 How did you sleep last night after the movie? I don't want to jump into any substance. I thought I was going to die, but I woke up this morning. Can I have some of these wonderful happy dreams? Do you really have the audience? Yes. Were you anticipating grief and terror? There's a life-heartedness. I never watched movies with that kind of smashing cars and bodies flying everywhere. I was in the boy movies. So I knew what they were going to do with me, but I don't know, I've been away. I was dreaming about being all these children in the magical woods and fairies and just alive. What's more boring than this? I don't know. The only thing I did on yesterday was I went back to work. You know, it was Monday the day I was supposed to be back at work and I was busy doing something else and somebody said, aren't you supposed to be at work? And I went, yes. And then I said, oh well, they're obviously not worried, so I'm not. I was glad we got to share that metaphysical movie. We had great metaphysics, and then even in terms of the action scenes and whatever, I remember years ago I had a friend who asked her to watch The Matrix and she only watched 10 minutes of The Matrix and she said, I absolutely had to turn it off. She said, it's just absolutely been too violent to watch that movie. And I said, well, maybe you should just look again with it and take notes with your emotions as they come up. Because I said, you know, the violence is really in the mind. You know, judgment is what the violence is and we are frequently told about violent movies or violent scenes and so on and so forth. But again, it puts the violence out in the world where it can never be healed because that's part of a projection or part of a way of distracting away from what's going on in your mind and your consciousness. So it's always good to just pay close attention to your emotions. There's chase scenes or cars sprawling on trucks. Some interesting scenes with that Mack truck. Well, that's Mack. They're like barbell kind of things, just rolling down the hallway. Quite an unusual scene. But we do have the extras if you ever want to watch the extras on that couch. They had fun filming that. They had one day of going out and they were like, okay, let's go for it today. Let's really go for it. They had a ball. I need a coffee for Tina because she never watches violence movies. I was more intrigued watching you though, David. I was watching you watching the screen as though you were seeing it for the first time. So you're almost a child like a new. In fact, we talked about it afterwards and I said, look at David. He's watching this. He's never seen it before. Plus, to be young, time, you'd see it. But you were absolutely in the present moment when you were watching. Every scene was like a moment in time. And you were absolutely absorbed in the scene. Just to see me watching. That's why I can watch them over and over again. They say, have you seen this one before? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. That's what children do. They watch the movies. Day after day after day. Yeah. I mean, it's good. That's kind of an incentive for that. That's the result of all this mind training so that you can just be present and you really feel a sense of joy when you're in that presence. It doesn't matter what you're watching and so forth. It's really good in terms of demonstrating peace and love and joy and happiness because it doesn't really matter than what the scene is. When I first went to Argentina, it was one series. It was a city of over 15 or 16 million people and not a lot of pollution controls and just what the world might consider kind of dirty, unorganized, and in people everywhere and everything, but I just was really enjoying the whole experience because I wasn't judging anything that was occurring, so it didn't really matter or things like noise level. I've had people that have been into spirituality for years that even like a Christian science practitioner, someone who's a highly trained mind, but if there's like somebody, one time a Christian science practitioner called me up and she's had done so many healings and people would call her up and just to join with her and join with God, but it was a hot day in Philadelphia and everyone had their windows open and somebody was playing their rap music full blast on their ghetto blaster and she called me up, I can't take it! I just can't take it! This rap music, you know? So there was, I said, ah, there was a claim. A claim that there is no God. If there's something that like irritates you or annoys you even or stirs up things and that's like they call a Christian science a claim. It would be like when you go to insurance Asian and you make a claim you're wanting to collect on your policy and when you make a claim in this world it's like saying there is no God. I've justified in feeling irritating, annoyed, upset it's like filing a claim with a higher bureau and saying, hey, I noticed everyone laughed at the line last night when the guy said when you pray to God, do you really, really want something? God's the one that ignores us. Everybody's had that feeling. I'm not sure if I'm like God knows nothing of this world but you already think you did everything so what do you need to ask for anything? That's good though, that's like the petitioning. When the mind believes in scarcity and lack it always has plenty of things to petition for and God seems to be the one that's supposed to answer all the requests and if you think of that the prayer is always answered but it's like again you really have to get clear on what are you praying for and you're always being answered and you have a form that comes that you don't like then you have to get deeper down to what am I really praying for what is it that I'm desiring here that I feel less than or lacking in some way and that