 This is the first song on the book, in front of us. It fits in with our theme of trust, and guidance, and following guidance. Letting the Holy Spirit guide us. In fact, Gershwin said, this is such a good song, we should play it every day. So I said, well, this is a good day to start with. So, yeah, we might just read through the lyrics together, and then I'm just going to please play, and you can hear how Scott and Donna sang it. This is the chorus. Yeah. So we'll just read through it together, and then I'll please play, and you can just hear the music, and join in with it. And then when we get really confident, and we all get our beautifully singing voices all together. We won't need your company like that. Just before we write the song. Is this question yet? Right after the song? Yeah. There we go. Okay. So, so you guide me. Ready? You guide me. Step by step, Lord, you're leading me home. By the stream and desert, by the path through the snow, where I am in this world, you're guiding me home. You're guiding me. You're guiding me. You're leading me. Step by step, you're leading me home. By the stream and desert, by the path through the snow, where I am in this world. We talked there about in the early stages where we had to reach a point where we started seeing what is helpful. Everything is helpful, and then the next stage we see whether more helpful increases the helpfulness, or what actually hinders the helpfulness. I was just tuning into that this morning where it reads that, if you'll find, it quotes there, if you'll find that many, if not most, the things you've made before will merely hinder his ability to transfer what he goes to the new situations as they arise. So it came to me trying to discern what the next semi-experimental circumstance would be, the next decision to make. It's to help me elaborate on that quality of that ability to transfer what he goes to the new situations. More things up to my point. Spirit always meets us, but we think we are. And so at any point, that transfer, it's the actual transfer of what we're learning. How do you value that transfer of what we're learning? I actually had an answer coming to me. What can you do? It came to me this morning, this morning, was that how could I possibly know, basically? And that it was all about the whole process of trust is letting go and surrendering into the trust. So for me, what the answer came was that I cannot possibly discern what is going to be the best solution or the best to discern that. I don't know everything. I'll experience it anyway. So again, it's a matter of, it's this fine line of thinking that I know is and just following what I came to me was that whatever I possibly know, I must trust the guidance of him who does know. Be attentive for prompts, signs and symbols displayed around me in all minutes, which is the big, that loop system that I will then know by following those prompts. And for me, I am the Spirit and by the environment and the words and actions of my brothers who published this piece for me. Yes, that's really beautiful. Because it is a letting go of all preconceived notions. In fact, in the Rules for Decision section that's in the text, he actually says that your one remaining problem is that you decide what you want and then you ask. You have it in that order. So you can see where the whole curriculum is designed to have you ask first and then join with that guidance and then make your decisions from that joining. So you might say a prayer and be like Holy Spirit, decide for God for me. Or like you're in a sense of partnership with your higher self with the Holy Spirit. And in that same section it says basically that you're always deciding either for God or against God. In other words, there's not other options who can't say, oh I'm fed up with you, ego and Holy Spirit. Both of you, go to your corners. I'm not going to today I'm not going to listen to either of you. I'm fed up. It doesn't work that way. It's like either or you're always deciding for one or the other. So what you were mentioning was from the stages of the development of trust and basically last night I started going through some of those basically talking about the first stage which is a period of undoing and then a period of relinquishment and then a period of sorting out. Those are just the first three and so you can tell from the sound all those three that it's very much letting go. As you open up to the curriculum that all the education and everything we've learned from little child all the way up to adulthood has been a curriculum in judgments. We're talking how to judge, how to make wise judgments. The judgments are based usually on a curriculum that we could say is set up by the world for to be safe, to be sound, to be autonomous to grow into a fully functioning adult citizen and learn what good judgment is to learn what maturity is to advance to be a mature functioning adult. And then we could say that the Holy Spirit's curriculum is undoing all of that so that you become guided moment by moment. Not that you become obsessive that you have to say with every single decision that you make during the day what do you want me to do? Make it obsessive like that but you start to develop such a trust in going with the flow that it's like that general sense of trust and flow just seems to govern your decisions. You're like in a flow of continuous decisions just like if you were learning to ride a bike first you may go through it in more of a methodical way of learning to balance and with the pedals and learning to steer and so