 This woman, if you take it down even a little deeper into the mind, I call it ontological guilt. The ontological guilt is the belief that you could split the mind apart from God. That's such a horrific idea that it's like the mind was like, oh my God, what have I done? I ripped myself apart away from my Creator. It was too overwhelming that time was made up to dilute the guilt and splinter it off into tiny little specks. How can I dilute this? I need a thousand years. No, let's make a ten thousand. No, let's make it a million. If I spread it over so many million, billion years now, that would be good. I'll just have a little splinter here and there, you see. It's almost like I used an example. If somebody came to you and they said, okay, here's a little cup of the most deadly poison. There's more poisonous than a venom from a poisonous snake or a scorpion. Here's a little cup here of poison and you have to drink the cup. It's like some Shakespeare. You have to drink the cup. I'll grant you one wish. You can do whatever you want to this poison, but you have to drink the poison. Okay, I'll grant you one wish. You're not allowed to eliminate the poison, but you can do whatever you want with the poison. It would be like saying, okay, so I have to drink the poison. Okay, I'm going to mix the poison. I'm going to take a walk over the beach here. I'll throw it in, mix it around, come back a few days later with my cup. Let the tide go in now. Okay, I'm ready to get my cup. Okay. Okay, I'm ready. I'm ready to have my cup of poison. Is that okay? Okay, yes, you've fulfilled the rules. You can drink it now. It's a little bit diluted. Diluted because it got mixed in with the ocean. But imagine the ocean is like time, time and space. So that's the ego's trick. Yeah, it's the ego's trick. No, the trick is it's diluted so that you just get a small proportion of the poison because you still have to drink it. So the ego has taken guilt, this ontological guilt over, oh my God, I separated from God. It did the one most horrific thing you could ever do to try to kill God or to try to rip your mind apart from the Creator, which is what I call ontological guilt, and then it splintered and diluted the guilt into all kinds of scenarios. You just described it as a little boy crying in the rain when you come back. Mommy, you didn't see me, you left me here. That's a little teeny scene out of all the scenes in history, and it's a little work. Oh my gosh, my son fell off the grandstand, and if I only had been there to prevent it, or if I only could have been more attentive or whatever it is, you see, this is the trick of the world. It tries to splinter and dilute the guilt in time, and there's no solution to it. It has nothing about correction there. You know, it's still taking the poison, except taking a smaller dose of the poison. And so time seems to be you relive these hurts over and over. That one stands out, you know, taking the apple and the tongue-washing stands out. But underneath that tongue-washing, and underneath that taking of the apple is this ontological thing. So, for example, the ego is like a spider that's down a deep well, and if you take a flashlight and you go down and shine the light down in the well, the spider will simply move away from the light to go hide in the dark. And you move the light and the spider moves, and you keep moving the light, and the spider keeps moving. It's hiding. What will happen if the light shines right on the spider? It's exposed as just a lie. So in one sense, that's what you're doing now with the course. You've got this huge spotlight, and you bring it over to the well, and you turn the light on, and then the spider is like, it's just shown to be just a tiny spider, not this wicked, deep evil thing, just a tiny little spider. That's what we're doing here when we keep going through these healing exercises. All you're doing is you're starting to see that this little spider, kind of this little teeny puff in your mind, is really not such a big bad thing. In fact, it's unreal when you expose it to the light. You see that you can't really separate from your creator. You can't do it. And that's good news, that you really, really are innocent, that you really didn't have the power to do something wrong. So the healing is the awareness. Lifting into awareness. Allowing it to come up. Like you both have done here. It's emotional. You can still feel the emotion of it come up, but in opening it up and exposing it, that's precisely how it's healed. I just like sang Bill and Jenny. When you allow for it to come up, do you have to do that with somebody else present, or can you do it yourself and play with it, and hand it over? You can do it by yourself. You can do it, I did it with music and movies. I would put various pieces of music on, and let the emotion, the tears come up, and certainly watching a lot of movies, I just was like a geyser. So many tears felt like a waterfall. Like the waterfall, you would never be able to turn it off, if you turned it on. And I think that's a big aspect of what the spiritual journey is about, is you really have to open the guidance and allow yourself permission to let that hurt rise. You see, Margaret, just in what you shared, it just brought up this huge amount of emotion. And in a context, again, of safety, whether it's with people where you feel a sense of love and trust, or going off to a place just to room in your house, or how much to movie theaters, and with just that all these emotions come up, while I was watching movies, then I would go out and sit in my car or go out to a park, have a good long cry, have a close friend that you're working with, where you can just go and cry and cry and cry and be held by them. We were talking about this morning, you were saying there's still feelings of rejection, deep feelings of rejection, that once you start to get in touch with them, they seem so intense that you wonder, how will I keep it together? I could be taken over by these feelings, and that's definitely how it feels sometimes, because the feelings are so intense, that you have to move through them. I did it with my dog. So once we identify the guilt, that's part of the healing, I still haven't quite got, right, what's the next step? I've missed something somewhere, but my story is that the story is that I won't draw a special lead son, and all my life I felt guilty, one, because in the end I didn't cope, two, because then he had to get into support, care, then I felt responsible, a mother role, or needing to be there, not needing to be needed, I looked at and did that one too, but now I'm feeling guilty about actually giving myself permission to be happy, I didn't realise that's what I was doing, and yes, I feel guilty that I don't want to have him every second week, and I actually don't want to have him around all the time anymore, he's 25, so then I'll get guilty about that. The good thing is I can now talk about that, so I've kind of moved a long way, and I love him, but I'm actually loving myself more now. Yeah, exactly. You're looking for where's the release point, and it's like if you just take the snapshot of the Course in Miracles Workbook Lessons, it starts off with number one, and Jesus goes number one, then two, three, four, five, six, and he says the reason the first six are true is because of number seven, and the reason number seven is true is because of number eight, and you just follow again, here's the Master Psychologist, the one who actually really knows what healing is, not hypothetically, not theorising, but this is Jesus Christ, the Master, the Lord, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, all these last workbook lessons, and then bingo, you hit number 23, I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack plots. Now he's making a direct escape route. He's been building his tunnel, building his tunnel, with number one, two, three, four, going through his build through 10, 12, 14, building his build, but when you get to 23, I can escape from the world I see. Remember the ego made this world, this projected world, with all of its distorted images in it, is hell, you don't have to worry about an eternal hell burning in a fiery brimstone hell, everything, this projected world is the hell, and the stuff that you've gone through and the memories you remember in your life, that's been the hell, and the hurt and the pain. What are the attack thoughts? What are the attack thoughts? The private thoughts that we've been talking about, all those thoughts we saw expressed in the movie, all the issues and thoughts we're talking about, those are the private thoughts that are making the hell, and the only escape from them is to give them up, give them over to the Holy Spirit. How do you give a thought over to the Holy Spirit? Simply by not protecting it, you know, that's what repression and denial are about, is pushing them out of awareness, like saying, they're so horrific, they're so bad, they're so dark, I don't want to think these anymore. You've heard of people who have gone through like child abuse memories and whatever, that they blanked out, the memories were so horrific, they blanked them out of mind, that's what denial and repression is, later in their life, when suddenly something triggers something, and they have this memory. Or maybe people that have fought in one of the world wars, or the Korean War, or the Vietnam War, all of a sudden they've blanked out some horrific scene of shooting and then going, shooting in this tent or this house and walking in and finding a bunch of dead babies and children. They've just done the most horrific thing. For instance, like stealing an apple, they've actually shot out of fear and they walk in and they find that there's these dead children in there. And then they've got this memory now to live with. How do you forgive it? You have