helps you really undo the ego in a hurry when you start to really take a look at that if I was created whole and complete and I'm striving after something what makes that something so important to me that really unravels the string so to speak that really helps you let go of the self-concept that's how it happened for me when I would ask these practical questions when I would feel upset about anything I would say do I feel very defensive and then I would say to the Holy Spirit I said what am I defending against with all of this defensiveness and the simple answer was love that love is just trying to reach our hearts all the time it's just like a beam of light which just wants to reach our hearts so much and then at first it was like it's really exactly I'm defending against love it just doesn't seem possible that I could put so much energy into being so afraid of defending against love so I said okay let's try a different angle there what am I defending for if I'm defending against love what am I protecting maybe this will be helpful or helpful because I don't get this part about defending against love I always think I want love but then it was you're defending for you're protecting a self-concept that was made up to take the place of your divinity so all of your defense mechanisms are made up to defend to protect that self-concept and you're afraid that you won't know who you are if you let go of that image that was made by the ego it seems very much like the Buddhist term of dropping into the void because as you're going deeper and deeper and you're letting go of all these things it feels like you're going into emptiness or nothingness and who wants to be nothing you know we've heard that enough from our parents sometimes when we were children we were nothing but when we get older I want to be something but some thing is the problem to be a thing when we were created as a spirit that it seems like you're dropping down into the void of emptiness and all we have with Jesus or Jeshua is we have an expression that it's okay, keep dropping and drop through that hole even if it feels like you're going down to the sink and you're just going to drop down into the sink it's okay, go through the hole come through the keyhole I've been there it's like he's saying take a dive splash in the water's warm it's inviting and that's very important that's where the message of love no matter how much we talk about release no matter how much we talk about forgiveness no matter how much we talk about letting go it's okay to really get in touch with that feeling and that experience of the love as best as you can because that love that grace is so important that's what's what is that's what forever is so and it's just a matter of being aware of it and all the clearing away is simply making your mind ready to experience that love it's sort of come up for me lately it's really I really don't know what love is because I mean we have all these emotional feelings to go on and they all come and pass like they're sort of joy rising and passing through and I know I've got really deep deep peace and waiting myself up singing to myself because I'm just so it's like oh there's almost something watching me going oh my god look how incredible this is so even like the sense of love it's like I still you know what is that and not even you know feeling at peace and calm I feel I was happy but not recently but it's still like the idea of love it's still like like concepts but things to make often get thought of as some emotional sort of thing but the whole point is to that what I am is love the emotional thing that comes from God is that my take to this? yeah and of course America will see this as you have but two emotions love and fear so it's even calling love and emotion in that first sentence but we could say that love has many derivatives there are many aspects of it in the peace, joy, freedom, happiness you know you could fill in the blanks lists and so on there could all be derivatives or almost synonyms we could say for love and then fear and guilt and shame and pain and anxiety and depression and on and on and on would be anything that's upsetting you could say would be that and again the whole point is to simplify things even if you do it down to the basics of love and fear or right mind and wrong mind it gets very basic you start to realize that you could just summarize the entire human condition in terms of of a couple of terms and that makes it very simple it kind of cuts through all these layers of complexity that this world seems to have which makes the world seem very mysterious actually all these layers of complexity where you even hear spiritual teachers say life is a mystery or I always tell the story about my friend Jim Worderman who was he was a priest for many years a very tall man and he finally his brother was a priest and lived and died as a priest and he was in the priesthood and he just couldn't reconcile certain things so he got into a course of miracles he met his wife and a child maybe 20 some years in a course of miracles but he would come to a lot of my gatherings and he would watch the Holy Spirit kind of pour through and he would say I've never heard you stumped on a question I've never heard like a pause or a hesitation or some kind of delay or whatever just comes pouring through you and he said it's not my experience he said when I was taking confessions and questions and he said whenever I didn't know the answer to the question I would just say it's a divine mystery that was his out he said I always had to say something so he just said it's on mystery but he said you don't ever use that never put those words together divine mystery I said no God wants to be openly revealed there is no mystery in God or in love there are layers of ego complexity that give the mystique that give the mystery to