see a terrible world and I'm responsible for it, so whoa is me. It's basically I can choose to see the world clearly with the Holy Spirit. And the world I see is going to be the result of what I want. If I want the Holy Spirit, if I want the Holy Spirit's interpretation of the world, I will see the forgiven world. I will experience the happy dream. But here he is saying that is why the how I see them in my world, my dream is so important. He's asking, is that really that important? And it is that we're responsible. Sometimes people say to me, my life is in such a mess, I don't know how I'm going to get out of this. Or I wish I could forgive the world but I don't know how. You see that how word comes in a lot. That's why we say the Holy Spirit is the how. The Holy Spirit is the how. If you throw all your trust, all your faith in the Holy Spirit, then you've just solved the how. Because the how is already there, the Holy Spirit has already corrected this world. And if you put all your faith in listening to the Holy Spirit, then you don't have to worry about the how. Because the how is automatic. It's absolutely automatic as long as you put your faith and trust in. And here is Dale asking that, is it because this is what will carry on with me? He's realizing that beyond this world, beyond this body, beyond this personality self, what will carry on with me? What will carry me into my awareness of the Christ self? What will carry me all the way home to heaven is the Holy Spirit. That's the how. That's why guidance is so important. We always talk about guidance. We always talk about receiving and following guidance. Because without that guidance, then the how becomes obscured. Then the how becomes pushed out of awareness. We don't know what the how is. In fact, as long as I am, quote, seeing these images and appearances, is it only consciousness? This is another huge leap to start to realize that what you're perceiving as this world is simply your consciousness. You're perceiving consciousness. Consciousness is not apart from the world you see. Consciousness and the world that you perceive are the same in the sense that my thoughts are images I have made. My meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world. And my consciousness is literally what I perceive. It's not like there's a world and then you have a consciousness apart from that world, that when you perceive anything in this world, you're just getting a motion picture of your consciousness. When you look at anything of this world, you're just seeing a motion picture of consciousness. If you want to know what's going on in your consciousness, just watch your thoughts, watch your emotions, and watch those images go passing by. And you're getting, it's a picture, it's a motion picture of that consciousness. And here he is in prison, no money, no health insurance, no life insurance, no freedom of the body. He's just there, a captive audience to spirit, and he's asking me, are all these images I am seeing? He puts seeing in quotes because he knows what? That it's not really the vision of Christ, it's just artificial seeing. This isn't vision, this is just the seeing of consciousness. As long as I am seeing these images and appearances, is it only consciousness? Once you start to realize that you're just dealing with an awakening in your consciousness, with a healing, with a forgiveness going on in your consciousness, everything starts to get real simple, everything. And I mean, you can start to see everything in the same light. I see Julie over there, her house burned down. You know, there's things that are happening in your lives. Dale's in prison, Julie's house burned down, and if I went around there, you guys have had some extreme things going on. But if you see this as consciousness, then you just say, hmm, okay, what's going on here? What do I value here? What am I valuing more than my Christ self here? If there's anything disturbing me, it must be that I'm simply valuing something of the world more than my Christ self. That's all. It's really simple. So here is Dale, he's in prison in Chilacothe, Ohio, and he's coming to this realization that basically it's all consciousness. He's just dealing with consciousness. Oh, I have a bill that I can't pay. It's three months due, but it's only consciousness. Oh, I have a girlfriend that I haven't seen in five months, and we used to be so close, and now we don't talk. And I was hoping I could see her for Christmas, but she didn't write back to me. But it's only consciousness. Oh, I've been diagnosed with cancer, and I've been told I have three months to live. Well, but it's only consciousness. You know, we have to come, like Dale, to start to really go into this, what Jesus is teaching us in A Course in Miracles, is he's saying there is no world apart from what you think, there is no world apart from consciousness, that consciousness and the world are synonymous, and that you can escape from the world that you see by giving up attack thoughts, by giving up judgments. Isn't that what Jesus taught us 2,000 years ago? He said, judge not lest ye be judged. Don't judge anything about yourself or the world, otherwise you're going to be laying a judgment on yourself, and you're not going to know your Christ self. You won't know who you really are. You'll be accepting the ego's idols as gifts instead of accepting your Christ self as a gift from God, that God gave you in creation. God created you holy and perfect. So he's talking then about consciousness, unmodified and impersonal, because the me that I speak of isn't real. Now he's realizing that the personality self, Dale, that he's been so concerned about the boxer Dale, the imprisoned one who's serving out his time in prison, Dale, the Dale, the personality self, is unmodified and impersonal, because the me that I speak of isn't real. Well, that's going to really loosen your cares and worries. You're not going to be bonking down those heads so much every day. If it's impersonal, imagine you could just sit there and watch the heads pop all day and have a good laugh. Oh, look at this. Maybe we can make a song out of it. Remember that song, Popcorn? Throw the