 Well, it's great to be back up here in the Bay Area again, seeing old friends and new friends, and we just, this is kind of a spontaneous trip, so thank you for coming together on short notice, rather short notice. I felt that this would be a very spontaneous year for me, and so I just called Nikita not long ago from Mexico and said, hey, you want to meet me in California? She said, yeah, so we just come up from Southern California, and when I was down there, it just dawned on me that, yeah, I kind of come full circle, 25 years ago was when I started just trusting Jesus and going out and hitting the road and going wherever to meeting a lot of new people and going to a lot of new places, and Los Angeles was one of those, and it was 25 years ago that I came up through the Southwest and ended up here to the Bay Area. So I'm reenacting something very spontaneously that I've done before, just coming and shining and sharing and trusting, and it feels absolutely wonderful, just these gatherings coming together so spontaneously, and I call them like shatakas, where we just, they're like talks of enlightenment, of waking up to our true self and realizing who we are. So yeah, it feels wonderful to be here, and yeah, it's been a very good trip. We were taken in by a group of young people on a mountain when we were down in the LA area to Panga Canyon, so that was a lot of fun, kind of just to be right in the middle of a community and feel all the love and welcome. So coming out here, it just feels very wonderful and just want to be very available to open myself up to any questions you have or topics, and that usually the time flies by so fast, when we start to get into these very deep Course in Miracles topics and to the healing, and yeah, a lot of our discussions have been very deep and relating to beliefs and thoughts and how when we give our lives over, they become very transparent expressions of the One, and they become so guided that everything feels very easy and involuntary and there's no sense of trying to figure anything out, a state of acceptance, and there's a sense of peace with that acceptance. Every moment is new, it's like meeting yourself for the very first time with no reference to a past, and therefore every moment is very fresh and clean and crisp and clear, and you feel open and a strong sense of innocence with that as well, and so yeah, it's wonderful to come together in the joining of coming to that innocence and coming to feel really good about who you are and who everyone is, letting go of all the negativity, the attack odds. Yes? How did you get into the Course? Myself? Yeah. I came to California about five years prior to these travels, and I was out at a Humanistic Psychology conference, it was Carl Rogers' last speaking engagement, and there was a lot of Francis Vaughn and a lot of trans-personal psychologists out there, and I had planned to go to a number of talks, and then I went down where the psychologists were selling their CDs and DVDs and books and so forth, and I began talking to two students of the Course in Miracles that were students of Tara Singh, and so I started canceling a lot of the programs that I had intended to go to because I kept being drawn down to the same table every day intuitively, and there was a videotape playing, and Tara Singh was speaking of things that I had, like, realizations I'd come to and insights, but I'd never spoken to anyone, so it was almost like they'd be spoken back to me, and I said, this is amazing. So then I went to South Burnside Avenue where they have their Foundation for Life Action, I ended up buying a Course in Miracles, Tara Singh's book Nothing Real Can Be Threatened, and Ken Wampick's book Forgiveness in Jesus, so I had the Course and two nice little companions to go along with it, and yeah, it felt like kind of like going to that Foundation for Life Action, it was like that TV show This Is Your Life, the photos on the walls, the people I met, the sayings, everything went into slow motion, like it was like a calling kind of thing, like, ah, doesn't matter what you've ever done in your life or where you've been, it's going to all be different from this point, and so I went back eventually to Cincinnati and had a huge immersion of reading the book for about eight hours a day on the average for two and a half years of using it almost like an oracle, was answering so many questions just by popping it open, so yeah, that's how it happened in 1986, so it's 30 year anniversary for me with the Course and 25 years out on the road with just listening to Jesus guide me where to go, what to do, putting words in my mouth, and convincing me of holiness, of all of our holiness and all of our innocence, so it's been a really great ride, and then we had some amazing, Nikita came calling, came visiting when you were about 29, came out to Utah, and then before this trip she just felt so much energy, like she just couldn't sleep, she had all this energy, like she had to give it away and extend it, so she was praying out loud when I called her and said, why don't we go to California, and she was like, yes, because she felt like she was going to explode, so she needed this road trip, so we would love to get into any kind of areas or topics or anything. We lived very transparent lives, like Sundari said, it became apparent that the key to forgiveness, and you might say making the conditions of the mind ripe to accept this great gift of forgiveness, that is a gift that's different than traditional forgiveness, and it's really seeing the impossibility of wrongness, the impossibility of error taking us beyond interpreting meaning in bodies, as if bodies could do anything wrong or anything right for that matter, as if this world could contain anything positive or negative for that matter, you know, it's a system of like emptying the mind, clearing the mind of all debris, and really having no other goal other than the peace of mind, the peace of God, and so it was just the young people down in Topanga, Kenya were asking for like tips on practicing the workbook and diving deeper into devotion, and yeah, there was a lot of talk about devotion of just being very single-pointed and then just letting the Spirit go before you with everything, providing everything you need. When the Course says, forget this world, forget this Course, come with open arms unto your God, it really means that you have to come into a place of stillness where you don't value anything of this world at all, no skills, no abilities, no seeming possessions or the very concept of possession, the idea that we could possess anything, and so to the ego it seems very radical, but my experience has been is I've just given myself fully over that it feels very natural. I even met a mother of the man who invited me to Topanga, Kenya and she I think had been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and after she heard me talk for a couple hours I was laughing and sharing happiness and joy and she said that's the way I live, it's just this diagnosis that tells me I've got something going wrong in my life and I said yeah that's the thing, any kind of judgment that we hold about ourself or about any person or anything in the world is like diagnosing ourselves as something other than a child, a perfect child of God. So yeah I could see how the Spirit has used my education, my travels, ten years of university and all kinds of things just to you could say they're just like symbols that are pointing and expressing a life of so much happiness and so much joy and so much connection that is very very natural. It's not like you don't have to really do anything to achieve it or attain it, it's more like it's just getting out of the way and becoming more humble and more humble and more humble and coming to rest in a state of natural beingness and everything's given, even the words, even these words are just given. It's the desire too that everything you think and say and do teaches all the universe so you want to bless the universe with everything you think say and do. That's what a child of God does, it's a part of our creation is to be a blessing and in this world it comes out in terms of letting the light shine through you in what seems to be cleaning and clearing your perception, clearing all the debris away. So it's been a beautiful journey. So do you feel like you have a shortened path to forgiveness or do you feel like you've moved beyond what you need for forgiveness because you are actually judging in the first place? I would say that forgiveness is very very natural and I was just telling them at lunch today I was in Mexico a couple years ago and they had this quantum machine that was telling me all kinds of things and the two ladies that were administering the test, I said I'll go in there by this machine but actually one of the questions for the machine was what percentage of David's life purpose has he accomplished? And the machine said 100% and they said well we've never seen that and all the years we've been administering this test but the 100% is more a state of complete trust and relaxation. It's really the trust that goes hand in hand with the forgiveness. When you're trusting like it says in the course the Holy Spirit will go before you and make straight your path and leave no stones to trip on or obstacles to bar your way and that's kind of a surreal kind of a fairy tale kind of life and after I kind of went through some things of pride and not willing to accept things, thinking I had to earn things and do things on my own. Those were the most difficult lessons at the beginning when I didn't have a job and I didn't know how I would be provided for in form but I felt I was told just trust me and I will go before you and make it very clear. Those were the most difficult times was letting go of the past conditioning and letting go of the Protestant work ethic and letting go of the idea of savings, the idea of earning, the idea of trying to be practical in the ways that I had been programmed to be practical and just giving over to present trust and practicing not knowing what would happen but trusting and keep trusting and not knowing. So I would say that forgiveness is something that is a living experience that's in my heart. I have enjoyed in recent years too just symbols of those that are practicing forgiveness. Some of you know of Ho'oponopono and Dr. Hugh Lynn who lives out here in California and before he would have a retreat he would look at the names of everyone who was coming on the list to clean his mind. That's almost like a pre-forgiveness before you meet the people, forgive the people, let go of everything you think you know even about a name if you have a reaction to a name. Okay forgive, clean that one. I like the thoroughness of that. I feel that forgiveness is whole and complete and somebody asked me at lunch today you know about if I had any negative thoughts or anything and I said no actually I haven't had a bad day for, it's been so many years I don't even remember when my bad day was, my last bad day. It's very free-flowing, it's equated in of course in miracle terms with real world or true perception or the forgiven world or the happy dream, Jesus