this world and it can even make love seem very mysterious like it's this thing like what is it I think a lot of us have had very powerful experiences and you can say that's like a glimpse and the only difference between the glimpse of love and love is that love is constant and a glimpse is temporary so you can tell that even the glimpse is as powerful as it can be it can knock your socks off it can just feel like it blows your mind and yet it's temporary and of course the miracles Jesus describes revelation that way it's like the great rays or having experience of a direct experience of this light that's beyond the veil is called revelation but even revelation in this world is temporary because he says if you experience direct revelation in a sustained way the world would not last you would literally have to have the disappearance of the universe because that world of perception of images that covers over the light couldn't last couldn't stand the light you might say it would just completely evaporate and so he does say that very few have attained direct union with God in the sense that in this world of course they wouldn't seem to be around much or they wouldn't seem to even be able to perceive the world as they were in sustained experience so we can say that sustained experience of light is really what love is so it's kind of like your leading into what's then coming up into my mind if my mind goes to a point and starts going to the light if it just keeps on opening up into that there's no way I could stay here that's what there's no way I could stay a world so it kind of leads into like well how do you just be at peace seem to hold the world have a world because if I really am connecting with the light I can't really keep a world going that's perfectly into our theme for the day that's absolutely because you want a state of rest or peace and how do you rest and still see a world is really the question how do you really really rest and see a world and so the question did come up yesterday I believe about how do we be in the world but not of it that phrase is an interesting phrase in the world but not of it in the sense that the more you go into it metaphysically you start to really kind of see that that's kind of impossible to be in the world but not of it it's like how can you be a figure in the dream and be the dreamer at the same time you can't hold both positions in quantum physics terms you can't be the observer and behold the field the unified quantum field and be in the field in a particular or specific way because if you're the whole you can't be a part and we've all heard that the whole transcends the sum of the parts in actuality the whole is real and there are no parts you see how that goes one step above the whole transcends the sum of the parts as if the parts are real and they can be added together and it's like no this goes we could say to another level it goes beyond that so it's starting to realize that that the whole problem of this world involves part whole thinking as long as we think in terms of parts and holes then we still have a problem that needs to be corrected let's use the metaphor of a hologram you know when you hear about a hologram they tell you that each part of a hologram contains the whole that's a real one better each part contains the whole how can that be if the whole is all that there is and that there are no parts so you might say or fractals some of you have probably looked into fractals there's all kinds of interesting things but the replication of things it seems like this whole cosmos is built on fractals just images that replicate and replicate and replicate almost like just a cascading replication that's going on and yet that's all part of the misperception because it still involves parts so in the end it's like a yielding into or surrender into a state of completion where the whole tapestry comes together and you see the whole tapestry as one and as well you realize that you are unified that you are all aspects of that tapestry so there's no perceiver and perceived there's no observer and observed there's no subject and no object and that's really where the splittering occurs is in perception where it seems like there could be an aspect of consciousness that is doing the observing and an aspect that is observed or subject object that way and once you yield past that split in consciousness then you have the unified sense of consciousness, the unified field and then of course you have no problems because problems only came from believing that there was two two of anything it doesn't really matter two of what but the belief that there could be two of anything sets up all kinds of strange concepts like comparison comparison is a very very strange concept it's unknown in heaven competition is a very strange concept as well in the economic system it seems like competition is built into the human being in the sense of siblings competing competition between neighbors between countries competition in the food chain it seems like this whole world is based on this idea and as soon as you are understanding that the unified field doesn't know about competition you have to be vigilant in your mind against the idea you have to really watch your mind so that anytime something competitive arises you quickly hand it over to the Holy Spirit because that idea will only foster or maintain a sense of conflict in the mind and it doesn't matter really what aspect of your life that you're talking about is that competitive urge arises then is like okay I just need to hand this over this has served me to no end and it's not going to serve me at all so I'm going to release that aspect sometimes people would say to me yeah it's good don't compete against other people just compete against yourself and I'd be like oh that sounds horrible like they say I don't compete in