 course Miracles Live. We're here today diving into work book lesson number eight. And that is so beautiful. As some of you know, during my spiritual process of forgiveness, I really relied on and used lessons five, six, seven, eight, almost like a cadence. It's a cadence of healing. Almost like a football quarterback has a cadence when he comes to the line of scrimmage and calls the play five, six, seven, eight. I'm never upset for the reason I think I'm upset because I see something that's not there. I see only the past. And my mind is preoccupied with past thoughts. That's our lesson today. Five, six, seven, eight. Here we are. Number eight. Five, six, seven, eight. Yeah. You know, when you work out, you know, you work out your muscles and your body, you know, there's a ritual, there's a regimen, there's a protocol, there's a discipline. And so here we are. I'm just giving you what I used when I found myself in facing an upset, any upset, minor upset, major upset, any upset, any form. Five, six, seven, eight. Five, six, seven, eight. Five, six, seven, eight. I'm never upset for the reason I think I'm upset because I see something that's not there. I see only the past. My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts. So what it does is it helps you start with the emotion, the upsetting emotion, and then it pulls you back with divine reasoning. Jesus' divine reasoning saying, no, no, you've got a grievance. And that grievance is based on a belief system of the ego. Or if you're in Christian vernacular and framework of the Bible, there's a thought system in the mind. It's based on the devil or a Satan. And that is, it's not helpful. It's extremely upsetting. But this belief system sponsors thoughts. And Byron Katie is always saying, I don't believe my thoughts. Well, the only way you cannot believe your thoughts is you have to expose and release all ego beliefs, the ego itself, and then all the ego thoughts are gone automatically, right? Because it's the ego that generates these unconscious thoughts that come up into awareness as attack thoughts. And some of them are attractions to the world and some of them are repulsions to the world. So ego is pretty clever and sneaky. It's disguised some of its attack thoughts as attractions. That's pretty sneaky, pretty clever. But you have to get past all of this. So that's why we're doing the workbook of A Course in Miracles. That's why we're opening our hearts to joy, to love, to laughter. We want peace of mind. We want to shine our inner peace to all the world and bring the light of the world to shine through us. We are the light of the world with Christ. With Christ, we can do all things. Of myself, I can do nothing. But with Christ, I can do all things. You know, this is so precious. So today, day eight, 2024, we're just going to go through lesson number eight. And yeah, this, for me, when I was doing five, six, seven, eight, five, six, seven, eight, I start off with the upset and say, okay, I'm not upset for the reason I think, then I would work and I'm upset because I'm seeing something that's not there. Literally, that's not there. You know, this is a world of perception. This is a world of projection. God didn't create this world. So that's why I'm upset because I see something that's not there. You know, we use this term hallucination, you know, sleeping mind that believes in separation from God is hallucinating a world, hallucinating a whole cosmos as as vast as the cosmos seems to be from the human perspective. It's a hallucination of mind based on the ego belief system that says that there's a separation from God that's occurred, a fall from grace. And Jesus is teaching us forgiveness and he's saying, you know, you don't forgive your brother and your sister for what they did or what they didn't do that you think they should have done. You start to see it's your own perceptual nightmare of linear time that needs to go the whole thing. Mind overhaul, mind overhaul. This isn't a tweak. This isn't a little manifesting tweak. I'll be happy if I can manifest this or that. It's like, no, I've been mistaken about the whole thing. I've been mistaken about all of time and space. I'm better off if I were wrong about time and space the way the ego set it up because I'm never going to know divine happiness if I keep buying into victimization, abuse, all these crazy beliefs, these are beliefs. Don't think God would ever create victimization and abuse and fear and guilt and shame and pain. No, no, no. And also the flip sides, the pleasure too. That's all part of the trick. You know, to give this you're a body and that you can have some scraps, you know, in what seems to be a very chaotic hostile world, you know, he goes, well, there's still the pleasure, psychological, physical pleasure, scraps, scraps, scraps. Don't be, don't be, you've got the feast of Christ in you. You've got the light of Christ in you. You don't need to be trying to get scraps of pleasure to offset the pain. Your mind is holy. It's worthy of holiness. It's a creation of God. It's a, it's a pure creation of God. You have a, you have deep down in there the light in a pure heart. So don't be settling for anything less. So let's do less than eight. I get excited about these this is my, the fourth of my go-tos five six seven eight. My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts. This