says it in many different ways, but it's just a state of non-judgment. Not that you've done, you've stopped the judgment, it's more, it's just the mind is very still, it doesn't have the static. That voice that was always judging and worrying and sizing things up and whatever just got quieter and quieter over the years, it's more like it faded, it was still trying like a little mouse squeaking over there occasionally trying to draw some attention, but by pouring myself into the trust of the Spirit and just being guided and led in countless times and floods and miracles over years and years and years then the whole purpose of all that was to have a merge take place where you feel one with the Spirit and you realize that you're not a body and neither is anybody else. You realize that you can't hold anything against anybody else in a sense because it's just one mind experiencing itself. It's a unified field of awareness and so that's another way of describing forgiveness, the quantum field that they talk about in quantum physics where everything's completely connected. So that's been something that is involuntary and that just continually expresses whether it's just in quietness of prayer or whether it's speaking and I have to say that as I came into this year that I've had much more quiet time and not really knowing what this year would bring and then it just kind of came in a strong feeling to come here to California and I know for you it was a big big yes like you were just waiting for that jump right in. I was waiting but I didn't expect anything. Did you say something about happy surprises? Yeah it was like either it was the same day just felt like everything was so quick that I kept I was like hmm I was sensing there's the sense like like because everything got so quantum everything and there's like all these reflections like it's almost like we've been here before it's like everything is just like oh I know like I've seen this before I've seen this before and I was like it's all the same but something's different and like there are happy surprises this time like expect happy spontaneous surprises of the spirit like spirit is going to throw something at us that it's going to be like wow like wow where did that come from and this and so I went and I just told everyone and and then first there was a bit of like fear because it's like happy surprises like in disguise like as in like oh we don't want like like what are we supposed to wait for like a blessing in disguise or something like no no no real surprises like you will not it's like you won't help but recognize them it's going to be so mind-blowing and so as soon as I said that and we celebrated we're like okay like let's be open David Coles and he's and it's like would you like to come for a trip to California with me like right about now I was like I was like yeah I couldn't wow like that was a surprise and so and so it was like in that kind of a like that was the kind of vibe where it came from and I was like well this is something out of like like out of this world and then needless to say that like all he said was we're just going to meet in LA in a few days at 8 30 meet me at LA acts 8 30 a.m. I was like okay and then we'll just go where we go like don't know and then within the day everything got arranged like literally like it's like when you think like you know there's a tour you got to coordinate we even have a tour planner so for these kinds of things and then within the day everything got arranged and then and Ricky was calling me she's like um well may I help you I was like I had the same thought but I have nothing for you it's like it's just doing everything is just being done by itself I don't know what's going on like so yeah it's fun I think a lot of us have always felt that we would like the spiritual journey to be fun even though the darkness comes comes up it's not experienced as fun when the attack thoughts are passing through and those heavy dark feelings are passing through but the hope is always there and and I have to say that the spiritual awakening is really the experience of this beautiful teaching from the the bible it said all things work together for good for those that love the Lord and then in the Course in Miracles Jesus kind of clarifies it even further he really kind of firmly says all things work together for good there are no exceptions except in the ego's judgment so it's like you're watching this swirl of images and there's not a sense that things could be different than they are the wisdom of just seeing that all things are working together for good that's another workbook lesson is let all things be exactly as they are it says it in a lot of different ways but it's basically a sense of acceptance you have no inclination you have no ambition you have no desire to change the world you have no desire to fix people you have no desire for one political outcome or another political outcome or one economic outcome or another economic outcome or one ecological outcome or another it's it's a state of acceptance and it seems radical but it's actually the most natural state that there is it's actually fun to have no opinions about anything it's actually fun to be able to when somebody asked you a kind of a complicated intellectual question or something real scientific or whatever to say I don't know and to feel wonderful about it with a big smile on your face I don't know I don't care to know I'm not interested in knowing do you have opinion on this politician no we were at lunch today and the the question came to Nikita you know like oh where's that accent from oh originally Russia and this and this and oh you know you've been back yeah a couple visits and uh do you have like relatives and friends and relatives in Russia no they're all dead they're all dead so you know it just okay well it was very direct new train of thought new new direction there but you know it was that very matter of fact and I find that spirituality the spirit is very matter of fact you know your yeses mean yes your nos mean no uh you don't have all this wishy washy hemming and hawing it's it's quite simple moment by moment the yeses come out as yeses and the nose come out as nose and you have a big smile on your face with them even with the nose you know it's not there's nothing negative about no uh or positive about yes it's the spirit can equally come in with either one and the bible said that lets your yeas be yeas lets your nays be nays I don't quite know how to ask this but uh I haven't involved for a number of years with a new school and what I'm wondering is something about a course in miracles as applied to young children it's like in some ways they get it like their parents don't get about how to be and how to live but they are also incredibly susceptible to all the stuff that's whirling around that makes the ego what it is and I wonder if you have any thoughts on you know is there you know anything to you know apply the course of miracles or the principles of it to them in their daily lives that would be beneficial to them or yeah I think ultimately it comes back to one's own mind training and one's following the guidance and and not making exceptions but yeah children are are symbols and mirrors and they're amazing mirrors and uh I've always had a real kind of open uh field towards children in the sense that like this uh gathering I did down in uh Southern California I think there was some discussion early on about can this woman Christa bring her baby and uh sometimes this thing about gatherings or satsongs or whatever about you know not having um babies or crying babies or whatever you don't see many videos in muji with crying babies or or accurately you know they just edited that out or they they say no it's not the time to have of that in there but uh we had a baby and uh two dogs uh and um and the woman who brought her baby was was holding her baby and playing the guitar and singing at the same time and the baby was just it was calling out in the Holy Spirit invoking the Holy Spirit and the baby was verbal and and bouncing and almost like the dancing baby like in Allie McBeal uh it just the baby was activated and and everybody now as you could just see was just so connected they're just faces just lit up with uh this mother singing and the baby jumping and and so verbal and everything and and then of course we and the dogs were very much a part of the whole thing you know what it really is is as we get so focused on peace of mind when that becomes our priority and we had that out front Jesus has a section called setting the goal where he says if you have the goal out front you will perceive everyone and everything as helping you achieve that goal so it's all inclusive almost like you throw out like a big net and it just pulls everyone in and everyone plays their part perfectly every screech from the baby every sound in the room every bark from the dog every question from a person or every single thing that's going on is absolutely in divine order because of the purpose that's out front and if you don't hit that purpose out in front then the ego just turns around and says do i like this or not it's just always judging things positively and negatively is it good is it bad and it it can be that i mean that's good mind training if there's anybody in the room that had an issue with the baby or had an issue with the dog or the noise or anything then that was just an opportunity for healing just an opportunity to release it so i have worked with students years ago and oftentimes we would just go off on like a little camping trip and they would bring their children and you were right they a lot of times they'd been listening to their parents talk about the course for years and so they the spirit was using them to help their parents again accelerate the healing they wanted to go swimming the parents didn't want them to go without supervision and they'd say what's wrong do you think we're bodies are you capable of drowned you know it's like they've been listening to so much course and miracles for so many years they just turned the screws in until the parents would just look at me and go you know like what is this happening what's happening here and just i said you know this is this is the healing you have this is putting it into application it's time to really apply it and so we you know it was the whole little camping trip turned into this amazing thing one year i was invited to sweden rural sweden to a farm by a group of parents the children are there and they wanted to apply the principles to parenting and so we did a whole parenting weekend in the sunshine in rural sweden and that's the only time i've done a gathering where actually i think it was the maybe the cat gave birth it was a parenting weekend and there was there was a birth that took place at the end of the weekend you know almost like jesus and the cosmic humor like oh it's yeah we'll throw this in too for you give you a birth and so it's important to apply it to everything in perception and in many ways children and indigo children and crystal children a lot of the children that are coming now are reflections of it's time to let go of this