any kind of races anymore I just go out with a stopwatch so then you bring time into the news time to divide yourself up into a human being is competing for a better time a quicker time in the mile or a 10k race or something and again the mind can distract itself and that's one of them is trying to get into self improvement and I always say if God created you perfect then why do you need to improve yourself you were perfect from the beginning in eternity and look at all the self help books I mean you really have to be discerning when you go to your metaphysical bookshelf or you go to your new age shop and you pick up the self help book which self is it that needs all this help you're going to start to eliminate a lot of things very quickly when you start to just get into these real basic things like well I want to accept my perfection I'm not really interested in making a better and better smaller self and trying to puff up a smaller self and when you hear words like a lot of times I'll hear teachers talk about self esteem we want to increase children's self esteem again you have to ask the question what self is it that needs to have this esteem increased and how how much is enough I mean what are we talking about and the teachers say well we want to help them have better grades so that puts a lot of pressure on children to keep up in terms of grades and comparisons and standards so that they can get into schools to learn more separation more fragmentation and then only to make it into university and graduate school where they can become more specialized in fragmentation you start to see the whole system is really flawed I remember when I was in university that I was given a graduate project in the College of Education to research education and so I did a lot of research I mean all kinds of different schools of thought I went back and looked in through the centuries and there was a guy named Ivan Illich who basically came to the conclusion that the educational system was the problem and that he advocated de-schooling society so I actually wrote that up and put it into the paper and the professors were not at all pleased but that I was in a very elite school psychology program and they were training me to do Stanford Bonaise in ways of intelligence and I'm writing a paper on I really like this guy's ideas de-school society it was like well we've got a real rebel but that was the year before the course of miracles came in my life so it was almost a symbol that I was being drawn to those kind of ideas because it just felt like it was time to start letting go of a lot of things and then I stepped out of the whole academic wheel after 10 years at university just realizing that all that could be used I had no regrets about any of it but it was like this can just be used now by the Holy Spirit in helpful ways to free the mind and free up all this sense of pressure that's built on learning and how much have I learned and stuff like that I'm just about first in here I feel like I'm dying which means it relates a little bit so I just I just want to share something this is my ego's biggest horror speaking in a group and I've made it to George George for instance I'm not as really amazing but I've been able to feel an experience of people I just wanted to do it with all of you I just wish you were going to be able to realize that there's a safety there and everybody that comes there can feel this whatever fears and things like though I still had trouble breathing because there was so much I think I've never seen a well-deserved so I've got to know how to learn things to do the best we can otherwise there's a safety for survival as a observer watching being confused understanding it all the loudness of it the strange things that this was that moment I've watched in my life in my aloneness and inactivity different activities that I've seen that gave me ideas that's kept me alive and that connection with others has we've always been in our state so when I felt that the only thing to do was to find that experience and find what I wanted to know so you already know I've been listening for seven years doing that so I've got questions around experiences that I had too especially with that one the third one connected to my experiences where I felt like I was literally disappeared there are normal things I could talk about so many different things that occurred to me and to actually really experience not coming to me but being triggered by it so that forms of my perspective on writing and writing and so I think it did and I guess that I think so much that it wasn't actually what I wanted to connect to to people that I could experience then coming out of such is a better sense of awareness it's kind of like I looped so much I had so much awareness such going on and I'm leaving this this communication advice because I've been able to express that the reason not even connection and then last year when I was in a room alone I was just absolutely at the bottom really really clearly asked what it was so I directed what this music background was about anyway it was about the spiritual system which I did a research on it was tested as kind of a diagnosis but it's actually of autism because the sky was normal and neurotypical even with this autism I feel so it's actually a real brain thing it's a difference it's a different wiring that kind of explains what I'm talking about so much work not like I was trying to be bisexual it's that all my attempts just there's no natural social ability that's the thing with this I'm just sharing the struggle with it and I know that there's actually a it's massive difference it's always people with that have some specific differences because it's difficult to focus on more than one thing and so why this whole experience for me when I'm actually expressing there's so much going on