to start to realize that this is a mind-training program of starting to realize that you have to be convinced that these private thoughts are not real. God didn't create them. This has all been a nightmare that's been made up, but you have to start to really see the unreality of the nightmare that's the only escape, the only way to peace of mind. So that's why when people say, I'm working with the course, I say if you really just give yourself over to the course, to the learning it, to working with those lessons, the workbook lessons are like the laboratory. Even when you're in science class you have to read the text to help make the experiment meaningful. Sometimes if you don't read the text you're clueless and you end the laboratory, but if you really work with the text it just makes the laboratory meaningful, but it's all about releasing the thoughts and not protecting them. And you actually become quite good at it, you know. At first it seems kind of what am I doing, how is this going to work and everything, but you actually do get quite good at not protecting the thoughts anymore. You have a good pride. You do journals. You do what you do. You do experiential exercises. I know people like our friend Caroline has done theatre and do dance. You can do all kinds of different techniques as you're guided, but it's a way of releasing your thoughts. I experience that being a trainee for life, I go through this enormous process of self-awareness and I thought I was quite spiritual, I hope they but the training just showed me so much awareness that I was unbelievable and I think I was guided definitely to go through life-line to clean up a lot of stuff and do face-to-face counseling myself and manage to clean up heaps. You can feel it, just following your guidance. It was just a enormous experience to get that out of the system. Loving it and accepting it. You can take any kind of memory, any kind of association. In the life of David, there was I don't know how old I was, but it was I had to go to the hospital for tonsillectomy to have tonsils taken out. There was like eerie, eerie hospitals, operations. I had a eerie feeling when I would go to funeral homes and I would look at these corpse laying there. What a strange ritual. I felt really weird going to funeral homes, but I had this weird thing about hospitals and doctors and blood. I remember going in they take me into the hospital for the tonsillectomy and part of the they have to take a sample of your blood. So they had these tiny little vials and they would puncture the fingers and I remember they had to get the smelling sauce because there was this association like, it's blood, that's my blood. It was just like this thing. So I remember a few years passed and it was like back to this time intake procedure, big, bigger vials. They weren't the tiny little tubes they were like horrified. They were these big vials. They were like more. They had to revive. So years passed. This is probably maybe back in my 20s or something. Now on my spiritual journey doing meditation, working with all these different things. And this time there's a guy who's sent a scripture out to me and he says there's a study where you can get paid and we can get paid for going and we're both vegetarians so we can go to the hospital and over a series of like two weeks they will just take our blood every like so many hours. It starts off like every maybe four or five, six hours and then progressively and I thought I think I'm supposed to do this. So I go there and I'm darned with the study where they would come and they'd have to come and find a vein and take your blood and I said boy this is going to be good practice and I'm talking to the doctors and nurses in the place about metaphysics and saying you know it's all in the mind. There's nothing to do with the medical model when they're all looking at me like I'm doing this thing and it goes on and on until finally near the end of the study they have to come and they have to take the blood and they're having trouble finding the vein and everything so it gets down towards like the last day of the study and I'm in there working on my meditation my metaphysics and this young girl comes in who's very very inexperienced and who has not had any experience with this and this is like near the end of the study where she comes in and she's like really nervous and I'm looking at her and she's like I'm going to take your blood and I'm like you get to watch a body and arm get whacked away with a needle and she's she's all she runs away and finally they have to get like a doctor to come in to do the final wondering and I'm sitting there going this is for forgiveness I thought this is really my forgiveness lesson and so the following day this girl comes in and she's just she can hardly walk in the door she feels so guilty for what she thinks she's done for myself this is all from my healing she passed it on so when she came in she was like she couldn't apologize enough I'm so sorry I just said come over come here and I just gave her a big long hug and said you didn't do anything wrong here this was all for my lesson and letting go of fear and guilt oh you played your part perfectly I did yes when you see how you have to get to the point of starting to see the fear and the guilt are not external these were just fear thoughts she was acting out my own fear thoughts around blood taking blood my blood all these different concepts and thoughts but then if the result is that she's now got guilt then she'll now have to have a later lesson to get rid of that guilt that they felt around guilt and guilt so it's really just the whole world is a projection of thoughts so there's really only one mind it's not it really wasn't my guilt and her guilt or my lesson and her lesson the one lesson is to let it go we really have to let go of these attack thoughts and when we do these businesses in our world change because they're all reflecting our thoughts in our minds if people have a problem with Saddam Hussein or Osama Bin Laden this is it's just a guilt that has to be released from the mind it's not like it's his guilt and her guilt and my guilt and their guilt but it makes it much simpler and that's why Jesus says in the Course when I am healed I am not healed alone you know when you do your inner work you are literally healing the entire world you're healing your children you're healing Victor Bill's healing his son everyone gets healed together when we release this guilt because we're all that connected it gives you an incentive it's like what greater gifts could you give to everyone than to go for innocence and true forgiveness because you release everyone but Christian was making all the signals he's making all the signals it's like the lunchtime of the signal Victor he ran that out it's a way of strange I don't know I didn't turn the final he reigned yeah sorry never mind that's showing the connection here you were talking about it and he rang it that actually got used that's part of the terrible the camera is still rolling for you that's part of the connection it's beautiful I'm going to ask don't get so mad he's now saying that it's your treat Christian, how do you feel? he's sharing he's sharing a little cup of tea and then sharing it all I'm sure you're having a way to heal I know what about heaven no one must cure that guilt you can't do anything to live fully live that's good it's just your willingness to come and say it feels this way but I'm willing I'm willing to be shown another way to heal it's very free and you can see how it's connected to everyone everyone it's always touched by your sharing arguments touched by your sharing I'm willing to share the story that I'm lying on I'm lying on I'm lying on I'm lying on I'm lying on I'm lying on I'm lying on I'm an angel picture I'm lying on I'm lying on I'm lying on I'm lying on but I'm willing to be shown another way to heal it's a面 to cry sound to your brain sounds very cool and I'm going to put a video in my message to show you how it sounds the audience they're just setting them up It's much better and it's easier because you can't ignore it. I'm going to say this is fun to see you also in front of the front of the building. I'm going to say this is fun to see you also in front of the building. It's much better and it's easier because you can't ignore it. I'm going to say this is fun to see you also in front of the building. It's much better and it's easier because you can't ignore it. I'm going to say this is fun to see you also in front of the building. It's much better and it's easier because you can't ignore it. I'm going to say this is fun to see you also in front of the building. I just mentioned the resources you've probably already seen them all. The DVDs are along here, and CDs are along on that bottom shelf. And the publications and writings are here. Is everyone familiar with the movie card? These ones are new sets. We've had made up. You may be familiar with some of the CDs, but each one has like a five disc set. Two, three audio CDs. A music CD with music of Christ and a DVD in it. So if you want to know any more about any of the content of them, just come and ask, and I can let you know. But these are... I was asked to make them up for the trip to Australia, and I've just picked the best material that I really resonated with in terms of the quality and the content of them. So these are just really good sets. If you don't have any of the Awakening My Materials, then these are really great. What are they? David's talking about the groups? Yeah, the audio CDs. The first two are an interview of David with a couple, David Paul and Candice Doyle, who do a lot of workshops for helping people get in touch with hearing the Holy Spirit. And so it was a two-hour interview asking a lot of questions about what's it like to be the voice for the Holy Spirit