egoic system when i was in south america in argentina i went out in the rural areas and a lot of mothers who were studying the course came to see me one day and they said we are learning so much from our young very young children and so i had translators and i said please tell me what if you could summarize the the main lesson that the young children the infants are teaching you please tell me what it is and basically in english came down to you're done uh the children were saying to the parents this game of inequality of of parents having more power or controlling children this game is over you are done it is over and that was like a new wave coming in and they were thrilled because there's a lot of tension and fear and guilt and stress and worry tied in with believing you're responsible for these little bodies believing that that they're somehow inferior in some ways just because developmentally and physically they seem to be underdeveloped that says nothing about the mind that we share it says nothing about the spirit that we share that we are so yeah i feel for children coming in it's very important to include them in everything that you're dealing with in perception and that just helps speed the speed the process up and they're amazing reflectors it's like this weekend that was amazing a little baby absolutely amazing have you ever done anything with teachers like a group of teachers yeah in some senses i mean i've traveled and so there have been gatherings where people have been pulled together one time i was in a hall a big room with all mostly all psychologists and sometimes psychologist a group of psychologists and that was quite lively because a lot of conditioning with psychology that goes into being a professional psychologist is egoic and so it was very lively lovely session i've done sessions with groups of new age people and kind of numerologists and tarot and it's just been fun and i think a lot of times too with all the travel i do and the places i go i do interact with course of miracles teachers that or they might call themselves even facilitators that just are wanting to join together on on in the purpose and look at the nuances and where they have struggles one time i went to a course group and there was a lot of i walked into the group and there seemed to be all this divisiveness in the group and there was like an undercurrent of control and struggle and i could just feel it when i went into the room and then they were going to vote on a set of bylaws for their course group and it's unusual i had been to many groups i hadn't seen that one yet and then they were there were kind of back and forth arguing about the bylaws and so forth and i just i mean just sat and watched for a while and then finally some of the people said this guy david is here let's just see if he has anything to say and someone no let's go back we have to end this conflict and vote on the bylaws and this you know it's everyone's teaching and learning all the time it's our thoughts we're teaching and learning by our thoughts and so even the concept of teacher or teacher of god jesus refers to that's a concept that that will fall away as well i don't i don't hold any of those concepts in mind anymore the holy spirit can give me words that can still address things in a way that people can relate to them and hear them and certainly when i'm counseling with people it just kind of comes through in the way that's most helpful but there's no kind of uniform way and and those symbols can be there but i don't i don't hold those in my mind anymore or i don't think in terms of teachers and students i think in terms of thoughts and once i realize that that all the beliefs of this world that generated time and space including all the seeming different belief systems that people share are all equally false then i could let all that go too no need to try to figure out what somebody believes or there's no need to make a point no need to defend anything um that's why i always say you know as i go around i'm just as happy with atheists as i am with christians or with scientists or hindus or it doesn't be muslims it doesn't really matter to me at all because i'm in the experience of our connectedness so i see that those things can get used as symbols but they they don't really mean anything so maybe someday i'll get invited to you know like an atheist convention or something to atheists unite or something like wouldn't surprise me if that happens i would be very happy to go to atheists unite can you talk a little bit about differentiating between guidance and ego in control yeah it's well we learned from jesus in the course that this is a world of judgment and so the escape from this world and the giving up of judgment comes through the holy spirit so while the mind believes in duality while it believes in opposites then the holy spirit has to be judgmental to reach that mind because because the light is so abstract and the sleeping mind the judgmental mind doesn't can't can't relate to abstraction anymore so so really guidance the difference between guidance and and the ego is that that guidance is the the holy spirit's inspired use of symbols inspired use of words you might say a course in miracles is a very inspired use of words a lot of uh Shakespearean blank verse uh even though when i trail around the world they i just take all the complaints about the book you know what are these double negatives and why does they have to speak in such a thick language and masculine pronouns and oh yeah the world has its own reactions but it's i don't know i i thought when i first got the him in contact with the course i opened it up and i went well there's the last book on the planet that's the last book i'll ever read uh i felt that right away i thought and then when somebody said are you gonna write books i said heavens no look at this what you need to have a masterpiece like this you know it's like what do you need books for so when i had lunch today when i was leaving um we were in the parking lot and and one of the course of miracles teacher facilitators we met with saying David how many books have you written i said none uh because i don't write books i speak i just show up and let the spirit pour through me and everything and then people record it and transcribe it and put it into books but i never have sat down i said years ago i said i have no desire to write a book after the course i said that's enough it's enough that's got to be the last book i'll ever read in it you know it's so good that i it's like if you've got something that's so good why would you try to improve on it or sometimes i hear about the the the next step after the course and all these things you know the course even says this book has has this course has everything you need i take that literally i'm like i felt it i got i got it and i said yeah i don't need a bunch of other books i i had all these books on my nightstand you know and i just once the course came i was like okay pack them up i said i didn't even read the newspaper i quit reading the comics i quit reading the bubble gum wrappers you know the little things the little things the course is enough i like you were saying if you found something that you knew was the escape patch why not just put your full energy in it i didn't have to be dilly and around and and trying to find anything else so i knew when i picked up the course and i just could feel it i was like oh my god now i've got no excuses at all i can't say you could have been clearer or you could have explained things better you could have given me a systematic way to do it instead of a hit or miss way to think that no all my excuses were gone and then i thought good well that's good too that means i have to apply it now i have to really get busy with it so yeah i think that's the the thing that i take away from it is that it just it takes devotion and dedication but it's also to me very simple i took the course is like spirit speaking directly to me not that there was other books published and at the beginning of the course i used it more like an oracle like i said but while i was going through that process i didn't know anyone else who was even studying the course it felt like just a direct connection to source and i had to be honest with myself whether i was hiding whether i was resisting or whether i was eager and ready i it was like it was like between spirit and and this character david and it wasn't you know it wasn't complicated i am so glad that you you you said that because i i read the book for the first time probably about 10 years ago and i felt the same way i didn't really want to read it and i haven't but i but i judge myself for it and then i get heat you know i feel like i'm getting heat why when you read that book what what about this let's study this let's read that but my heart and my passion and my my wholeness of what i feel that i get the most from is that book only that book and i i don't have any other books in my house and i i was beginning to think there was something wrong with me so now i have a friend that feels the same way i do thank you for bringing that up because i was beginning to think that wow what's wrong with me yeah it's funny because you know even though it's i've had the course with me for like 30 years it's like just recently not too long ago i started just opening and going in presence and reading a section and recording it and reading a workbook lesson and then the spirit would have have some more things to add with it and putting those out and some someone wrote to me says i mean after 30 years you're you're reading this book and i said oh it's just an inspiration uh and and other people have said well you know the course you keep saying the course says seek not to change the world why do you travel to all these countries what are you trying to actually do by visiting all these countries and everything i said oh it's just involuntary i'm just having fun uh i i'm not actually trying to like convince anybody of anything or spread the word or whatever it's just i'm in my joy of just letting it come through in a very involuntary way and the glee and the joy you know i i always think our state of mind is really the teacher the words you know the words are just like the the window dressing they're just they come along they're added on and besides if you're not happy and joyful then who would believe the words anyway if somebody was teaching you something and they were really anxious and nervous and everything i mean even little children would probably go like what's wrong with him uh you know if there's not a sense of happiness and the words are about happiness and you're not happy so to me it's it's all about integrity you know i think it's it's best to be extremely simple with this extremely simple like i it helped me after those first couple years immersing into the course and reading the words of jesus and then all of a sudden i had the stream of thoughts just like Helen Shepman had and it was it was jesus in my mind telling me where to go what to do i mean it's like well talk about an easy life i mean that's the easiest thing to go through a day with jesus directing it i mean