bunker away. Throw the hammer away. What is the point of trying to pound down popping heads every day when you could let go of the bunker, the judge, the corrector, the critic, the fixer, and be, oh, let all things be exactly as they are. All things work together for good. There are no exceptions except in the ego's judgment. If you start, Jesus is giving us a symphony in A Course in Miracles, a symphony saying, just let all things be exactly as they are. See the divine perfection in everything. See that nothing is out of place, not a molecule, not an electron, not a star, not a planet, not a leaf, not a blade of grass. Nothing is outside of this divine perfectness, this divine flow, this divine harmony, this divine will. And so here's Dale, and Dale's in prison, seemingly, but now he's realized it's just the prison of his mind and now he is coming toward the escape hatch and it's not about Dale's body getting out of a cubicle or getting out from behind bars. The escape is not informed. You will not escape from this world by moving the body from one location to another. I'll tell you that much. I've traveled a lot and I can tell you I've been in millions of different locations and they're really all the same because it's all consciousness. It's all consciousness. It's only a construct that I made to feel accepted. Now he's talking about Dale as only a construct that I made to feel accepted. Isn't that interesting? Instead of thinking you were born to parents in this world, now you start to think of that personality self as a construct that I, the ego mind made to feel accepted. You see, it's a self-concept. That's why people-pleasing is so important to the ego. That's why being liked by other people is so important. That's why adulation, recognition, awards, all kinds of advancement, pay increases, and all the things that go with the gold medals, all the things of the world were all made to make a self acceptable. But actually, this self, this small self will never ever feel accepted. And that's why no matter how much you achieve in this world, no matter how much you accomplish, no matter how high you rise in social status, no matter how much money you make, no matter how beautiful the body is, or how many skills and abilities you acquire, or mental capacities you acquire, or learning that you acquire, you will never ever feel accepted. Because as Dale, I'll quote the prophet Dale, who's in Chillicothe now, it's only a construct that I made to feel accepted. Wow! That's a big one. This could end up being-Dale could have a little book. The writings of Dale from Chillicothe. You know, he's in there wondering if he's on the right track. Oh, he's more than on the right track. He's coming close to the escape hatch in the mind, and he's doing it for all of us, and we're all there with him. We're all there experiencing this with him. Page two. I ask you if I'm headed in the right direction, because I've lost interest in the world. That's interesting. He's asking me, did I blow it somewhere? I've lost interest in the world. Well, what did Jesus say about be passers-by? Has anybody ever read Lesson 128 from a Course in Miracles workbook? The world I see holds nothing that I want. Oh, Dale, you're hitting the jackpot here. You know, he's zooming in here in the big way, and he's asking me. I ask you if I'm headed in the right direction because I've lost interest in the world. I've walked away from my life entirely. I did this because none of the things I walked away from really supported this path I've chosen. I'll have to read that again. He's giving the reason why he has no interest in the world is because I've walked away from my life entirely. I did this because none of the things I walked away from really supported this path I've chosen. In parentheses, family and friends. Now, for a lot of us who have a lot of interactions, we know here if our living miracles community that it's not about a walking away from or a letting go in terms of the form, it's really we're just letting go of the purpose. So when we have holy encounters, we have holy encounters with family, friends, people in the street, when we go to the market, we have them all the time. But you can just imagine if you were in a prison and your miracle capabilities were zoomed into, well, you've got this amount of time to do this, this, this, this. We have free reign. We use cameras, computers, we use emails, we're Facebooking, we're messaging, we're tweeting, we're having fun. We're using all these mechanisms of the world to radiate and shine this happiness and we seem to be interacting with a lot. We even call you our family. But imagine for Dale where he's just there and the witnesses that he's seeing some witnesses but many of those of his family, like his wife Holly and some of his friends, they think he should be trying to escape prison. They think he should be having ambitions for the future. Like what's the point? How do you endure prison unless what? You have a future. It's discovering how do you escape prison except in the present, the present moment. You see how different that is from a future escape? Does anybody remember that in the course, in the section called the immediacy of salvation? Jesus says, be not content with future happiness for it is not your just reward, for you have cause for freedom now. Jesus is calling us into the present moment. Join me here now. Don't wait. Don't put it off until you achieve something. Don't think of spiritual enlightenment as a future achievement. If you do, you're just going to have to realize that you still have a gap between now and the time when you forgive. That's all time is. That's all this projected, generated future is. There's a gap in the mind between the solution, the forgiveness, the release of right now, this moment, the power of now that Eckerd talks about. This is where it's all at. And then when you keep looking to the future for escape, he's saying, no, you have cause for freedom now. And this is what Dale is going through now. He's actually zooming in. He doesn't have Living Miracles community. He doesn't have online retreats. He's not allowed to have online retreats. He's not