 Now that we put the ego into perspective, that's what makes this life really an adventure. It's because you know you have the power within you to overcome anything that seems to be other than supreme happiness. Any feeling, any fear or guilt or fatigue. There's two lessons in a workbook of A Course in Miracles and Jesus gives a little bit of a dissertation on death and he lifts the definition up into such a beautifully high realm. He's teaching that there is no death, but he's not teaching that there is no death of the physical body. The physical body seems to be born, seems to die, but he's teaching that in an eternal state of mind there is no death. He's teaching a psychological definition that the ego itself is the death wish. Freud called it Thanatos, it's been called many things, the shadow by Carl Jung. But basically there is no death and he's saying that any feeling that you experience that is not supreme happiness is death. He even says in that lesson, even a sigh of weariness. Ooh, high definitions, he's getting way up into the ether there. A sigh of weariness, wow. Or the slightest frown. The slightest frown, the slightest frown. Yeah, now that's really getting up there. It sounds like Jesus in the Bible, you know. First it's thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery. Then Jesus comes along in the New Testament. Very, very, I tell you, the man has a lustful thought for a woman, not his wife. He commits adultery. He's like, wow. Where do we go? Up above the seagulls and the eagles. It's mind training. He also said some things in the Beatitudes about blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God. And in the Course in Miracles he says, miracles are everyone's right, but purification is necessary first. So you might say that's why he called it a Course in Miracles instead of a Course in Revelation. Because Revelation just shows you the blazing light that's beyond this veil. But he says you need miracles to prepare your mind for that love and that light. Because the light is so brilliant that if you still are holding on to a bit of lived ego, then that light can seem frightening, terrorizing. So I know I've had three experiences in my life where the revelatory experiences where the whole veil just completely disappeared. But right after those experiences, the little ego was shaking in its boots. Because it was like, whoa, that's a little too far. And for the ego, light and love is literally its total undoing. It doesn't exist, so it simply has to try to interpret against that. So you might say that as you move through your mind training that there's a part of your mind that knows the truth and a part of your mind that is identified with the ego. And these two parts are never in communication. That every moment you're either in one or the other. There's really, some teachers have even talked about decision makers and Charlie the Chooser and kind of intellectual concepts. But in the rules for decision, Jesus says it's always a decision. The Holy Spirit is a decision. The ego is a decision. And this moment it's like, what's it going to be? It really comes down for all of us. So we really get a lot of practice at exposing everything that we're trying to hide with the ego. Now, this plays out in relationships and communities. How many here were part of the Byron Bay community years ago? There we got a couple. Yeah, spiritual communities and relationships are fantastic grounds for forgiveness. If you want to take the fast track into eliminating the ego as a possibility in your mind just go for relationships or spiritual communities. That's because people are not really people. People are mirrors. And so when you have relationships in this world they reflect everything that you have in your consciousness. And they really can be especially good at reflecting unconscious beliefs and thoughts that you haven't even allowed them to awareness until they come along. And you should say thank you every time. They act out one of these unconscious thoughts and beliefs because they are giving you an opportunity to release what you previously weren't even aware, fully aware that it was there. So we look at an emotion like anger. It's a pretty common human emotion. And Jesus tells us anger is never justified. Wow, never justified. He's not saying don't get angry, but he's saying when you get angry just watch that mechanism in your mind that tries to justify it. It tries to see the cause in the world, give you good reason for it. I live in a group of people in a little house I call the Peace House although people over the years have said oh, is it really peaceful? Well from my perspective. Even though the cats may chase each other and hiss and growl occasionally and we've been known to have some sessions where people will basically everyone's encouraged to speak their mind. Everyone's encouraged to express their emotions. Even when you go into a convent or a monastery or church or kind of a spiritual community there's usually a lot of rules and regulations. The ego likes lots of rules and regulations because it's afraid of chaos. It's already chaos but it's afraid there'll be further chaos unless there's some rules and regulations. That's why society has prisons and jail terms and rules and laws because the ego is afraid that without these laws and rules all would be chaos. And yet what you discover when you forgive is when you release all of these laws and rules all is love. The exact opposite of what the ego says. So we don't have any rules at the Peace House where I live just imagine living with no rules for some time. I have such a good time. But we do have two guidelines which is no people pleasing and no private thoughts which are really an invitation to, if you need to, speak your mind and we have a great trust in the Holy Spirit right there always with us to lift us beyond any seeming conflict or turmoil. So it gets very interesting sometimes but it's not the kind of suffocating environment that a lot of us were raised in based on our thoughts where you couldn't express your emotions or even talk about what you were feeling we're so focused on externals, you know the weather or what are we having tonight for dinner you know, things like that but this opens the way for a very open communication and then through this open communication there's very much of a clearing that takes place.