idea is of course the reason why you see only the past. No one really sees anything. He sees only his thoughts projected outward. The mind's preoccupation with the past is the cause of the misconception about time from which you're seeing suffers. Your mind cannot grasp the present, which is the only time there is. It therefore cannot understand time and cannot in fact understand anything. There it is. Sleeping mind can't understand anything. The next time you say, I want to understand, have that be the prayer of your heart. But really when you pray and say, I want to understand, you're really praying for inner peace because peace and understanding go together and can't be found apart. So you're not going to find rearranging, find inner peace by rearranging the pieces of the illusory puzzle. It's like trying to rearrange the deck chairs of the Titanic. The ship is sunk. The ship is going down. The ship is already down. I mean what was made by the ego invented is fictitious. It's ridiculous. Don't try to rearrange the pieces and think that you want different pieces or you want to be a better piece or to compare one piece to another. That's just not going to work. That's just not going to work. The one holy true thought one can hold about the past is that it is not here. To think about it at all is therefore to think about illusions. Very few have realized what is actually entailed in picturing the past or in anticipating the future. The mind is actually blank when it does this because it is not really thinking about anything. The purpose of the exercises for today is to begin to train your mind to recognize when it is not really thinking at all. While thoughtless ideas preoccupy your mind, the truth is blocked. Recognizing that your mind has been merely blank rather than believing that it is filled with real ideas is the first step to opening the way to vision. Christ vision. The exercises for today should be done with eyes closed. This is because you actually cannot see anything and it is easier to recognize that no matter how vividly you may picture a thought, you are not actually seeing anything with as little investment as possible. Search your mind for the usual minute or so merely noting the thoughts you find there. Name each one by the central figure or theme it contains and pass on to the next. Introduce the practice period by saying I seem to be thinking about whatever it is. Then name each of your thoughts specifically. For example, I seem to be thinking about a person or about an object or an emotion, a situation, something, some kind of a theme or scenario and so on. Concluding at the end of mind searching period with but my mind is preoccupied with past thoughts. This can be done four or five times during the day unless you find it irritates you. If you find it trying three or four times is sufficient. You might find it helpful however to include your irritation or any emotion that the idea for the day may induce in the mind searching itself. Beautiful. Thank you Jesus. 5, 6, 7, 8. Number 8. My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts. What this does is it really starts to focus your awareness on your thoughts. You know we're so used to just reacting and adapting and adjusting and responding to what believes it seems to be an external world. The ego has projected out there. It's not really there but it's a hallucination of a world and then we react and respond to the images as if they're real and then we wonder why it's so difficult. But our thoughts at one point Jesus will tell us it is with your thoughts alone that we must work and that's what he's doing here in lesson number eight. He's not only saying we need to just take a close look at these hallucinations that are thoughts but they're just projections, vivid projections of thoughts and you need to start to take it into mind that these are thoughts and I need to release the thoughts. You have a grievance with a person. You have a grievance with the thoughts that you hold about the person because the person is a projection of the thoughts, a vivid projection. You know admittedly it's very vivid. It looks real. The movie seems real. That's the problem. And then as we go much deeper we'll start to loosen our attachment with these attack thoughts really what they are judgments and then we'll start to feel happy because we realize that the world I'm picturing is just the reflection of my thoughts. When I empty my mind of my unconscious ego belief system and ego thoughts then I come into my real thoughts. Those are the thoughts I think with God and those are the ones that are happy, peaceful, joyful and then that's why there's a lot of reflections of that that comes we call it the happy dream or the real world you know it's the forgiven world. So I thought I would dip in briefly at a little time here this morning to dip into some support for our lesson of the day. Remember our lesson is my mind is preoccupied with past thoughts and so as we look at those thoughts and we look at those those thought patterns we need to start to come to some conclusions that only the thoughts that I think with God are real and true and the thoughts that I think with the ego or with the devil or with Satan these thoughts are not my real thoughts and then the world that they project this is not the real