 Good morning. Well, today we're going to talk from our experiences of many years of practicing a course in miracles and defense mechanisms the way that the ego will defend against you having the experience that the course is pointing towards and in our community we have come across so many resistances and obstacles that we actually have almost developed a little bit of a lingo like that happens in professions over many years and some of you may know the defense mechanism by other names one could be called intellectualizing which could reply basically to personal development or even spiritual growth when you start to read books even a course in miracles and you start to find yourself being able to talk the talk but having very little success of walking the walk and I have experienced as I've gone around the world to 40 some countries that generally people are so terrified of a course in miracles that they just come together in study groups because it's almost like they huddled together like oh my god, I can't stand to do this on my own because I might freak out who knows Jesus might appear and then I'd really freak out but there's a fear it's like such a direct pathway to God that there's a huge fear around it so that's one sense that study groups serve kind of like a way like okay, it's this extraordinary book but we've got each other, we can at least talk about what we're feeling, what we're struggling with and many groups struggle very intensely with the book in fact I've gone to other cultures like I was off in rural Argentina one time and I was with a group of women that were studying the course and they came to me and they said is this difficult everywhere in the world? like we are struggling immensely with this book we're having enormous resistances to it is it like that? they didn't know what's happening around the world I said oh yes, it's the same everywhere it's direct it's like getting your whiskey straight instead of on the rocks this is a straight shot sometimes people would say like tequila or vodka even it's really strong and so one of the ways that the ego will defend against the light and the love of the course is to intellectualize it and that shouldn't be surprising because the course itself Helen Shuckman described after she'd spent seven years scribing it basically said ah it lasts a pathway to God for intellectuals so because of its sometimes three and four syllable words it's vocabulary because of its double negatives because of it you know you could go on and on about the way the course is written and I'd say more than that because many people have been raised in Judeo-Christian culture even if they didn't go to church they were affected by Judeo-Christian culture that they have huge reactions to the words and depending on the location in the world like in Europe where they had the crusades killing Muslims in the name of Jesus that's such a distortion of the teachings of Jesus that people burn out on the church and they burn out on any words that resemble Christian words the Spanish Inquisition you know you could start to go just through the history of Europe and you see that the misuse of Christian symbols by the ego has turned people off they're more into science or non-duality and a lot of times people will get into study groups and they're so terrified at actually practicing the course or putting it into practice that they will study it sometimes for years or many years I've been to some study groups that are 15 years or 20 years over 20 years old they're still going around studying the book after 20 years reading a paragraph at a time they get stuck in the ritual because they're terrified of where the course is pointing and in our community basically the term that we use is metaphysical ghosting is using the metaphysics of a course of miracles to not feel the darkness, the emotions glossing over the emotions glossing over the fear that's coming up glossing over the pain and the hurt that's coming up with some metaphysical line from the course or I'll say a metaphysical cliché like oh, the world's an illusion anyway or it's all just an illusion when somebody's in a group and they just start to get in touch with some kind of really deep hurt and pain and somebody else in the group says, it's just an illusion and then it gets cut off and so we have come to call that metaphysical ghosting using the metaphysics to not get in touch with the feelings and some of you did the labyrinth where you can see the levels that Jesus gave me that the outer ring of the labyrinth is the perceptual world and then the emotions are right underneath the perceptual world and if you need to go all the way into the center of the labyrinth and you cut off going to the second ring before you get down to those thoughts and beliefs and desire then you effectively have blocked yourself from going inward and healing therefore we talked about that you need to emote, you need to cry, you need to scream and shout when I first was doing the course Jesus basically sent me off to hermitages where I could scream and shout and rage and do everything because it was like an explosion of emotions wanting to come up I also had a relationship when I was in grad school and between the course and I was very shy up to that point so it was my first relationship and the course landing at the same time and my emotions were coming up like a volcanic eruption like lava spewing up and I thought I am not going to be able to handle graduate school a relationship and a course of miracles at the same time I would look around at people and say even the ones who aren't doing the course how do they handle grad school and relationships I couldn't even fathom because there was too much emotion I was overwhelmed with emotion, it was an explosion of emotion and so what we have discovered is that you can't skip over you have to actually welcome the emotions and they can be so intense that that's where you get into a prayer life and a spaciousness and also being very prayerful about who you are with before the course came me getting in touch with my emotions was a huge step in my awakening that Jesus used my dog Chipper there wasn't even a human being I think that could have come in at that point I was just blubbering all the time I was crying constantly and Chipper was there riding the tail and licking away and this went on for hours and hours and hours so I don't think there was a human being that could have if I had a girlfriend at the time she really dumped me I've got a cry baby here hopeless emotional years of repression now he's opening up and let him be and so basically what we really work with is a huge amount of allowance for the emotions because until you allow those emotions to come up freely that you don't get in touch with the emotions and you don't really you aren't capable of getting touched with what's underneath those emotions until you're in touch with the emotions it's something that cannot be glossed over there is no shortcuts there is no substitution if you're out of touch with your emotions then I would basically say if you're out of touch with your emotions then you're twice removed from reality and the people that I've met that in this world are called the basket cases the ones, the people I go to 12 step meetings and meet people who are rock bottoming out after years of addiction and they're all over the place and they're emotional and they're crying and they're pouring their hearts out and everything they are once removed from reality and those corporate ones that are so successful they dress in the power suits they drive the Mercedes they live in the big condos the big houses they have the huge staffs and on and on and on twice removed from reality they're the successful ones in this world but remember everything in this world is backwards and upside down so it's like the Paul Simon song believe you're gliding down the highway in the Mercedes when in fact you're slip sliding away you've been head by the ego when you are successful in this world you've been head you've bought it hook, line and sinker and you think you've got it better than everybody else on the planet and more than that you've worked hard for it and you deserve it and then when death of a loved one a sickness strikes, a heart attack or whatever and it's just shattering how can I, Mr. and Mrs. Successful have a heart attack how can I how can my father or mother die it's like a devastating fall it's like Humpty Dumpty you have a huge crash from sinking you're successful to being unable to emotionally cope with something that happens it just shows you that that's happening so that's why we're going to talk today about the metaphysical ghosting yeah actually this morning I had a little chat with Sanjeev and he was saying that the first time after he met David he learned the