 It's really just the state of mind of Mary Louise, her son was saying, you know, well mom do you really want to drive home? It's dark and you know you're 85 and you got guests in the car, you know maybe you want to let one of them drive and she's and then she got in the car so there we all were in the car. What? I mean she was cruising, she didn't miss a thing. I mean she's sharp, I mean really sharp and it's the state of mind. We're not trying to endorse, we're not trying to say there's a healthy body and a sick body. We're safety and danger. What we're saying is there's a state of mind that's available when you really train your mind to live in the present and that's really what we're... I'd like to read something out of Course in Miracles that says that. That's one of my favorite. I am responsible for what I see. I choose the feelings I experience and decide upon the goal I would achieve and everything that seems to happen to me I ask for and receive as I have asked. Everything begins and ends in your mind. Well my training, I call it training now, is that I drive essential. I work, I live in McKinney and I work down here and so I was driving and I got to a place where I was having road rage. It was so bad. I got so fierce and cars would come and cut me off and I swear they were out to get me every day. They were. I would always have accidents and it was just consistent and then I came to the place where I went I'm just gonna bless these cars. That's all I need to do. I'm just gonna bless them. They're not up. It's not personal and I've seen that and the more I did that the less it happened and now when I drive, people let me in. They go over for me. I have the road to myself. I have parking spots everywhere up front and none of the other, the previous, happens anymore but I changed. They didn't change and they still cut me off or appear to cut me off. They really don't now. They come in front of me and I pray for safety for them and I cover them around with light and when traffic has just stopped I just send this, I don't know how to describe it, like this shoot of light out in the energy actually gets the cars moving. It appears. I don't know. That's my perception but it seems to work. Yeah because it does and it's like wow it's so different because I just changed and it was it. When you can go down a Walmart and you can have a real negative perception, parking lots full. I have to park way out here so you drive way out there and park but if you said there are people who just are through shopping and they park way out front and about time for them to leave, you can drive up there and wait a few seconds. Yeah here comes the people and they're getting their car and they're going to go and there's a parking space there. It's just a matter you didn't even drive in there to check it in first place. So watch the times if you think the world is okay and just assume that it is okay because part of what I'm learning is that my world is in the present moment whatever that is and so that it's not in anything inexperience that's going on or the situation Eckhart calls it the life situation that it's not in that but it's in this present moment and what's going on in me and my connection to it and so everything again I go back to everything is reflected for me and for you know if I'm upset then that's there as a gift and I look at that and if I'm really happy which it's like happiness and the and the gift are not separate anymore and so it's does that make sense? No. Yeah. There's no difference of good and evil or being rude or not rude. There's no difference anymore because if they're rude and I react to it that's my gift because that's about me and I can look at that I can experience that feeling and bring presence to it and then being happy it's being present but it's not any different than the other it's all good. As you continue with this you you will cease to even be able to perceive rude because there's no rudeness in the present in other words how you just describe it it's like you you know it's just dissolves dissolves dissolves dissolves as you focus present present. Well some of that is already starting to happen because it's more compassion. Compassion comes up instead of visualizing it being rude. I sometimes see someone and have more compassion than anything. I mean I don't see the rudeness I just see that. Love inside you. You see this heart it's done real slow and in front of you and the proof thing to do is say that is an idiot out there they're going so slow how could they ever go so slow. And then you look at through better eyes you say well they're probably lost they're probably having car trouble. They're on cell phone. Definitely on the cell phone I'm getting to you that. That's an important call. And that way a good way to relax and not to offend them or say anything is rude you might get shot. That's like that movie I like to talk about the season and Steve Martin gets to cut him off and he gets his gun out and then shoot. I think he's talking to a sub-border. He's talking to his friend and he's going like this. Out the window and the whole movie is a spoof on on the extremes of the LA story. I'll be your robber today. I'll be your robber. They're all lined up. They've got all the people lined up at the ATM machine in the whole line of robbers and one after the other they come up and one goes I'll be your robber today. Thank you. I'll be your robber today. He just spooks the whole thing and it's just hilarious. But in the end that's his movie about the power of the mind because he's able