 Very good. Okay, ah, we're ready. Yeah, I want to take you back 2,000 years ago to that point where Jesus was, he was growing up and he was feeling inside his heart that he had a destiny. And we now know that that destiny is all of our destinies. This is a destiny that we share to know God, to know our source and our creator. And yet he had to practice his prayers, his faith, and he also had to practice patience to wait on his time. And know that when his time came, he would open up and he would begin to extend the presence that he became fully aware of. So for each of us, this is the same process that we go through. We seem to come to this world, we grow and mature from childhood into our teenage years and our adulthood. And there can be mystical experiences along the way that we've shared, peak experiences, we get glimmers and glimpses that the world is not what it seems to be and that there is something greater. There's a greater purpose for our life than what we've learned in the past. Greater purpose than our education, greater purpose than our skill levels. It says if we have developed a personality and skill levels in an egoic framework but without knowing what they're for and then when we start to get activated in our heart, we start to realize, wow, there is a purpose for everything that I seem to develop in the ego's sense. And I know I shared a bit of my journey yesterday and I was sharing how I had ten years of university full-time. I developed a lot of skills during those ten years and yet I didn't know what they were for. So it was quite curious to keep on developing and sharpening the skills but with this very strong feeling like I can't see how these will be used. I can't see myself plugging into a career or into a lifestyle that is based on these skills and based on my limited perception. And the truth is that none of us can. That's why when we go into the journey with the spirit, as I shared last night, the miracles are involuntary and should not be under conscious control but most of everything we've developed in our life is to take charge of our life, to carve out our niche, to specialize, to become educated, to become a fully functioning human being and yet there's something inside of us that says there's so much more. There's so much more that you're unaware of. Even quantum physicists have talked about this with many people in many spiritual traditions that we seem to just perceive the smallest little fraction of what we're capable of perceiving. In Course in Miracles terms, we're just perceiving through the ego, through the lens of the ego and we're looking through the five senses and we're seeing a very limited distorted perception. And in the Bible, in Corinthians, we're looking through a darkened glass and this darkened glass becomes accepted as normal. It becomes accepted as just the way it is. Even though it's so dark and so distorted that Jesus is telling us constantly if you only knew what lies beyond this darkened glass you would be in a state of wonder, you would be in a state of euphoria, you would be in a state of extreme exuberant joy and supreme happiness if you could look beyond this limited lens of the ego. There's even two lessons, workbook lessons 163 and 167 in the workbook of A Course in Miracles which Jesus gives like a dissertation on death and he's talking about the ego being death. He's not talking about physical death. He's saying if you believe in the ego, you do believe in death and it has blocked you from knowing eternal life and he goes on to define it and he says that even a little sigh of weariness is death. He goes on to say that any experience you have that is not supremely happy, supreme happiness anything at all including a little sigh of weariness is death. If it's not supreme happiness then you are believing in and addicted to death and death blocks the eternal nature of Christ and the eternal nature of the creator of God. So there's another part in the Course where Jesus says you have no idea in this world of how much your father loves you. So what we've seen as family love or romantic love or love of our pets, us toward them and them towards us or other forms of love, we go deeper into the Course and Jesus is teaching us no you really don't know how vast this love is. In fact in the forgotten song he says you would weep if you remembered all those that you loved and how much you were loved and he's referring to heaven. Your tear ducts would just open and the tears would just burst out of your eyes if you had the slightest inkling of how much God loves us. So we're going to use two episodes today to try to move towards opening our hearts up to give and receive that love. And some of you have noticed that the little sign we have up there for the life of mysticism has two children in a field of flowers and that's the beautiful thing of going to this experience of this divine innocence. In the Bible Jesus was quoted as saying except you become as little children you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. And he goes on to explain it to us in the Course saying that infants are completely dependent on their parents for their survival and what he meant by except you become as little children you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven is he said you have to become that dependent on the Holy Spirit as dependent as infants are with their parents. And we talked a bit about that yesterday. There is no such thing as intellectual understanding. You can't intellectually grasp the Course. It's just another construct that the Course is a Course based on application and on action. It's like taking actions based on guidance and literally letting Jesus guide the action component of the miracle. He will tell you where to bestow the miracles, with whom to bestow the miracles and it has to come from the