there's nothing easier than that and what i found too because it was so easy that that jesus would tell me things and uh i was i think you know in my late 20s at that time and then he came out one day and he said uh you're not going to have a career and and it i don't know about you but late 20s you know it's like to hear that maybe if he said it when i was like five or something or or something like that but but late 20s you know that's like those are your prime you're thinking a lot about a career in the late 20s and he said no you won't have a career in this lifetime i thought well that's going to be interesting i don't know how you're going to pull that one off but but actually it's gone that way even even when i came out here to san francisco and urban tony panacello he'd bite me out and then he started inviting me to these big national conferences i'm like the kid in the candy store i show up at these big conferences and there's like 500 people a couple times i'd had to speak in front of like a like 400 to 500 people and everything and it's like sitting there talking to my grandmother um it's got that you know it's just that heart to heart kind of feel like this isn't really a professional conference i'm not really a speaker here no matter what the the flyers or the programs say or whatever i'm there just having fun enjoying all the holy encounters with everybody i meet and it's fun and you get 500 course students and teachers in the same hotel uh up and down the elevators you know people come oh we're facebook friends you haven't met me yet but i know you or i watch your youtube and i know everything about you you don't know about me but i like you you know it's just it's fun fun it's just but it's real simple it's just the simple joy of holy encounters that he calls them they're just connections and then when you get up and they they introduce you and then you look out and there's 450 500 bodies it's just like speaking to yourself it's just like speaking to one person you know it doesn't it's not the idea of a crowd i don't even know what a crowd is uh because it's it's so intimate that's what the experience has always been my crisis right in our hearts closer than our breath it's so intimate and when we stay with that intimate simplicity that's it you can really relax and enjoy and have fun enjoy the ride and and only when the self-concept thought comes of thinking you have to do the right thing or say the right thing or concern about how somebody feels or whatever those are all just the chatter of the ego trying to take us out of this simple peaceful experience so your hand go that's you're actually talking about one of the questions i had but i was wondering did you ever go through i mean when you started just started letting go and following guidance did you ever did your mind like fight that did you go through any i think new sanchez talks about you know our flood in two different canoes and i find myself like i've been studying for about three years and i was doing pretty well for a while and then i started questioning things and that part of my mind would come up a lot and it has lately but i was just wondering since you were talking about your beginning experience with it if you have any words of wisdom or anything like that yeah i think the struggle i seemed to go through was i i was all excited about trusting but it was like a deep a deep thing to keep trusting you know it's and keep deepening in that trust and deepening in fact he's got a section in the manual for teachers called stages of the development of trust and i like that you put that in there because you know even though he says at one point in the course trust would settle every problem now okay he's talking about the holy instant however it's a course in miracles it's not a course in holy instance it's not a course in revelations it's a course in miracles we need to prepare our mind because if we don't prepare our mind and we don't take the steps that he offers us he says in the workbook that that in the later part of the workbook we will attempt a direct approach to god and if you aren't prepared then this direct approach will seem more traumatic than be specific so you know it would be like if you were getting ready for a like a chemistry test or calculus test or whatever and your professor said now study just study before you go go in there and take that final exam it's like it's not so much study for us with the course although that's helpful but it's practice i find it's you know the ego enjoys studying itself he says so so you know when he said that and i thought oh that that insidious puff of nothing clever insidious puff of nothing it did who got all these 1200 some pages to study and now the ego enjoys studying itself well that's you know you've got to be careful that you don't over intellectualize the stuff because then it doesn't get you anywhere so what you can write books and do workshops and seminars if you're not happy who cares it's the ego with a of course a miracle self-concept god this is a creepy insidious thing you know it just tries to latch on to anything or a teacher of god oh now you're a teacher of god you know you know and then the ego tries to make a concept out of that then you have to live up to that and that's crazy so yeah it was like i mentioned when i was traveling in those early years you know where i would be trusting following trusting following and then you just you have a doubt thought you feel annoyed you feel irritated you you feel distracted you feel bored you you know it's it's just going to try to take you off off the beam any way that it can and then jesus is practical he's got that rules for decision section in there in the back of this text you know where he he says decide the kind of day you want if you make no decisions by yourself this is the day that will be given you that's real simple too he has to add the other ones for when you forget that you want a happy day which happens you know and it's like oh that's right wait a minute wait a minute it started out really good today but it went really bad really quick and then it spiraled so so i have found that that i've just used the tools that he gave i mean i would really practice that that rules for decision when i came to it very diligently i would take that prayer that he's got you know at the beginning of the book i'm here only to be truly helpful oh did i use that on every time i'd go out to meet somebody for groceries laundry course meeting whatever every time i'd go through a doorway before i go the doorway i would just silently reorient my mind like oh i'm here to be truly helpful i'm here to represent who sent me and that was important because the ego was already as i'd come to the doorway it was always i wonder who's going to be here this meeting wonder if i'll see that one oh that was a pretty girl she was here last weekend oh she's back again what was your name okay i am here only to be truly helpful you know you you just have to like keep aligning and keep and be devotional about it and then practice it and practice it and you know practice takes you into an experience devotion you know i i thought this is important and at some point i thought i really am worthy of happiness and peace and joy i really am and so this is important and even with the ego chatter and the all the temptations and doubt thoughts and everything you know i would know this is important this is too important for me to waste waste a moment on something else yes don't wonder who we're talking about this because my mind has been going around this subject for a while now i remember um once i heard adia shanti say something like if you have a problem facing you right now in life don't sit and wait until you reach spirituality for that to solve it for for you to get to a place where this no longer is a problem face it right then because going through that will take you to where you want to go you know like enlightenment so that has always stuck with me because often in life when i had a i had a problem facing me i thought no i'm above this now i'm not going to try to fight this or fix it or change it you know because then my ego is going to get really active and i'm not going to do it the right way i don't trust myself anymore i'm just going to wait until i find a way or something will come to me and then of course the problem wasn't going away but lately um what has happened to me is that all of a sudden i had this insight that my biggest problem has been that no matter how much information i gathered i was still identifying somehow myself the self with the mind with the thinking mind there was no separation i was just trying to take this self this mind and make it enlightened so that i would no longer suffer even when you read the course and then you start reading it's a lot in there about the ego and it's it's not just all love and light it's really exposing and in jesus saying you made the ego by believing in it and you can dispel it by withdrawing your belief from it but it you have to let it come to the surface of consciousness to do that and and i just it's a counseling call today and and people go crazy when they start to see the defenses they start to see their patterns and that they never had seen before and then they feel even more worse like oh my god i've been doing this to myself for years and then they feel even more guilty and i said oh no it's it's just coming up into awareness but that's that's a good step and then there will come a step where you just see it for its nothingness you know you get really good it's laughing at it but it's just part of the process so i would say it's like i mean so many people who are doing the course and those they do get from the course that specialists is not good and they do get from the course that the special relationships are of the ego so they'll say oh i'm i'm through with special relationships i'm not going to ever get into another special relationship ever again i'm going to be really careful and make sure i don't do that and that's almost like a fish in the ocean saying i'm through with the water as they're swimming through it you know it's like it's a fabric of everything of time and space and this seeming personality self and this dualistic world is is so all pervasive that all you can do is call on the Holy Spirit and say i'm going to give this to you the whole thing i need really a lot of help and then you use the specialness to unwind me from the specialist in other words when you try to go cold turkey on it you know it's like trying to go cold turkey not on cigarettes or on eating cake or something but cold turkey on the whole cosmos oh yeah i'm going cold turkey i'm quitting to tell your parents i'm quitting the cosmos tonight i've had enough of it you know but that's actually that's how pervasive and vast it is you know so so there has to be a confidence and a trust like i found the more i trusted the more light i felt the more happy i felt the more joyful i felt it was a it was a turning around of changing the purpose for the world from one of hatred and fear and attack to one of forgiveness and and love and peace and that all of us who have tried like even