forth or let's say you're learning a game of golf or tennis you learn things such as back swing and follow through and techniques and mechanics but then when you get so good at it you can just ride the bike take the golf swing, take the tennis swing like a step-by-step thing just like a beautiful flow bye totally connected but guided to go on to something more fun to see how it's highly individualized so that's exactly the way it works and then you basically learn that you in any situation that you seem to find yourself you learn that you cannot prejudge the situation and that's basically how the ego operates I mean that's how you function to be safe and secure and to have a sense of control and well-being is to know your situations know what you're getting into we had parents that would always say do you know what you're getting into when you join this group or when you date this person or whatever when you go to mom and dad said I'm going to get married you're marrying more than just this one person we're marrying into an old family have you met the in-laws yet do you know the consequences the whole curriculum and judgment is to prejudge and to have safety and security through prejudging it's just like going completely the other direction where I remember for me I was working with the course and I remember in a practical way every time I would cross through a doorway or through a threshold or whatever I would repeat internally that prayer at the beginning of the book I think it was the first edition and the second edition I am here only to be truly helpful I represent him who sent me I do not have to worry about what to say or what to do for he who sent me will direct me I am content to be wherever he wishes knowing he goes there with me and I will be healed as I let him teach me to heal so that prayer would just kind of flow through me I go to the grocery store the laundry mat course of miracles group I mean to visit my grandmother every time before I would go through the doorway permanently reorient my mind into clear clear I really don't know why I am here except I am here to be truly helpful and I would click my mind into that and I would have these miraculous experiences everywhere I went because I was in that state of you show me you guide me you go before me and lead the way and it makes you very humble when you realize the self-concept in a hurry you could say that what you are clearing away is you are clearing away all ego goals and judgments and agendas and where do these goals and agendas come from except the self-concept if you believe you are a person you have these ambitions these things, projects that you are pursuing and so forth then it is easy to get into frustration because there is a lot of expectations that are tied into those goals and agendas and when the script doesn't meet perfectly with those goals and agendas there is obviously going to be irritation being annoyed all the way down to anger or rage almost like a child has a temper tantrum when they don't get what they want it works the same dynamics all the way through adulthood when you have something in mind and you really have your heart set on it an outcome in mind and then you don't get that outcome it's not that the universe or God or spirit are conspiring against you to give you a bad day to give you a lousy day it's another step in undoing this ego make-believe self-concept that was made to take the place of your self, your higher self your high self so it starts to make sense from that kind of context but the ego is never happy with all that it wants to conclude something's gone wrong and when you follow the spirit you learn to be very flexible on this trip I was sharing the story of one of our gatherings that we went down to Bellingen to check out this house we were going to be donated as a peace house and so forth and we were meeting with the woman who was going to be donating the house and she had a Down syndrome teenager who she said was going through phases of rebellion and asserting her independence and authority but we were going to have a meeting but the meeting the woman who was there hosting us really couldn't give her to discuss things with the child right there and she would go over and the child Lisa was laying there naked out on the back portion and her mother Rita was trying to get her clothes on first the underpants and she would take the underpants over and Rita would bat them flying through the air like no, I'm not digressed it was kind of this thing Rita said she's just in this thing with me now and I know if I had some help here and really would help out and I think she looked around and I think she looked at Annie and she was like too much maybe the hands just went up I'm not clear enough my hands are not going into that one and then Jason stepped forward and said jump right up went over there with the underpants with your pants with a blouse and at that age Down syndrome girl was completely dressed from head to toe and very happy and Jason went over there and again it was like was it a special gift, a special skill Jason was again following the prompts of the Holy Spirit what would be most helpful for us the best use of time and of course for Rita her stress came right down when she saw how easy that was and Jason was very helpful during the day was able to help her let her go out bring her back to the van one time she was watching everybody at a swimming place and she didn't want to go back in the van so Jason just carefully picked her up like a sack of potatoes and brought her right back