 The Bible told us, hold no graven images before the Lord by God, and it wasn't talking about totem poles or golden calves like we thought. It was actually talking about anything of time and space that you hold more valuable than God or than your true self will block you from the awareness of love. So, spirit is not a religion, spirit is not a theology, spirit is a state of mind, and love is that same state of mind. And you can't know that presence as long as you value anything else besides that presence. That's why, of all the commandments, you know, the two that Jesus emphasized was, love the Lord thy God with all the heart, soul, and mind, and love thy neighbor as thyself, as thyself, not as a separate entity or a separate being. So, when the song said, you literally are your brother, you literally are your sister, that's pointing to all the great traditions that teach that God is love and God is one. Instead of using a spirituality which emphasizes only meditation and kind of seclusion away, like go off to the cave or go off to the forest, it's saying, no, you can actually do this with an open-eyed meditation of being shown that what you think of as somebody other than you is not actually other than you at all. That's why giving and receiving are the same. All that I give is given to myself. There literally is not two. That's what Advaita means, an Advaita vantadanta, not two. This is literally the teaching of not two. And the most glorious experience is when you relax into that state, and if there is not two, then all must be well. It must be that you can just relax in that state of forgiveness, in that state of remembrance of who you are. So, a key element for the ego is the belief in sacrifice, and what Jesus teaches us through a Course in Miracles is, while you believe in sacrifice, then love is unknown, and therefore he defines sacrifice very simply in the manual for teachers as the giving up of what you want. So, he's going to work with the idea, because it's so heavily believed in, and the giving up of what you want is very, very simple. That you have been called by God to the most holy function that could ever be, forgiveness. And that is your calling. Your calling really isn't a calling in form. It may seem to take a form for a little while, but it's really a calling into presence, into divine presence and remembrance. And you have been called by God, and Jesus says, would you now sacrifice the call? If sacrifices are giving up of what you want, you have linear time, we'll say on one hand, and you have the call. To remember God, on the other hand, and really that's the only thing you have to come to a reckoning with. Am I going to sacrifice the call to experience spirit, or am I going to sacrifice linear time? Because sacrifices are giving up of what you want. In other words, you can't value linear time and know the experience of love. That when you start giving yourself over to spirit, time will seem to collapse. You will have moments, glorious, glorious moments of stillness, of losing all awareness of time and all awareness of space. And never the twain will meet. You cannot experience and maintain the experience of that love and have a dedication to anything of time. Not to a career or a job, not to a child, not to a partner, not to the environment or improving Mother Earth, not to anything that seems to involve, we'll say, improvement even. Because who you are created as is pure spirit. You are created perfect originally, and then anything else of time is an attempt to add on to that perfection. That's why Buddha said, empty your mind with everything you think you think and think you know. That's why all authentic pathways to God, be still and know that I'm God, involves stillness and emptying the mind of everything. And you have to have a sense that you will not be obliterated by this emptying, that you will actually be found. You will find yourself through this emptying. So what I'm sharing is, it's okay to let go of everything. Absolutely every concept, every construct. It's more than okay, it's actually wonderful. And everything even in the letting go that you seem to need will be provided without effort. So you don't have to use linear thought to try to figure out the world, to try to solve the world. You don't really have a band of time and space that you can use between birth and death. That's the currency of the ego is time. It's as if you're given a band of time between birth and death to use any way that you want to. That's the human condition, the belief that you have been given time to use any way that you want to. When actually the Holy Spirit just uses time to teach you that there is no time. There's not like a positive outcome for this linear world. We're not looking for a happy picture in the end where everyone sits around and holds hands and sings a song together. We're not looking into celebrations in terms of form. We're not looking into rituals. We're looking into the beauty and the glory of absolute presence and stillness. So really, to answer the call, you just have to cultivate a sense of reverence. Of reverence for your creation, like God. And you can't put your mind's allegiance toward anything of time and space and experience that reverence. It was 24 years ago when I felt this huge, huge calling. And for me saying yes to that meant saying no to the future. No in the sense of ambitions. What will my life be? What do I want it to become? Letting go of the belief that I would want to make something of myself in the future. That one, you might say, mental act of saying, I hand my future over to you. I have no desire for a future. I have no desire to have a better world. I have no desire to fix anything or change anything. It's a desire of unified awareness to be who you are. It's not a desire to change or fix the world in any way. It's an act of saying I would hold no expectations of time and space so that I may come to know who you are and who I am in you. And that makes all the difference. And it's really, as Jenny and Greg were talking about, it's really not necessarily a matter of time. It's really a matter of desire. It only seems to be a process with the belief in time, but it actually is not a process. All attempts to make a better self or even to make a more spiritual self are part of the wheel of karma or part of the wheel, which in the end is defense against the holy instant, the defense against the present moment. And that's what forgiveness is. Forgiveness is seeing the false as false. And you can't possibly see the false as false unless you are aligned with the Holy Spirit. That's the Holy Spirit's function to see the false as false. Human beings, people don't ever see the false as false. You'll never be able to say, I have finally arrived as a human being because the human being itself is a construct that is made to descend against love. Ultimately, love