to to lose weight or to quit smoking or quit drinking you know all of us who have tried to shift our behavior behavior modification know how difficult that is imagine trying to shift your mind that you've been addicted for millennium to fear and now suddenly you're going to flip over and become aligned with love it's it's a big turnaround so we do need to be gentle with ourself we do at times we need to be vigilant uh jesus says you're much too tolerant of mind wandering when he said that i said okay well then let's let's pay attention here to the thoughts pay attention to the emotions whereas i was so caught up in outcomes and forms and appearances i wasn't paying attention to my state of mind i would just gradually notice i was getting angry or upset and then i'd say where did that even start i wasn't paying attention when those first judgments and comparisons first started to come in and then you start to you do you do need to gain a confidence like i developed with jesus this thing called instrument for peace where i developed like a 12-step worksheet where it starts off with what you're perceiving what you're feeling what you're thinking and so forth and then it it literally takes you through the steps with the Holy Spirit of getting in touch like oh everything i i think and perceive and feel is just a representation of what i want to believe to be true what is that i want to be right what do i want to be right about the whole cosmos in a fragmented way you know would you rather be right or happy would you rather be right about the way the ego set up the entire cosmos or be happy and that has many specific applications when we're talking to somebody we want to be right that's the same thing that's going on there do i want to be the author of reality or would i rather accept humbly that i was created by god that every second of every day we're working through that do i want to be the author of reality or was i created by god and i am a beloved child of a beloved creator it can't be both you know and yet the ego wants to convince us that we can be the author of ourselves we can make ourselves any way we want to and it just doesn't it never works so i think you can you know you're not you're not going insane you're going in towards sanity it's inward towards the sound yeah the the ego the whole system in fact in science you know it's the whole the whole cosmos is is moving towards chaos and so that's a nice symbol and we're pulling our mind away from identifying with the cosmos and with that that character and with that thinker in there so when you have something come up i think you can notice it and it could be an opportunity to choose again that you do have the power of choice i think that's the the workbook is is really the the application of the ideas so uh it was almost like in science class you know where we read the text and then we get to go into the lab and play with the the chemicals and mix the things and and find out for ourselves you know see what happens and that's really the way the workbook is uh it's it's actually a meditation training it's a mind training it's uh when you really put your faith in it uh you go for it so much and you start to have this feeling like wow this whole day seems to be in synchronicity with this lesson and jesus comes right out and says if you'll do miracles if you'll be a miracle worker i will arrange time and space for you wow nobody told me that mom and dad never talked about arranging time and space you know all these different career options but there's one where time and space get arranged i'm well that's good i want to go for that one that sounds exciting that sounds quantum and so and it happens i mean i had a raising the dead experience like jesus said where i literally watched a person who was dead and the paramedics had stopped working on him and then i felt all this energy the third eye and all this energy here and and my my lesson was rolling through my mind i was at a grocery store and i kept hearing these words over and over in my mind there is no death the son of god is free there is no death the son of god is free so when the raising the dead experience happened which is not your typical human experience i was like yeah it just was a perfect reflection of what was going on in my heart in my mind i was really giving myself over to that one there is no death the son of god is free and then the witness was there when i was working on lesson 136 you know sickness is a defense against the truth would you know it that was the day i had symptoms you know felt nauseous felt then a diarrhea feeling raced in on the toilet was ready for the diarrhea experience and all this and this and that my lesson dropped in sickness is a defense against the truth see how practical how orchestrated the symptoms and then here comes the answer here comes the opportunity to practice on that particular lesson so everything when you do your lessons you're really saying you know whereas in some systems you have a mantra and that can be very effective but also very repetitive jesus is mixing up the mantra 365 ways he's slicing and dicing you know he's like and some of his lessons are longer some are shorter review lessons you know he's mixing it up he's mixing it up he's keeping you on your toes you know with it every day i like that you know and the other thing i like about it is you can practice it as you move through the day no matter what you're doing it doesn't matter what your occupation is whether you have children whether you're single married doesn't matter what continent you're on or whatever you you've got your one lesson a day and it's almost like a torch like he's saying here we go here i'm lighting the torch for you and this will help you see through the darkness and all you've got to focus on is this one lesson today and he even gives you instructions for that you know how many times you should practice it or time intervals or all kinds of instructions where he'll say even today we we use but where's to start the lesson that he's going to take you into a deep meditation maybe it's a guided meditation at some point he goes along and then he says today we're going to practice the the the most effective meditation that there is try not to think of anything there's no guided guided there's no nothing you know he's just saying try not to think of anything that's the most advanced meditation is not to think of anything but he doesn't start you there he he's got all kinds of lessons before that just building you up building your confidence building your strength to come to that point where he's going to try that one on so i feel like that's a very important part of the of the whole program is is giving yourself over to that and i was really first i use it kind of as an i-ching and popped it open and then i would read a lot in the text but then at some point it's like okay it's time to do the lessons and really give myself over what does it mean to give yourself over to the lessons i expected to wake up with every lesson i was not interested when people would say what lesson are you on uh what about this one something they've done in the future i'm not interested in future lessons i've got my lesson for the day i'm uninterested in fact i might not even need him i could wake up today i could wake up on number three but that'd be nice huh talk about cutting corners and coming back to heaven oh i'm on number three yeah got it because he tells you at the beginning that the transfer training with these lessons is not like transfer training in the world it's not cumulative in fact if you can just forgive one person completely see one person without any sense of the past it transfers to the whole world you forgive the stars the black holes the planets you've you've got one one person you're working with amp jane and you get it with amp jane you got it with everybody uncle fred black holes stars pixie dust anything you know it's just going to transfer to everything so that's why you go at it with such a fullness it's not just like oh it's just part of my day you know there's oh brush my teeth and do this do that oh you have the lessons i'll squeeze that in there no that's got to be your gem your jewel your diamond you know because that's going to lead you through the whole day and maybe right into enlightenment by by noon uh you know for all you know right who are you to say you know you want peace it could be today so that's that's the way i approached it and that's another one of those tips i tell people when you're doing the lessons expect to wake up expect to wake up why would jesus give you a promise and then not deliver you know and why should we have such low expectations of ourselves you know that's just the past coming in trying to push us away yeah we don't change the script but if you're like giving yourself over the whole spirit completely and things collapse in your you know mindspace collapses in your whatever in their journey um can someone be completely at peace and still go through seeming some sort of disease of the body or does it just skip over well the body is is temporary and the body is like everything else is part of the cosmos and entropy entropy in science is that the whole cosmos is moving to chaos so the body is part of everything else that's moving to chaos and it can appear in many ways i mean certainly jesus would be the prime example because uh in in his script will say there was a crucifixion scene and i wrote that down as one of my questions yes and people have said to me well jesus wasn't very enlightened because he was a bloody mess at the end if an enlightened one would never have had such a bloody mess uh it would have been clean uh like why not just an ascension scene without the without the crucifixion so it was obviously in there for teaching purposes like as an extreme teaching example that he didn't he didn't defend himself he just went right walked right into it and went right through it and he was very silent through the whole thing but what i would say is so the appearances are the appearances the key to atonement the key to salvation the key to enlightenment is is right there even unless the number one nothing i see means anything that it's it's actually impossible to interpret anything in this world that is specific because the world of specifics was made by the ego as like a decoy in an abstraction and then even when we get into our questions around the body and the symptoms yeah just somebody just wrote to me on facebook the other day and it's not the first time that they've written to me about romana maharshi and his seeming tumor at the end of his life you know like somebody wrote something like uh i don't understand it what what what was going on if lesson number 10 is true what's going on with romana maharshi this is the kind of facebook questions i get and and what it is is again if if the world is cracked perception then what would the healing be holistic perception cracked perception is the problem holistic perception is the answer holistic perception though sees the world as a whole so it wouldn't pull out the thread called cancer or thread called tumor in the end jesus says the problem of the