and sort of his part and how that came to be. They have a large group of readerships, so they basically ask the readership to send in questions. And then out of all those questions, they said, let's pick the best questions or the ones that we feel like we would most want to be answered. And that's what they asked. They had them all laid out for themselves and they just kind of asked them one after the next. It's really clear. Yeah, you can listen to it over and over. There's just so much in it. Beyond the Yuck was a compilation of gatherings, that one. So again, just lots of questions that people were asking. Lots of laughter, I think. Yeah, it's actually a three CD set, but I just put the first one in here. And the DVD was in San Pedro. It's another DVD, just again, lots of laughter and great questions. It's nice to hear the witnesses. Like, I remember, oh yeah, San Pedro, I had a lot of fun with that one back in, whenever, 2004. And recently we were contacted by this man, a friend of mine named Kelly Love, that when Kirsten and Jason get back, they're going to be going to North Carolina to meet with Kelly and his group. It's the first Course in Miracles group in the history of mankind. It was in North Carolina. Basically, Judy Skech went through there and they said, let's get a group. Let's have a study group. And so thus was the first Course in Miracles study group. I'll be going and speaking to this ancient group that started by Muhammad years ago. But anyway, Kelly, he was the first voice of the Course. He was the first one to ask to record the Course onto cassette tapes so people who sometimes had problems with reading or just people who like to hear it more in a laboratory way, he was the first one that recorded it. And apparently, he wrote or called or I forget how, I think he wrote, said that on the phone, said that basically his wife, all these years he's been a Course in Miracles student, we were talking about one's a student and the other isn't. But here's Kelly, who was the original voice of the Course, who's been in the Course for many, many years, decades. And his wife is not a Course in Miracles student. And he said, they watched the San Pedro DVD together. She said, I think I want to study that Book of Miracles for all these years watching that DVD. I said, oh, thank you, that's very inspirational to know that it got used in that way. So she's watched him for 25 years or more. And now this was like, okay, I think I'll... That was my pick. I just picked one DVD to make the first set and it was like, that's the one. Yeah, it's really inspiring. And all the angel music, Resta, who David mentioned, she had over 200 songs come through and I made up, I think, three or four different constellations with a theme. So this theme I just pulled from that 200-odd songs, just the songs that are just about God's love, changeless love, so it's a beautiful meditation. DVD's other. It's a CD. That's a music CD. That's a CD, that's a CD. That's a CD. Yeah. All right. So there's one DVD, a music CD, and three audio CDs. And then the second one, we just had made up another very happy smile. The first two... Oh, that's the other music CD, which we're there in. Dental Awakening. So those songs were all about waking up. And this two CD set was the Atonement Talks. That was at the Last Course Miracles Conference. The topic David spoke on was Atonement. So they're great. It's all about... There's a metaphysical talk and a transfer of turning talk. They're both pretty cool. Addresses everybody in the conference if they have any particular block or whatever. Yeah, they're great. And you leave the first one off getting everyone to sing a song. I say everyone in the conference. I'm the Holy Child of God in Heaven. It's a song that he wrote. I'm the Holy Child of God in Heaven. I'm the Holy Life that shines always. Walking through this world in perfect safety from darkness and from fear. I know I'll raise. And then the chorus is I'm so happy. Imagine. 500. I don't know how many it was. 200, 300. However many we had there was harmonizing. I'm so happy after they're singing I'm the Holy Child of God in Heaven. They sang it from the top of their lungs. Yeah, they loved it. Kind of got a little bit of a bebop, hip-hop, rap beat to it and a little bit of this oriental thing. And they're really quite a fascinating song. Yeah. You can play it for everybody. That might be a nice way to start our discussion. Extra person finishes there. Holy Spirit's feel. Also that one, too, is the Atomic Tops. There's tons of great parables of like that are just perfectly applicable to how it works. Just great stories. People in the audience are like looking for an example and there's just a real connectedness in it. You feel it. Then there's no control over the world. Talks on the Serenity Prayer, which is fantastic. It's all in a nutshell, all in one CD. And then Joy, that's Colton gathering. I called it Joy and Clarity gathering in Colton because it's just so much joy in this gathering. You're singing too. It's a worship miracle group that sings regularly like you would go to a church service. They sing their joy at the beginning. That's it. And you kind of, in that gathering, just went through, somehow it was just all laid out really clearly. I just remember it was like step one, step two, step three, step four. It was just really, clearly all laid out. All laid out. So that's those two sets. Everything's on a donation basis, so there are little cards there with the gestures, but did you say this is the best one? They're both really good. That was the first one I made up and then that was the second, like part one and part two. Which would you think would be the best one though? Part one, yeah. Yeah. And then these magazines were by Raj in Australia who organizes all of the gatherings. They put out this journal quarterly. I think it's quarterly. I'm not sure. And they with editors Raj and Sue for years and recently they've been having a guest editor come in and basically they've said pick your topic and provide us with the material and then they professionalize it all and do what they do. So there's lots of writings in there that J.S. and Divine wrote one on Divine Providence that was the theme. So yeah, that's there if you want to click through. And again, they're on a donation basis too. They have a suggested number of price, but they gave us a bunch of those. Kind of an international group too. Sylvia had one in there. She came to write an article. He wrote an article in there. You'll probably see Sylvia here one of these visits. She's from Columbia and she does a lot of meditations and she's very devoted. She was talking a lot about Australia this time. Before I left she kept saying I keep hearing Australia, Australia. I think somebody was asking too. They said are you coming here or not? Well, I think of our messengers group there probably will be one or two or three or so coming probably on a very good basis as the call comes in we just go where we're guided. And now one of our friends Russell is starting a peace house in Newcastle. Can I speak to that? We're very, very fortunate in Australia is so generous because with the amount of support that we can manage to rustle up in New Zealand, we couldn't afford to pay the international airfield and run a retreat without piggybacking on the Australian trip. So with run is just generosity and if you thank him for us. Actually, yeah, I got it going though. Yeah, it's true. He piggybacked on you. He piggybacked on you. Yeah, this is true. So there was reciprocity there, wasn't there? So we're very fortunate and I think after this retreat if you can talk to everybody you know who could be interested for next year and maybe get them to contact me and put them on the list tell them that if we really want this to happen annually we are devoted. We're a devoted group. We want to awaken and if anybody would like to join us we'd love to see them. That would be tremendous and it just means that we can keep getting these guys back to help them happen because it's such a blessing to have them here. Yeah, it comes in different ways too if you know somebody who even has frequent fire miles. That's how it started for me. I went all around the United States and Canada for quite a number of years just by car basically going very spontaneously and then in 2003 I met this man named David who had won a prize. He was a world traveler and enjoyed traveling around the world but he also collected frequent fire miles and he was on this trip and it was like a contest that if you flew on these segments of these particular airlines and stated these hotels and resorts and ate this food and whatever you could win the grand prize of a million frequent fire miles which he did he won the grand prize. So then he had a million frequent fire miles on Latin American airlines and then when I met him through three days when I met him we sent these free CDs the Music of Christ to people who request them and I put them on the internet on a lot of different mailing lists and groups and a friend from Argentina named Pat Posada basically wrote back and said oh I live in a far country and I don't think you could afford to send me one of your free CDs but I would love to have one and he wrote back and said so happy to hear that you're coming to Argentina and told me about that and I said what did you say to her and she said I said some day it would be open to travels but we got the invitation and then two days later I met this man David for the first time and he basically said have you ever thought of going overseas with any of this stuff and I said no have you ever thought and I don't have one of those things of a jiggies that you need and he said passport David so he said well I I said well we did hit this woman that wrote two days ago and said so happy to hear that you're coming to