Spirit. As I said yesterday Jesus is the only one he says in the Course that can perform miracles indiscriminately and because he can do that he can lead that direction of following the prompts of Jesus and letting Jesus direct away leads to the experience of revelation which is direct contact with the light a direct experience of the light. When I read those words those aren't just words for me because after I immersed myself so deeply in the Course for about eight hours a day then that preceded these cascading miracles is the only way I can describe it where everything started to feel very surreal and then I had the three revelatory experiences so Jesus took me into the light through my willingness to let the miracles come through me to not try to control who I would speak to where I would go and it took a lot of willingness to just loosen up and let go of all the plans and the images generated from the past that were part of David's idea of what would be nice to do in the future. It was like once I handed over the steering wheel and handed over the reins then I was able to be led into these revelatory experiences. Today what we're going to do is the first episode we will look at will be an episode from season number one where Jesus is just about ready to go on his public mission with the apostles and it's a beautiful scene because the Holy Spirit always takes us in gradually and helps us build our confidence and kind of let it pour through us in a smooth, relaxed way so we are confident in the Spirit coming through us and this particular episode has Jesus before he's gone on his public mission and he's just camping. He has a little tent, he has a little fireplace he's just off having a very devoted camping time with God doing his prayers and he's just so connected but he's collecting wood for the fire he's preparing, doing some of his wood handicrafts that he had done as a carpenter, very simple things he hasn't gone on a public teaching mission yet but his camping site will be discovered by a girl who comes there and is so excited with what she sees she's hiding and watching, looking at the site and watching and then she goes and gets a friend and then they go and get their friends so we have Jesus and a group of children what a beautiful thing to observe because little children oftentimes are so receptive and they're so curious and they have not formed a lot of hard-line perceptions and judgments yet they're still quite open and to me this is a beautiful symbol of how the Spirit takes us slowly into our function of extending this love and light slowly we're shown where we can bestow our light where we can offer a gift it has to be under the direction of the Spirit it can't be based on past learning and past preferences it can't be based on judgments of any kind you can't really have a thought and say wow this one really needs this or this one needs that because that's not the way that it works it's for one's own mind to extend the light and Jesus knows where there is a receptivity we have to speak as Kirsten talked about on Friday you have to speak to those where there is a receptivity where you have a mighty companion who wants to hear it as much as you want to share it and that's an orchestration by the Holy Spirit you can't just go out like trying to give your miracles away like you have a machine gun and you're just going to try to unload your miracles as fast as you can wherever you can because again, only Jesus because he's completed his part in accepting the Atonement is capable of sharing miracles indiscriminately because he is the light he is the way, the truth and the life he is able to extend in any way but he also is, you might say, has a spirit's eye view of what we perceive to be the world so it's all part of a prearranged plan but the only way you can be aware of the miracle is just to be willing to be used to extend it you can't decide in advance how you're going to share it or to whom or where those are things that are not up to the sleeping mind all you can do is put your hand up and say, I'm willing use me and Jesus is like, thank you I will and it comes and it comes and when you give yourself over to it it will just come like a stream and it will come like a river, like a torrent and as you yield into this function of letting the miracles come through you you will be taken to the revelatory experience of direct contact with the light that we all are, that we always have been and then in the second episode this will be a time when the Apostles have been called Mary Magdala is traveling with the Apostles we have, we'll see in this particular episode Mother Mary will be there as well and this will be a time when Jesus is just opening up and making himself available in a very public way for healing so there are lines of people that hear about Jesus they hear about the miracles that have already happened and they line up with all manner of malady all manner of sickness of illness, everything from psychic things to demonic possessions leprosy, palsy, blindness and all source of ailments and they just hear about Jesus and the miracles that have happened but what I think is most helpful about this is this is an early glimpse at the Apostles and Mother Mary and Mary Magdala because you can see that they've all been called by Jesus and yet their ego is just rearing itself up they're trying to be friendly, cordial open with each other and yet there are these judgments and grievances that have been buried in their mind and they just start to come up so while they're trying to learn to be together and live together as a small group that travel with Jesus there's a lot of ego resistance that is coming up particularly between Matthew who has been a tax collector and is it maybe Simon or yeah, Simon is the one whose Simon Peter is a Jew and as with many of the Jews