sleeping mind is it has doesn't know the difference of what is the same and what is different so it's so so so simple but only the holy spirit knows the difference between what is the same and what is different the the forms seem to all be different in this world we seem to have many different forms and guess what they're all the same because they're all illusions that's what makes them the same they're all temporary little manifestations that will be here and then gone they're all illusions and then what is different well what is different is the ego's thought system in your mind and the holy spirit's thought system in your mind they are different in fact they don't even have a meeting point they're so different but when you perceive yourself as a whole person you think i'm a whole person and you think i'm a whole person that exists in a world of complexity and multiplicity and jesus is saying no you're not that either you're a whole mind and when you see that you're a whole mind you'll perceive the world as whole as well so you see that that's the sickness is the cracked perception cancer is no different than a rose because a rose is specific and cancer is very specific and holistic perception just gobbles them all up it's one blob it's one unified perception so what we need to do to really accept the atonement is we have to start to allow jesus to retrain our mind to see first of all that all problems are mental all problems are of the mind all problems of consciousness there's there's not a single specific real problem there it's just a distorted consciousness a distorted perception and there's enormous defense against recognizing that the mind is asleep and dreaming it would rather have cancer it would rather have heart disease it would rather call upon symptoms it would rather tag the problem on the form than it would face the solution in the mind that and that's sandhari song what was it love love me your solution love your solution that's that's like the the prayer of the heart there's some great lessons in the course that really deal with this too it's like lessons 79 and 80 let me recognize the problem so it can be solved as number 79 it comes right in with number 80 let my let me recognize my problems have been solved but if you go and read in the text of those lessons he'll say even if you already have the solution and you do you won't be able to use it if you miss to find the problem it's almost like taking our round peg and trying to fit it into a square hole you think this should work jesus gave it to me it's a good solution here why isn't this working it's like because the mind is so bent on defining the problems in a specific way and when they're defined in a specific way they just keep repeating like roundhog day over and over and over another form another form and isn't that our human experience you know as we go through a regular day we have a set of problems you know we get up we get all set to have our morning coffee we're out of coffee oh gotta go buy coffee put that on my list buy coffee how could i have forgotten that then you go out and you're going to do this and then you start to hit red lights and you don't make it to work on time late to work and then you know it's just one specific thing after another and and jesus says you will never be able to solve all of these problems on that level but you can solve them if you humbly say you know like they say in twelve step programs hi my name's so-and-so and i'm an alcoholic i say for course the miracle students hi my name's so-and-so and i have a perceptual problem and you have to repeat this over and over like they do in alcoholic synonymous because why because you're not convinced if you still think you have financial problems then you don't know you have a perceptual problem relationship problems health issues economic issues issues with your house or your car or your dog or your spouse or whatever jesus is like no no no no no no i have a perceptual problem he's like saying come back over here with me because then you're going to come close to accepting his answer if you can admit you have a perceptual problem you can accept the answer the atonement for a perceptual problem and all these other ones will be gone too but when you focus on all the little ones they never end we know that from the human experience it just goes on another day oh no another set another set and here comes another set you know and that's why people get to commit suicide it's the number one cause of death in the world because people get so frustrated with all of these complex set of problems that eventually they just get tired you know they just get they say to god you know this thing is just getting really old and i can't do it another day so i'm just going to end it but it doesn't it doesn't end it jesus says the ego will pursue you beyond the grave you try to kill yourself to get out from underneath it and it's coming after you it's worse than freddy kruger you know it's it's not giving up no no oh kill yourself it's just like good good then i'll just keep torturing you some more there'll be more so that's why we need to practice the mind training to me that's good incentive like if i am i going to go through all that or or go for the solution i'm ready to go for the solution i'm ready for the happiness you know that's the way it was in my life well that's a version of what they tried to do in the in the bible the old testament we got the word scapegoat they all it was so difficult life on planet earth that they at the end of the year the high priest erin the high priest would gather all the sins of the village that they put them on the head of this goat they just get a goat they put them all the sins of the whole village on the goat then they chase the goat out of the village and that's where we get scapegoat from that so this is another version it's like a reset this is more the california version it's a recycling bin we've come all these years from from the bible and such reason now this is the modern day let's recycle it and be done with it but it doesn't work geus got another question i have a question about well only in atonement is is there an experience of this unification which could be equated with neutral but wouldn't he's saying i have no neutral thoughts i see no neutral things he's saying the sleeping mind is is addicted to judgment in a major way it's seeing everything in terms of positives and negatives and so it's the when the mind's asleep it it doesn't see things neutral now that the holy spirit does the holy spirit is when it says nothing i see means anything it's because nothing in perception does mean anything to the holy spirit the holy spirit is just using all the symbols almost like leaves blowing in the wind they you know they're just neutral symbols but the spirit can use them to unwind the mind out of this addiction to ordering and sequencing the symbols in a linear way linear time and eternity jesus says time and eternity cannot coexist and it makes sense one was is made up and one's real and the unreal one is has got to finally the darkness of the unreal one of linear time has to give way to i amness to eternity so so those lessons are are good at just starting to pay attention to see how there's a charge with everything and even if it's if it could be kind of pushed out of awareness like the princess and the peas if you've got enough mattresses in there you can say it's neutral to me but there's a lot of mattresses there there's a lot of defenses there's a lot of guarding against things people say well what's the fastest way to enlightenment or self realization i say well relationships and silence hopefully you can have a lot of relationships and silent in your life because relationships do the mirroring and you need the mirrors to be aware of all this unconscious stuff an ego doesn't like stillness you know be still and know that i'm god it's oh it doesn't like meditation at all so if you have a meditation practice and you're practicing in relationships with all your relationships you're really on the super fast track and what that does is it just gets you more in touch with where those charges are which is positive negative so for example specialness is really preferences so as long as there's preferences then there's specialness what's the way out of that you can't take a stand on it without just saying here holy spirit i offer my specialness to you so you know me very well you know my reality and you know my insanity i want you to use my insanity my preferences which is judgments there's no preferences in heaven because there's nothing to prefer just absolute oneness use those preferences and take me higher and higher in consciousness all the way back to nirvana or to heaven and therefore i say to people relax a bit and have some fun with this thing you know have fun with the holy spirit every day even the things that you prefer the holy spirit can use very well i've had people who have traveled with me and one lisa was a smoker you know she liked to smoke smoke smoke and smoke a lot so when we went on these miracle trips you know we would stop at a restaurant there'd be there'd be smoking section and non-smoking section so i could tell that she had a tremendous fear of giving up smoking that was one of her major preferences so every time they'd come out the maternity smoking i said we'll go ahead smoking we'll go smoking smoking smoking i would go and do gatherings and and there'd be a group of smokers that would come out of the the gatherings i was doing and lisa would be out there smoking with the smokers and and sharing the miracle sharing the insights you see this and she came to me after a while she said i can't believe it the holy spirit uses cigarettes because in her mind if that was like those were the cancer sticks you know the holy spirit's not going to be using cancer sticks you know oh the holy spirit uses whatever you believe in the holy spirit uses food the holy spirit uses houses like right now all kinds of things when you say help me to the holy spirit the holy spirit will use everything that's part of the the egoic preference system of the mind to take you up and out and then you get a lot of whims when you start following the holy spirit you know there's things that you really like and they start showing up without your effort without you going and buying them i travel a lot so i've been traveling you know for the last 25 years i call them whims you know when you have something like whatever red licorice that you like and you go and you're staying with a host and they come out and they bring out the red licorice you know i just smile because i didn't buy the red licorice it's just it's dealt to you it's given and it's almost like a way of the spirit saying i know you're coming to me and here's a little cute one for you here's another little one we get those little wins i keep hearing about joy and happiness and i've been watching a video on youtube someone mentioned something regarding i need to do nothing and so i did they asked you a question like why do you eat and he said because it brings me joy and whatever that hit me and i keep hearing this thing about happiness