 They were going to talk about death. It's sort of interesting that I was going in that little quiet space I was thinking about, you know, why I saw Vietnam as being so tragic and things and whatever, but again, I wouldn't have the hurt feelings and the sorrow and things had I not made myself and others victims of this and that was when I identified somebody in the bag. And so that's where the hurt comes from. And if you, you know, can change that point of view, then there's nothing if there's no one that identifies with being a wounded soldier. They feel sorry about or to feel injured as a result of someone's actions. So I think that's a lot of what is there, you know, and I have to give up that identity of attaching to that wounded soldier and just let it go on his way, you know, so to speak. And move on, you know, because that's what it's all about, I guess. And that's that little scene I guess, you know, where I saw all of this, this way you can see the clarity. Yeah, it's a big insight to see that, to start to see. Where is the soldier who is wounded, is that who I am? Yeah, it's a concept or one idea of how I even like to see myself at times, you know, but again, it's of no value now because all it calls me is suffering and banging, you know. It doesn't do me any good. It's just for you. So I have to let it go on his way and sort it this off. In the 60s and 70s, it was called Bread. I mean, the song Yep. And they did a song Yep and the very last line of the song is, and one by one the stars would all go out and you and I would simply fly away. The song ended and we thought that was real beautiful. The stars will all go out. I think we can talk with, really relate to what Ron's talking about is that Jesus describes the dream. He says, there's the dream that you dream in secret and then there's the dreaming of the world. The dream that you dream in secret produces the dreaming of the world. Another way to describe the dreaming of the world Jesus says is that it's the dream in which you have given away the role of dreamer. The dream in which you've given away the role of dreamer. In other words, it's not at all seen as a dream. It's the one that's been given away. That's part of what it means to be given away. It's like I had no part. The mind is completely absolving itself from having any responsibility in any part of it. And when the mind believes in the secret dream and doesn't question that and believes in the dreaming of the world, gives away the second part. Then it seems as if I was born less than such a year, less than such a parent. Then it's in a state where it's constantly trying to figure the screen out. Not looking at all. Not knowing that the whole screen is produced by the secret dream. Not even suspecting that there's a secret dream that's buried in the mind. It's uncovered. It's remained uncovered. Reminds me a little bit of that song, One Tin Soldier. I've read some of those passages, you know, where the people, they come and they want to take over what the mountain people seem to have a secret. They're very treasure. And these other people come, you know, and they ask, you know, to come and the mountain people say, they send back the message, with our brothers, we will share. But the people want the treasure for themselves. So they go and they kill the mountain people only to find the treasure and uncover that. The line in the song goes, peace on earth was always said. And it's described in the courses that, you know, when you're asleep in this dream, and you don't know you're dreaming, it's as if there's a secret that your brother's hiding in his body. And you believe you have to kill your brother's body to get it. And of course it can take mild reforms, seemingly mild reforms, with just, you know, irritation or yelling and screaming. But this is believed to be the secret treasure that your brother's hiding in his body. And it's just not there. The treasure is within. The treasure is the Holy Spirit, reminding us of our treasure in heaven. But it's really interesting when you think about that, the role, the dream in which the role of the dreamer has been given away, because that's where, like you were saying, that's where you would perceive yourself as a wounded soldier, or the burdened husband, or the burdened housewife, or the mistreated child that never had a life as good as other people, and on and on and on. It seems as if the world just happens, and when there's no sense of being the dreamer, it doesn't seem like there's any kind of causation, or if the mind has any hand in it, just like events just happen. Or in the movie, we just saw a horse gone, but it can really seem like you're just a feather. And if the wind decides to blow east, off you go, for miles and miles, and then if the wind blows north, you go north, and if the wind swirls, and you swirl, it just seems like you're at the mercy of so many forces that, or I used to get the image when I was in high school, I felt really like it's a time kind of like a pinball, a pinball machine. It just seemed like there were so many forces, and it was like ding, ding, ding, ding, there's parents up there, you know, make a good life for yourself too well, get good grades, ding, ding, ding, ding, and you go over here with friends, you know, peer pressure, and this and this, ding, ding, down there, and then ding, you know, over there. What about the draft? What about the government? You know, ding, ding, ding, oh, I don't want to, you know, it's like, it felt like I was just bouncing around, and there's feelings of helplessness and powerlessness if you perceive yourself as in this world, and having not caused it in any