although I'll say in this kind of situation it's different so so I've still been I guess that was a bit letting go for me discovering that last year because I've lost so much no energy or I can't keep pushing anymore so I know I'm not working like I learned a few things that's what I have to do when I'm experiencing a lot of people with that I guess I just wanted to share that and find out why I'm discriminating on that because I have just a natural desire and that exercise was wonderful if I could do it every day for a month anyway that's been a real brain challenge for me it's mostly that why I think it's why some fear is coming and that's why it's all doing this for me at which end yeah it's beautiful when the mind is again I'm so afraid of the light so afraid of God's love it makes up a world of cosmos and many many defense mechanisms and autism and moving in autistic ways there's really good movies like what the catcher in turn did in the house of cards really is a spectacular movie that shows that this kind of isolating mechanism this closing off kind of isolating from the world is a defense and it's a call for love it means to be appreciated for what it is and then the opposite we talk about introverts and extroverts those people that seem to be very good at socializing have lots of friends and have lots of big social networks the world kind of shows that it's much more adaptable and flexible and so on and so forth but a lot of socializing again gets back into the ego defense so remember the ego made up the world and the ego peopled the world and then it's trying to get the mind caught up in these personal relationships as it's false identity so a lot of socializing that goes on you've kind of gone the other direction but a lot of socializing the world says oh that's very good lots of friends lots of strong family connections and so on and so forth good support system all the kind of things that people say is part of a healthy functioning adult mind is still part of of a defense against truth and love and so so you begin to see that no matter how it's been wired the brain, how the brain seems to be wired and everything is a reflection of of the mind of the decisions of the beliefs that are in the mind so it can seem like the brain you know, brains do look different and they're wired differently but they're just reflections of beliefs that have to be released in an identity and you might say that the question really is getting to the sense of what is the value of affection what is the value of physical closeness you know how, where does that fit in the overall context of this awakening and a lot of that depends on on how the defense mechanisms have been used for example I get a chance, I've been in 21 different countries so I can, as I go to different societies, different societies have different standards and rules and mores about affection and touch you know for example if you go to like United States and Great Britain and certain ones there's definitely a sense of like a private space surrounding the persona you know it's like don't invade and I would say not necessarily those countries but once you start to get into a lot of major cities if you walk through major cities and you notice people are making a lot of eye contact, they're looking ahead they're looking down on the sidewalk and everything and not even making eye contact it's a real sense of personal space then when I first went down to Argentina for example it was like hugs and kisses and hugs and kisses everywhere when you've come from the United States to Great Britain it's like my god we were going around I said oh you have to get some currency change, some money changed and they took me to the bank and I was looking across the way at another bank and there was two security guards and they were full of uniform with pistols and gear and everything and one is relieving the other kind of like in Great Britain they have the changing of the guards you know very formal guys come up there and all of a sudden they're bracing and kissing I've heard of the macho man then when I went to stay with my friend Maria you know she was there every time it was like an extended family but any time a family member would leave the house it was kiss kiss kiss hugs and kisses all the way around I'm going out to get some milk and then at night time came and before they would go to sleep I put in my little tits and mom gave me like that time hugs and kisses before the family member was good there was hugs and kisses to go to sleep and then you know I've been over in Europe recently more recently in different countries Belgium Belgium wasn't that the triple kiss it was like some other places France was like the double kiss and it was like a kiss on each cheek and then I went to Belgium and they had a smile I said ah yes the French just give you two one I mean by the conditioning it's wired it's just conditioning and so part of it is breaking away from our best conditioning that's part of learning to follow the Holy Spirit whatever your conditioning was it's the Holy Spirit will try to guide you beyond that condition so if you've been raised and you've kind of become accustomed to a certain level of affection or whatever and you have a circle with the eye gazing with the music playing with opening your heart up it can feel like that's where your heart is like saying I wish I could do this all day long you know it's just a call in your mind to be really open to doing much more experiential kind of things like that the times of reading books and doing those kind of things is past you know and you have that wisdom inside of you you have to move into much more of an experiential and be guided by the Spirit to open up that way there was a singer songwriter to travel with me back in 1991 1992 I think and Donna Marie Harry and she hit her guitar and