Argentina and he went Argentina I love Argentina I would so much love to go down there and take you along business class all down there well you see I won this contest I got a million frequent flower miles I had to figure out what to do with a couple days ago I was praying to God saying I love to go all over the world to do all these travels but he said I gave the million frequent flower miles to God and said these are you to use for your purposes and so then two days later he met me and I said I think this is what they're intended for so he flew four of us, Resta and myself and Kerri and himself down the Heccutiva that's what they call Spanish for executive first class Heccutiva so that's how the international travel started first class which was good for Resta because she's the one I mentioned earlier was living kind of a secluded life and she would not have gone coach always going to do that had to be Heccutiva so it was good too for a night space for me I was like this international travel is not so bad like Willa Conlon a little bit of them so we have fun and Jason is really ready to go wherever give me a call Argentina he had a frequent flower mile thing that he was waiting to see where the Holy Spirit would use and then they donated a woman who recently visited us bought a curses ticket so they're making it down there to South America it comes in such wonderful ways so this song coming up I know you're ready for it now I'm the Holy Child of God in Heaven as I mentioned a little bit of rap hip hop feet and you'll hear the oriental sounds kind of in there too and then these lyrics that basically come from the course Jacob is a Course American student so he has an interlude where it's just you can hear he gets into his God voice you know I think you'll enjoy it hip hop from that whole world kids had the oldest Course American they came together in a 17th century castle invited me to come and speak at this castle they had the translators of all the Scandinavian Course American books there they had a night where it was a talent night they called it where people got up decided poetry sang songs did dances did skits and my friend Anna picked that song out and she was going to get up and she got all dressed up to do a dance to that song and everyone was sitting around the circle and she said David get up here with me so I get up there and she said everybody so it was like about 40 everybody was out dancing I'm the holy child but it's just a lot of fun when people just relax we were together like we'd been together over the weekend we were together for three or four days people just relax enjoy meditating and walking and eating together and sharing stories it's kind of a nice cozy relaxed kind of family in a 17th century castle it was kind of fun 60 people were family of 60 that's where I met Jenny actually Jenny came everybody had pre-registered and come but she broke the rule she came in after it started and she said can I stay and the people said well okay and then they left to stay and she was there for two hours and felt she had received everything that she needed I was really really stressed I could stay I had pre-registered but I was late I had a good night you're going to tell the story about after two hours you said you told her I had got everything I I came for such a message came right into my heart I just yeah I felt okay I know what I came for so I asked the organizers why they said I feel guided to go home I feel like I got what I came for and they said no I think it's the ego it's your ego that wants to leave now and I just I was pretty new to the course and I I didn't really trust my own intuition so I listened to them so I stayed but it didn't feel really good I stayed for one day and I thought maybe I can go and ask David about this but I asked you about I said that I could leave after hours and they said I should stay and you just said should this is a word you never should use that's the right use of the word shit right in that sense I mean I felt like really nice to be there but I felt really confused because I haven't followed that prompt okay maybe I need to do it anyway so I went home but I all the way home I have this gift to optimise myself yes I'm a gift but I just said to myself okay you have the permission to go back tomorrow if you want to because this was a Saturday just one more day in this retreat so I just felt very calm and I felt very determined to follow that because I knew I would have many thoughts in the morning that nobody would think to make it back and I was very concerned about what people would think so I realised that I had to be very determined so in the morning I went to and drew this 150 kilometres and that was also a thing because so releasing this I had so many thoughts about environment and I had to use the car only for myself and back and forth and after hearing David saying it's nothing, it's real it was just yes so happy and such a release the one with all the thoughts maybe it was safe for the whole course it was safe for the whole course in the finish I stayed for the rest of the course it was only one day I felt the old feelings when I came it was an embarrassment to walk in there in front of everybody and they had breakfast and I just walked in and sat down and you just saw me immediately and came and had me so just very happy thank you for having me the prodigal daughter has returned and then I had another encounter it was a guy that seemed very strange because we sat down together and talked and immediately I got so triggered by him, irritated by the way he spoke and he told his story over and over again to different people and a story about the past he had a kind of awakening experience when he was a child he told the same story I was so irritated it was the first time I met him but it felt like it was something special with him and my car when I was going to go back after this this course my car broke and he lived like 10 kilometers from me so I had to ask him so we drew my car we took a roof and took my car to the station he left my car there and I had to go with him to his car and this guy had such forgiveness lessons and when I found out he lived close to you and you there's nobody else near me to talk to about these things and this and this and this I think banked I said I think you should be with banked and he said oh he's a single dad and he has a son and I have a son lots of parallels that's how we triggered I invited him for a retreat because last year I was with David in the United States for three months and then I returned to Sweden and I felt I had no one to talk to because no one would understand I felt like I had gone through such a process and I couldn't relate to the people I used to I didn't recognize them almost and so felt like I had only him and I felt like he isn't I didn't want to be with him but I also thought I have something to look at here so I invited him for a retreat just him and me and that was like thunderstorm that was like both heaven and hell feeling I need to just meditate I can't even look at him and I was meditating and he said two meters away from me and he just stared at me and that was when he lived almost all the retreat he was so much on to me he just he didn't look in his whole mind and he just told me suddenly he said after maybe one hour so he just said do you want to have peace or do you want to be happy he pointed at me and I was just furious and I just I need to go and I went out in the middle of the night and I walked out of the house different meditation and I walked out of the house and into my parents house and they were away so I could use the internet I wrote an image of David this is what he's doing and they will answer for the ego and it was helpful because I could go back and I could just watch what was happening and then some more we will how long have they been into the cause how long have they been into the cause the guy he has been I think 10 years and what was it that your family didn't like was it it was something in his personality it was his way of acting his way of being so much on me instead right it triggered me many times so when love comes together it brings up all this stuff because it feels that love is because blood has been on the real life we need somebody it's like this chance you have to transform it to so is it just feel like hell but you say it can be heaven as well yeah because whenever things are this forgiveness like being forgiveness it was so helpful it's okay for me but I had to be very very attentive all the time very he really had a lot of emotions towards you I think he thought he had yeah he had a word in us and of course I had to put into this love relationship so we had powerful physical powerful encounters that was fleshed up yes you are here because he said the sight he had told him that he would meet his life partner the last spring and it wasn't me at all but definitely she read that part of the chorus and the life partner could be hostile to one another perhaps for life no hey thank you just on that from Diplin's mother and father we were continually fighting it affected her quite badly when she was younger not physically not physically, verbally but the first night I went home to see the family they had their dying table in what was a big lamp and they had a full-fledged fight in front of me as to who brought the salt in from the kitchen the night before and I stood there and thought what am I getting into incredible and yet they stayed together until Bruce died and I always said that the only thing that held them together was their argument and their warring because my mother would always rather be right than be happy the right is being happy that's it that's a good insight to let go of sometimes you have to have the contrast even throughout history like Mary Baker Eddie she is really known as definitely