is not interpersonal. That was made up by the ego as a substitute for love. And you know the guilt that comes from trying to improve or make perfect these constructs called interpersonal relationships. It's like sending yourself on an impossible mission that could never be accomplished. So what is this experience of the miracle? Jesus tells us miracles are involuntary and should not be under conscious control. That is amazing. Miracles are involuntary. Meaning that when you give yourself over fully to the miracle, you make no effort to consciously control time and space. There is no effort required in the miracle. Everything, absolutely everything is given. And to the human being that seems absolutely incredible. It seems like it actually even takes an effort to move a finger. It seems like there's conscious control over the movement of the finger. But it's not so. It seems like it requires conscious control to live, to rise out of bed each day, to go to work, to earn money, to feed the body, to clothe the body, to take care of one's environment and one's living space. But actually that's the biggest trick of all. It's believing that you are consciously in control of a human life, any human life. That's the biggest trick. And you know, that's where stress enters. Thinking you are in control of something or you have personal responsibility over something. That you can control anything at all is where stress and difficulty enter. This is the core of spirituality, the serenity prayer. What you can control, what you cannot control and the wisdom to know the difference. Jesus tells us you can control the direction of your thinking. You cannot control the world and the Holy Spirit is the wisdom to know the difference. Well, what is controlling the direction of your thinking except being in total alignment with spirit? Of giving all your thoughts over to spirit and saying, I would hold nothing apart from you. My mind holds only what I think with God. I cannot think apart from you God. I cannot live apart from you God. I exist as an idea in the mind of God, in the mind of spirit, and I have no life apart from my Creator, no life apart from my Source. That's the most happy experience that there could ever be, knowing yourself as creation of God and alignment with God. But that also means that you don't have control over the world. Some of you have heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls, some of you have heard of the Gospel of Thomas, the Lost Gospel of Thomas. In the Gospel of Thomas, the shortest teaching of Jesus has been found. And that's be passers by. It's just two words that actually would summarize the entire teachings of Jesus Christ. Be passers by. And he actually teaches that in the Course. He actually teaches that in Lesson 128. The world I see holds nothing that I want. The only value that this world holds for you, he says, is that you pass it by and look no further there. When the teachings came through the New Testament and said, Be in the world but not of it. Do you know that for 2,000 years, human beings have been trying to find out what that means? Be in the world but not of it. And yet, what Greg was reading that passes from the Course is basically saying, You cannot find yourself in a world that was made to take the place of God. You cannot find yourself in images because God didn't create you as an image. The Bible says God created you in His likeness and image. There is no image of God. God is eternal. God is pure Spirit. It just means God created you in a light quality as God. God created you as Spirit. And therefore, when you try to find yourself in the form, you look for yourself where it can never actually be found. So what's the answer? If this Be in the world but not of it thing is still not fully in complete alignment, then it must be that you could live in such alignment with such purity, with such grace, with such intuitive fullness that you no longer reacted or responded to any of the images in the world. You were living in your Source, living in the Presence, seeing that you're dreaming but not reacting and responding to any of the dream figures. That's what this is about. That's what happiness is about. It's happy for no earthly reason. Only the ego tells you you can be happy because of certain outcomes in the world, certain form outcomes. But all of us have experienced from planet Earth that when you achieve a form outcome that you think will bring you happiness, it does not last. And then you're forced to go for more goals, more attempts, and maybe look around left and right and see how are they doing over there. They seem happy. They got this, they got that. They achieved this, they accomplished that. They possess this, they possess that. There really is no happiness in possessing. There is no happiness in achieving, as the world would say, you've achieved this, you've accumulated this. What happens in the human life when you retire when you have, maybe you get a gold watch or maybe you get some kind of memorial for all those years at work. But what have you really experienced if you're not happy? If you're not actually happy. What profiteth the man if he gained the whole world and lose his soul? So, you can live a life of joy, but in order to be that joy, in order to fully experience that joy, it has to come from within you. It can't come from the images of the world. It will never come from a man. It will never come from a woman. It will never come from a child. It will never come from a certain configuration of planet Earth. Everyone says, I haven't got my life the way I want it yet, but one day it's going to work out. One day in the future things are going to work out. But it's almost like being on a karmic hamster wheel, going round and round and round and round and just spinning and spinning and spinning. And the spinning itself is a state of discontent, a sense of searching, a sense of seeking, striving. So is this practical? I would say this state is absolutely, positively the most practical experience there could ever be. And is attempting to achieve happiness in form practical? I would say that is the most impractical attempt you will ever make if you search for it where it can never be found. It would be like putting your head through a brick wall, trying and convincing yourself, I'll just keep at it here. And that would be very impractical. And it's the same thing to search for answers where answers cannot be found. Now this call is really very, very simple because it's a call to be happy. It's not really a call to give yourself over to some pre-decided form where you just have to give yourself over and you have to just do what's required of you. What exactly is required of you? This is the theme in a lot of religions. Do what is required of you. Well the only thing that is required is to be happy because God's will is for perfect happiness. But