world it's fake the world is fake news of the world of linear time and space of separate bodies persons places events fragmented perception is fake news and we want the good news remember Jesus said you know seeking you shall find knocking the door shall be open we're knocking knocking knocking knocking on heaven's door we're knocking because we want the light we want the light of truth so the section I'm going to read from here now is chapter four and it's basically section one is called right teaching and right learning you know that's what's going on every day with our thoughts we're teaching and learning if we think we teach and learn in terms of the body and bodies or teachers and students or bodies and all this it's just a conversion of our thoughts in our consciousness it's a purification of our heart in our purification of our consciousness and what we're calling it in this section Jesus is calling it right teaching and right learning that sounds important you're going to devote your mind to the conversion of thoughts the purification of your mind then right teaching and right learning is important a good teacher clarifies his own ideas and strengthens them by teaching them teacher and pupil are alike in the learning process they are in the same order of learning and unless they share their lessons conviction will be lacking a good teacher must believe in the ideas he teaches but he must meet another condition he must believe in the students to whom he offers the ideas it's wonderful to believe in this the students these are metaphors of course teacher and student because it's just a conversion in the mind the one mind is being healed converted back to truth to thoughts that are from god to only the thoughts that god thinks to the christ christ is an idea in the mind of god so so god extends god and then christ is a is an idea in the mind of god a perfect idea a pure idea and when we're sleeping and we've forgotten that we're the christ then we have to go through a conversion process and that's most teaching and learning so let's read that last sentence again a good teacher must believe in the ideas he teaches but he must meet another condition he must believe in the students to whom he offers the ideas many stand guard over their ideas because they want to protect their thought systems as they are and learning means change change is always fearful to the separated because they cannot conceive of it as a move towards healing the separation they always perceive it as a move toward further separation because the separation was their first experience of change you believe that if you allow no change to enter into your ego you will find peace this profound confusion is possible only if you maintain that the same thought system can stand on two foundations nothing can reach spirit from ego and nothing can reach the ego from spirit spirit can neither strengthen the ego nor reduce the conflict within it the ego is a contradiction your small self and god's big self are in opposition they are opposed in source in direction and in outcome they are fundamentally irrexcisable because spirit cannot deceive and the ego cannot know they are therefore not in communication and can never be in communication no molly coddling the ego the spirit and the ego don't meet don't meet they don't mix they are therefore not in communication and can never be in communication nevertheless the ego can learn even though its maker can be misguided he cannot however make the total lifeless out of the life given spirit need not be taught but the ego must be learning is ultimately perceived as frightening because it leads to the relinquishment not the destruction of the ego to the light of spirit that's a key leads to the relinquishment not the destruction of the ego to the light of spirit so all learning is learning how to forgive which means give all ego beliefs and thoughts over to the light of spirit and then they disappear it's in the bible perfect love cast out fear there it is this is the change the ego must fear because it does not share my charity my lesson was like yours and because i learned it i can teach it i will never attack your ego but i am trying to teach you how its thought system arose when i remind you of your true creation your ego cannot but respond with fear teaching and learning are your greatest strength now because they enable you to change your mind and help others to change theirs refusing to change your mind will not prove that the separation has not occurred the dreamer who doubts the reality of his dream while he is still dreaming is not really healing his foot mind you dream of a separated ego and believe in a world that rests upon it this is very real to you you cannot undo it by not changing your mind about it if you are willing to renounce the role of guardian of your thought system and open it to me i will correct it very gently and leave you back to god every good teacher hopes to give his students so much of his own learning that they will one day no longer need him this is the one true goal of the teacher make yourself unnecessary it is impossible to convince the ego of this because it goes against all of its own laws but remember that laws are set up to protect the continuity of the system in which the lawmaker believes it is natural for the ego to try to protect itself