a contemporary saint who really could heal the sick so to speak for a recent beautiful state a lofty state of awareness and her father was this fiery man who believed in fire and brimstone the old way of God punishing and I saw a picture of him one time he said like a fire in his eyes so much of her life was a revolt against what she had experienced in him in childhood like she just couldn't believe in her soul it was such a striking contrast that was presented to her and her biological father that the Holy Spirit will use contrast at the beginning when you're so addicted to misery and you're so addicted to the ego and you're not even aware of your own addiction to the ego then it seems in the plan that you have to have some wake up contrast experiences just like the defibrillator when they put an electrical charge whose heart has stopped beating it's kind of a drastic measure but it's like it's like a last-ditch effort we've got to get the heart going again so when the mind gets so enamored and allured and stuck in this world then there seems to be some major contrast experiences Kirsten's talked about her head injuries she's kind of like a spiritual tool for a whack and then it doesn't get you the first time and another time but it's such a contrast experience that after that you had more of a purpose for meditating and working with the Course because it was just like the old way wasn't going to serve anymore and that was painful very painful I really like debilitating too totally I showed myself that my way didn't work in a very graphic way I'm going from really headstrong and stoppy too when your wrists are broken and you have to be like little birds open them out eat me it seems that's kind of a very humbling experience when you're used to being independent and doing everything for yourself that's a good example of one of those contrast experiences you have to go from independence to depainment and even from intellectual to my path involves supreme intellectual I'm going to figure this out when I'm going to get it and as soon as I understand it I'm done I needed an experience that showed me it doesn't work that way so I went on this trip to Portugal with three kids and their mother and I was just kind of like an uncle hanging out with everyone and we went out swimming to the beach and apparently you're not supposed to swim there so one of the younger girls 16 I said don't go up too far and she started swimming out and I said are you okay? she said yeah I looked again and I'm like are you okay? she said yeah and I tried to come back in I grew up to only 30 meters she started coming and she couldn't make it she said can you come get me I swam out together and I started pushing her in with these waves exerting all my energy we're farther out to sea all I got enough energy for was to scream so I tried screaming as hard as I could I could barely get my hands out of the water and the mother couldn't hear the waves there was nobody around and I'm like I looked at her she looked at me nobody knew we were out there and we were being carried out to sea this is it I didn't think I was going to go this way I actually thought that was it and we just kind of like started shoulders and I started to go under and I couldn't breathe anymore I'm like well if I'm going to live it's up to God I can't figure my way out of this right after that thought as we were heading into the rocks on the other side the surfer comes out of nowhere and picks up her and I on the boards and saves us so right after the thought I can't do this by myself it's like God is nice apparently someone far away I always had seen my arms waving and had called out to one of the surfer and he came to us and picked us up and it was a transformational experience of like surrounding it to the intellectual way and I laid on the beach for like five hours thank you God thank you God yeah that's a powerful experience and it's like it sets you in a whole new direction of trust and a little depth trust I think had the thought well I'm done it wasn't a sense of fear everything else is a bonus yeah it's good you learn to let go of all expectations in every situation there was a singer-songwriter who traveled with me down in Great Carrier we heard some of her music I think in the beginning she had a daughter who was about maybe 10, 11 years old and one time down in Marie said well my daughter would like to and I would like to go on a little trip to you up to Michigan and meet some friends and my daughter would bring a little friend for another little girl about 10 or 11 as well and we all go together I said mind that would be great and so we got in the car up towards Michigan where we would stop at this kind of little campground area this lake and swim together and so forth and Donna Marie's daughter was in the back seat oh I don't feel so good mommy mommy I don't feel so good on the trip and then threw up all on the lap of the other little girl and we were both sitting in the back seat so I was like whoa so I pulled over to the service station come on let's get in here let's get you cleaned up cleaned up and everything and back in the car we got a problem I'm on a little bit further we may be going another 40-50 miles ahhhh ahhhh okay come on let's get you cleaned up there clean them up clean them up in the back of the car we could have another 40-50 miles ahhhh the cycle and the little girls over there with the towel they were taking us there so this goes on for a number of 3-4 times and I think it's you get up there and Donna Marie who's like of course your miracles teacher and finger she's just like oh and so she's like oh just got a thriving headache it's all the mother concepts and the should-o's and the would-o's and the could-o's and should be taking this trip you know all the hypotheticals whirling around and what could have been different what could have I done different and you know false empathy proceeding the pain of the little girls and all this and this so we finally get up to Michigan and we get to the lake and I'm like okay come on let's get our swimsuits on and everything and the girl's like weeee and so when I got mine on I was like uhhhh get away you know but it was all this perception you know it was like I didn't see a problem and you know how kids are they went through whatever they went through and they were thrilled but we made it to the lake to get out there and go swimming and they were jumping around and believe as if nothing had ever happened you know just like you know the girls are the way they're just so in the moment so but it was just a good another good symbol about how you really just have to let go of the judgments and the roles you only upset yourself you only get yourself a headache or whatever seemingly when you hang onto these judgments and roles and expectations and there's really no need in any situation you know to really buy the bank you know because that's where the struggle comes in it's great being on kids so so many experiences little book I don't know it's only in New Zealand got on highly really nice little book when you said about it it was got on so poor got on highly yeah one time I was in Indianapolis I think or maybe St. Louis was giving a talk to a pretty large group of most of them were psychotherapists and I told the story of how one of my students one time said oh David I can't think of anything better for my two children than to let them let you come up and house sit and let them spend like a week with you that would be the best gift I could give my children and so her husband was a pilot so we're gonna fly out and go off to some resort somewhere and leave you with the kids the house and the kids for a week we trust you with our kids for a week and everything should be a great experience for them and so they said okay we're gonna give you some money in case you guys want to go out and you know just enjoy yourself and the time with the kids and everything and also they flew off for a weekend and so basically it was a very it was like oh so much play immediately they wanted to rearrange all the furniture in the living room and they all got blankets and sheets and built like a little fort inside the house and they were hanging down there and the play all kinds of imaginary games came out in the smiths and then we were lost track of the time the days the morning would go the day would go and everything and then we finally get to the dinner time and I say well you went for dinner and they go McDonald's Monday night Tuesday night McDonald's Wednesday night McDonald's Thursday night McDonald's Friday night McDonald's and of course they had play land over there and they as children will do they will try to test out your boundaries they were like they were like they always like tests to see what they can get away with and I I'm gonna say it's not a judgment they put me on a horse one time in Argentina and the cursor went ahead and the guide went ahead and my horse was going off and the horses would go along and if they wanted me to beat the horse or actually strike the horse I was mad, what's the point of striking a horse I don't even care where the horse takes me I'd say so they were pushing back the cursor went off and the guide was going off on the horses and then they looked back Fartolo they were screaming at the horse and me, David Fartolo we were deviants but I'm not gonna be getting a horse I don't care what they say so I was with the kids we had a joyful time together and the kids were like really loving it because it was like it was non-judgment there was no boundaries, there was no limits and they were playing, having good time in McDonald's every night and this and that and so at one point the children got so happy so happy that they were what you might call giddy they were actually getting they were so happy and I think the little girl and her brother was