you can see that the honesty must come in from experiencing happiness that is not dependent on the ego or dependent on the world because the ego is not who you are and the world is not who you are. And no experience of linear time will ever yield happiness. It just is perpetual discontent. It is restlessness. It is boredom. It is a sense of incompletion of I'm not there yet. But it's a sense of constantly just spinning round and round and round and round and actually trying to make this discontent acceptable. That's where the struggle comes in. Trying to make yourself content with restlessness, with boredom. Trying to be content with all the concepts of linear time. To dream the impossible dream. That's it. That's it. That's what the intent is. So what we have here, this experience right now is an opportunity to let your curiosity up. Let your, I want to know the truth up. To let your excitement up. To let your joy up. To open up into what is inevitable. What is absolutely inevitable. That's what this moment is. To not hold back. To not tell yourself, maybe later. Because spirit is not about later. You will never find spirit later. And it's actually a relief to say I give up. To say I stop. To say I surrender. I surrender the game of self-improvement. I surrender the game of believing things are going to get better in the future. I used to think better was good. Make your good better and your better best. It's a wheel that never ends. And then at some point you just surrender and you give up. All attempts at making a better future. The past is gone. The future is but imagined. These concerns are but defenses. The past is a concern. The future is a concern. That's what we're opening to. We're opening to a state of mind. That doesn't have any past regrets or future concerns. Any. Because why? Because they're all really the same. Every thought of the future is the same. It's just a projection of a belief in the past. Are you open to living a life without ambition? I see a nodding head in the front row. Are you open to living without ambition? Because ambition is competition. And competition is cutthroat. And if you go down that road, if you step one little baby toe down that road of competition, it will cost you the awareness of presence. You don't really think Jesus was competitive. If you read A Course in Miracles, does Jesus ever compare himself to other teachers? Ever? Is there ever any good, better, best coming from Christ's mind? Oh, no. In A Course in Miracles, Jesus says, Never underestimate the need to be vigilant against the idea of competition. That's your mind training. That's your focus. That's your attention. Any time a thought of competition enters the mind, or even a thought of comparison, that's just a desire to block the awareness of pure oneness. Because there is no competition in oneness. Oneness doesn't compete. There's nothing to compete against. And certainly love doesn't compete. In romantic love, in linear time love, there's competition. There's jealousy. There's envy. There's insecurity. There's a sense of being incomplete. And there's a lot of anxiety that's tied into that construct as well. But that's not what God's will is for us either. The only way you can see that there's no world apart from your mind is to let go of the pursuit of self-concepts and self-concept images. That's the only way you can come into an actual experience of awakening. Until that comes, then awakening and enlightenment are just another concept, future concept, someday. And Jesus tells us, Be not content with future happiness for it is not your just reward. For you have cause for freedom now. That's pretty strong. That used to be a pretty nice concept, didn't it? Future happiness. That was a pretty acceptable concept for a while. It's a concept. Some of you have read Disappearance of the Universe. Best lifetimes, future lifetimes. Be not content with future happiness for it is not your just reward. So you can feel there's a call in your mind. There's a call into presence. And really that's what this afternoon is about. I want to fully join you in accepting that call. It doesn't prescribe how the world should look. It doesn't prescribe that you live in a cave or that you live in the forest or that you live in a community or that your life looks a certain way. Because this call is so much deeper than the idea of this form or versus that form. It's like it's the call to come into harmony, to be in harmony with everything and everyone. That's all it really is. It's just a call into harmony. It's always open it up to questions, comments, anything. The call isn't that strong enough yet for me. We're using the competition words. It's not that easy because I'm in the future. I'm going to do that and that and that. And after that it's the pause. It's not going to stop again. That's my life. But it's nice to hear. It may seem for a while easier to accept certain concepts from the world and discard other ones. But then again it's like the more the veils come off, everything inside the heart that never quite could accept the competition pill. It's almost like it tried its best to live with it. Until you experienced miracles, I mean I was in university for ten years and degrees and was trained. I could adapt and adjust to the lies of the world, but the world is a world of scarcity slash abundance. Some seem to be in great lack and some seem to not be in great lack and the world kept telling me it's better to be abundant than to be lacking. But the ones that were in the abundance category, they still weren't content and restful. They're still on the wheel too. In fact the ones that would kind of make it with the nest egg and the savings and push all the right buttons and do all the right things they were just as stressed or more stressed when they seemed to have the possessions and they seemed to have the control that they thought would bring them contentment. There still was unfulfillment in that. And it's been great for me to travel around 49 of the United States and 38 countries in the world to meet people, to meet famous people, to meet scholars, to meet waitresses and janitors and to meet thousands and thousands and thousands of people and to just kind of also be the observer and watch and see is there any everlasting contentment and rest on the wheel? Or is this wheel a defense against some amazing state of mind? And it wasn't until I actually thought, well the only way I'll ever know for sure is to step out. Can't you have like a good job and the state of mind at the same time? People have asked me, can you ever have this be an enlightened CEO? Can we ever take to the world the best that the world has to offer like the CEO and I say no, absolutely not. But you still have to live, you have to earn some money and stuff you just can't step out of everything. Well you know that's the way my life went. It was 24 years