 the way the world seems to be, and with all this talk about the ego and the unconscious mind and the shadow and so on and so forth, that people are fascinating, they're really curious and fascinated to hear a little bit about my journey, and what was it that worked for you? You know, this ego thing seems to be like a tough nut to crack for most people, even in mystics and saints that had dedicated their life to it. You know, we're talking about decades of their life, and they write down their journals, they talk about the dark night of the soul and how black, when they go deeper into their minds, it's very, very dark. And of course, I work with a tool called Course in Miracles, which was saying you have to go through the darkness to come to the light. You can't just affirm your way back into nirvana or the Kingdom of Heaven, you actually have to pass through the error and come out through the keyhole into the correction. And so, welcome, come on in, we've got plenty of floor space, you're welcome to come as close as you want, and there's pillows, whatever the question is, the forgiveness is the answer. But it's just that we have a lot of ideas in our mind and concepts, even about forgiveness, so that's why it seems so difficult to embrace or reach this point of release, because we have a lot of concepts. We have believed that we still need to forgive people for what they did to us, and we're starting to get much deeper than that now, getting to a point where we have to realize that we need to forgive ourselves and we need to forgive others for what they have not done to us, for what we have not done to ourselves. That could seem like a mind bender. How do you get your mind around the idea that you're going to forgive somebody for what they didn't do to you? It almost seems like you're pardoning them and getting them a free pass, even though they actually said these things, did these things. I've got this memory of what they did or said. I even have it on videotape. I've got a DVD out, and so I've got the evidence. How am I supposed to forgive the hard evidence? When you go much deeper into your mind, you start to realize that what you're really doing is you're releasing a misperception that what you thought was done to you and what you think you did to them was all part of the misperception that has absolutely nothing to do with reality, with Nirvana, with oneness, with love. It was an anomaly. It was a glitch. It was a mistake. It was an error. But it wasn't a reality. So in the pathway I used to come to self-realization or enlightenment, I remember reading one of these workbook lessons and it said, your one remaining problem is you still believe that you must forgive the truth. It's never the truth that we have to forgive. It's the illusion, the misperception of what we thought happened, what we thought was there. We have to learn to release that, to really be convinced by the spirit, by the intuition in us that we were completely, not really partially mistaken, but were completely mistaken about what we thought happened. So I want tonight to be a very practical mic. These are not so much necessarily public talks as I just show up and then I really say a few words and open up the floor and then we go at this in a very practical way. So feel free to ask any question, raise any topic, bring up anything that you want. And if we start talking about it and it doesn't seem to be registering or you still have a lot of doubt or confusion or curiosity about it, then just please ask for, can you give me a practical example from your life? Can you give me a metaphor? Can you show me a demonstration that will help provide some clarity and understanding? So feel free to do that because this isn't about just a bunch of high theological ideas or high metaphysical ideas. To me, if it's not practical and if you can't live it, then it's just another concept or another theology that is just more words. And for people who do live with me or follow me around, then they have some very interesting tales to tell. Not that it's all peaches and cream, we were just having a discussion. Some people would bite me into their home for a week and it turns into a tossed salad. They say, what did we do? Or we were talking about Lez and Tina and Sue and Greg were saying that sometimes before I come, it seems to be there's a storm. The ego is anticipating me arriving and so a storm will start brewing. And then it's good though because when we come together we have a chance to clear the storm or to reach the eye of the hurricane. That peaceful still point that really is untouched by the movement of the ego, the seeming movement of the ego. So I really encourage you to ask any questions because my life is really an open book and I'm very transparent. And one problem is everyone's problem. It seems like we have different problems as human beings that are on different levels, seemingly physical problems or psychological problems or mental psych problems. It can be a whole range of problems. But actually the answer is the same and the answer is an experience. But it takes a lot of open mind of this and persistence and really faith and trust to actually experience that answer and that's why we're here. We want the experience. We don't want just a bunch of words. In the end of the day, you know, words aren't going to get you anywhere. They're just stepping stones or they're little signposting pointers and anybody who's had a mere meditation practice knows that you may use a mantra or you may use words to help start yourself to kind of send you in the right direction. But when you sink down and drop off, you know, the words are way beyond the words. But we're going to use words tonight because that's very helpful. So another thing too is even though we've only got a couple hours tonight and we pretty much have a full day tomorrow, Greg brought his guitar. So I guarantee that tonight or tomorrow one way we'll work that in. And Helena has prepared some beautiful songs. She's been in school, a singing school, just letting these deep spiritual songs pour through her in such a state of transparency that it's really not a performance. It's just the core of her being radiating. So she's joined me and we've been doing quite a bit of singing here in Australia. And I think there's quite a bit more to come. So I've kind of been the talking mystic, but I think, catch me while you can. I'm going on tour. I'm going to do more singing than I've ever done before. It's part of where my heart's at. I just want to sing. You know, I just feel like I'm in a place of wanting to sing, sing out the joy and sing the celebration. So it's getting to be more like that. So it's more likely that I'll show up singing. And if somebody says, well, can you go into that? I say, it's on the internet. Just watch the DVD or listen to the CD. I can't be bothered too much with it. So I think just in terms of openness and receptivity, I think what I'd like to do is have Helena just play a song, a music meditation song for us to all just kind of really get comfortable and relax and just let the music just wash over you and open your mind to a place of receptivity because I think music is beautiful to listen to. I'm just still in my heart. So this will go in time sometime.