a couple years younger, the little girl went and spit and I remember I had that beard that you saw in there so I remember just in slow motion I could see the little goober you couldn't have a camera on that, I had a slow motion see the goober flying over and landing in the beard and I remember just in total joy looking at the whole thing following it over and landing in the beard and then of course they'd look again to my face and my eyes to see is this is this wrong or is this bad or whatever and when I just kind of smiled back it was like spit bath so her and her brother spit was flying all over the place we all had a nice spit bath my name showered thank you so much I was telling this story to the 30 psychotherapists who were going they were shaking their head I was saying Dave there's no sense of boundaries here this is destructive you've just been destructive in the children's lives and all this and this and I said oh no no I said you have to understand what the point is the point is non-judgment it's reaching a state of course animals feel that you know you have animals come up to you when you're in a state of non-judgment non-fear children jump in your lap you know they want to play they feel connected and joined because the state of non-judgment is a natural state the state of control and rules and whatever is an ego state so people they gravitate so I told that and it helped the psychotherapists what kind of role modeling is that what kind of you know what were you modeling for these children there and I said that's not how it works we think we learn from behaviors but really it's all telepathic you have the beliefs you have the thoughts in your mind and then the world witnesses to your thoughts and your beliefs it's not like children don't really learn from the behaviors of their parents or their siblings it's all going on in terms of beliefs and thoughts in terms of visuals learning, you don't really learn from behavior so it really is no such thing as role modeling but in fact you know a lot of times children they feel a hypocrisy the parents are making up all these rules and saying it should be this way, it has to be this way I'm in control as long as you live in my house it's my way or the highway and this and that and then the children see the hypocrisy of the parents breaking a lot of their own rules and then start to think why should I follow you who puts you in charge of me who says you can make up the rules it's because you've got a bigger body gives you the right, you know the rebellion part will come out so anyway we had a great great week in fact they had so much fun that they weren't like saying do we have to let the parents back do we have to let them come back in the house but it was good because then when we got back we were both integrating discussions with the student and their husband because you know the children had learned so much in terms of being intuitive and flowing with their intuition and and there was a time too where I took the little the boy came down to see me in Cincinnati and we went to see this movie called Little Buddha and in the scene there's a transformational scene where Mr. Hartha goes from being a man into the Buddha he has to face all these temptations coming out and sitting under the Bodhi tree and facing dancing girls and flaming arrows and all kinds of temptations of the world and little Matthew he was maybe like seven or eight years old he had a very strong voice so he wanted to sit with me in the movie theater while we were watching this very metaphysical movie and basically his mother said okay, you can sit with David but you have to sit in the front row because sound will travel you can't be in the back talking to David in the middle of the movie he'll disturb all the other patrons so he sat in the front row we sat next to each other we're watching this movie Little Buddha and finally Mr. Hartha's there just sitting there in the Bodhi position very still and all these temptations are coming out the script is deterred by all these temptations and everything and little Matthew is sitting next to me and he looks up to me in the middle of the movie and he points at the movie stand and he says that's a powerful mind and I said to him yes, yes it is so we watched more and more temptations come so Hartha doesn't say doesn't move anything little Matthew says I will have that my mind is 7 year old he's watching the movie yes, yes indeed so then we watched a little bit more of the movie and said Hartha is like a rock he's not stazed by anything that the world is throwing at him I am that mind I am ah yes, yes indeed it was like people sometimes say that children can't be spiritual this ego development and this and this and this but I see that children are just symbols of a state of mind so I had no parameters on the thinking of the child as a child it's just a reflection of my mind so in that sense you just everything can be used for the maximum you don't have to talk to children as if it's their children if you can release your mind from the beliefs of children or children and see that everything is a reflection of your own mind then to that extent they can reflect back to you what you have in your mind as well free them those are very powerful off the time with us these children we had a number of powerful experiences we just took the pram and so the kids can be just tons of kids the same little boy would when the ice would melt in the spring the bay would be extremely cold because the ice had just melted and he would go out swimming and people would like look out like in March and this bay up in Michigan they would be just like looking at him and almost in total disbelief this little seven year old boy was out there swimming in these waters and they would actually walk up and that's the walk like this just seemed real but again that was just another good sign of mind over matter he was very happy and very affected it just shows how working on the mind training and parents is deceived you have to buy into the the parents good example was the parents like the the week that they were away when the parents come back what was the relationship then was the parents into the calves Ronda was the student of mine and her husband Tom he was open enough he would later be open enough to having me and a group of people come up there and having like a little community in the house I would say they were very, very open to these ideas and it really was very good for discernment like for example Ronda had this thing where she did not feel comfortable with the children watching a lot of violent cartoons or violent movies sitting there and she was the course student she had discomfort around that and then her husband who was not in the course would say what's the problem you know if it's all an illusion and it's all just a bunch of images why should we care whether kids watch these movies or not he would say I grew up watching cartoons all the time Tom and Jerry back and forth they would fight and fight and he would say look how I turned down and she would say yeah look how you turned down you know we get deeper into the discussion and it was again we'd have these discussions like well we have to go much deeper because she intuitively was feeling that their minds were not trained sufficiently to just sit there and watch TV with what seemed to be violent movies just didn't feel intuitively right and so we had to take a look and I said well it's not the movies per se but it's like yeah I think it's good that we don't feel to just leave the children there unsupervised constantly watch those kind of things all day I suggested to them then if there's a particular movie or something that could be instructional watch it together as a family or carry out to the S questions and let the spirit pour through and use if you're going to have that kind of a movie or whatever use it occasionally as a teaching device where you can discuss no different than the children see something on the news and go mommy why did that happen or this and this and it could be an inroads to a deeper discussion and actually I have a friend Alex who's in Sweden and he was saying how do I work with my children and he took it really far he was going through of course the miracles with the three children were like five and seven and maybe eleven twelve at the time particularly the seven year olds he was so tuned in they were working course lessons together and at one point I was in Sweden a series of gatherings and again I was put with like thirty psychotherapists out in the woods of Sweden they showed in the movie I Heart Huckabees but before the gathering started I had this little seven year old blonde girl Sofia who looked like a little teeny miniature of Madonna like a little seven year old Madonna come out and that her father had taught her this course they made a song up about nothing I see means anything they had a nice little tune to it and they sang it in front of these thirty psychotherapists and the psychotherapists were like blown away then we showed them the movie I Heart Huckabees which was very funny but very metaphysical and that just opened the discussion most of these psychotherapists weren't even never heard of course the miracles before but by the end they were just lit up and glowing so it was all disorchestrated they had this very funny movie and this little seven year old singing a version of the lesson number one from the course and that got them hooked them into so the psychotherapists got to have ground rules and the children when they was introduced to the course in miracles it completely changed their perception it definitely puts them in that direction they're listening from a lot of their conditioning so when they go on and deal with patients it would be totally different I think they all come not all of them but a lot of the psychotherapists