she would just let the Spirit come pouring through her and I would tell lots of parables and some metaphysics depending on the church or the group that we were invited to what would be appropriate what they could handle and it turned back into revivals between the music and the parables people were opening their hearts up going to churches and doing a lot of experiential exercises like you were participating in this morning and people that had been in the same congregation and had sat in the pews next to each other for 20, 30, 40 years and oh there was mascara all over the place it was just everywhere it looked more like like Halloween or something but we were simply doing all these diet work singing that song that she had written I'm willing to open my eyes to see your innocence to see the child you are a mirror of myself and singing this over and over and then switching partners and switching partners and switching partners so basically the minister and people in the whole congregation that had never been in touch with such intense emotions that were crying all over the place and at the end they said wow that felt good wow that felt really good so this is where it comes in to follow your guidance now I would say again that kind of a phase with the experiential stuff and even with closeness in terms of bodies in the course of miracles Jesus says minds are joined bodies do not that's kind of an interesting statement bodies do not you cannot join bodies and so he says he talks about revelation this sense of light that we were talking about and he says that in this world people attempt to find that light to find that sense of deep connectedness and intimacy through proximity through closeness with bodies and it's not possible he says so it's good to know can I find it there or not he's saying no it's like he says a miracle you have to find this intimacy through miracles that's why he titled the book a course in miracles which many people think is kind of a strange name actually a course in what? miracles but what do I have to walk up water or park the Red Sea or you know like Bruce Almighty divide the tomato soup oh what do I have to do to achieve this miracle but it's no it's not any of that stuff either it's the sense of joining just joining and being in alignment with spirit following those guides those prompts that come and that if you keep listening to those inner prompts and you keep following you will get happier and happier and happier I spent I got to spend a little time with Les Les up in Pomeco but he was telling me all these he's a captain airline pilot for Qantas but he had an adventure over in the United States where he just went over and what was the phrase he used I'm here to throw myself to the wind he just kept telling people over and over I'm here to meet the people of America and throw myself to the wind and then people started just showing up and saying well come on my plane you know you're a pilot you can ride like shotgun or what they call it and he was taking all over the different cities he had no plan he just showed up and said I'm here to just throw myself to the wind and all these miracles started happening and that's getting closer to that sense of this deep intimacy that we want that we're really yearning for you know that's deep in our hearts is by listening and following and letting go of a lot of structure control a lot of past associations that stand in the way including those even around affection you know a lot of people just don't allow themselves access certain deep emotions because they just got it wired about what's appropriate and inappropriate and crossing over boundary lines you know that are all made up they're just all mental and so as you just step into it more and more and say okay guide me guide me show me I do not know the way to you but I'm willing to follow I'm willing to follow your internal prompts that's how it starts to open up that can go the other way too when you sort of tend for the impulse to be affectionate like I'm saying you know there's like impulses like my stance still and someone's coming towards you and your impulses to kind of go out but just actually stand still not in that direction yes it really really has to become very intuitive like when I travel around to a lot of different course of miracles groups and a lot of different churches I would notice that the groups would have like hugging rituals and the way you can tell a hugging ritual is when at the end of the gathering people go I haven't hugged so-and-so it's like it's like a search mission you know like there's 20 people in the room and they're like going around I haven't hugged you you know anything the ego can turn anything into a ritual you'll be hugging me something as simple and basic as that and that's why you really have to be very intuitive with it because it's the intention also I'm sure you've all had hugs from somebody that just comes up that just kind of hugs you like with it there's got to be that guidance behind it the real extending of love whether you're hugging someone whether you're cooking food whether you're taking a walk you want to have that sense of presence so you feel free and open and there's no sense of of it being a ritual you lose this whole idea of rituals and things having to be there's no way to achieve some kind of future outcome please now share something a really emotional and painful story because I'm working in the field of disabilities and the most profound experience I ever had was I worked with a man who was 40 years old with asperges and worked as a counsellor for many years and I never broke down and cried but I loved him so much real back then God's love and I worked with him for two years and then one day I pushed him a little too hard and he closed the door on me and I couldn't stop the tears I couldn't stop them and I