difference between spirituality and the spirit-led life and I really like that description because spirituality is a word and the ego can identify that with certain form and this is spiritual if the form looks like that if your life is like that if you are like that if you're never upset again you know like it's somehow there is a meaning given to it whatever that meaning can be and it becomes an effort to strive for to achieve a standard and it's the same ego trick with anything in this world if we set up a concept then trying to put some effort into achieve a standard then we can have something to judge whether it's good or bad it's a progressing, you're advanced or you're not so advanced how to compare you with other people then we kind of that's how ego tries to find itself through comparison through matching it to a standard and the spirituality can be used by the ego in that way as well but spirit led life when he was saying it it was a huge amount of allowance because there is no standard you follow the spirit and everything is allowed that is the permission and the freedom that he started to sense and I really feel that it's the same even along this seeming path to achieve that kind of total integration with the spirit there isn't really a standard because I know for myself I started across America by myself first then I had a study group I was facilitating the group for a couple of years like David said, most of the people we talk about in the end after some talk about frustration and problem the conclusion we close that expression with we are all one anyways that's the kind of way we finish that off because it's metaphysically correct and because that feels resonated in some way but it wasn't a living experience we need still to remind ourselves in some way but in our life now living across America 24 seven when we come together you never hear anyone say we are all one you never hear anyone say this world is an illusion you never really even hear people say it's your mind because if that is known as the truth then you wouldn't have these problems the only reason we still feel triggered by something is because we forget all of those truths in that moment and we need a gateway to get back to that realization that is hidden from within so the mechanism that we really use is to allow this something that we somehow believe more than the truth where we value more than the truth in that moment that blocks our awareness to come back to the light to be fully expressed and we don't need anything to say well no no no I give you a truth to affirm in your mind as if that can heal anything so I actually just recently read this saying when I was in China there is a very famous mystic who basically said if if you don't live it or you don't walk it then you don't know it so don't even need you don't need to say I know blah blah blah blah but I can't live it or I can't walk it because if you don't you actually don't know I know but I know the world from illusion but so that takes a lot of our talk you know we just like okay let me start looking at what I still cannot walk my walk and then that means I haven't I don't know that yet you know whatever Jesus says I don't know I don't know that we're all one I don't know that time is illusion I don't know that this world is illusion that starts there and be honest and there is also I noticed impatience along this path because the ego wants to fantasize and result in form and saying are you there yet constantly saying are you there yet how far am I along you know I'm still having stuff coming up oh how bad I'm I'm still not happy all the time I remember this one friend in our community who basically told me a few years ago he said he was someone who just wanted to go through this in the fastest way possible and just to get there and one day he talked with David and David said this is a lifelong journey and he just relaxed and he said I'm so glad to hear that this is a lifelong journey I can give myself permission to be as slow as needed as patient as needed when he first told me I thought I don't like that at all lifelong really it takes a life to walk through all the darkness possible so it's like we are living together to keep reminding each other the same thing you know but over the years I started to because this is a very humbling journey if we don't keep that kind of humbleness to tell the spirit actually I don't really know what the purpose is I don't really know how to look at this I don't really know what I'm here to do with this kind of humbleness then we are really not progressing because the egos just want to tell us yeah you are this or you're that as a concept and the same friend I remember he is in Mexico and we had a psychic who lived in our community for a very brief time and she is giving readings for people who sometimes come visit our community and when they met this friend and she said oh I can see so much happening for you I can give you a reading and my friend said I don't want to know don't you want to know what's to come for you don't you want to know your future I just want to be happy now that was you know that is the integration of the desire that's not affirmation when self coming up it is integration of every single day this is the desire of be happy now and it's okay if you fall off be glad that you can see what is still tempting in the mind because we do need to see this we do there is no way we can heal any of this if we don't allow them to be seen first so this is our you know little encouragement to you don't look at the future don't keep this fantasized picture that constructed by the ego to tell you don't be convinced that this is the end result the end result is right here right now and if you can remember to allow the spirit to lead you in this moment and be happy this is beautiful if somehow you forget then there is some grievance coming up then pay attention to that and be grateful for that because that is what what matters in this moment this is all there is in this moment I think what we would like to do also is put this spiritual journey in some kind of context because a lot of you even though you may have a course of miracles or may have other pathways there are many pathways to God and the course is just one form of the universal curriculum so it's not the the only way it's just one of many but occasionally we come across witnesses and symbols that are just helpful and that they start to shed a context on things how many in here have ever heard of the Pasana one time a while back Francis found an article on Facebook that was written by a Pasana master who had been with the Pasana from the very beginning in Burma where it originated and what the article was she sent it to me and I read it is that the Pasana masters they do Pasana retreats all over the world I've heard many many comments about them a lot of them how helpful it's been how effective it's been how it was a discipline to go into it something they didn't really expect and it helped them get in touch with a lot of stuff so I've heard a lot of positive feedback but this was an article by a Pasana master basically saying that annually the Pasana masters meet and join together back in Burma they go back to that part of the world to discuss how things are going in their practices in the Pasana master practices so it's a meeting of the masters back in Burma and basically what the article was saying is year after year after year they meet and they say how's it going and what they each tell each other is whoa we've hit something in our mind we've gone down down down down through our Vipassana meditation and then we hit a wall of fear and this is what they exchange when the masters come together what do the masters talk about they talk about the wall of fear that they've hit so I thought wow this is great when the Vipassana masters have hit the wall then what do they do well they go well our practice has been extremely helpful but we need more help because obviously we've hit a wall here so they began starting to look into psychological practices they said we've been using meditation but we need to just open our minds up because honestly we've hit a wall of fear and to me I enjoyed reading that because I thought yeah that's how deep this course goes this course is coming from the one who's in charge of the plan of atonement this course is coming from the one who's pierced the veil and pierced that wall and that's why I say it's getting your whiskey straight up you're getting this course from one who's healed the sick and raised the dead that's as deep as it goes and so when you get into working with the course and you find you have all kinds of emotions and resistances coming up just remember what you're working with you're working with a manual that's been given an instruction manual from the