over very in the flow of spirit but again that's what means might be flexible it has to be practical a sense of joy, there was definitely a sense of joy and happiness with all of it and that's how you know that it's the spirit when it feels like it's very practical and joyful you feel lighthearted and you know that the spirit's just generally orchestrating the whole thing can I just say that the reason I'm here is because 12 months ago in the Weyver Hart Journal a saying that you could, in one of your articles was so powerful and I put it in front of you and I thought I'd make this one in the kitchen and it was, a waking in love equals giving divinity and taking nothing personally and that was such a powerful thing so that it's been a salvation of a help in various things taking nothing personally it's so easy to do when you assume that language in a good way that's not yours anyway but that was so powerful so thank you just on this whole thing of trust before I came up here I went to a insurance broker who's actually a friend of mine and he's just done this for the last 15 or 20 years and he sells a lot of insurance and a lot of damage I can't remember total disability business expenses so anyway, I've got this quote done from him and it's quite expensive to get all this insurance but the way he went about setting up what he thought my needs were has a little bit of my debts but the debts are possibly due to things and we've got all the options but I sort of went on a lower scale so that if I happen to get injured on a job or something like that I've got my income basically coming to me for virtually anything that could go wrong and this is how he's set it up and they kind of gauge that they say what sort of insurance you want you want to just go really budget high risk or are you more on the cautious side more on the cautious side but all along I was thinking relating in fact to of course and I was thinking what mine am I in when I'm making this decision like there's fear there's obviously like there's a fear of a minute if I get injured then how can I pay them all this money before if I die I don't want to hurt my parents with a debt so I was just I had a discussion with David briefly about it yesterday and I'm still a little bit confused like if there's some to me I sort of see it there's a bit of a fear thing there and that would bring a certain piece of mind and that's almost just like formality would you see that as as being being going to the view of the ego how would you see that well the Holy Spirit knows that the mind believes in the ego and has set up a fear based world based on that police system so the Holy Spirit is not going to yank the tablecloth out like setting your table with the silverware the dishes and the glasses and everything and doing one of these kind of magician things where it's just like it's just ripped the whole thing out I mean if it was a highly trained magician and you really had done it many times and you'd seen it many times you may say okay we'll go for the quick poll but really speaking people are given a slowly evolving curriculum where pockets of guilt and grievances and fears are addressed in a progressive way just like if you were working with a child you couldn't go for major kind of obstacles in learning you have to build a sense of trust and confidence and so the Holy Spirit can really use anything I had a woman who wanted to travel with me and she had told me from the very beginning when I went to her house she said I smoke and she looked at me and she said do you have a problem with that and I said oh I don't have a problem with anything and she said you know well can I smoke and I said well it's your house so like you're asking me if you can smoke in your own house she had asked me what's my favorite meal I want to cook you your favorite meal and I said I really don't have a favorite meal what's your favorite meal let's have like prime rib that's the way the Holy Spirit works it's very light very gentle you're not trying to pull anything away from anyone and really the Holy Spirit is not trying to pull anything away from you just show you a different interpretation just show you there's another way of looking at something and then fear the grip can loosen a bit so the woman Lisa and she basically had her cigarettes and you know generally when I'm going to restaurants and places and everything generally I've been in like non-smoking areas I was in the smoking areas over and over and over the people we met along the trip was a very high proportion of smokers they were just drawn to her and she was I was like wow the Holy Spirit really used the cigarettes the family the family don't think of the Holy Spirit using cigarettes as a symbol in awakening but actually the whole trip was orchestrated she'd go out light up the cigarette and she'd have like a whole group out there she'd have gatherings going outside the gatherings talking about the spirit so it's the same with insurance it's again the whole point of guidance is to help you reduce the fear and undo the ego whereas ego defense mechanisms are often they are designed to minimize the fear but to keep the fear intact so you see the difference between guidance guidance is to minimize the fear and release the fear the ego wants to minimize the fear and keep the fear because the ego needs the fear to maintain its sense of identity so like with insurance in addition when I was guided by Jesus to as he said in the Bible render unto Caesar that was just Caesar's and unto God which is God I took that to mean