just said to him you can choose you can choose now and that's a good thing because you have grown you had grown in the time you can choose now and that's great because you've grown and you can now choose that you don't want to work with me anymore so that's a beautiful thing I've always given him that I've given him to be who he was and him judging and and I just said but I love you and I'll always love you let's break all the rules all the rules and counselling rules and I'll always break the rules anyway because I have worked in a traditional way and I'm just going to stop I just blown blown and he just looked at me and said I don't know what's happening here I don't know what's happening here I guess what I really want to say to you is open the door to love because it is there only you close that door it's a tough girl when you're a little bit different there's a lot of love there that you are going to do and if I didn't love you I wouldn't be loving my own lovingly lost and I just want to love you but all of it's cool it's very courageous he said even speaking up in a group you know it's very courageous bold moves that kind of turn the tables on the ego and say you know I'm not going to be frightened I won't hold it in anymore and it's amazing when you just let it come up and let it come out in an uncensored way that begins to undo this people pleasing aspect defense of the ego which the ego is just saying you have to put on a mask and you have to wear a mask for defense of the ego it's the healing the healing for everyone that's it why don't we just gather it if i could just gather it that's it that's the limit it's for everyone it's an endless for yourself but it's a gift to everyone when we give ourselves permission As we say, take the lid off of it or just put it out, put it out on the table and everything. I had a songwriter who, his name was Vincent, he was from Belgium, and he so much wanted to travel with me. And he brought his keyboard along and he recorded a CD and he was so happy. And we were at his house in Boston, he got his keyboard set up and he was there and he looked out at everybody and he just froze. It was in terror. I don't know what it was performing or it was the terror of being in a Course in Miracles group or being in a group with me or whatever, but he just was up there. His fingers just froze on the keyboard. He couldn't even play one note. I mean, there he was all set up, ready to go. And so he did. The only thing he could do was he took his hand space on the keyboard and he just said, he looked everybody in the eye and he just said, I'm terrified. Absolutely terrified. He didn't. He said, I've always thought, oh my God, he's a musician, that would be the worst thing that could ever happen. And he said, I'm terrified and he started talking about it. And the more he talked, he talked for four or five minutes. People came up, they gave him extra hugs. Thank you for sharing, you know, it made it just pop through. And he was with me for like four or five stops. By the final stop, he was so animated. Remember when you first saw him, I remember that. He could hardly keep his feet even on the ground. He was bouncing around, singing all these metaphysical songs from before and before and through it. And everybody was like in live end and singing with him and everything and it was just a huge shift. But the first step was that step of being willing to not hide and protect it. It's that fear of rejection, it's the fear of how will people see me, you know, will people see me as weak and all these other kind of things and the opposite happens. You know, when you really are willing to do it, then all of a sudden something breaks, the tension breaks on the inside and then the witnesses, the sharings come forth. And that is what this human is about, it's about not hiding and protecting these thoughts as if you've owned them, as if they're your identity, as if you don't want to share them because it will only bring rejection or criticism or something onto you as if it flies in the face of a lot of past memories, maybe where you had this precious thing to share like a pearl to share and when you shared it, this seemed to be a reaction for a sense of non-acceptance. All that conditioning, all that wiring, all those memories, you know, now have to be undone and you're just taking a bold, bold step today by doing what you've done. And it's really for everyone, you can see that everyone can relate to it. It's kitchen is feeling like it's not a personal problem, it's just like a healing, human healing for all human beings. Even once we can't see, you know, throughout the universe, you know, we're all touched by this openness. So thank you. Is this saying that no private thoughts, is that coming to that camera? Yeah, we heard some guidelines and no private thoughts and no people pleasing I think people pleasing is one of the most sneaky and insidious of all defenses because it's so ingrained and so socially accepted of putting on a mask and smoothing things over and trying to maintain an illusion of stability when inside there's so much turmoil that there's anything but stability. It reminds me of a movie I saw many years ago with Chevy Chase and Goldie Haun. It's called Foul Play. Barry Manilow recorded the theme song for the movie. And so it comes out, the theme song goes You remind me I live in a shelf Safe from the past And doing okay But not very well No jolts, no surprises No crisis arises My life goes along as it should It's all very nice But not very good And then the chorus is And I'm ready to take a chance again Ready to put my love on the line with you But living with nothing to show for it You get what you get when you go for it I was just like in movie theater And the scene that we're on was the Pacific Coast Highway in California, you know, up there And the car was