master who's pierced the veil of time and space who's healed the sick and raised the dead you're getting a manual from eternity delivered to your eyes to read to you to practice and when you keep it in a context then it shouldn't be surprising that resistances arise it shouldn't be surprising that emotions come up and it shouldn't be surprising that this can go on for years or for a lifetime it's not like you're getting into it and I've had people who have said to me about some of the early workbook lesson they said it gets better than this right? these early lessons these are just like preliminary like preschool stuff because they read it and they go is he serious? like starts off with lesson number one nothing I see means anything and people are like is he serious is this really a serious actual resistances some kind of a joke but this is so profound that actually that I said no actually if you can get the first lesson completely you don't need the rest of the 364 it's not progressive you can get any lesson completely you don't even need the rest they're so profound they're so so deep and that's important to keep in mind as you're working with this it's always fun when I meet somebody around the world and I just mentioned the Course in Miracles and they said oh yeah I took that course nothing you did how'd it go oh I finished it okay and then they'll say well there's so many other they obviously just took a few bites and went okay it didn't bother to chew just spit it out but when you get this context of how deep it is you have a sense of respect and reverence for it and also with that you have to come to a sense of starting to see that I need to be gentle with myself and if I start getting really self critical and judging myself and judging every move that I make and am I doing the workbook lessons right and did I blow it I've had many people who reach a certain point and they just conclude I blew it they just are on a particular lesson and they said I blew it and then they say I think I should get back to it do I have to start over at number one I said no you can go just resume but there's a lot of criticism a lot of self criticism that goes on a lot of perfectionism that comes in and trying to work with the workbook lessons and all of that is the ego trying to sabotage the direction of the movement of your mind is trying to just throw you off the trail is trying to have you draw a conclusion and just say well I wasn't ready or I couldn't handle it and and I will occasionally meet people who the more they talk to me I'll get this feeling that they genuinely are not ready and they will start telling me well I'm doing this now with that and I'm like wonderful wonderful I just love them and encourage them with whatever steps they're taking oh I put the book down okay alright you know it's it's not there's not a way to do it there's not a formula to work with this it's very deep and I have heard so many stories of readiness stories that I can tell it's so deep that people need to just come at it kind of when they are ready and willing and at the time feels right and then when they engage in it and there's a readiness then it does take a persistence and determination to overcome that resistance on a daily basis but there are times when people will just smile and say not in this lifetime and I'll just rejoice with them and I even had students back in the 1990s and sometimes it would be like a husband and wife the wife's into the course and the husband's into traditional Judaism and so I go over and the wife is a student so she'll say point out anything we'll go off for a little one-on-one session please anything you see let me know any nuance point it out to me and then I go off with a husband we're sitting on the couch watching the basketball game we're doing all kinds of things I'm having just as much fun who's into traditional Judaism and kosher and all this and then occasionally I'll be off talking with the wife in the kitchen and he'll be listening and he'll hear something about time and space and he's like that's fascinating can I join in, can I listen they have to feel the joy they have to feel the love to start to come toward it to take the little baby steps toward it he's not in any position to let go of his Judaism he has no desire to let go of his Judaism but he's fascinating ooh I like that idea when he starts to hear ideas about time and space and time collapse ooh that sounds exciting and the beautiful thing is when a group of students would get together they would say David you treat the husband and the wife so differently you're off talking metaphysics pointing things out with the wife and then you're going with him and you're just rejoicing and your whole mannerism changes you're happy and joyful but you're not talking about the same kind of things and I said yeah that's how the spirit is the spirit is just going to be loving and gracious with everyone with the postman with the lady at the grocery store you're not going to be going around talking metaphysics usually unless there's a context for it that has devoted their life to it and they have those kind of questions then those will come up but in most cases I travel around and I just have so much fun with everyone and just lightness and joy and laughter but if they followed our conversations we wouldn't necessarily are not talking about God or metaphysics at all it's just so rejoicing you know if you're out and you meet somebody in the street and they're going oh the sun is out it's a blue sky what a beautiful day you don't say actually there is no such thing as a day and beautiful is objective it's subjective you're not here to try to convince anybody you're here to rejoice in the love rejoice in the joy rejoice in the spirit of love that all of us are and let the spirit put the words in your mouth if there are any words at all a lot of times I end up just hugging people lately I've been on a streak of high-fiving I'll go around and I'll be in a restaurant or whatever and I'll be talking to somebody and we'll just go we're like high-fiving I just met them we're high-fiving like we're old buddies for 20 years or whatever because I feel the love I feel the joy it's about those things it's not given to talk about those things so that's where you start to get into walking the walk to really feel it to practice it you don't have anything to debate you don't have anything to argue I was recently in Frankston which is just south of Melbourne and I was with a group of people most of them had been at the Course in Miracles conference and I said let's watch a movie and I suggested a movie and some of them were like hmm because the movie was called Trumpland it was a movie about Donald Trump but it was a Michael Moore movie who he just was the most loving movie and the most humorous movie there was so much laughter in that room I mean rolling over laughing and one of the women said well I have never laughed so hard at a movie I feel so good, I feel so happy I am so glad I came and I have to say that when I first heard the name Trumpland just the Trump in the name she was like what is David doing why is he showing this movie after the Course in Miracles conference you know and everything but oh they were just howling laughing they were having so much fun and so that's why I just flow confidently in whatever the Spirit gives me and show up with always with the feeling of joy and love and laughter and then it's quite contagious it just flows very easily but I don't question the guidance I just kind of have merged with the guidance now and so it just comes very naturally just spills out you know we just went to Melbourne for the conference and I remember because I lived in Sydney for a period of time and my first time to Melbourne was to represent the University of New South Wales to do a debate with University of Melbourne and it was so interesting the experience we went to Melbourne University and we prepared so much for the debate beforehand and we arrived and the day we were given a topic and then we formed a strategy and how to go about it and the topic that was given to us we were given a side you know you're given a side and the side was a winning side of the topic we couldn't believe so the whole team that simple we cannot be given a side that is obviously already win even if we just tell people this is our side we already kind of win so it can be that simple so it must be a trick in this topic so the whole team developed a strategy to go not go directly at the points but go around it because that was just actually as simple if you just tell people what you think you can win it must be so complicated it can be that simple so we lost kind of was a Melbourne ambush like the Sydney the Sydney group was being ambushed by something too simple we lost after seven years of