come from problems and so if you battle in a way at the problem the course of the report obviously there isn't it I imagine there's much going for a loop because I think they're concerned that it's fixing something I think it's quite interesting because my friend Alex for example he was trained in psychology he and his partner Anna were psychotherapists and the deeper they got into the course you know Anna was used in many ways in her counselling skills and she was drawn beyond that now she's working with kids and two foster children they both were guided by the Holy Spirit out of the whole psychotherapy field they're no longer even in the field anymore but they went through a series of ways where they were used the Holy Spirit would come through them and then finally I think Alex got to the point where he was working with a patient and he let all this teaching come through and very rarely would he even mention the course in miracles kind of context but the woman kept asking him is there any additional reading is there any additional materials and books that I could read please please so he mentioned the course in miracles well some older psychologist found out about it and they basically decided that he was in malpractice and that he should be blocked from in from the field and initially he called me and he said this is kind of like a major lesson here it's almost like I seem to be under a siege or under attack just even mentioning the phrase the course in miracles over here and they he kept saying there's just a forgiveness opportunity and he would meet with them but they were very determined and it got to a point where he tried to almost kind of put up a little bit of a defense and it's just nothing that's happening he was guided out of the whole field and then now he has foster children and he can read the course and other materials and meditated home as much as he wants and Holy Spirit guided him in a way in a direction that he couldn't have even foreseen but he's there and he and his partner have many many opportunities but these five children for trusting and listening and foster children that come and go and so it's all being used for undoing the ego but sometimes the ego can get set by, wait a minute, I went through all this psychological training and I thought sure I was going to be a psychotherapist and then the script takes a big turn in a whole other different direction and if you can relax and just move with it then you see it's beautiful everything that's happening is all part of a beautiful plan and when you judge it and you think wait a minute this is a bad outcome how dare they and that's when the ego gets all stirred up but if the you know they don't move away from being a psychologist and scared within that it's like going back to the drawing board within psychology for example there's many you know the therapist yeah many therapy modalities from stimulus response all the way to more behavioral all the way to cognitive therapies and then I would say humanistic and transpersonals but yeah they got much more into cognitive therapies which is thoughts changing your thinking rational and loaded therapy and those kind of things and then moved more towards transpersonal therapy which is actually designed to undo the ego it's actually a field of psychology the great spiritual wisdoms and that it's not problem oriented it's actually designed to help you undo the ego and there are many transpersonal psychologists that study the course around the world that integrate the course into their practice so it's highly individualized we were talking about that a little bit earlier this morning at breakfast it's like it's highly individualized on how the Holy Spirit will guide you and prompt you so we can't say that there's set guidelines and rules that people should necessarily leave professions which professions it's kind of like what we were talking about with relationships it takes a lot of discernment about staying in a relationship or moving on from a relationship and it's not something we should make like rash decisions and hasty decisions you know we should really pay attention to the signs and symbols and consult the Holy Spirit and not get tricked by the ego into thinking you could just simply move on from a profession or a relationship and find relief in another haven this is like the Course is saying there are no havens in this world you can't find a haven from guilt on a battlefield it would be like a war scene you know doesn't this flying tanks bombs and everything and you're looking around for a haven right on the battlefield and Jesus is saying don't even try it this world is like a battlefield and you need to go for the haven in your mind go for the haven of non-judgment go for the haven of forgiveness of changing your perception where you will find safety and you will find a true haven but sometimes people go for it in relationships they think oh I just gotta find me a peaceful mate and they get there and they go yikes what's this where did this monster come from I thought you were a peaceful mate so you see how you have to go inside for for the healing and for the haven when we talk about Jesus we can talk about him any particular thoughts yeah it's memories from what's I I just got a memory of a particular event how I treated my son and also some cream from last summer when I took care of these two other children when I really wasn't in that state there was so much going on in the world and taking care of children but this thing Victor when he had he and his friend had this place here a place a place a place and I had to go to buy something to take it out and I was in a hurry and Victor he often was so stubborn he didn't want to come with me and I knew that this store would close in a particular time like I was in a hurry I couldn't wait for him to decide and he was so stubborn and this other mother waited for me to go to buy these things for me it wasn't important because I didn't really believe it was a problem but I had I had believed that I was I had to do things for others so I had to go anyway and I said to my son I really need to go now if you want to come with me or not and he just cried and said I don't want you to go he stayed in bed and I said I'm going now and he was screaming and crying and I went out to the car and I felt so much guilt and I went off with the car and I didn't see that he came out running and he was raining and he came out in his clothes and he just cried and he ran out to try to to come with me I didn't even see him so I went off the car and I was away for one hour so and I returned and he was still crying and I said you didn't see me I wanted to come with you I didn't see I just I just felt guilt it was something different so if we listen to that and you take an end of the feeling of guilt and how it played out in this map the trick that the ego uses is the ego wants you to feel guilty based on the form of something that you did think you shouldn't have done or something that you didn't do that the ego would say you should have done so it wants the guilt to be associated with the form and what you learn as you work more with Jesus in the Course is the guilt always comes from the thoughts in other words just in reliving this memory occurred a while ago how many months or years two or three years and then the emotion is still feeling an emotion coming out of guilt and also now a left hand so he's over in Sweden and you're feeling guilt so if you take the guilt the guilt's not coming from any of the behaviors because it would seem on the surface but the guilt is coming from the thoughts of harming responsibility and so forth and of all the children in the world that this seems to be as the six billion people there's lots and lots of children you have guilt around this particular child which is called Victor not so much with the other children you don't have the current memories of guilt with other children but it's like and what is that based on a little further you can see that it's based on the self-concept that once you come to this world you fall asleep the ego makes up a substitute identity and whether we're identified as father, mother, sister, brother whether we're identified as Course in Miracles student Course in Miracles teacher as a Swedish person or a New Zealander Australian, American and so on and so forth this concept that's made up of all these different concepts becomes the false identity and then we've got this false identity this mask that you wear in this world and with this mask this mask is very volatile it's very it feels unworthy it feels like it's never good enough and so if we pick an aspect of the mask the aspect is we'll use his mother and that's another concept mother is a concept it's not a reality it's a concept and then when you look at that concept and it's part of an identity then there's an ideal that's attached with that in the sense of being a good mother and there's a lot of guilt with being a good enough mother how good is good enough if you want to use it or you can pick other concepts but the ego has made up these concepts and they're like ego ideals and whenever you judge yourself is not living up to the ideal of the ideal of an ideal mother or an ideal father or so on and so forth then that judgment is a self-criticism in a judgment and that judgment is where the guilt is coming from not from anything that happened on the screen to use the example we were talking about last night if you went to visit like a mass murderer in a prison how would you see that innocence except having to overlook everything about them and seeing them as if seeing them for the very first time without a past that's how you would see their innocence and it's the same in this kind of thing where as long as you're identified in that self-concept of mother and as long as you hold Victor in