to use the weather and everything as a symbol to have a change of mind at the very end of the movie. Because I was seeing the difference in what she was saying here about bringing presence to it or going over here with George saying that turning it into a different story. I think there's a quantitative difference between that. Because I try to convince, use my mind to convince myself things are good and the other way I'm actually going beyond the level of mind to presence. Yeah, in a sense if you think you need to rearrange the story around it's really you're just kind of pulling yourself a little bit. When you go to the present you've dissolved the whole thing right there. And so I tell people when they think about rearranging the story or re-visualizing things, recreating things and so on and so forth it's like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The compartments have filled up and there he is going down. Even if you've watched the movie Titanic the engineer who built it asked how many compartments have filled up with the thing and they told him he said it sunk. Before it sunk he knew that ship inside now. So if you're in a thing of personal judgment and you're trying to keep rearranging the story to get a better story, a more helpful story, an improved story, think of that metaphor of the Titanic. It's going down, it's halfway in there and you're over there trying to move the chairs around. I mean that's about as few as it is. Versus going to the present versus saying I need to come back, I need to come back to the present of non-judgment. And then it's just, you know, it's dissolved. And that's, like you say, that's a quantitative, that's a real distinction there. Like even beyond the Titanic going down, being in the present moment? Yeah, right, being in the present moment. Enjoying the ride? My heart goes on and on and on. Just remember the theme song, you know. There's such a beautiful theme song about it. And even at the end of that movie where the old woman like, you know, goes down through it all and she's able to go down and go down to the Titanic and all this and go back to that memory of meeting her boyfriend at the clock and everything. And everybody's standing and applauding. Just think about it. All the characters in your life, instead of trying to string them together in a linear way, the good ones, the bad ones, the ones that loved you, the ones that tortured you, that you can come to the present moment. And it's almost like they're all there giving you a standing ovation. You got it! You saw that we're all the same. It was only your own judgments that wish of us were good or evil or the villains or the, you know, whatever. I love that scene where they're all applauding, you know, when she goes back down because that's a present moment experience of, you know, that everything's perfect. Everything was perfect. You just thought it wasn't. I just realized that I forget to stay in the present moment because of the feelings that are coming up. And I think that's the thing that clouds me. I get confused and forget. And I assume, I mean, there can be layers and layers on that. And it's hard sometimes just to stay with that. But I can certainly see a vibe on it if I can remember. She allowed them to come up, no matter what they are. I was telling this story recently where Resta called me within the past year or sometime and she just called and told me and I answered and she said, I'm in hell! I'm in hell! I'm in hell for five hours! I'm in hell! And she really was very discouraged. And I just burst into laughter. I just laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and then I finally stopped laughing and she said, okay. When you were in hell, what did you do? And I said, well, there was a time where I just, I found a chair and I just went in and I sat down and I said, all right, I've got nowhere to go and nothing to do. I have no other purpose than to be at peace. There's no consequences. I said, I'm not leaving this chair until I'm back in the moment, until I'm free and everything. And it worked. I told her, I said, you know, I just was like, I'm not going to go and pretend to go through the motions while it's still, you know, churning. I was like taking a stand, you know, like, there I am and I don't care how you feel or whatever is going to come up. I'm going to move through you and with determination, come back to the present. It seemed to do okay with that, if it's in that kind of situation but if it's in conversation with someone else, it's harder to remember because I'm constantly drawn back into the conflict. It seems to me more because, like you were saying, it's simpler when you can recognize whatever, just know this whenever you're upset. And that's like the trigger of needing to come back. But learning conversation, I'm getting upset and then I'm, you know, saying it, I'm expressing the anger back and forth. Even that is the feeling. Yeah, yeah. It's all coming from an interpretation, you know. I like that idea. No one can be angry at a fact. And so it's always, it's a misinterpretation that's producing the anger. And, you know, it does, that's why it helps to go deeper in your mind. I've drawn out diagrams of the mind, how the mind works and all kinds of things and all these, and have put out tapes for years and years and years to train, help train the mind. But if you think of your mind as kind of like concentric circles, at the core of it is your desire. And just by the desire for something more than everything is how this world seemed to arise. It would be