ago actually when I had been studying the course for five years and I just, and of course I've been raised in Christianity too and you know look at the lilies of the field, they neither spin or toil their clothes even greater than Solomon. Seek ye first the king of heaven and all else will be added unto you. I was familiar with Jesus and his teachings. I was familiar with St. Francis, here I am in Europe now in the 12th century there was this guy down in the CC that seemed to strip his clothes off. I never went to that length. My parents never had to see a naked David walking down the street and go, oh my God, what are the neighbors going to think? But that's what St. Francis' parents had to go through in the 12th century when he literally stripped down in this town square folded his little clothes up and handed them back. His mother could at least make eye contact but some of you are aware of the story. His father was so much into the family business and with clothing and buying and selling and everything that his father couldn't even look him in the eye when he said, I give you back your clothes. I give you back your name. He gave back his name. He gave back the family name. He literally disrobed of everything and that was quite a symbol of following the teachings of Jesus because Jesus had taught 12th centuries earlier that God will take care of you if you are devoted to serving God. But Jesus didn't get naked? No, he didn't. He actually went to the wilderness and went through the same temptations that you and I have faced the same temptations to take care of the world first. He had to face the same temptations that all the yogis and the saints and the mystics have to face. The full-on front, like facing this darkness, this belief that you're human and that you have to survive. We have a saying called look out for number one. The number one is the hero of the dream. It's the body. It's not look out for the spirit. It's look out for the body. So what my experience was, was a leap of faith where I thought, well, I've got 10 years of university including undergrad, grad behind. I've got degrees. I've got all the tools that it takes to make it in the world and it looks like I could do a pretty good job of not only surviving but striving and arriving. I could get the nest egg. I could get accomplishments. I could get a roof over my head or maybe a number of roofs over my head. Not only a car, but several cars and so on and so forth and make something of myself, make a name of myself in this and this. I actually was so devoted in reading the course for eight hours a day that something happened that I really had fully anticipated was I actually started to hear Jesus speaking to me and he was saying things to me like you will not have a career. You've done that before. This is about escape. This is about transcendence now. This isn't about going through and having a spiritual career, earning money. I will provide for you as I told you in the Bible and as I told you in the course I made it explicitly clear but you must give over all aspects of what you believe to be the life of David. You have to give over the dream character because it's not going to work if you do it partially. You have to do it fully and then that's when the miracle is ignited. That's when I just took off and things just started showing up. I went through five years of not having how Jesus said the birds of the air have their nests and the foxes have their holes but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head. I went through a five year training program of learning to experience the truth of divine providence because we've heard about divine providence from Mother Teresa and Jesus and St. Francis. It's pretty rare actually throughout human history. Most people don't even go there but those are three that I think we could say they went there for sure. When I was hearing from Jesus you will never know it for sure unless you try it. Unless you actually take a leap of faith I say I will handle everything for you if you'll do this one thing for me. Answer the call, forgive. You do this for me, I'll do that for you. This is a divine destiny and the only way you'll know it for yourself is to do it. So I had no puptence. I had no place of residency. I went for five years from 1991 to 1996 without knowing where the body of David would actually lay his head down. There weren't motels used in there nothing like bank accounts and motels and stuff like that. It was like I will show you that you are perfectly taken care of if you will do this for me. And you know who needed it the most? I did because I had all those years ten years of university that actually the first months I kept turning down offers. Here, I'll give you some food come to stay with me you can sleep here. I was too proud at the beginning to actually say yes. I said no, no, no, I can handle it I can handle it until Jesus finally said would you stop that? That is me doing my function. I told you I would take care of you without your effort without your past learning without your college degrees without all your education I can handle it just fine. And even the last job that I seemed to have came in a very miraculous way as if it was just dropped in and given as if I had forgotten that I had sent resumes out five years ago and it was an old dusty resume discovered on the top of the stack that was the last worldly job that I had and even that was miraculous because I said how did you even get my resume and you know it turned into another miracle story but until we know until we know our complete dependence on spirits we don't know anything the human being is a construct that was made by the ego and it literally doesn't know anything at all even thinking that it knows something about the world is craziness But the spirit can guide you to go through a certain job Yes, that's how it went for me because I had student loans and Jesus never teaches just be like an ostrich put your head in the sand and pretend that it doesn't exist the ego sets you up in debt the Holy Spirit's got to unwind you and for most people most people in the world have debt I would say at least they have the belief in debt if they don't have a massive student loan or a mortgage or something and so we do have to be unwound it's not like we yank ourselves or we're yanked out of the thinking of the world we have to be guided step by step so I think it's a great question in a sense I wanted to first have an experience that spirit was my boss instead of having an earthly boss I thought I would rather like to experience a divine boss someone who doesn't know listening to instructions from someone who does I could work with that so it was David asking asking asking and in A Course in Miracles Jesus says you can see this world without any help at all but if you want to see a world a forgiven world if you want to see