once you have made it but it is not natural for you to want to obey its laws unless you believe them ego cannot make this choice because of the nature of its origin you can because of the nature of yours egos can clash in any situation but spirit cannot clash at all if you perceive a teacher is merely quote a larger ego you will be afraid because to enlarge an ego would be to increase anxiety about separation i will teach you i will teach with you and live with you if you will think with me but my goal will always be to absolve you finally from the need for a teacher so there it is two our lesson for the day my mind is preoccupied with past thoughts jesus is offering us real thoughts present moment thoughts presence thoughts of love thoughts of joy thoughts of happiness thoughts of eternity let's be honest jesus says i will teach with you and live with you if you will think with me but my goal will always be to absolve you finally from the need for a teacher so basically we're being told be god dependent think with god think with god every day think with god every moment think only the thoughts you think with god will come to those workbook lessons my mind holds only what i think with god but those will be reviewed many times because it's a conversion process you know you have to come to the basic of love love love like my my mind is filled with thoughts of love my mind is only filled with the thoughts of love i think of everyone and everything with love love love love that has got to be the way that you wake up to the kingdom of heaven because the kingdom of heaven is love so of course you have to think thoughts of love to experience the kingdom of heaven but if you think thoughts of the ego of linear time and space then you'll just perceive images as vivid as they may be and as real as they may seem to the ego they aren't this is the opposite of the ego oriented teacher's goal he is concerned with the effect of his ego on other egos and therefore interprets their interaction as a means of ego preservation i would not be able to devote myself to teaching if i believe this and you will not be a devoted teacher as long as you believe it i am constantly being perceived as a teacher either to be exalted or rejected but i do not accept either perception for myself and jesus doesn't recognize himself as a man so he doesn't care he doesn't buy into the exalted praise or the rejection because neither are true so he says uh yeah i am constantly being perceived as a teacher either to be exalted or rejected but i do not accept either perception for myself your worth is not established by teaching or learning your worth is established by god as long as you dispute this everything you do will be fearful particularly any situation that lends itself to the belief in superiority and inferiority teachers must be patient and repeat their lessons until they are learned i'm willing to do this because i have no right to set your learning limits for you again nothing you do or think or wish or make is necessary to establish your worth it's god that establishes our worth this point is not debatable except in delusions your ego is never at stake because god did not create it your spirit is never at stake because he did any confusion on this point is delusional and no form of devotion is possible as long as this delusion lets the ego tries to exploit all situations into forms of praise for itself in order to overcome its doubts it will remain doubtful as long as you believe in its existence you who made it cannot trust it because in your right mind you realize it is not real the only sane solution is not to try to change reality which is indeed a fearful attempt but to accept it as it is accept reality as it is accept spirit as god is accept infinity as it is don't try to tell reality what it is accepted accepted don't try to create your own reality reality is already created by god we have to do this accepted you see this is this is really not new age at all when you are afraid be still and know that god is real and you are his beloved son in whom he is well pleased here's the sense you are part of reality which stands unchanged beyond the reach of your ego but with an easy reach of spirit and you are afraid be still and know that god is real and you are his beloved son in whom he is well pleased do not let your ego dispute this because the ego cannot know what is as far beyond its reach as you are god is not the author of fear you are you have chosen to create and like him and have therefore made fear for yourself you are not at peace because you are not fulfilling your function god gave you a very lofty function that you are not you're not meeting your ego has chosen to be afraid instead of meeting it when you awaken you will not be able to understand this because it is literally incredible in italics jesus says do not believe the incredible now stop it stop believing the ego belief system we we're starting off today with the with the workbook lessons wow what a great eight lessons to start this year and this last one my mind is preoccupied with past thoughts yeah that's a beautiful step in not believing the incredible in not believing in any of the thoughts of time and space let's go back to the power of now let's go back to the the holy instant the instant of love and light let's not be wasting our