and peace and joy that's really the end goal get that's who you are and but i've been struggling with this whole thing because there's things that i do to bring me joy but they're they seem to be conflicting in life like i enjoy writing it's something about therapeutic for me and i lose it a sense of time and um we're gonna have to work and do the normal things to pay the bills and take care of the family so i struggle with this but every time i do when i write when i do things that bring me joy without any expectation it's only it's a meditation and i feel that that's inspiring but i just i guess i'm stuck in trying to figure out is it okay is it okay that i'm that this makes me that i feel that i'm happy doing this but i'm not i don't get married to in other words if i don't if i don't write i still have a good day because i have i'm you know i've cried that i have always so i keep but tonight i keep hearing this whole thing about it's all about being the peace you want to be right you want to be happy so this is something again i'm struggling with and i'm going to spirit asking when i write i lose a sense of time and there's there's there's there's lessons in that um i wrote a book years ago i had a so-called agent whole-time million dollar deal dreams come true right everything was there until right before the release of the book and my agent supposedly she got a nervous breakdown never recovered i pushed all my chips in as i say in poker and it all fell apart i lost everything you know i may have lost every material thing and from that i stopped writing and i've been writing since i was a kid that was that was my way of expressing myself it was something that i just did it's therapeutic and then it just hit me even as i've been studying the course more more deeply seemed like spirits telling me listen that brings you joy and peace that's closer to why did you stop doing that it's because that monetary gain was gone and that was the ego part of that process so now where i'm at now is i keep bringing that up it's like you know i'm working with spirit trying to i want i want i want peace you know and i don't want it necessary that writing is the if i don't write i want to stop that peace and happiness but i know that i i'll do those things if it if it brings me closer like you said you do this because it brings you joy i mean that makes sense so that's kind of where i'm kind of stuck in terms of what's you know how do i you know he had asked about the ego and spirit how do you know what how you're being grounded you're getting into a lot of thoughts how do you know that's not the ego or what you know what is the difference you know yeah that's good it's a real good question because that's now we're getting down to purpose like if if if there's a desire for joy and there's a purpose that takes you to joy and then there's another purpose in the mind that that blocks you from the joy then the discerning between the helpful purpose and the unhelpful purpose is key which is the difference between listening to the holy spirit and the ego it's a major lesson in in awakening so one thing i could say is there's a line in the course it says all real pleasure comes from doing god's will and the ego made up all kinds of distractions in this world sometimes they're called temptations but there is an enormous array of distractions to keep the mind from finding its joy and there's a there's actually a workbook lesson that says my happiness and my function are one the ego associates all kinds of outcomes and pursuits and goals achieve that and you'll be happy except when you get there you're not and then it quickly shifts and says oh well try this over here then and then you achieve that and you're still not happy and it's oh but what about this it's always shifting the goals it's almost like turning a diamond with all these shimmering lights and it keeps turning and turning and turning hoping that the mind will follow its pursuits and seek and do not find seek in the form and do not find it just it goes on and on and on so there's no joy in that so i would say um it's helpful when you take a look at like the body the ego made the body so now the holy spirit can use what the ego made so now the holy spirit can use the body the holy spirit uses the body solely as a means of communication the ego uses the body for pride for pleasure and for attack i love it when jesus tells me okay that's pretty clear one communication is going to take me back to joy and pride pleasure attack are are going to keep me in the death spiral and that's a very clear thing and so i would go into deep prayer and just say show me all the ways that i have been using this body for pride for pleasure for attack and there's a lot it's just a lot it's like when you go through the workbook lessons and you start you know going through the laws uh i'm under no laws but god he gets very specific in lessons 50 and 76 very helpful you know because he's he's going to be very specific and he's going to say this isn't serving you this isn't serving you you need to trust the spirit you need to be in alignment with spirit you need to be in your function to find the joy in fact you need to be so in your function that everything else fades away you let thine eye be single you you get so in raptured in this purpose that that you're just taken to heights of happiness more joy more even more joy more consistent joy as you go that way so i'm glad that you brought up the writing because writing is is definitely a means of communication in terms of this world and it's something that jesus and the holy spirit need in fact howlin shuckman spent seven years with shorthand taking down shorthand dictation because the dictation was so rapid and then her collaborator helped her they typed it out you know into what became of her urtext and then eventually got edited down to the published course which is a tremendous use of of writing i mean one of the highest uses of writing to to have an escape hatch penned for the entire human race it's it's amazing i have a friend who's a course of miracles teacher uh down in los angeles bridgett and and i didn't get a chance to meet with her on my most recent trip but on the way to the airport i i called her and we were talking and she was like a little girl she was so excited she said she's always loved writing and jesus in prayer jesus has said i'm going to start writing through you and so she's been getting up in the early hours of the morning she's being awakened woken up at night and then she just you know starts writing and um she says oh i'm so excited because there's it just feels like that's she's excited to see what's going to come through realizing it's all for her her own mind training and all for her path so that's really the answer in the sense of it it will be an increasing lesson in discernment of really being inspired with what you do inspired by the holy spirit and then the state of joy will come from that because the egos joys don't last they they come and they go basically there's a part in the workbook that says uh that uh their joys are gone in this world before they can be possessed or even grasped so they're so fleeting and that's because the ego is sponsoring a substitute joy it makes a substitute and the spirit has an actuality like a true joy it's in there so this this is like going to be an ongoing thing i think where you just get clear and clear and clear in your mind of what it is it truly inspires you and it will unify your mind as well because the spirit takes care of everything if you've got a family to feed if you've got duties responsibilities and so forth even though it was the ego that set them all up like in heaven you don't have any lacks you have you don't have any duties responsibilities bliss and being even though the ego set them up the holy spirit will unwind you from everything that the ego made if you tune in and listen so it sounds like i think the writing will be a big part of that like that's something that's been there and it was just a traumatic experience with pouring so much in and having it all you know just fall away that that was just like the ego trying to really make you down on writing and push it out of awareness i mean i recognize that and one of the things about it that again i appreciate you being here i mean seriously this is is very powerful something i needed to i think we all obviously need to hear but something about the writing the theme that since i was a kid was separation and i didn't get that until i went back and recently read these stories doesn't matter who the character is fiction short story west whatever it is it's about a separation from a a father figure and a child and it hit me it's like well this is all about so i mean i didn't know my my biology or father so there's always so i thought it was that's what it was about but then when i would have experienced like here what is this all about and that's the message i'm getting because i need to write but the ego keeps creeping in like trying to control it but uh wow it's uh i mean i can see that that's what that's what my the suffering and conflict is because i believe you know the only problem is we we separate from our story from God and that is the theme that everything i've written since the time i was you know four or five years old and i didn't get in so i went back and started reading this stuff was like very very powerful yeah i just want to make sure i'm consistent with yeah consistent with that so yeah it's beautiful in fact it's just dawning i mean now because i was happily down in mexico very content and i i remember going through my facebook messages and and one of the messages was from you hi my name's ty and there was the writing you and that's really got me up here to northern california before anything was put out and anything like this i had i had a young man in um in subpoena canya sakaria and then you think i'm gonna name is ty my wife we're up here and you know and and that kind of i was like i could feel something swirl under that so it was actually you writing that that was the first line my name is ty and you're introducing is it your wife jessica yep you introduced and then you went on and then that got the conversation going and then and though we found out you were over and is it tracy the little so it was like okay then talking and saying well we'll see how it goes but then it evolved that you would come here to sundari's house but so that's interesting that the writing even got used for all of us to be here in the room right now it it's it's quite amazing you know that you you followed it there was some kind of prompt or something and you you wrote it out yeah jesus is sometimes i call jesus like the master psychologist because he he explains what's going on in our minds he explains causation and even has a beautiful line where he says what you do comes from what you think and then he goes on to say we must work with your thoughts because you can try to make corrections at the level of form and the doings but but they don't ever last because their effects behaviors are effects and our thoughts are causative so it's really beautiful and and uh you know really