a light beyond this world you need help there's no way you egoically are going to see beyond this veil so that's what I call God-dependence that's what I call divine providence and that's why I have been able to go for years without reinforcing the belief in reciprocity how do this for you if you pay me how do this for you in exchange for services that it all works out beautifully there's never been a time of knee over mat and is it a fairy tale it does seem kind of fairy tale-ish I always remember I would read the fairy tales and I would watch the Disney movies and the Pixar movies and all those things and nowhere in those movies were they struggling about how they're going to pay the mortgage you never hear Cinderella wondering about saying to the prince okay I'll marry you what's in your bank account or talking to the step-mother step-sisters and everything with all these logistics the talk I hear the chatter of the world is all about logistics it's not really about content it's about specific logistics it's like one long logistical nightmare it just goes on and on day after day and you solve one set of logistics and then you get another set and then you go finally you're making the bed at night and you go phew man what a logistical world this is a logistical nightmare and then you've got to deal with more logistics the next day but I have found that the spirit handles the logistics and part of what I know with Greg and Jenny just getting married and they're actually having fun floating around Europe and seeing how it's going to work out in form trusting they had jobs they had educations careers no different than anyone else that's what makes it more impressive or more inspirational I would say is everybody's working with the same default set of time and space and yet the happy happy ones the happy you get is when you realize that it can be done through you rather than by you people say well for someone that's just happy and into I need to do nothing you're a pretty busy mystic you do a lot of talking and traveling but it doesn't really feel like work to me this doesn't really feel like work but you can still own things but not get owned by things now I have no attachments but I have stuff yeah Jesus says in the Course ownership is a dangerous concept that's left to you and he's speaking to the ego of you because you know the sleeping you why is it so dangerous because in heaven the real you doesn't own anything how could oneness possess something if there's nothing to possess there aren't any objects so the reason it's a slippery slope is because Jesus says take not one step on this twisted staircase that leads away from heaven for having taken one step you will not recognize the rest yet they will surely follow he's describing the descent away from heaven down into oh it won't hurt just a little bit a little white lie a little bit of possession really won't hurt but anybody who's known the way my life's gone is I'm into giving give give give then share extend extend more than you could ever imagine because you're really giving to yourself and really it's actually more of a state of mind of giving I'm not like a philanthropist like Carnegie or Gates or Turner or Buffett where I'm giving away millions of dollars because what's the point possession sometimes people say to me well there's a big difference between having a lot in this world and being in debt no there isn't if you perceive yourself as having a lot of things and stuff or you perceive yourself as deeply in debt it's the same trap either way people still try to tell me one is better than the other try it out see for yourself see if you can find peace and harmony and possession or in debt I say they're both the same the ego is that clever and sneaky it tells you that they're different but then when you try to play it out and do the best to try to control it it's crazy look at how I use you know look at Marilyn Monroe go through as many examples as you want in history you'll find it's a very very slippery slope and actually a slope that you would be better off leaving behind entirely than trying to go skiing you might wipe out if you go on that slope as I understand it the things I see is not pure love if I don't see pure love in people or situations that's when it's my ego yeah the ego made the veil yeah so then most of the time almost all the time I don't see pure love and seldom see pure love and then I can understand that's my ego that's projecting so when I talk to people when I talk to my ego if I don't see total pure love in them some some people it's easier for me to not project bad things others it's easy to do that and just different levels but I never see pure love in anyone not even you I would like to I don't my mind goes off and I'm projecting on you too and so when I'm talking to you now and I don't see pure love I'm talking with my ego don't I and the answer I get is not pure because it's it's going through my ego when I listen do you understand what I mean let's look at it this way everything that the ego made the Holy Spirit can use everything without exception so the Holy Spirit can use words and the Holy Spirit knows the prayer of the heart God knows the prayer of the heart before a word is even spoken so the Spirit is so loving it's there fully answered and when a question's asked or when you put some words out the Spirit's always like oh it's adorable the Spirit sees everything as just adorable but I need to use words yes in other words the ego made them the ego's invested in them but there's a higher use of words and Jesus was a good example of that and Buddha was a good example even Ramana Maharishi didn't speak many words but it was helpful Nisargadatta the words can be used in a very helpful way now you shouldn't beat yourself up about perception because that's what Greg was reading earlier that perception can be healed if given over to the Holy Spirit you can just say all these words and images I give them over to you to use for the great awakening that's a wonderful thing the other thing is what you're really praying for underneath this perception of bodies and words in the world is for true vision that's what your prayer of your heart is you're calling out for Christ's vision when those workbook lessons come in I want to see things differently above all else I want to see above all else I want to see things differently all you're asking is that the prayer of your heart rise up to reach God and you're really saying underneath all the words whatever the words are hand gestures or kneeling behind all that the prayer of your heart is I really want to see with vision because Jesus tells us in the Course the body's eyes were made not to see and the body's ears were made not to hear sometimes people are concerned with eyeglasses they say I work I even have glasses on to correct my vision don't worry it's not real vision 2020 