that I was not to overtly try and go and break the laws of this world if there was like you're living in a particular country or city or county and they have like liability insurance is required to get a license on a vehicle and drive it I wasn't to go against that I was actually to go ahead and get the liability insurance if I was going along and there was a hermitage or a property where it was necessary to have a mortgage if you have a mortgage on a property then the mortgage company requires that you have insurance so again it was required there were times in my life when I would have a property and it was paid off and there was really no need to have insurance on it unless the guidance would come in and with our peace house to give you an example with insurance we had a pretty long stretch there where it was paid off there was no insurance on it whatsoever and it definitely a tree blasted into it one time during a wind storm like a cannonball from the old pirate ship days it blasted right into the side of the house which my friend Jeffrey was there he wasn't prepared for that at one point we had a huge dead tree in the neighbor's yard it was a massive tree and it was no longer growing so to speak so we had an interesting discussion about talking with the neighbor about taking the tree down and so on and so forth it just seemingly this tree was so massive that the tree had fallen over on the house it literally crushed the entire house the peace house wasn't so large and so we had discussions at one point and just asked the neighbor what he wanted us to do in a practical way the neighbor doesn't want to take the tree down it's really on the neighbor's property and you can't force somebody in doing anything and the neighbor's spirit said to get insurance so we just just didn't even follow so it gets away from kind of set things saying this is good, this is bad as if we can hide into the ego and it's the same with medical insurance and insurance payments come via the government or something like that part of her spiritual awakening was she had had two major head injuries one flying off a mountain bike and another one flying off some skis and she went from almost type A and really go, go, go that really slowed her down it's like getting a spiritual 2x4 twice and so when she came over first came over to be with me and to study and to really immerse and help out at the peace house she was receiving disability from New Zealand from the government and so forth and as she worked and cleared her mind and became able to meditate more and seemed to get her energy back and didn't have to take afternoon naps and so forth she just got to the point where it was like she still was receiving the disability payments but then it got to a point of integrity you know where you can feel it inside you know where it has served and so we would have discussions and I would say well if you have to see that the money is not really coming from the government it's just the way that the Holy Spirit is providing for you at this point and then when it gets to be a point when you feel you need to take action on it intuitively then you should take action so she ended up contacting her counselor and saying actually I'm feeling much more energy now and this and this and I really don't know that I really need to be receiving the disability anymore and he said oh no keep receiving it go ahead and so she was like okay I felt it I made the attempt and just keep giving me money that's alright I'll go along with my minute if you can see where you just have to be intuitive with it and if you feel any kind of sense of question or guilt about something then it's good to take a look and be very open with the spirit about that just say to the Holy Spirit what would you have me do I'm feeling a little anxious or a little bit guilted on something would you like me to take action so it brings it back to really following how you feel and being honest with yourself as opposed to any kind of set way of this is of the ego of the Holy Spirit I'll just put you in a simplistic way if you want to say that can I say something but I've had a lot of situations like you're experiencing I find that if I trust and that say you did fall off a roof and you're in the wrong hospital someone is always there to look up something always happens to make it okay whether the ambulance comes and it takes you to the emergency ward and then later in the hospital for a serious minister your opportunity then to shed your eye and I always look on things that go wrong or situations that are put into to be able to give God's word in those areas so if you do fall off the roof or electrocute yourself or whatever you do you will be looked after as long as you trust and by nature I'm not only having trust in my business that are required by law but also by the government before all the roof will come and come I know I'll get you leaving the room I'll get you leaving the room I'll get you leaving the room I'll get you leaving the room I'll get you leaving the situation where you can't see any way out or something always comes and you'll get you on your way you'll get you back maybe I'll be the same path you're on since you must exercise in your discernment whether you're coming from ego or holistic it's just like the same thing the same thing it's a good way to think of it think of it all as an opportunity for discernment and it puts it in a context instead of feeling like a pressure you have to do that the shoulds, the how tos, the have tos the I must it puts a lot of stress and pressure