like, oh, this is wonderful. Could there be more than everything? There's a cosmos, you know. And then the belief and separation is in there, the next ring. And then the thought realm, your thoughts come from your belief system. And then out here is your emotion, so they're much further out. And then the perceptual world that you perceive, the gross perceptual world that you seem to see with the five senses and perceive is way out here in the outer ring. So this whole thing is a cause-effect relationship that your emotions produce the world you see. The Course says, you first look within and decide how you feel. Then you look outside and see a world. So if you're talking to somebody and you seem to be in a disagreement, they're saying stuff and you're just feeling that, you know, you're getting angry and a hurry and even expressing that anger, that's going a way out here. But those emotions are produced by thoughts and those thoughts are produced by beliefs. And in the end, it's your desire. That's where the little willingness comes in. That there's no formula for reaching God because that would be way out here on the perceptual ring of the how-to's. Give me a formula. Tell me a mantra or, you know, tell me what to do and I'll do it. What's the secret? What's the secret? Give me the secret formula. That would be out here. The Course says, you know, truth will be returned to your awareness by your desire as it was lost by your desire for something else, not messing with the other rings. It's saying you've got an altar in the core of your mind. And as long as you have idols and want something other than God, that's what's going to spring. I think it's so clear. It just shows you what's going on in your mind and how you don't want to take it out here because this is just being produced by the inner rings. Let me go a little deal with what you're saying. So you have your beliefs. Now it feels like there's like a fear inside of that. What is that? Well, it's the fear of God. In other words, the ego is the belief system. And forgiveness is going to be the release of that entire belief system. And the ego says, I'll be gone. I'll be obliterated. I won't exist anymore. See, God has become the unknown to the mind in this world. And this world becomes familiar. And you hear people in 12-step groups, they talk about they're addicted to their misery. That's what the human condition is, is getting addicted to misery even though it's miserable. There's a familiarity that makes it comfortable. It's a comfortable misery. And now you're being guided towards the present moment, towards life and love and joy and to the ego. That's obliteration. It feels like it's going to be destroyed out of a job completely. So that's where the fear comes. In the end, we have to dis-identify from the ego and come back to our spirit and identify with that present moment because that's the only way out of it. So what do you do? What do you do out here? What's the more... Heal the middle. What's your question? You had something going on. You had to live out of willingness. It's an eager assumption that fear of God, a sense of guilt. And that with that guilt is that pervasive guilt. And I can always identify it and it feels the same, I know it is, but it's like... I can't quite. I can't run it because I know I shouldn't do guilt. It's not logical. It's the belief that you... It's unworthiness. I'm not worthy. Something wrong has happened. It's an ontological guilt for the belief that you can separate from God and it gets projected around guilt around food or guilt around weight or guilt around sex. All these things are projections to try to keep from discovering the deep-seated belief that you can separate from your Creator. And how is that explained? That's a big question. Just for willingness. It's back to what you've been saying. Willingness to... Willingness not to protect anything. When those emotions come up and those things are... The more you look at it... It's real. Is this eternal? It's real. It's not. It's the way you bring it to the right. And ask if it's eternal. That's the thing. Guilt. They spake to let it come up. I mean, I feel like my life was... Okay, I had to lid on it. And I'm like... Ah! Right here. Sometimes it's... You have to lid back on. But then when you start... That's the whole thing is good. She said, I was the joy girl until I met you. Me too! I'm on it! What's down there? I was the general joy girl. And all of a sudden I started having these feelings like I was never... That I wasn't allowing to come up. And I felt so... It felt so uncomfortable to me. And you know what? Well, we were traveling, you know. And I was stuck in the car with them for another day. And that's true. And I wanted... That's true. I know. I know. Don't give me that love at all. I was stuck for six days. Did that surprise you? Did that surprise you? It really did. It really surprised me. Because I thought we were for wanted. And the whole thing is, they knew it all along. That's what I know. That they knew stuff was going to come up. Well, I had no idea. And all of a sudden these things were coming up. And I was trying to put a lid on them. And that's what... Well, what I've come to find out is the hardest part is keeping the little one. It is exhausting. And I was running... And well, what had ended up happening is I said, well, I was going into these gatherings and you would feel all this love. And I had been basically by myself for quite a few years and I'd been doing these gatherings. And it was beautiful and all this love. And being