they see that a Jewish man that's working for the Romans to collect taxes as like a betrayer a traitor of the worst kind and yet Matthew has been called by Jesus so you have Fisherman, Simon and his proud Jewish traditions and knowing the Scriptures and trying to live the best life as a Jew that he can based on his devotion to God and he's married and he's giving his all for that and he can get quite angry at times he has quite a temper and then there's the very articulate and well-learned Matthew except his previous profession does not fit very well with Simon at all with the group because there's some in the group that are very sympathetic and open to him and yet we see a clash when you start to give your life over to Christ then the ego will try to use your past against you whatever you seem to do whatever you seem to not do the ego will try to use it to keep you from running to the light from lining up with the light so the ego is ingenious at trying to perpetuate guilt based on what you've done wrong or what you didn't do in the past that you should have done according to the ego's judgment where you didn't fulfill the role that was set for you of course the ego set the role to perpetuate the guilt and of course it loves to just judge and hammer the mind for all the mistakes it's made with the particular role that the ego set up in the first place so we see the beginnings of what all of us will have to face as well about releasing the past and learning to live in the present moment and it's very strong because also it's very striking as Jesus is spending an entire day morning afternoon and evening with the public basically I forget the location they're in for this if it's Samaria or it's one of these places too that in particular Jews are not that welcome so it's a big stretch to even be there it's not like home territory where you're welcome and then to put it out publicly that Jesus is available for healing and then the lines of people line up and in that whole context of Jesus pouring his heart out and letting the love of God pour through him and the context of what seemed to be the bickering and the disagreements and the judgments that are arising in the small group of apostles and friends that are following Jesus so this shows us really it gives us a context for what a Course in Miracles is calling us to it's calling us to allow up all of our unconscious darkness so that we can hand it over to the Holy Spirit and be defenseless and Jesus is such a great demonstration of that friendliness of that defenselessness you'll see it in the first episode especially with the children I know for myself I have been with and worked with children in the earlier part of my parable it was so much that it just came out of me so easily and so naturally and I could feel confidence in what was coming through I could feel confidence I could feel that the children I was working with were receptive they weren't judging me they were grateful they were actually happy and joyful and we shared so much glee and happiness together and I love this episode where we actually get to see that dynamic with Jesus before he goes on his public mission and then we'll just have to take glee and joy and happiness and extend it wherever possible and have to just be very very prayerful so I think today will be a very practical day for us this is a one step and one giant leap as Neo Armstrong said when he landed on the moon one small step for man one giant leap for mankind we are literally taking a journey today with Jesus where we are doing this for the whole universe because the universe and everything in it is a reflection in our mind and it has not left the mind of the thinker so we need training in miracles we need training in perceiving in a holistic way not in a fragmented, separate way as long as we're looking through the ego's lens and we're perceiving persons and personalities we're not seeing the big picture we're not seeing the holistic forgiven world we're not seeing the happy dream if we're still judging against people, places and situations that seem to be external to our mind Jesus is telling us they are not you have to pluck the offence from within your mind you're not going to remove the offence by changing something in the world and as we closed last night I thought that was so beautiful with Kristoff saying that here he is, he goes in to meet a client as part of a psychotherapy he simply reveals that what he had heard from me was you know, never correct a brother and the magnificent miracle the energy that was released from that one idea was life changing earth changing I mean it ended the psychotherapy session it wasn't 50 minutes it was a few minutes and it was done and that is a good example of the time collapse that this doesn't have to be a long, arduous, difficult journey for us at all this can be quick in fact I say the faster the better why not, why not let it be an instant that in which you and the whole universe is healed why make it into a long difficult journey when it can be accomplished in an instant and it helps to have a way show or demonstrating the presence of the miracle because that is of enormous help in us starting to take on the function of being a miracle worker it helps to have role models it helps to have examples it helps to have those that inspire you to really let the love inside your heart pour out and what we're going to see today is a prime, prime example so for those of you that are on live streaming I'm glad you joined us I hope you feel the love and joy that we're having and for those of you that are obviously in the movie workshop in the three day a life of mysticism online retreat we're just getting ready to begin so enjoy and I will be back with commentary and then we'll have a breakout group and then I'll come back to join you individually at the close