on the mind when it gets locked into those kind of things and it really is being intuitive even nowadays when you go to buy any kind of a major appliance anything from a car to a washing machine dryer a lot of electronic appliances computers it also depends like if you use it seemingly just for yourself or if you had a business and you were using computers a lot of high tech equipment that had an enormous amount of use that was happening there have been times when whether it's been a computer or a camera or something that's very high tech where they will say would you like the optional beyond the manufacturer's warranty would you like to add something like that and if it's part of what you do like for example we use computers we communicate with people all over the world have wireless and high speed access and use that a lot we're just heavy based on communications because the Holy Spirit uses the body and the technology for communication that's a very common thing that the Holy Spirit uses the thing that this worked for in fact it even says in the Course in Miracles that the only function of the body is solely as a communication device and you can think of all the ways in which the body is used the ego can use it for competition pride building an image there's many things that the ego can use it for but really the only use that it truly has is for communication device and if it's used as a communication device it frees the mind of guilt because that's the whole purpose and then without the guilt then the body doesn't seem to get sick or break down in the sense of because it's being used for a purpose in alignment with divinity and so that's important to realize as well so it is highly individual but even whether it's like you're talking about losing employment or it could be something like for an appliance or health insurance, life insurance you know there's many different things that come up and it really comes down to guidance there have been people that have been laid off or have gone through kind of injuries and experiences like that and they have been provided for through insurance but again it's seen as divine providence it's like the play spirit is always watching over you no matter what you seem to do no matter what road you take it's really all divine providence it's only when you have these ego filters and say well I earned the money not the play spirit I paid the premium I saved that money in the bank account and I provided for myself you can try to fool yourself into this context that you personally are providing for yourself but there's still a lot of stress for that it takes a lot of work to be provider for a body or to get children to take responsibility for them too the mind can work itself into a lot of stress when actually divine providence is just always there it can either be recognized or not recognized so that's really what comes down and like Lynn was saying it can be very unconventional you never know how it can be provided for I found in my life as I went along the things were provided in many ways I mean not like I felt like I had to have a membership with the AAA automobile club but when somebody offers you a biological father and says I'm buying you as a gift AAA coverage and then you take it and lo and behold the car breaks down or something and you have all these holy encounters that people would come to put gas in your car or to tow it or to do something it's just all wonderful encounters you don't have to see it as providing for yourself you just have to be very open and not prejudge the ways that you are provided for and that was the biggest problem for me at the beginning when I started to really trust was I was so used to providing for myself through all those years of education and working jobs and having benefits and doing going that route that even when I started to lose it from that stuff and people would say you need a ride can I offer you some food or some money or a place to stay or whatever initially when I was just going out on the road I found myself a lot of times saying oh no I couldn't take that no I couldn't possibly take that from you in this and this and this went on for a period of weeks and months until finally Jesus spoke to me again and said well just stop that I am trying to provide for you and help you out in this new way that you're going and you're refusing you know like the story about the guy who's drowning and God sends a boat and the helicopter it's very much like that that when you start to really trust in divine providence then you have to be gracious and just accept what is given you the sense that all things work together for good so you're just enjoying the holy encounter some all of us have had the experience where like you go into a restaurant or a fast food place or something and and sometimes the person who's at the counter may make a mistake seemingly at the cash register where they take too much of your money or they give you back too much money and it's easy to get into guilt about walking off and you're going and then you're 20 minutes later you're on your way I've got too much money or they took my money they took my money and didn't give me the proper change the more you get into the flow you start to realize it's just about blessing everyone and trusting that that it all evens out that all things work together for good and you don't have to run back and file a report and go through all this stuff you can just go oh okay and you move with the flow and once you get more trusting then you just start to say it's perfect