is not really good vision it's still blindness because I've got 2020 blindness or 2010 blindness blindness is blindness Stevie Wonder what a character he's blind and yet he's got this head gone and this big smile on his face and the keyboard gone Ray Charles Helen Keller you can go through all these characters that seem to be disabled in some way and yet they've got all this light shining through them because the light is not of the body and it's the same with words I've heard Rumi mention before and there's Kabir and there's Emerson and there's all these great spectacular poets and when we read the poets our hearts go they start to swirl we start to feel this energy going inside of us something's touched in our hearts through those words Rumi my gosh I mean my words yes through your words but I am not used to my words I can hear your words and the spirit can use your words why not yours because I'm talking about me lack it's lack that's the beginning of them the question is lack why should I use words in a bridge from lack I mean I really mean are my words really for me because I don't need them I can listen I can ask the spirit to talk to me through others but do I really need my words why should I need them if the spirit's not telling me but to speak well I think your words first of all it takes courage to ask a question I mean it can seem easy just to sit back and not question anything just to accept what our parents told us what the government told us what we read in books just to blindly accept all this hodgepodge of much ado about nothing it's easy to accept all this hodgepodge of nothingness and I think it takes courage to start to question what happened to me I wasn't hard on myself in fact Jesus said good good we need to do more of this you need to question everything that you perceive and everything you believe in your mind that's a good use of questions you don't have to be talking like Buddha or Jesus in one instant there's seemingly a phase where first you give yourself permission to ask questions and that's what I did at the beginning with the course I just was always asking these questions of spirit I was very curious I was happy that this curiosity got reignited because if you're in the I know mind if you actually believe you already know something about the world then the mind is actually closed to healing I don't believe that I don't believe I know and that's why you're asking questions but that's good too so I think you need to just realize that you're actually following spirit even in the questioning aspects it's working when I went to the movie years ago I was at the movie theater there was a mother with her small child sitting next to her and the little boy was questioning everything about the movie why did that happen where did she come from and for two hours the child was very loudly verbally questioned asked like 300 questions and I have to tell you my experience was I fell in love I absolutely fell in love I quickly let go of my belief that I had paid money to go and watch a movie I actually started to tune in to the curiosity of this young boy I could listen oh I wasn't paying attention to the movie after a while I was so in love with this little boy because I thought how wonderful and I thought I would fall in love with his mother too that she would let him do that in the movie theater I thought that's amazing courage amazing faith that she would let her boy do that for the entire movie and it worked out beautiful hushers came in nobody came in to interrupt it I fell in love I felt lifted up I left that movie so happy I thought well that's one of the best experiences I've ever had in the movie theater because I tuned in to the curiosity of that little boy who didn't think he didn't presume they knew anything and it was almost like taking his mother's hand show me teach me you know I love that I wanted the same curiosity that that little boy had I wanted to be that curious about spirituality as he was so yeah there's no problem with the questioning it's just the spirits even using your words and your questions I don't have an opinion about anything in this world that's the I have discovered that there is no such thing as a dualistic world so when people ask me about politics about communism and democracy believe me I was I did kindergarten I did grade one through twelve I did ten years full time of university including undergrad and grad and I actually had a very eclectic career so to speak in college I studied conservatory music conservatory of art I was in the college of design, art and architecture I studied engineering and I did calculates I did trigonometry I did everything in this world all the different disciplines I had my fingers in every pie and it also was very helpful when Jesus said now have you seen enough that all of these disciplines all of these education systems and all of these different areas were all made up by the ego and there was no wisdom in any of them absolutely none that literature the poets some of them were starting to send me in the right direction psychology most of Freud edifice complex he had a great curious mind but he had a lot of theories that were pretty twisted the ego was all over those and actually Freud was terrified of God he was absolutely terrified of God he didn't bring God into his teaching Carl Jung the shadow, the unconscious mind he started to Carl Rogers Abraham Maslow there were symbols that started to come into my mind even from philosophy from literature whatever I started to get the flood of symbols coming in of spirit speaking to me through all of that but basically Jesus said are you about ready to end this educational career are you more interested in the kingdom of heaven than worldly education which is ignorance there is no such thing as learning that's what I had to learn from Jesus after all those years of grade school junior high high school and 10 years of university he said you've got an unlearned at all and without exception you can't hang on to any bit of worldly learning because the ego is what learns the spirit doesn't learn it was created perfect what business does the spirit have learning anything it was learned was added on to perfection and only obscured perfection that's why Buddha said empty your mind of everything Buddha was not a fan of learning and Jesus Christ is definitely not a fan of learning I have not yet been invited to speak at a high school assembly the principal the teacher has probably run me out of the place oh my god what is he teaching here you know but I'm teaching happiness actually that's what my life is about now but this is the wisdom of the perennial wisdom of all the great sages which basically say you have to let go reverse this idea that you're a person accumulating more ideas because it's going nowhere it's going nowhere I have a question there you know it says several times