mind with crazy incredible thoughts of the past and the future let's be here now ramdas yeah let's be here now thank you ram any attempt to increase its believableness is merely to postpone the inevitable the word inevitable is fearful to the ego but joy is to the spirit god is inevitable and you cannot avoid him any more than he can avoid you the ego is afraid of the spirit's joy because once you have experienced it you will withdraw all projection from the ego and become totally without investment in fear your investment is great now because fear is a witness to the separation and your ego rejoices when you witness to it leave it behind do not listen to it and do not preserve it listen only to god who is as incapable of deception as is the spirit he created release yourself and release others do not present a false and unworthy picture of yourself to others and do not accept such a picture of them yourself the ego has built a shabby and unsheltering home for you because it cannot build otherwise do not try to make this impoverished house stand its weakness is your strength only god can make a home that is worthy of his creations we have chosen to leave it empty by their own dispossession yet his home will stand forever heaven will stand forever and is ready for you when you choose to enter it of this you can be holy certain god is as incapable of creating the perishable as the ego is of making the eternal of your ego you can do nothing to save yourself or others but of your spirit you can do everything for the salvation of both humility is a lesson for the ego not for the spirit spirit is beyond humility because it recognizes its radiance and gladly sheds its light everywhere the meat shall inherit the earth because their egos are humble and this gives them truer perception the kingdom of heaven is the spirits right whose beauty and dignity are far beyond doubt beyond perception and stand forever as the mark of the love of god for his creations who are wholly worthy of him and only of him nothing else is sufficiently worthy to be a gift for creation of god himself i will substitute for your ego if you wish but never for your spirit a father can safely leave a child with an elder brother who has shown himself responsible but this involves no confusion about the child's origin the brother can protect the child's body and his ego but he does not confuse himself with the father because he does this i can be entrusted with your body and your ego only because this enables you not to be concerned with them and let's me teach you their unimportance okay here it is that's why uh my mind is preoccupied with past thoughts is is a step in in handing them over to Jesus because Jesus is telling us directly he's saying i can be entrusted with your body and your ego only because this enables you not to be concerned with them and let's me teach you their unimportance he's saying don't be take no care for whether you shall eat or drink yeah he's saying i can be entrusted with your body and your ego he's saying take no care for these crazy judgments uh give them to me and they will disappear he's saying don't be concerned with the future with your career with your survival i can be entrusted with your body and your ego only because this enables you not to be concerned with them how are you going to live an inspired happy joyful life unless you entrust your body and your ego to Jesus and let him arrange time and space and handle everything handle the economics handle the finances handle the whatever the food the shelter the clothing handle the relationships handle everything take it all take it all that's all you have to do right now is just pray right now Jesus take it all you said you can be entrusted with my body and my ego so i'm giving them to you and now you give me the guidance to serve you you give me the guidance to remember the kingdom of heaven that's what i want and then he says i could not understand their importance to you if i had not once been tempted to believe in them myself of course jesus had to go through the same lessons and temptations that all of us do we're all the same one we're all equal it's we all want to reach god and and jesus did now he's he's giving us some instructions like please read my instructions and please practice them please practice these lessons please read my texts while you're at it pop into the manual for teachers too you know i'm training you to be a teacher of god a miracle worker a minister of god let's get with the program here let's let's go for the joy let's go for the joy let's not mess around here we can't mess it up anyway so why not dive in why would we wait another second why would we delay let us undertake to learn this lesson together so we can be free of them together i need devoted teachers who share my aim of healing the mind spirit is far beyond the need of your protection or mine remember this in this world you need not have tribulation because i have overcome the world that is why you should be of good cheer oh my gosh all i can say is amen amen amen love you love you you are love you are light let that light shine and don't buy into those past thoughts even though the mind when it's sleeping seems to be very preoccupied then just enough is enough is enough fine i can't go on i can't go on with past thoughts happy purification my beloveds