I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to write that movie last night I'm going to I'm going to write this one I'm going to and I've always I've always thought that I have been a bit like put it on and before this I I had an idea of a job a full criminal job was pretty awful so maybe I have there's better things to do maybe I have a call maybe there's something better to be done but I do get this job and it's difficult but I've thought it to be very important for me to be able to work to be able to work which I'm sure health is what I can do and I'm sure not to make a work and do what it's incredible and so I don't enjoy that much and sometimes it's nice and sometimes it's great but it's not that I don't trust I've talked to Jason about this and Jason had some great things to say so it seems to me that maybe you're there now I don't think that this you can be happy there you can't like a student that stops you really it's really normal especially like I mentioned about this is a development trust the first three were undoing and then a period of relinquishment for things being taken away from you and then a period of sorting out so oftentimes you really have to watch what the emotions are I know that after I started working with the Course in Miracles the kinds of jobs that I was guided to fly for and to take what I've chosen they were strikingly different I would say they were definitely they were well selected for undoing and relinquishment because so many things were coming at me so fast I would say from a world's perspective they would even be called high stress jobs at the beginning and the reason they were so stressful is because the ego had all this pride it's almost like there was a chip on the shoulder that the Spirit had to knock off before I could be used in more helpful ways for the Spirit so that's why it's really looking and getting more and more in touch with a sense of guidance the only way I could even begin to comprehend why the Spirit would guide me into those kind of job situations was for the clearing way of pride and that's what I was told at the beginning it's like oh this is exactly what it's about and there was a lot of pride rearing up and I deserved better than this and why am I wasting my time with this or this is a waste of my skills and so forth and the Spirit is like oh you've got a lot of judgments that are clouding the way you can't be used as a miracle worker with all those judgments in there you have to clear it away so it was more like a purge it felt like at one point I had an eight month job as a case manager where I was working with clients that were had seemingly physical ailments like hearing deficits deaf, blind schizophrenia psychosis, mental retardation and a mix of all clients that I was working with and I remember it was very highly stressful and I was working with Course in Miracles and I was doing all the mind trainings but I would say for the Holy Spirit I've been in university for ten years what is the purpose of all this and again it was the undoing of pride and I was told from the Spirit you need to learn how to pray they hadn't been ten years at the university I have not been taught how to pray during the church going up a prayer is just something that you can be very much like broke from memory you set the dinner table God is great, God is good and we thank Him for our food it was like the Holy Spirit is like that's not exactly the depths of prayer where this is leading and so really what was was learned to ask for help and I would have somebody who would come in for an intake, a client of course the ego had wanted to pre-judge and read all the files and put them into a category and diagnose and treat in all of its ways and then the Holy Spirit was like no, you're supposed to see them is it for the very first time put away all those reports, the files don't even look at anything in their history learn how to open up and listen and follow and be guided in that intake interview and learn how to pray so that was a big part of the thing learning to ask for help and to follow that intuitive guidance and when I did the stresses disappeared and everything turned out very joyful when I tried to take all those past learning from ten years of university to apply it almost to diagnose and to be the healer based on what I knew that would never work it stayed high stress so I think that's kind of the context to keep in mind you may not like the job but it may be helpful in the sense of helping you release and relinquish some aspects of things that need to get cleared away for you too then get deeper into your calling to kind of clear away the obstacles thank you very much thank you thank you thank you it's a house joke it's it's a house joke thank you thank you very much everyone at the door thank you thank you very much for this point thank you thank you everybody for participating tomorrow you're not wearing a white shirt oh what? you just get on board with spirit you're not wearing a white shirt so I can come back another time I hope you enjoyed that experience first thing this morning for feet washing I have to say from somebody who was actually doing washing or being there and providing that energy I thought I was I thought I was getting the best deal by receiving in the process it was the most exclusive experience now I know why Jesus washed the feet of the desire because it wasn't actually for living maybe not but anyway it was certainly a beautiful blessing for those of us that gave it some I know most of you enjoyed it thank you very much