consecutive win by apparently the Sydney side nobody could believe that we were given a winning side and choose to lose by not going at the direct way and I was thinking about it I thought you know isn't this funny because the solution because David talked yesterday about studying the successful cases instead of studying the the problems and isn't that what the ego want us to do the problems again and again and again analyze our ego so much that hoping by analyzing the problem we can somehow formula the solution by ourselves not accepting a solution that's given because it's too simple you know this course is too simple the answer that was given is too simple and the complicated mind cannot accept that is the way it is too tricky there must be some trick so what David was just saying just then was actually reminding me of something that we as going along this path always thinking because Jesus actually says in the Course in Miracles you either project or extend ego project and spirit extend so you always do one of the two you project the ego guilt and shame onto the screen and blame or you extend from the perspective of the spirit extend so we talk about this word extension quite a bit this morning when I was talking with Sanjeevan he asked what do you mean by extending and I thought yeah the lingo that I forget people there is a meaning behind it but what really extending is not in form it's not in the form of words it's not to talk or in this kind of sessions what is really extended and the only thing that can be extended is the vision of Christ so every time when I see someone I can choose to extend how I see them by holding it in my mind that's the only thing that really can be extended and that's why the form will be so spontaneous you can never predict how to join with someone you know whether you join with someone to teach them I mean there are metaphysics or to point out something or to just talk about whether or to have a good laugh because that is not at the level of extension the extension happens with the desire and that is integration the desire is integrated so much that you only want to extend the spirit with vision of a brother you meet and everywhere you go and when that becomes so integrated then that becomes the only go when you see someone how to meet, how to see you as a Christ when you see the Christ what would you feel you feel so inspired so joyful and so connected so grateful and the form will spring out however it is but purpose is underneath it that's why I always feel this spiritual pathway it's not a linear journey of you know how far you have gone one day from the next but it's how far you have transferred to all areas of your life it's almost like a kind of circle kind of thing in my mind it's like a sweep sometimes in the reader map you sweep the whole circle the desire of seeing everything as a Christ as everyone as a Christ how far you have swept it is there any exceptions still left in the mind and that is the so-called journey the so-called process look at these flowers behind us and you know flower from a bulb to a bloom and from a bulb to a bloom is a burst that's really what you want more than anything else is you want the spirit to burst forth from you this is not an intellectual course this is not something that is to be studied over and over and over imagine Jesus you know he's like working with you and all that he wants he just wants the burst in the bloom he's not interested in you don't get a resume like I studied the course for 20 years and I've written these books on the course and I've done these workshops Jesus is just interested in the burst all he wants is that burst of love in your heart even with Helen Shuckman she had a lot of resistance and took her 7 years to take the course down because of a lot of resistance we learned that she had misused her scribal ability seemingly in another lifetime so she had tremendous resistance to this assignment because of her misuse as a priestess in a previous lifetime with the same ability but at the end of her life basically you know she was like almost like I did it I made it I made it I did it like she was almost like proud that she had gone the distance and delivered the course was like delivering a child I did it and Jesus said no no it was never about the course Jesus said he said I love you the burst he's not interested in the book because he tells us words or symbols of symbols twice removed from reality he says this course is a beginning not an end the whole thing is aimed at the burst going from the bulb to the bloom to the burst he wants you to burst open in love because you deserve it because it's who you are because you're worthy of it and we are having those experiences in our community there's just a lot of people having burst and burst I just sometimes now the bursts are happening so strong that people I was getting ready to go Kirsten was having so many bursty moments her body she started to not be able to function with her body right before a tour and they said I'll come along I'll make the mystical make a cameo appearance on the high married a mystic tour which is the book that she's written and then I was ready to Francis was going to take me to the airport to fly out there and go out with Jeffrey and Kirsten and then in the middle of the night I got a text from Francis I won't be able to take you to the airport she's gone into a burst she tried to cut an apple and she couldn't she tried to cut a lemon and she couldn't she went so into the burst that the body couldn't function Jesus wants you to have the burst that's the whole point the Christ vision is everything and everything else is peanuts it's the preliminaries Francis and I said come on with me let's go see this movie we went to see 8 days a week the Beatles movie Francis was sitting in my left and as the movie came on Francis burst out crying the tears came flooding down as she started watching the Beatles she was raised in Beijing in communist China as an atheist and she had not experienced the Beatles and she's sitting there bursting and the Beatles burst on the scene they're showing the Beatles bursting on the scene singing love songs the girls going up screaming they're just singing one love song after another oh my god it's one thing to have Elvis get up there and wiggle but to have four guys and you see their faces they did sing and the songs the love songs are just bursting from them and then the next one burst and the people must the girls scream scream hysterically the Beatles Jesus is using the Beatles it was such a burst of light on this planet that they it just went out of control they were going all over there was people getting trampled and mobs and cars getting smashed the world had seen nothing like it and even police officers it's some kind of phenomenon one of the guys in there was like a radio announcer or whatever he was invited by the Beatles to go along with them and his dad was warning him that it was dangerous to go with the Beatles and then when he went with the Beatles he was thinking my god it's dangerous it's dangerous because there was a burst there was a burst of love singing love songs openly even simple basic song I want to hold your hand yeah you got that something da da da da da da I think you understand da da da da da da I want to hold your hand help John Lennon wrote help because he was going through struggles in his own life help I need somebody help help that song I watched the crowd when they started singing help people screamed it's an expression session this planet needed a major expression session and the Beatles are doing it screaming singing a song help I wrote that from my heart he said I needed help that's why I wrote help is I needed help and all these love songs one after the next Francis cried and cried and cried grabbing quickly to her purse to try to pull out as many Kleenexes she could get out of there as the streams coming down and that's what we're talking about at some point in your journey what we'll call the spiritual journey you do realize that we're flowers I'm watching all these flowers now as I'm speaking that this is what it's all about you are here for one reason to burst in love and you have to let go of judging how that looks if the Beatles had judged how it looks they would have stopped right away as soon as they started to perform concerts over there in England and there was traffic jams and broken glass and things like this and people writing articles in the newspapers magazines it's like a rebellion it must be stopped it was just starting there was no rebellion it was a burst of love like a bright comet blazing through a night sky like nothing the world had ever seen and we can't minimize that we have to know that Jesus was behind the Beatles and there was a lot of oppression and denial and