in the book that it's only my thoughts that could hurt me or harm me I don't know the English word I can be hurt by nothing and then it says that I can't elect to change every thought that hurts me and it describes like a process there starting by getting more and more I am convinced that there is no suffering but what does Jesus mean that I would change change your thoughts I can change the thoughts that hurt me that's part of his mind training program where at the beginning he starts off with lesson number four is the first time he starts talking about thoughts in the workbook lesson number ten out of 365 is the second time he starts talking about thoughts and these thoughts do not mean anything my thoughts do not mean anything he's first identifying all the thoughts that you think you think as a human being are all attack thoughts all of them and then underneath this heavy thick layer of attack thoughts which is all thoughts of the past and the future are these real thoughts and the Holy Spirit's job is to take you to change your mind about your mind from believing in these attack thoughts to experiencing only thoughts I think with God my mind holds only what I think with God that's where it's all heading swirling quickly down to that but only the Holy Spirit can make that transition how's the Holy Spirit going to go from a mind filled with attack thoughts to a mind that has only I am as God created me I am Spirit I am one how are you going to go from trillions of attack thoughts down to only thoughts that you think with God it's called guidance happily tell you that's what the last 24 years have been go here go there call so and so you know go to India that was an interesting one it just came in all these thoughts are guidance thoughts and it's from the Holy Spirit which is loosening the mind from thinking it knows anything about anything in this world it's almost like you're going unwinding from these attack thoughts and you're going into these pure thoughts when Nina and I were meditating while Greg and Jenny were talking we were just taking meditation outside out in the Lowy and it was a meditation of emptiness I remember we've been meditating for I don't know how long it was and then I'm not going to open my eyes and say I'm empty I am really empty I can't even imagine a word coming out of this emptiness and that's the gift of the Holy Spirit to take you from seemingly trillions of attack thoughts down into be still and know that I've got that's like the drain when you get down to that emptiness when the mind is really drained because I feel that I could detach myself from the thoughts but not actively change them it sounds like more affirmations if I try to change them but I'm sure you'll take them and detach from them yes it's actually and they are then replaced it's a great affirmation you can think Stefan will never change his mind it's good Stefan will never change his mind because Stefan's part of actually part of the problem Stefan will never be part of the solution like in the end Jesus the man was part of the problem and the Christ Spirit is the solution the I amness is the solution Jesus is a course historical man that was another one attack thought most people don't like to think of Jesus Christ as an attack thought but what I'm saying is you won't hear this in most lectures either but what I'm saying is in the end he told me forgive me your illusions what he's saying is forgive the man forgive the apostles forgive all of history and accept yourself as the I am presence that's what he's talking about when he says forgive me your illusions so Stefan will never change his mind it's good to know that from the beginning otherwise you can drag yourself nuts yeah reading that but I was smiling out there I was actually smiling and I was in my meditation and I heard your voice and I started to smile and then I heard your voice say I started out to visit my old mother today driving the car and somehow I ended up here now that's a miracle that's a miracle see you didn't try to make that happen no I just noticed you ended up here to what's this place called part in hand you ended up in hard in hand instead of your old mother see I can even say the words old mother I don't have any guilt about it because I know that old is the unreal and mother so you see it starts to get all funny after a while it's all like people say military intelligence a lot of you can laugh at that too oxymoron there military intelligence we can start to do that with old mother we can start to do that with everything because why because the ego made it all up to try to keep us guilty and the more we loosen our mind from these concepts you start to realize that you're none of them you were never Stefan that's the release that's the ultimate release point you don't have to put the stuff on word at the end of I am it's enough before Abraham was I am before the Old Testament was I am before Moses was I am before Abraham you know people oh my gosh he's our father the father of the Jewish tribe what kind of grammar are you speaking before Abraham was I am you know play lady you got your structure wrong now we didn't he had it right before time was I am but that's why we have to be so willing to empty our mind of everything because how are we going to experience the I am this that's prior to time if we're so addicted to linear time how will I ever remember I am this if I'm so addicted and I'm counting the days and the hours I'm counting my paycheck I'm counting how much I owe you have to give all that over to the Holy Spirit and say help I want to devote my mind to a higher purpose but I know you're going to handle all of the specifics and logistics for me if I give it all over to you say you take it you know I got such a relief when you said this stuff I would never change you smile I could see it I don't have to fix that I just have to look at it you're off the hook Stefan is off the hook from trying to figure out how to change his mind how do I do that stuff I'm going to never change his mind or David will never learn to pronounce your pain drive yeah we're free see this whole world is very simply the belief in private science and private thoughts so the reason that some thoughts are pushed down and not talked about is because the mind actually believes they're true it believes in secrets some of its thoughts are unconscious and it believes some of them are not good to share if I share this I could lose my boyfriend if I share this I could lose my house if I share this I could lose my job now I always say use discernment you're not going to your boss tomorrow and saying listen the world's an illusion and these tasks that you've been giving me are illusory tasks and I'm just going to have to let you go actually the Holy Spirit wants you to reach a place of such God dependence and such reliance on the Holy Spirit's voice and the