traveled with them, it was feeling all this love and this joy, this peace. And how much I was realizing how I had a hard time looking in people's eyes after a while. But it was like my eyes were... You know, my eyes were like, they're kind of swimming. Like, don't look at me anymore. And definitely when I was looking for dinner one night, and that was when they were like, looking at me, I would have called her to eat at the table. I was trying... I didn't know what it was either. But I was feeling this. I thought, what is this feeling that I'm having? I didn't even know it. And so I ended up being in this resistance for a couple of days and then I ended up getting sick. I mean, really very, very ill. I never get sick. I never understood person. Right. They let me do what I needed to do because then I went in the back of the car and I put pillows up and barricaded myself in the back of the car. So I didn't have to see them. I said, you know, I just want to be in here and just be out of my own space. I'm used to being alone and being still. And having to go through it and then I even went and got a hotel room. I didn't go to one of the grad gatherings. And then I was like, glad to go home. Okay. To fill all this stuff up that I was feeling and then we talked again and then all this stuff was coming up and I was realizing how much I feared love. Never did I ever expect to know that I could fear love. I was the joy girl. I thought I was the most loving person and how much I ran and hid from love. And how much resistance that we had to them. And it's intense. You need to know how much God loves us. You know, it's really intense. It was like, you know, how you're looking at the sun, the light. It was actually hurting my eyes. And so I ran and I hid for a while from it. There were a couple processes I went to but I really hid for a while from it. But in my hiding I was in hell. I was in pure hell. The only thing, my only choice was is to go to the light. Go to the love. Go to the joy. Go to God. And you go in the presence and stop hiding. And so once I stopped hiding, boy, I feel great. You know, once I stopped and then really recognizing that that's what it was and recognizing how much fear is involved in that and bringing it to the light and being honest with that and saying I am really scared to death of love. You know, that intimacy of being that close to somebody because of our past learning of becoming vulnerable, you know, that I could possibly get hurt and trust. And that's what happened. I went back and, you know, I started reading the course again. I've been studying it for years. And that was the thing that certain words like stick out at me when I'm reading it. I don't know about you guys, but certain things just, it hits me. I've never seen it. I read it a hundred times, but this is the first time I saw this one. And the word came out in there and it said trust, like 3D. And there it was, trust in God. Trust. And that's been my new thing now. Trust. That came out of me. And you know what? When you trust, you're in peace. And in God, He wants to give us it all. But you don't realize how much He really wants to give you. You know, which is this, you know, relinquishment of all of your things that you thought were important. He wants to give us this unconditional love, unconditional peace, unconditional everything, you know. And I thought, and this is what I said to David, nothing is always competing with everything. You know, we're used to running and we're used to hiding. We're addicted to guilt. We're addicted to fear. We are not used to feeling this. And when you start feeling it, you see your resistance to it and it's just amazing to me. You know, to really pay attention to what I'm really feeling here. How can you, you know, in the presence of all that love not want it? You know, saying, okay, that's enough now. I had enough now. And so, what I did was I stopped running. And now that I stopped running and I'm going into life just being and accepting God's love and accepting the gift of peace and accepting instead of running. And whatever that means, I'm staying in the now. You know, and I don't know what that means but I'm enjoying it right now. I'm not running. I'm standing in the light. I'm accepting my salvation. It's my inheritance, Dan. It's not playing in the damn game! No! And I want it! And I love it! And it's like a cup and it's so beautiful and it's so beautiful to be in it and to be with joy and enjoy with it. And not being like, it is beautiful. Oh, it is a gift. Oh, it's so beautiful. It's like you're more thinking that our minds are possible. It's like the relinquishment of everything that is not like and bringing it to the light and seeing the unreality of what is and isn't true. And whatever God creates is eternal. Okay? And if it isn't God, we'll bring it to the light and we'll see if it's eternal. And only God's gifts are eternal, so let's bring him to the light. And that's, it's taken the little. Oh, it's there. It's taken the little. The light is in us now. The light is in the right. It's right there. There's nothing to do. Acceptance. Accept. And that's it. And it's so simple. Let me tell you. It's so simple. We're not used to having it being that simple. There's so much I need to do. There's so much I have to, so many years ahead. Now, that's not it. It's trust and accept God's gift. He can't give it to us unless we receive it. And trust yourself. And trust. Well, I'm trusting God. I'm trusting. I know. What is happening is the miracles that happen when you do that. You state