that relationship then there's going to be guilt over did I do enough, did I do the right thing there's an evaluation that's being held in with that memory and that's where the guilt's coming from and it's very strong and I can think too that I need to pay him back I owe him something and when I pay that back then I can see then I can let go of the concept I remember we talked about this about a year and a half ago and when you went back to Sweden you found yourself trying to do exactly that trying to pay him back trying to be the good mother go to the football games attend do the things that a normal good mother would do and did that to leave you out of the guilt so again we start to see that only forgiveness is going to heal this thing no matter how you play act, no matter how much you try to live up to the ideal did I do enough, it's like saying was that enough did I love him enough did I do well enough did I pass the did I get back into heaven was I a good enough mother was I a good enough father even with Course in Miracles teachers they get into working with the book am I a good enough student did I do it well enough did I achieve enough with it did I reach enough inner peace will you let me back into heaven as long as we have these ego ideals which were set up by the ego and we try to live up to those ideals it's a trick we always judge ourself in comparing you know, the ego will say oh bad mother, there are many better mothers you've been a bad mother or so in the blank, bad father, bad this and it's through this mechanism of the mind of comparison that keeps the guilt in place and it's more of like an ego ideal the concept of a mother or an ideal mother is kind of a concept that is set up by the ego that you can never fully reach and attain it it's set up as a guilt trap to keep you to keep the guilt in place to actually see the concept as the release of the guilt once you can see the concept for what it is and then you feel a sense of happiness and joy and freedom because that's what forgiveness is it just sees the false as false then you are open to receiving guidance and of course this guidance will bless the whole universe it will bless Victor, it will bless everyone a happy you a guilt-free you an innocent you who's going to be the greatest blessing for the whole universe in fact that will change all the relationships what I would always do is I see it as special so for example when I first started traveling with the Course in Miracles I would call home talk to the mother, talk to dad talk to grandma talk through and I felt still the sense of missing them or a sense of longing for things to be different and so forth and then I would just ask myself gee that's kind of interesting that I keep thinking about them out of the 6 billion people what makes this handful of people so special why are they so special and unique why am I so unconcerned with most of the 6 billion and so concerned with this few handful of people it's because well there's an identity and mom and dad it's my sister and then I would start to take it in deeper towards what is my calling and my calling was to go deep inside and just to expose this self-concept that was made up by the ego and then the more I started to travel I started to get this feeling in my heart that one child was all children but there wasn't such thing as a special child and even I had students who would travel with me and miss their children and only to find that when we would go to the gatherings these children would run up to them and it would jump them on to play with them and this and this and they started having this experience like wow I'm having so much fun with these children that are showing up at the gatherings and this is the Holy Spirit trying to teach me something here it was the same extending of love but it was like the forms were changing even though they were still children coming so you start to loosen and loosen from the idea of possession of ownership of the idea in the end of my child my child my spouse and that's what's going on and also you know when you have these opportunities to come together with Victor again it's again these golden opportunities to teach what you would learn to let the full extent of love pour through you but in a way that's not special it's not special to one body just to understand to really agree where she's coming from years and years ago what I want to show them I played a sport of judo and I taught judo and all that sort of thing and that's my children as well and we used to have the children's for us that used to teach them and they used to see it and my children, my other children and our venue was a big football bandstand and we were a wab in the top of it and one night my son was playing with other kids and he fell off the grandstand he ended up in hospital one with a factor of skull and it wasn't expected to live anyway he came through a lot eventually and it seems to change it and I think I'm carried to get up to that in my life because it wasn't actually there it wasn't anyway he used to lie now with married with five children and he has very very bad depression problems and I probably over compensated for years and I've always been there for him, I've always been there for everybody you know, I've been afraid of the whole thing anyway I've always been there for him probably more than anybody else probably because I felt guilty and he has a very big depression problem and he's often slope and maybe out of and he's felt suicidal times and he's in this very very big and here's a golden moment sort of thing he's a very nice person like a people giant I have probably carried this guilt in my life wondering if it was my fault that he did this and I can sort of see that it really wasn't my fault there was nothing I could probably do about it so I can see what he had come in from to a degree but I don't see that you have anything to feel guilty for you said one very helpful thing that you were there for him probably because you were so guilty yeah, well I did I felt guilty in my life and there's nothing I can do about it but I have to keep giving up and giving up but it has affected some aspects of my life those recurring thoughts could have been different could have been preventive and if you really trace those in it's like could I have been a better father underneath it and that's what I mean with these ego ideals I mean one time I was talking with a group up in Michigan and we were getting into this concept of guilt and people were just all saying how can we be free of this guilt it's deep it's not so deep, it's so intense how can we ever be free of it and I went around the room and I said okay I want you to all tell me what do you feel guilty for and there were people talking about guilt around their children the way they raised their children guilt about not paying back money for friends and people that they owed guilt about various mistakes that they'd made judgments and so on and so forth and I went around the room and listened it was like a guilt parade everybody was pouring out all the stuff that they felt so guilty for and in the meantime saying help us we're carrying this burden of guilt it's a very heavy burden to carry through life and so I said okay now we went around the room and I said what do you feel guilty for can you take it from the specific event that seemed to occur to what is the role that you were playing what is or what are the roles that you were playing and they talked about a father, mother, brother, sister a citizen they talked about all the roles that they were playing that was tied in to these events and I said can you see away that you could be completely innocent and completely go free and still maintain the roles and they all went around and said no, we can't I said very good this is a setup this world and these roles and these guilt feelings are all a setup by the ego to keep you from really experiencing love and true happiness and joy it's a big setup it's like a big giant game that was set up to maintain guilt that's why the world was made God didn't create this world and I've heard people for years they say David love makes the world go around it sounds kind of nice but actually guilt makes the world guilt drives this world when people say I'm afraid I can't have you you think it's going to get worse than this it's like the ego has generated a world of guilty relationships I could have done better I didn't live up to my parents' standards I didn't live up to my own standards I didn't make the grade I'm not good enough, I'm not worthy enough I wasn't a good enough mother I wasn't a good enough brother or sister or father I wasn't a good enough spouse it's like a setup that the ego has set up to keep the mind trapped and feeling guilty and what you start to realize is you will try to overcompensate and that doesn't even work those emotions, here you are Bill and here you are Jenny you're still feeling those tremors those guilt tremors still coming up and even when you try to overcompensate a good dad or an extra good mom that doesn't alleviate the guilt either because the idol the ideal is still held in place and the comparison is still going on and that's what's generating the guilt so we're getting and if we bring it back to what we've been talking about over the weekend we're back to those private thoughts again you can see in the movie last night Ed TV the guilt in the mother the guilt in Ed the guilt in the father the guilt in the sister when Ed's brother got on TV and said what was she doing in a bar anyway for Christ's sake she's an alcoholic right on national television it was all this guilt based on all these private thoughts and then we come back to the teaching of Jesus these private thoughts are not real you've been identified with these private thoughts and it's been hell you've been experiencing guilt and pain