way. So what we want to do is we want to see that that's just the screen, that there's no hope of ever escaping from within the screen, but the only way of escaping, so to speak, is by unveiling the secret dream. And Jesus at one point calls this death, as he says in the back of the teacher's manual, the death is the central dream from which all illusions are born. So what we're going to do as we come at death today is, again, pull it off the screen. It seems, in my whole life, I've always associated death with death of bodies, or things breaking down and decaying, and then moving, being inanimate. You know, having been full of life and animation, being inanimate and all that. And those are all those associations and meanings that seem to be death, but it's defined all within the screen. And what Jesus is saying is that's not death. Death is the ego. Death is the central dream from which all these illusions stem. So death lies not in form, but in content. And it's, of course, an unreal content. It's a spragmatic thought. So really the only content and the only purpose that the mind can ever truly embrace would be the Holy Spirit. But it is pulling it back and recognizing all the forms in which this dream of death seems to be taken for withdrawing the mind from the destiny of death. So I thought what we would do in exploring death would be to use the teacher's manual. There's a question that's posed to Jesus, what is death? And I think on page 63 in the 1st edition, it's probably pretty close to that, because I think the manual is... It was interesting to us. I was reading through this today. I started coming across this word compromise. I said, oh my goodness. Put it in there again. Then use it again. It also shows that there's less than 163 where it says no compromise is possible. That's where we're going to go. 63, you get away in the back of the book. It's kind of related to the specific truth that Becca was saying that she has a close friend whose wife, the minister, seems to be dying and everything. And it relates back to what Beverly was saying. We really have to come to a real clear understanding of death ourselves and unveil it in ourselves before we can be helpful in any of those situations where our brothers believe the death is of the world and of the body. Because if we're invested in it ourselves, then it's like there will just be grief. And we've probably all had experiences at one time or another of just being with somebody who's going through immense grief and just kind of breaking down with them. And it almost seems like it's again uncontrollable. Because it's just being so heavy. It's so deep. And what we want to do is we want to come to such a clarity of death that we can let the Holy Spirit come through us and provide us strength in another way of looking at it, without it being a funny kind of superficial, arrogant thing. We want it to be real sincere and clear. So this is really helpful for that at times. What is death? Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem. Is it not madness to think of life as being born, aging, losing vitality, and dying in the end? We have asked this question before, but now we need to consider it more carefully. It is the one fixed, unchangeable belief of the world that all things in it are born only to die. This is regarded as both the way of nature, to be raised the question, but to be accepted as the, quote, natural law of life. The cyclical, the changing and unsure, the undependable and the unsteady, waxing and waning in a certain way upon a certain path. All this is taken as the will of God. And no one has if a benign creator could will this. As far as an opening paragraph, you can see the whole system is going to be questioned here. He's not going to question aspects of it. He's saying the whole world you perceive, waxing and waning in a way, you know. You know, like throwing up, you know, we were talking about truth, you know, and things that you could be sure of, and like, you know, in my community, you knew two things. You could stay black, you could die. And that was the two things that you were sure of. If nothing else, whether the sun was going to rise tomorrow or whatever, but those two things you always knew, you know. And that makes sense when it says, you know, that death is a central dream from which all illusions stem, but it goes on to say, where is that part of it? It is the one thing you don't believe. Yeah, mm-hmm. And, again, we know that life's a little bitchy than you die. You know, we know that so clearly. That's been sort of my experience, at least that that's been true. The reform is the only two things that are certain are pay taxes. Is that a current debt version? My math piece here. And seeing your high was always saying that, you know, over and over. Those aren't certain things, you know. And it sounds like it was even given the connotation that being black was like one cross to bear right off the bat. Yeah, yeah. That that already put you behind or out there. It was two sides, too. I mean, the other side could be the pride, you know. But it wasn't taken in that context. It was like a curse, you know. Death was a curse, being black was a curse, you know. So those two things were in that role in your life. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, you got to sort of come up with that. Again, attaching those identities. Right. And, again, making it true. Yeah. Yeah. My husband would say being Jewish was a curse. Especially in that serenity. Yeah. And death was a given. Yeah. If you didn't die, it was a slow death in your mind. Yeah. Being a woman. Being a woman. Being a second wife to this. Mm-hmm.