they are gifts to show me that I'm on the Great Road. I now have the greatest piece that I've had and the greatest joy that I've had and nothing from the other world showed me this. And this is the best thing that's happened to me. And I'm going to go with what feels good. And I'm not going to feel guilty about it either. It's all old-fashioned testimony. I appreciate it. Can I ask you one last question here? If you deal with somebody who's mentally ill, it's not organic, but it's just that they really have panic attacks in their... He says that's not organic. What it could be. She's a therapist. We all know this is mental illness. So... I love that. I have a question. Can I ask you a question? This will be our wrap-up. The wrap-up will be for me. I have a question. I have a question. Will you still have a question? Finish. There's something that's taken on a lot of tranquilizers and they're not necessarily dealing with their problems. Is that just an extension of what you're talking about, not being alive? Yeah, tranquilizers you might think of as magic. It's almost like if you had a potion, maybe a witch's potion for yourself, to try to... Because you wanted to hold on to the guilt or the sickness, but you wanted to alleviate the symptoms or to mediate, make it a little softer, a little easier to accept. You make a little potion. So yeah, tranquilizers is kind of like trying to numb out, which is really a distraction. They help you keep those... Super pushing it there. Really not dealing with it, but just pushing it down. And basically, you know, when the mind chooses a symptom for the body, or whatever, whether it's being feeling drugged or feeling illness or whatever, that's a decision of mine, because the mind is saying, I want to hang on to my guilt in the world the way I've constructed it. And I'm going to call a witness and say, it's something out there. That body is doing it to me. The body is hurting, or the body says, and that's trying to make up things like conditions and non-mental motivators, like instincts. Instincts is an attempt of non-mental motivators, but that's why I was sharing with you at the beginning. All illness is mental illness. And it doesn't seem that way. It seems like there's maybe sometimes that there's physical causes, but there never is a physical cause. Well, isn't all medicine magic? Yeah, and all medicine is magic. Well, what about alcohol? Same thing. Exactly the same thing. Or tranquilizers or whatever. Or shake, or anything you do. You were saying, putting a sweater on or whatever. Anything that you're using to try to alleviate a discomfort by using something in form to shift. There's the deck chairs of the Titanic again coming around again. It's really denying that guilt's within you and you need to release the grievance or release the attack thought. So that's the best thing to do when your mind's tempted to make a judgment and say, is it partially physical? To remember, okay, this is a mental problem and I need to get back to the present moment for it. Questioning and I'm not, I just want to tell you this feeling. I, in alcohol, it's an ominous, the most tired time, the only time I've ever worn it, it's over like 23 years. And going the whole time. The most tired I've ever wanted to drink is at meetings. What a great testimony for it. What a great testimony for it. The most problem I have with my ego and controlling my ego is that we share because my ego wants to judge what people are saying and how far along they are. If they're as far along as they are, I'm further along than them blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I just have to continually get it up. But as long as I'm at home in my recliner reading the book, meditation, prayer, and everything is fine. That's why I have to start interacting with everybody. That I know how strong and powerful it still is. I'm glad then you show up to these things because it really has taken the lid off and saying, okay, this is what, and right in the face of the temptation to judge, you're calling on the miracle to say, okay, old experience, I need some willingness here because I don't like how this feels, this not feels or whatever. She said, and I believe it this way and if somebody doesn't believe the way, then you should have done it. That's part of what I've got to get out of there. But that's what I have to do whether there's here or when we're discussing it. I studied with the Guru many years one time and he said kind of judgments and how do you know where everybody is on the path because we judge by appearances of course. So he says it takes 22 blows to break the stone, how do you know where this person is? It could be on number 12, it could be on number 20, it could be on number five. By appearances it could be a bum on the street but he could be at the 21 blow and one more blow he's enlightened. So you don't know where they are and you don't know how many blows it takes to become enlightened. I understand that it's a judgment that's wrong. I don't know anything. Well, we don't know anything. Well you can judge best by vibrations and feelings but the ego is just saying you're more modern than mostly. You're more modern than mostly. You're still smart. I'd like to say we want to thank you all for coming tonight and we have handouts over on the table and CDs on the bottom. Free CDs, free handouts, please feel free to take anything that you find there. The CDs are at the bottom, the bottom shelf and the CDs are the gatherings. You need to play them on a computer or an MP3 or a computer with an MP3.