coming around And this giant vista of the Pacific Ocean opened up right when he was saying And I'm ready to take a chance again It was like this gigantic vista This gorgeous vista And of course it was an emotional rush I never forgot that experience But the beginning lyrics of that song really say a lot It's this double kind of thing that's going on It's all very nice but not very good, you know Nice Another key word is like fine When you ask somebody how you're doing I'm fine like It's like an invitation like Okay, what's up? What's really happening? Why do you have to keep saying fine over and over? You know, it's just so fine, why? So it's good, it's just breaking through And the private thoughts is that The ego made up a world where Mines seem to be separate instead of one And each separate mind seems to have thoughts of its own And these are all ego thoughts But the mind that holds onto them Believes it is so guilty and shameful About those private thoughts But that's why it keeps them private It's kind of like a feeling is If anyone ever knew The thoughts that are going through my mind I would never get loved or accepted I wouldn't have friends You know, I would just I would have to crawl away, hide somewhere If anyone knew That's why it's for example Like in Alcoholics Anonymous You know, people seem to have All these private thoughts In Alcoholics Anonymous they call it The Stinking Thinking And so that's their word for it Instead of private thoughts Stinking thinking Stinking thinking Stinking is short for stinking Stinking thinking And so they have this And then they get into alcoholism Or drug abuse or whatever Because it's just a way to Distract away from the pain and the hurt Of the aloneness Of the isolation and so on and so forth And then when they join Alcoholics Anonymous Or 12 step groups They're astonished when they start to hear Other people speaking Because they feel like only they And this problem And suddenly that's what the value of the support group is It's like, oh my gosh I thought obviously the only one In the whole world that had this crazy Thoughts and these crazy emotions But now I see And then the more they stay with it The more they start to hear patterns And after a while they start to go Yeah, it's this ego thing We're all exposing this one ego thing It seems to grip all of our minds But that's what the private thoughts are about And when I say no private thoughts It doesn't mean that you should Indiscriminately just walk up I mean people take this idea And they go home and they go Okay, I'm going to have no private thoughts My spouse and my gender and everything It's like an explosion Like walking into a minefield Boom, boom, the fireworks begin It doesn't mean that With certain emotions When there's been layers and layers Of people pleasing That's what you feel guided to Start talking about Just bringing it into the discussion As you're guided It can really bring a lot of A good step in the right direction A guy and a friend Who I worked with her for like two or three years On this idea And she just got in touch with all this darkness And all this she was denying And her pressing so much With her friends and work With her family and so forth And her teenage son and teenage daughter And she came home After a weekend with me She came home and told him She said, I have like Not been living my life to the fullest I have been holding so much in Basically she was She was picking up She was picking up the clothes for the kids Doing all the washing, cleaning, meals She was like the maid And the teenagers were Like the king and the queen And she My friend Lisa couldn't understand Why she was depressed So after she talked with me And we got in touch with all of this Going on in the mind She actually went home and she told Her two children, adolescent children I'm taking the lid off Of a lot of thoughts and emotions That I have and things are going to Change around here And basically Their response was, no way You're the mom This is your role And you're going to play the role And we're playing our role And you're going to play yours Actually I've talked this through Very thoroughly with David And things are going to change So she called me in about a week I said how things have done this week And she said, oh it was like World War 3 Broke out and she said They were very strong And they were not going to change It was a pile up and this will Get dirty and this and that Because I'm breaking the pattern I'm just not going to do this anymore And after about a week They finally Saw that she was very committed In what she was doing So they said Okay we're going to take our lids off Of our thoughts and emotions Because we've been playing the game And then it really got wild Second week And then things cleared away As the months went on It was a tremendous healing It was just like Everybody was playing a game Kind of like that thing The Emperor has no clothes Where everybody's playing along And it seems to make the illusion Of it real It seems to solidify it And then when one person says This is crazy, this is insane I'm not going to play the game anymore That starts the healing process And it just gets Like Louise Hay one time says It's like cleaning a turkey pan After you cook the turkey You've got this junk all in the pan You put the soap and the water in You scrape a lot And it gets a lot dirtier It's going to get a lot dirtier before the pan gets cleaned And that's kind of a nice Metaphor for your mind I know it's going to get dirtier It's going to get messier initially My friend and her children When children are growing in their 20s It's much more harmonious They have a sense of They're equals They have a sense of respect But it all started with her just saying No, I'm not going to Play by these old past thoughts And private thoughts It's tea time Okay Wonderful