stuffing things down and when the Beatles came and openly started singing love songs of course the young people screamed like hallelujah and then when the society and the establishment tried to squelch them even when they would show up at like press conferences and all the teenagers are watching going like okay how are our heroes going to handle the press and the establishment and everything they handled it with for the most part lightness they were bold they did not back down from questions and throughout their years questions around the Vietnam war questions around drugs the only storm where the ego tried to really drag them down was when John Lennon said to a reporter he was talking to he said we're bigger than Jesus Christ and he was talking about the phenomenon if Jesus Christ maybe had lived in this time frame he might have got more publicity than them but they didn't have paparazzi and Jesus wasn't out there with haircuts little haircuts and guitars and singing if Jesus had been singing his love songs you bet back in those days Harrod and Pilot they'd had a hell of a time trying to handle them flying around in jet planes and everything Pilot and the Sadducees would have had plenty to handle but Jesus was just responding that they were bigger in terms of their publicity than Jesus Christ it was just ripping across the world and nobody had ever seen a phenomenon like that and that got taken out of contacts and then they started in America particularly burning Beatles albums and everybody bringing your Beatles albums with piles and burning them and refusal to play them on radio stations and everything it just got spun out and then John had to come out and say listen that's not what I'm talking about he talked about the person of Jesus Christ he liked the person of Jesus Christ he wasn't putting down Jesus Christ but that was the only time that Ego tried to really drag them down but they handled it they handled that even they handled it really well and went on now this is what you're meant to do with your lifetime with The Course in Miracles or whatever pathway you're using is to go for the burst don't simply think oh I will try to make a living off of this course because Jesus doesn't really ultimately want you to make a living off of it turn it into a career water it down another thing go corporate Course in Miracles Jesus is not interested in corporate Course in Miracles he'd be like shaking his head oh please go for the burst somebody tell him go for the burst somebody tell him don't sell yourself short of anything short of that full blown burst and really who cares how it looks who cares if you have to cry who cares if you have to emote you know you don't think that the flowers are going to hold back from blooming even in cold weather conditions and what would storms or whatever you know they're going to bloom sometimes you see these plants growing in these conditions where you think how can anything even grow and those blades of grass are pushing through the concrete or blooming here and there be a bloomer go for it that's you could get one thing from this whole week if you got only one thing it would be go for it go for the love go for the burst because it's really what it's all about if the world's an illusion and you aren't convinced of that yet what is the one thing that will convince you of the reality of love except the burst the burst of love for yourself fall deeply into love go with complete abandonment into love don't go with caution you know this love stuff too lovey-dovey you know people reacted to the Beatles in many different ways but they wouldn't have kept up with it if they didn't feel it in their hearts they kept writing writing writing it was prolific how many love songs that they wrote and it changes it never their managers the ones who published or produced their album after a massive success and then all of a sudden watched them change their style they got scared because this new style is not something that they perceive would be popular and Beatles they were so inspiring they could never turn to anyone to check is this okay there's no precedent of what they did and this is what we can give ourselves permission we don't need to check with the external world is this okay Jesus, Holy Spirit is sponsoring our burst and we go with that feeling of inspiration we don't need to confirm reassurance from yes, that's the right path no, that's not, this is the right behavior that is not no, that's not our reference point we need to set precedent we're the one who set the precedent we are the light of the world we're leading the way we're not following the way we're following the spirit we're following the spirit in our heart and we give ourselves full permission however it looks and the invitations will come that's what I've noticed when I just gave myself over to the burst when I felt joy, when I felt glee when I felt happy then you don't really your eyes aren't gazing out to see if anybody else is bursting you're too busy bursting to be concerned if anybody else is bursting you know and maybe at the beginning you know when St. Francis was bursting it wasn't the rich people of the CC that were drawn to him it wasn't the church the church was like what is this going on here it was the lepers it was the ones who who were handicapped who were dysfunctional who were poor, who were cast out by society they saw the sparkle and the animals were drawn to St. Francis it was the animals and the castaways that were drawn to him and so think of that if that's what happened to St. Francis if you start to really burst and friends, relatives people around you start to go they've lost it they've gone loony tunes if you see how happy they are it's disgusting if you start to get comments like that you're in good company St. Francis was cast out his family he left a CC to go out and rebuild the church he went out to a torn down church with people that followed him that were the outcasts of society and the animals basically that's the ones that could handle his burst that's who could handle his joy and it's good for all of us because we shouldn't be looking left and right to see how is this working with the people in our lives there may be some people in your lives that will go whoa, I don't know what it is but you've got some kind of vibe going there and I want to hear more about it maybe just a handful of people and then a bunch of people may go wacko they're a wacko they've gone way off the deep end but it's dangerous it's dangerous they're both happy, they're delirious they must be on drugs or something and if you go for it in the end that will be the only thing that matters because remember it's one mind so if you go into the burst you experience experience that one mind you don't need to try to fit that into something from the past Jesus said you can't put new wine into old wine skins if you put new wine into old wine skins the skins will burst he's interested in the new wine he's interested in the newness and if old structures start to burst and fall away, hallelujah let them fall away let them peel off you don't have to go back to the Bible with Lot's wife they told her just keep moving forward don't look back or you'll turn into a pillar of salt I remember watching the Ten Commandments in that scene where she doesn't listen and she turns into this salt woman she turns into a salt woman it's like a Marvell comic character salt woman it just was like one turn and she was salt all salt she froze it was a very strong metaphor I've never forgot that it was a striking image when I was a child watching that movie she froze when we stick to habits and old learnings and rituals and trying to please people and pleasing parents and pleasing society and everything we freeze our consciousness into something that's solid and spontaneous like I was talking about with Maslow it's not flexible we are frozen our bulb will not open it will just stay as a tight bulb and none of us we're worth so much more than just a tight bulb it's all tight wound in there we are destined to burst we are destined to burst we don't know what time it is we've got time to open it up and we've got a Peter's got the microphone I was just going to say it's funny the way you were saying that I think a few years ago you came to visit in Sydney and I was organizing and helping with the event but I sent it out to some of my old friends and it had the banner and some pictures of you and they sort of a couple of them said one of my friends said what do you think and he was like too much happiness as he looked at the photos and I was like okay I thought it was a funny comment because that's what I really enjoyed about the joining with you and the messengers and the whole event you just knew that wasn't what he wanted I just thought it was quite funny but I haven't seen