kind of what you're sharing is is almost paraphrasing you know the famous quote from st augustine love and do what you will it's coming to the purification having our thoughts purified so we're thinking with god we're thinking my mind holds only what i think with god we're in alignment with the source and then the doing flows automatically like that and that's why when people say you know why do you travel why do you eat i was actually in dallas texas when i attended this big gathering in this big house and it was an indian man and his wife and his name was arvin and oh my gosh the cakes the double triple decker cakes and the potlucks this was like a lively course community that everybody would bring these massive food for the potluck and so they would have them all we would morning sessions would get their lunch and all the foods out and everything and then arvin would before we would start he would be very contemplative david david david all this food all this food why do we eat every time we take a piece of food we are reinforcing the separation from god every single piece of food you know and this is a massive there's pies and cakes and everything and he's the host of the house why do we eat we are reinforcing the separation with every bite of food and i said arvin i said there's another way there's just another way and and he says okay everybody david has another way for us and it's a good thing because there's a lot of food you know and and reinforcing the separation with every bite is not something that this course community was actually excited about so then he said okay david tell us why shall we eat today what is the reason why shall we eat and i said we shall eat for joy and then everyone ah and you should have seen it was a happy crowd you know because it's orienting it orienting it you know but the joy is the purpose it's not once we start to break it down and think we have all these reasons for it then it gets really intellectual and you know you could make a case for anything but and so i've kept that in mind you know why do i travel i travel for joy why do i communicate you know let's do it for joy you know we actually can be done through you know jesus says it cannot be difficult to do the task that christ appointed you to do for it is he who does it he that's what you were just saying it's he who does it it's an alignment with the will of god and therefore it's fun and i find this fun i've been doing this for 25 years and i'm not bored i'm sitting here and i'm enjoying myself it's not like i reach a point where i'm going oh this i can't say these words anymore you know and this and this and this i if i had those moments i'm just in silence just enjoying the quiet and the bliss but but it's involuntary you know and imagine if that was your career to have joy you meant that just was never in our career options you know mom and dad got to the table okay what do you want to be when you grow up and what do you want to do joy you know that do it now now let's be practical no that that is practical that is very practical it's highly individualized i mean you know the like somebody called me i mentioned this down in southern california where this man called me from portugal and he's 23 and and he's having these mystical experiences and then he's having pain in his body and and he's losing all five senses he's just all five senses are are going so it's and we talked and and had a great joining and he mainly he was saying underneath it all was i just want to know that i'm not abandoned by love that was like the core thing so yeah the curriculum is highly individualized for everyone and and it's it's one of those things where you just give it over every day and and what inspires you it's the purpose underneath there then what comes it's just so fun it's so joyful there's not even a sense like it's it's it's forgetting the doer you know it's something that just becomes so so natural and and eventually all things of this world will pass away but but they will come just like with your retirement the time like it is time or yoga nanda when he laid aside his body you know when it was time he just he told everybody at that supper it's been nice and nobody saw that one coming either you know so it's great it's beautiful that you can just be inspired like that huge fan of movies and i don't know i started movies i watch over and over again so i started listening to some of your comment commentaries um this is very interesting that like you said the spirit can use anything um in this world even though spirit is as neutral as a way to bring you back or to awaken you back home um my question for you is did you use movies that you on topics or issues that you always had a conflict with as a way to for example if there's something that's a topic that always bothered you that you tried to avoid would you use movies as a way to you know working with spirit yeah i think the spirit really did that with me it was like first they were kind of like movies and it was very light hearted and humorous and joyful romantic comedies and so forth and then as i continued on the spirit would take me to the movies over and over and over to face things that yeah i didn't want to look at and want to see but trigger things in my consciousness and so forth and and i think that was also i saw movies as modern-day parables because it's like more of an audio video version an audio visual version of of the words they were acted out and a lot of times people there are people that are more verbal or more into words and there are others that are much more into sounds and music and images and everything and a lot of movies they bring it all of that so when i had people that started to follow my teachings and really i would say leave the world in their mind just go deeper and deeper and deeper into these experiences part of what they did was was we put together an online program called mystical mind training that was had all components it had meditations it had verbal it had writings in it but it had movie clips music and all kinds of things and and that kind of package of audio visual and and writings and everything has been very helpful for people and then the movies just kept coming and coming because when i set up a movie and i have holy spirit commentating during the movie it's almost as powerful as like a drug experience for somebody people sometimes come and they kind of spring during some of my movies have sprung into mystical states or they will just reach very blissful states i see sundari there's a couple movies what was it uh lucy revelations so it's like a very high use of these movies in a very directed way from the holy spirit and um well i think lila had an experience she was literally floored on the floor from working with the mystical mind training program on one of the modules so these are all ways of accelerating the awakening and especially i put it down in the book the movie washers guide to enlightenment uh we might even have some of this here but then we put it online so it was online movie watchers guide to enlightenment where people could watch movies movie clips setups and so forth and then we put an emotional index and correlated it with the movies so people now are using this as their pathway to god just like people use scripture meditation david's movies uh what's your pathway to god movies and then i'm serious they are using them if it's growing more rapidly than anything else that i've done for people are tuning in i would hold these i mentioned at lunch today six week retreats devotional retreats and basically i would just stand back and it was all set up and there was lots of mind training and collaboration and projects during the daytime but then after dinner once every night i would show a chosen metaphysical movie with commentary and after six weeks of that of movie conditioning people were in very different states of mind than when they came in one woman came into the retreat was diagnosed with cancer didn't know where to go and everything she came into the devotional she was in remission by the time the devotional retreat was done through this high use of mind training and so forth so it is quite amazing that all these different ways are coming into us now and and it's getting much more direct and much more focused and a lot of people around the world they just enjoy watching movies they feel relaxed they don't feel like it's there it's so much their lesson like they feel in their relationships like it's right on them all the time on on top of them when they see it acted out in the characters then they go ah well look at it oh they start to realize oh that's my lesson and they just got a healing that occurs during the movie so some of them will like if they have anger issues jealousy issues whatever their pattern is they'll go online they'll go into the emotional index they'll find their emotions that they're going through right now and then they'll be recommended movies to watch and this is on your website yes it's all there's all kinds of stuff out there this is like the tip of the iceberg but it's one of the most popular things that people do you do books too i do books i books have come through not that i've written them but i speak them and they get transcribed and and put in books they're very practical like one of the books was when i was working with students on all kinds of issues and we would trace it from the presenting problem back into the mind and back into the Holy Spirit where it would disappear so i would do this in a practical way the book is like five hundred and some pages it's uh but it's very practical it's almost like the how like people say well i read the course or i read all these books or i listen to these cassette tapes dvds but as far as practically applying it to my mind in my situation how do i do that and i say well the Holy Spirit is the how however since i've done it with so many people people can learn through those experiences so this big book unwind your mind back to God is for many people is turning into the how they're actually forming unwind your mind groups they do online unwind your mind groups we have the movie watchers guide to enlightenment they're doing online retreats now where people can simultaneously in different parts of the world watch the same movie at the same time through this zoom uh software that we use and then they can join in discussions even though they live in different parts of the world or remote parts the mmt the mystical mind training you get a you get assigned a mind training partner i think you've had you and v are both you live pretty close to each other so you're in the walking distance but for some it's it's it's more digital it's online so there's a huge range of tools that had come from me doing this over the past 25 years and these are very practical tools these are like hands-on kind of things that you can really sink your teeth into and practice and that's been fun i feel like that was part of my assignment was first of all to forgive and get happy and then when you get happy and joyful then the spirit uses that to to reach people wherever they seem to be in terms of this this world in a practical way