allowed to have emails. He's not allowed to have anything electronic and digital. It's prohibited. And yet without all of that, which we are all so grateful for, guess what he's doing? He's doing what Jesus asked him to do. Join me. He's showing us. He's giving us a witness that you don't need a lot. He can't even do email. He has no funds. He has no possessions. He's in what the world would say is a very controlled environment, but all of consciousness is controlled until you put it under Christ control. All of consciousness is controlled. All of our worlds are just as controlled as Dale's until we say, Jesus, you be in charge. You lead the way. You show me. You unwind me from this crazy belief system. I will give you my life. I give you my mind. I give you my heart. Holy Spirit, lead the way, because this is just an example of someone who's basically decided, I'm going to go for it. In fact, it is some point where he must have read my books and he's read the Course and he started writing me and saying, wow, what I thought was spirituality wasn't really spirituality at all. He said, this stuff is deep and I'm going to go for it and I trust you and I trust Spirit and I'm going to go for it. We're now seeing the results of that going for it. As you can imagine, people assume I'm crazy or institutionalized, he puts, with a smiley face. This is fantastic. Imagine being called institutionalized and putting a smiley face after that word. Now that's a state of mind. Somebody comes and says, you're institutionalized. You should be locked up. You are locked up. You should be kept locked up and he's smiling, smiley face. You say to always ask, how does it feel? This is what he turns it around. He says, me, David, you say to always ask, how does it feel? I feel great in capital letters with exclamation. I feel great. He's using the one right use of judgment that Jesus says, how do you feel? And he says, I feel great. He's not concerned that people call him crazy. He's not concerned that people say he's institutionalized. It doesn't seem to be a problem. He doesn't seem to have a problem with that. I would say because of who he's listening to, his inner voice and Jesus and the spirit, you know, and he feels great. I love it. I feel great. Exclamation point. I can lose nobody nor do I need to convince anybody of my beliefs. Wow, that'll help all of us for Christmas, right? I don't need to convince anybody of my beliefs. That helps with those family gatherings. And you can just go and enjoy the turkey and chicken and stuffing and whatever and just have a good time. If you're there to convince somebody about their beliefs, well, that's going to make it hell. And Dale's not concerned at all about convincing anybody of the beliefs. Because they all reside within my being. It is all underlined, my own consciousness projected outward for me to wake up. Then he says, is this delusional? He's asking me. I hope if I give you his address, I hope you write to him and say, oh, listen, buddy, you're far from delusional. You're making my day here this Christmas. You're giving me the greatest gift not in money or possessions or agnog or all kinds of foolishness, jewelry. He's given the greatest gift there is to give. Freedom, freedom of mind that Morpheus was talking to Neo about. I'm here to free your mind, Morpheus tells Neo. So he's offering quite some gift. So he's saying, even you, and you are me in my dream, guiding me home. Please help me, David, because if I'm right, then this letter wasn't ever necessary because the life I am inquiring about was never real in an ultimate sense, smiley face. There goes the letter. No, he's forgiving the letter even. You know, it's like poof, poof, poof. It's all consciousness. I love you, buddy. And thank you for helping me. I need guidance. Take care and have a blessed and happy holiday, exclamation. Merry Christmas, exclamation. Always me. And then he puts, I apologize for my writing. My typewriter was sold. After all these typed letters I got it, this is the first hand letter. So now, everything is taken away. Even the typewriter is gone. And that still doesn't stop him. He writes in red ink, you know, he still continues on. So this is, I was blown away with Hurricane Carter and then all of a sudden Jesus is like, wow, I'll give you your own Hurricane Carter symbol that you can correspond with and everything. So anyway, maybe we can take this down and put this up for later too, but I'm just going to, I'm going to give you his name, his PO box and his address. So if any of you feel guided, you can imagine the look on his face when he probably doesn't get any mail at all. If this Christmas he ends up getting some letters just of what you felt in your hearts when the hearing about Dale. So his name is Dale Crow C-R-O-W-E kind of like Russell Crow. If you forget it, just think of Russell Crow. Dale Crow PO Box 5500 Chilacoffee. Now I'm from Ohio, so I know how to spell it, but I'm going to spell Chilacoffee because it sounds very native CH-I-L-L-I-C-O-T-H-E Chilacoffee Ohio OH is the abbreviation and the zip code is 45601 Thank you, Dale. Wow. So that's going to open it up for us today because we can see how deep this goes because of Dale's example and we can see that we don't have to make this like a long and difficult thing. Like waking up shouldn't be like pulling teeth. It doesn't have to be that difficult. It only seems like a struggle. It only seems like a challenge to the ego who does not want to give up your mind. Basically the ego is like a parasite that has taken over the mind and now when you're coming in with the solution, the the antidote, the correction for the ego, the ego seems to be fighting and kicking and screaming a bit because it wants to control your mind and actually that's not God's will. God's will is for you to have perfect happiness to wake up to remember who you are. So that is just like an example of someone who doesn't seem to have much in ways of worldly attachments and yet he's just using in connection with the Holy Spirit in Jesus, he's just using what's presented to him every day to drop, to drop deeper and deeper into this certainty of identity of the Christ.