them for a while so things change Hi, thank you very much at the end of last evening I heard a lot of people saying that your comment about cause and effect happening simultaneously was a massive pop and burst and I just heard it in different conversations in the various rooms it came quite late after a long day and a very impactful movie and I personally and I'm sure there will be many people be grateful if you could just talk to that a little bit more today thanks that was kind of the result when I kept studying the course in the early years and going deeper and deeper I felt like I was going down almost like Alice in Wonderland you know down through the looking glass like I was just spinning down and down and down it felt like I was going down and Jesus had taken my hand and he was just taking me zooming way beyond anything that I had ever known or experienced and I was like holding on for dear life going through the looking glass and what happens is when we got down to the bottom of the looking glass it was all this stuff on cause and effect and so I was doing back in the 1990s I remembered I did a session reversing cause and effect and I started the spirit Jesus was speaking all these teachings around cause and effect and you know throughout the years there had been a feel I can touch on it but I've never heard anything like what Jesus was speaking through me in the early 1990s I was taken down the rabbit hole into this glory and he was just teaching simultaneous cause and effect together and explaining it all so I did this session it was very deep and it's still on the internet I think and it maybe has shown up in a book of mine but what happened was I had a group of students and one of my friends Geoffrey Lake decided he would he wanted to listen to the talk I don't know maybe it was like a couple hour talk and he wanted to listen to it and he thought I'm just going to listen to this so I can really get the gist of what he's talking about and he listened to it and I better listen again and then the second time and the third time fourth time and he thought I want to transcribe this but I need to just get a essence of it so fifth time he told me he had to listen to it seven times the same talk cause it was so heavily guarded like the ego doesn't want you to even go there like if you start to get near that then you start to get too happy and you start to realize oh my god there's nothing that can stop me and hold me back seven times and then he started transcribing it and so forth but basically there are certain things that the ego just doesn't want to be brought to awareness because if it gets into awareness then you start to laugh cause you start to think like Shakespeare that's much to do about nothing it doesn't matter what it is it could be the most extreme thing imaginable on earth suddenly it starts to get funnier and funnier and funnier and I have known people that have just laughed hysterically I came to Sydney I met this woman who was called the laughing saint we had a wonderful time together just gazing into each other's eyes me and the laughing saint and because it's an experience but what it does is it loosens you up from this kind of heavy feeling that you're here on planet earth to serve your lot to try to survive and make it through almost like it's an obstacle course of extreme difficulty and you've got to do your best to make it through and then you die it's really it's bizarre I mean I remember when I was in university I was in university at Cincinnati and I was in graduate school and I remember I was talking to all these other graduate assistants and everything and I kept saying I just kept the spirit already then started to just speak through me in graduate school with my friends and they would say David what are you on about now oh my gosh and I would talk for 5 or 10 minutes and they would roll their eyes and then we'd come back together I'd talk some more they'd roll their eyes they'd say what are you on about and I said I think there's something fishy about the world and they would say what what do you mean and I said something's not right something's not right but I would ponder on what it was and I would be very excited I would talk about it and then finally after 3 or 4 times through they would just say get a life get a life and I said what is a life and they said get married, get children get a mortgage get into debt and then grow old and keep drinking, be married and then you get sick and die like everybody else and the billions and trillions that have gone before you they would come at me I was talking all this stuff and they couldn't handle it really and I would say if that's a life I don't want a life I'm not interested in the future I'm not interested in any of that and they would say oh god their eyes would roll like oh no no what but I think already I was just in the early stages of preparing to get into this deeper quantum stuff to cause an effect and non dual all this kind of at the point where I couldn't imagine what I saw in this world for my future I thought oh my god I might as well just get it over with now it seemed unbearable unbearable I couldn't even imagine going through that kind of life and I think I was just excited so then all those years of shyness really there was a lot of introspection I did read Gandhi's autobiography too and he was very contemplative and very shy also and very introspective and I think I was just pondering because I was like pondering like I don't want to go on the wheel of the human life until I really have a sense of what's it all for like I have to know what's all for first before I put that much effort I saw people burning out so much people burning out with not knowing just kind of stepping into the wheel and getting sucked up into the machine and I thought I can't do that so the cause effects stuff it's just grown stronger over the years you know I have a book called Quantum Forgiveness Physics Meet Jesus and it's really taking the realm of physics and quantum physics and bringing it together with Paul's Jesus and his teachings movies everything that seems to be pouring through now is tied into this cause and effect being simultaneous even this feeling that Jesus is laughing behind everything everything that I see Jesus I just feel Jesus laughing and everything that's happening in my experience is so light and playful I just feel like Jesus is having so much fun and now I'm tapped into that vibe and it's because of simultaneous because everything is simultaneous at linear time has become the joke I don't even have to go see comedians now or stand up comedians everything is funny to me some people tell me something from the internet or whatever and I just burst and laughing I'm laughing a lot because of the simultaneous because you know in that moment God was telling everything and then there was that simultaneous moment where he had the idea maybe of the earth I'm not sure or world or creation as we know it and then the Holy Spirit is what was the I'm just trying to I've kind of got a little bit around that but if you could just help me get some clarity maybe and I understand about you know the consciousness of God before everything no beginning and no end and I can understand that then there was a moment when a choice was made for creation perhaps and there may be multiple creations there probably are and then there was the correction of that thought perhaps that needed to be intercepted when that happened and that's what the Holy Spirit is and that's something we have access to but there's still something not quite it hasn't quite come together for me if I'm not articulating it very well but if you could just talk to that a little bit given that you're talking about something happening simultaneously that's probably the most profound simultaneous event maybe ever yeah that's the most important thing with the belief in separation from God that the answer was given simultaneously so that means that there in effect never was a problem that the answer was given simultaneously with the problem and I was talking yesterday about how Einstein said you can't you can't solve a problem from the level of the problem it's this answer that was given the Holy Spirit is everything in that moment that simultaneous answer is everything now the acceptance of that answer is what seems to take time the mind is so terrified of that thought of separation that it's built layers of defenses you might have seen the movie Inception there's like layers of dreaming so many layers that the mind actually forgets that it's dreaming and everything in the physical linear world is serious and real and actually happening you know it's so much forgotten it's so much had an amnesia about the separation about the light and about the dreaming as well so I think for me what that