will let go of corporations of families that's what Jesus taught he said follow me leave everything behind he was talking to the mind he wasn't saying you can just take this off he didn't tell St. Francis just take off your clothes and you'll be enlightened St. Francis did that it was symbolic gesture he still had a lot to deal with he still had to put some clothes on when he went out and lived in San Damiano in the cold snows he didn't wear sandals but he still had to face a lot of things it was just a symbolic gesture and that's all we're doing we're just saying Holy Spirit guide me use the things of time and space so I can unwind my mind from the guilt of believing that it's all real I want to be a happy song I want to be in joy I want to be in laughter I want to be free I want to feel intimacy I want to feel love and connection with everyone and everything that's like the prayer of the heart that's really calling for vision that's where that all comes true is in the light beyond the dream that's the waking from the dream but while I perceive a world there's one simple thing that you have to do to experience the happy dream and that's don't judge it don't judge anything about it don't think this is better, this is worse this is good, this is bad we can't play this game of good illusions and bad illusions higher illusions and lower illusions you know in the end we have to start to realize they're all the same but it's only the Holy Spirit that can take us there I have this question in my mind just going around how can I just surrender? I just want to surrender I don't know how I just want to surrender I don't have anything to say about that the thing that helped me in the course is when Jesus says he said you have been poorly taught here we go I've been poorly taught and then he said resign now as your own teacher and then he said you have taught what you are but you have not allowed what you are to teach you that was pretty profound you have taught what you are but you have not allowed what you are to teach you so it's like this is the human condition of trying to tell stories trying to convince people of things trying to justify things there's so much guilt the mind is so guilty in this sleeping state that it's always trying to justify something prove something and in the end when you get down on your knees it can't even just be one word help that was my favorite prayer I mean really from the heart really seeing like I need a lot of help so I was always like help help help help and just from the attitude of that help it's very humble that's why I think people sometimes fall down on their knees because it just feels like it's like a surrender position like I can't do it that's how A Course in Miracles came a psychologist Helen Schuchman was listening to her boss one day talking about the whole condition of their working conditions and the stress and how crazy it was in New York City Columbia Presbytery Medical Center and went through the whole spiel and he said there must be a better way there must be a better way and he thought that she was going to make some joke or give them a smart remark or something like oh Bill but she instead said you're right Bill and I'll help you find it and just in that little crack of willingness of humility and humbleness to say there has to be a better way to live and the answer came that The Course in Miracles actually came with a lot of personal references in the original dictation that had a lot to do with Helen and Bill and even though most of that was edited out it came from a prayer and I join you in that prayer right now I know that you have a calling and that that calling will make you so happy to say yes to that so very happy and things can can fall apart yesterday Nye and I watched this movie I Am Tom and it's based on a true story and in that movie there was a child being killed there was seemingly racial prejudices all kinds of things it was very emotional I had just had all these tears of joy coming through and the joy when I watch a movie like that is the joy of the spirit coming through me so strong it's kind of like of what's real and what's true which just grows so strong in me but it's such a powerful mechanism for drawing that out in me and through me and I just felt just so grateful I was like rinsed out I just had tears of joy pouring down I couldn't hold them in and I remember every verse 9 I said so open thoroughly opened up but it's just the spirit's use of the symbols just as another reminder of how loved we are that all of these make-believe things can't really take away that love it can't really even cover it it's just bursting through I always say too that everyone I meet I feel like we are lifelong companions in this journey and that's all this all is about for me just for this moment just for that moment of connecting of saying yes together we shall overcome together the ego cannot stop us we are so joined and I really feel that with everyone that I meet lifelong companions on this that we're drawing forth each other our mind is drawing forth witnesses right now kind of a quantum way like it's time to wake up time has come and we're drawn very strongly into that and it's like a symphony it's like that movie you Kypolic you have over here as it is in heaven I got to meet Kypolic and he showed me his storyboards he told me how he met his wife his soul mate and his sister and how the three of them storyboarded that amazing movie spectacular movie as it is in heaven and I thought he found his calling somebody just told me he's just almost got the second one the sequel is almost done he's just got it somewhere you were months of production but it's already been filmed and he told me that himself he said all these 15-20 years of filmmaking he never really found his calling even though he was one of the most renowned filmmakers over here Kypolic until that miracle happened with that movie he never knew what it was all for all his skills were just empty until he joined together with his wife the three of them with his sister they got the spirit juice to start flowing and he was a 20-year course student who decided I'm going to let God come through me and I think it's a master piece of Star of Spiritual Awakening I show that movie at the beginning of like a week in the week people's hearts open up on day one and it's a piece of cake the other six days are we're like sliding down a slope you know because everybody is so open they don't have to like feel each other out for three or four days they just watch as it is happening boom their hearts on their sleeve and they're open yeah my mother she's 96 now she she has always loved watching movies she gave this movie to her when she was about 90 and she watched the thing and said this is the best movie I've ever saw she was just crying and yeah what a gift to be able to just share that with you and hear that