means is that that you can go for this answer this atonement and progressively you start to see that it's the only thing that's important the atonement accepting the atonement Jesus says two different places in the course is the soul responsibility of the miracle worker and then he says it's the soul responsibility of the teacher of God really what he's saying is nothing else is important absolutely nothing of this world has any importance except for that answer and that answer is covered it's buried so in one sense you're on a treasure hunt it's kind of fun it's like ooh I'm on an adventure one workbook lesson Jesus says he's describing the mind and all these thoughts and he says among all the thoughts in your mind salvation is among them and then he says find it ooh that's cool that's what to do with a life salvation the answer is among all these thoughts in your mind find it it's kind of fun it's like a childhood game hide and seek it's hidden now we get to go seek we you know like games we would play as children ooh this is a game but this is an important game because salvation or freedom true freedom depends on finding the answer and so it's basically out of desire if you desire to find that answer then you're going to zoom in to that like all of our great movies like remember the first Star Wars movie you know and then we watched the Star Wars series I remember watching the Star Wars movies and then there was that one where you know Luke Skywalker has got to to go into the Death Star you know it is this massive dark construct and he's got to fly his his little aircraft down and he's got to go all the way to the center of the Death Star and he's got to knock out the power out to the Death Star I think this is perfect this is A Course in Miracles you know even if you never learned A Course in Miracles and you watched Star Wars you know you've got to get to the Death Star you've got to get inside you've got to knock it out and the closer he gets to knocking the power out finally it's Obi-Wan Kenobi comes into his mind and he's basically telling the Force Luke there it is again Death Star you need a direct hit on the power plant of the Death Star and you can't use your five senses to get there Obi-Wan Kenobi is the voice of the Holy Spirit saying you know use the Force use the Force that's what we have to all do the Course is just helping us get in touch with the Force and then we have to use the Force what do we use the Force for everything we have to let the Force guide our exercise, our nutrition our eating habits what we say, what we do where we go, who we meet what to invest in what to divest from we want to use the Force for absolutely everything and that's really how you go for it and the whole point is going for the answer you're going for an experience you're going for the burst with everything that you've got and you're throwing caution to the wind we've all lived life of caution we're so cautious we don't want to make a false move we think oh I could really go off the beam and have a terrible life look at how they turned out look at them over there we're so very cautious that we don't allow the burst and the burst is the answer so to me all of this kind of comes to a place of listen and follow of give yourself fully over of saying oh I am going to have a life that is beyond what I could even imagine I have said too that if as a child if somebody had showed me the way my life had played out you know in this world we either would have been so scared in such denial and saying you got the wrong one that will never happen or I would have just been thought that just can't be that's not even possible I don't even know what that means but the way that it's played out has been an unimaginable life of going for the burst and not going to things of the world as Francis was saying as like a gauge or a comparison I couldn't I couldn't look to Course in Miracles teachers in going to this because I thought Jesus is calling me out of the world and I can't take this half way I can't try to find a middle ground with this I can't try to incorporate the Course into my earthly life when the whole teachings of the Course is you can't bring the truth into the illusions you have to bring all of your illusions to the truth to me that's been essential to stay true to that in order for there to be the burst and now it's just a delightful experience I don't feel it in terms of Course in Miracles it's hard still but like when we first went to China I think most of the people that showed up came from word of mouth they weren't Course in Miracles students they just started showing up in droves we had a hundred people there and only a small fraction of that were Course in Miracles students the word of mouth just spread there were flowers at the airport two airports they showed up with bouquets of flowers that's amazing that's spectacular but that's because of presence that's because of the burst it's not because of some kind of theology or system, thought system or whatever I just wanted to share the cause and effect her precious sort of moment that was shared with me a friend of mine was on duty in a nursing home and had non-English speaking staff nobody understood what to do in this place and it was chaos and she felt she didn't have any control over the situation they had so much work to do before 8 o'clock and anyway her lesson she was living in a tent on the beach and she did her lesson in the morning it was 6am and she got on and all these people started familiar around waiting for instructions and it was such chaos she just started saying I'm the light of the world I'm the light of the world and these people non-English speaking all started saying I am the light of the world didn't know what they were talking about or anything had no idea but all of a sudden all that washes the contents all the whole sort of thing was ordered and everybody got to breakfast on time and the beaming faces on both patients and on staff Chris said that's the most amazing thing so it caused an effect thank you what a story immediate results I am the light of the world like a chant almost everybody joined in spectacular anybody else had anything to share because they were here it's you know when we talked about idea of thought of separation tiny mad idea so in my mind I'm wondering why in the kingdom of heaven would we even have that idea what allowance is there for such thoughts to happen you know even if it happens in our imagination so I thought maybe it's like because God allows anything anything so maybe there's allowance for even a tiny mad idea because God doesn't disallow anything you know so then I was thinking okay if God allows any idea to come so we might have thought this idea like Jesus said or someone said a friend of mine said she remembered the original separation it was like someone saying oh let's go get some ice cream and some others were saying oh let's go and get some ice cream and then going like that and then she said then what she remembered was that she was falling and then she was in a womb and she forgot what happened in between but in the original separation so I do that there's another friend of my psychic friend and from childhood she was taken on astral travels and she was shown different things and one of the things was that she said I saw the light source creating light and these light beings come and they would create anything they want mountains, the lakes and they would rest and then after resting they would just wipe with one sweep everything disappears and they go back to light then I thought okay maybe that's the freedom we have to create whatever we want and then as long as we go home by 9 p.m. God is happy in this case we seem to have kept on going creating and somehow we got lost in the in the plot or something lost in the jungle in our imagination you know and then I think what is the purpose maybe it is a fun have fun and God allows it and we keep creating like God told us saying there are two schools of thought in that they say some say that we have to feel separation in order to feel the bondness even one ACIM teacher also says that we have never been awake we were in the state of like a source where everything is still there is no creation as such so we are kind of not awake but we experience the separation in order to be co-creators with God I see that as two schools of thought there whether it's we have been co-creators with God and then started dreaming this dream and we are you know what I'm saying there are two schools of thought it's good to go into it because anything that says that there is something other than love there is love and something other than love is dualistic and a non-dualistic path is teaching nothing real can be threatened nothing unreal exists herein lies the peace of God so to use it in terms of simultaneous really what atonement is which is what the burst is which is what the answer is separation never happened in other words the question of how did it happen or why did it happen is the ego suspending its wheels there is no separation in fact you might say that the book is written as if and Jesus does put that in the clarification of terms he says the mind is described as if and he puts as if which is our hypotheticals in italics so the whole book is written as if the impossible occurred for a mind that believes that this impossible has occurred Jesus says in the clarification of terms the ego will ask many questions that this court has no answer for how did the separation occur to whom did the separation occur and many other forms this course has no answer conceptually for the ego's questions because again atonement which is what I'm talking about is the awareness that the separation has never occurred hallelujah rejoice in love love has no opposite you know that's the beauty of it let's look at it in terms of cause and effect I was joking the other night last night about I was saying remember when I started talking about the gap mind the gap if you're over in England you take the tube you hear the mind the gap mind the gap mind the gap the gap between cause and effect is the belief in separation but what did I say that there is no gap between cause and effect isn't that wonderful that's the experience that's the burst nothing needs to be corrected the Jesus says this is not a course in the philosophical play of ideas philosophy falls short of the burst theology falls short of the burst and thank God none of us are called to be theologians or scholars we're not called to be metaphysicians even we're called to burst it's really that simple and then that all questions fall away so it becomes a living experience I remember I tell people one time I was sitting at a place I think it was getting some tires I think for the car and I was sitting at this used tire store kind of a really run down place and everything and I was sitting there and this woman next to me she comes up and she sits down next to me and she's got this biggest smile on her face and she's smiling and smiling and we're sitting there in the sunshine at this used tire place and she turns over to me and she looks at me and she starts off with what many people consider to be a loaded question a really loaded question she turns to me and she says do you know the name of God do you know the name of God well I was just so happy and I just smiled back at her and I said tell me this is how Jesus works tell me and I forget what she said of Jehovah or whatever was Yahweh or whatever I can't remember who cares I mean really that's what I say is who cares I'm not interested in that I'm interested in love so I said tell me and we had the most fun when she said it I just lit up whatever the name was Yahweh Jehovah it could have been Fred or Louise I would have lit up with any name she could have told me that God was a pink pyramid I would have went because the love is what's important it's not I'm not going to split hairs with anybody over anything in those kind of questions too in the end actually Helen Shuckman the scribe of the Course had built that for they actually asked that question of Jesus after they'd scribed and taken down so many chapters they were like Jesus can we before we go on can we ask one tiny question how did this happen in the first place and it was interesting the way Jesus answered them here they are doing this Course in Miracles and he said well he didn't answer it directly he just said he said well you can tell by your emotional roller coaster ride as human beings that you believe that it did that's what he said you believe it and he was giving a Course to show that it's impossible separation is impossible he was giving a Course to take you into a burst into an experience not into another theology not into some kind of conceptual philosophical answer that you can use in a debate or use in a public no he was saying come join me in the burst that's all that matters the burst is all that matters and there really is there aren't any conceptual answers for those things because the separation didn't happen that's why when I told the story of Adam and Eve and all this and this and then I said Jesus has a new version of Genesis and it doesn't have any snakes in it and no trees remember I was saying no snakes no trees into eternity where all is one that crept a tiny mad idea at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh and then this guy Al started screaming crept all his rage came out on that one word even Jesus's story people used to rage at the Bible story like how why would God do that put such a tree and there now he's screaming at the crept word crept he screamed crept how it's just the story that's not true either Jesus told another story it just was a story to to give a little bit of help he took he took the naked bodies out come on Al he took the naked bodies out he took the snake out he took the tree out he just he's like crept never happened that's we have to forgive the course he does say that at one point he says forget this world forget this course he says in lesson 1 89 he's actually saying come into the burst and eventually forget the course and forget all those questions that you ever had because it never happened I just have a visual in my head when you say and the visual popping into my head was we could be outside in the beautiful warm sunlight bathed in the bright light and the moment we close our eyes just because we can't see it we might have a mad tiny mad idea of belief that there is no sunlight we're not in the light all we have to do is open our eyes again that's beautiful all we have to do is open our eyes I have one question I'd like you to clarify you said you always bring the illusion into the light not the light into the illusion can you flesh that out or give a practical example it's just that all these concepts that we're emptying and we're letting go of all these concepts are a false self concept and you can't bring truth or light into false concepts you can simply see the false concept and give it back to the Holy Spirit and we have to do that with all of them so in the end we talk about mother or daughter or son or father or of course a miracle teacher or spiritual seeker we just yield them all and say show me, you show me reveal to me who I am that's what we mean by bringing the darkness to the light and I really think at some point I've done a movie watcher's guide to enlightenment but I'm going to do a music lover's guide to enlightenment for those who love music the music lover's guide to enlightenment and I will leave you this session from a song that I really like and the line goes but in the time it takes us to go beyond the lies we could be sailing through each other's eyes I like that in the time it takes us to go beyond the lies we could be sailing through each other's eyes we could be bursting instead that's what this is about it's the joy, it's the love, it's the happiness it's giving ourselves permission to truly be happy and not to hold back not to hold back from that we thought today is almost like a day of giving yourself permission and giving yourself allowance just really have that in your mind anything that comes up you're not the judge you will not be the judge of whatever that arises give it to the spirit so today we thought after this morning session we really want the rest of the day be very very spontaneous and give you a lot of spaciousness to just integrate because we're halfway into the retreat we have many many really deep sessions last night it was just such a boom so we want to give some spaciousness to allow the mind to integrate, allow yourself just to nurture you and just to tap into what feels most helpful we thought this afternoon can be just an open afternoon and you can pray on what is truly helpful you want to take a walk, you want to join with someone you want to just do something have little music, rest whatever that is helpful for this integration would be what you can do and we also the messengers will be available if you feel somehow there are emotions that really needs to be allowed and need some kind of support we are here to offer one-on-one sessions so there's a web board where you can draw your name on I think we put some time on that we started as three okay, yeah that sounds good so if you need that this afternoon just take your time but if you don't need that just give yourself permission to you know to do what you feel is most helpful and tonight we'll come back at 6 30 and in this room we're going to just guide everybody into some experiential session to really tap into some giving and receiving thank you what a lovely morning what a lovely morning