 So for myself, you know, having gone through all that university and everything and taking psychology and studied graduate school psychology and so on and so forth, I'm kind of, I like graphics and I like to be shown things. I like diagrams, so because I like that kind of stuff, when I made contact with Jesus, I actually asked Jesus, I said, you know, I'm kind of fascinated with the mind, you know, not so much the brain, but I really would like to know how how my mind works. Could you give me a map of my mind? Because it's pretty difficult here navigating through these daily experiences where I get angry and upset and I have these intense emotions and then my behavior I want to act out those intense emotions and I said, can you give me a map of the mind? He said, sure, so and he had me sit down and draw all these concentric circles and he was saying, okay, the outside layer there is this map of the mind is your perceptual realm. This is what you perceive as the gross perceptual world that you see in the cosmos through the seemingly through the five senses. It's really in your mind, but it seems like it's through the five senses. It's it's projected out from your consciousness and it's not like the world's outside of you. It's just the world is projected so it seems to be through the trick of the ego that it's external to your mind, but it's not external to your mind and then he said the outer layers, perception and then right underneath, you know, I talked this morning about the ring of fear, the emotional ring is right under the perceptual ring and these two rings are so close to each other that that's where it seems like the manipulation can occur, where you start to feel these intense emotions and you've and then you watch your behavior, you're tempted to act them out. You know, you may get so upset in interpersonal relationships that you just feel furious. You may sometimes feel like a murderous rage coming up. You may be able to control it and not act out the murderous rage, but you do think thoughts like I could just kill them. You know, has anybody not gone through these murderous thoughts coming up at some point or another in your life? That outer ring of perception is so close to the emotions that are underneath that that it seems like with most marketing parents use it to influence their children's behavior. You know, the children go through the terrible twos and then they go through childhood and then they get to be teenagers and then parents might use some wording to control behavior like my way or the highway. This is my house and I make the rules in my house. If you live under my house, you live by my rules and it doesn't matter whether it's corporations like Facebook, Analytica, or it seems to be just parents, church leaders, politicians in interpersonal relationships, you know, that's what codependency is about. Codependency is about using control and manipulation to bring about certain behaviors and actions. So when I studied psychology, I knew these things, but it took the master psychologist to kind of lay it out for me like, like, well, here's your perceptions of what's happening, your behavior, your actions, the body is all out in that outer ring and then the ring of fear, the emotional ring, is right underneath that and even your pseudo-emotions of love, like romantic love and attraction and all those things, those perceptions and those emotions are so close together that it seems like that's where a lot of what we would call manipulation and abuse occur. But as I said earlier today, Jesus says, you have not gone back. Far enough. He didn't stop his map with those two outer layers, levels of mind. Oh no, he said no, there's something under those emotions. There's something under your emotions that's causing your emotions. I was like, fascinating. That's fascinating. It's psychology, you know, all this undergrad and grad, ooh, Jesus, ooh, this is much better than Freud. Tell me what's, I need to know what's underneath those perceptions and those emotions because those emotions seem to dictate those perceptions. In fact, Jesus even says that in the Course. He says, you will look upon that which you feel within. And if you have hatred in your mind, you're going to see a very fearful world based on that hatred. As long as you still have hatred in your mind, you're going to perceive a world because that fear, that hatred, that anger determines the perception. You will perceive that. But underneath the emotional ring is cognition. It's your thoughts. Fascinating. So cognition, thoughts determine emotions. That must mean that I have egoic, if I have attack thoughts, I'll call them or judgments, that must be generating the anger, generating the fear, generating the shame, generating the guilt. It's the thoughts, it's the thoughts that generate the emotions. It's the emotions that generate the perceptions. Okay, now we're getting somewhere. The master psychologist and he said, but there's something underneath your thoughts. I need to know about that. Let's go down. Let's get back far enough. Let's go deep enough with this. Let's do like the ancient Greeks. Let's start questioning everything. Let's get into philosophy. Let's get into the depth using Jesus Christ as the teacher. What is underneath those thoughts? Your beliefs, he said. Your beliefs generate those thoughts. Okay, wow. That means I got to go way down there because he's saying that when you have an assumption that you will not question in your mind, it turns into an unconscious belief. That which you do not question in your mind is an unconscious belief, which is dictating your thoughts and your emotions and your perceptions. So that's why Jesus says in a Course in Miracles, the learn this course requires willingness to question every value that you hold. Not one can be kept hidden. Or it will obscure your learning. That means question everything. And how would you do that except under the guidance of Jesus and the Holy Spirit taking you on that journey? Going deeper, deeper, inward, inward. The truth is inward. The truth is inward underneath those beliefs. Is there anything deeper than the beliefs? Jesus said yes. Oh, thank God. Because the ego is a belief and there better be something underneath that ego or we're in shit. We're in eternal damnation if there's nothing underneath the beliefs, but there is. He says your desire, your desire is under your beliefs, your desire. You made the ego by believing in it and you can dispel it by withdrawing your belief from it. How do I withdraw my belief from the ego? How do I unplug this death wish? He says in the Course, he says truth will be returned to you by your desire. As it was lost by your desire for something else. Yes. Desire the truth and the truth shall shut you free. Desire happiness. Desire joy. Desire divine love. Desire true freedom. You know, by desiring it. As soon as I got that map of the mind, I like okay, then let's get busy here. Let's go deep diving. Let's do some deep diving into the mind. How am I going to get in touch with these unconscious beliefs? I'm not even aware of my thoughts. How can I get down underneath my thoughts? He said I'll help you. I'll take you to the movies. Like this. I'll take you to the movies. You like music. I'll do some playing a lot of music to help you bring up those emotions. Get in touch with what's underneath there. He's like, I know how to get down there. I did it. I've been through this before. I've done this. I know you can transcend it. So in answer to your question about manipulation is that's exactly what a course and miracle is for. Yes, the roots of the belief in manipulation run deep. Yes, the roots of abuse, the belief in abuse run deep. The belief that you can be unfairly treated runs deep. The belief that you or anyone can be unfairly treated runs very, very deep. And he'll throw in little ditties in there. He'll say, beware of the temptation to believe that you can be unfairly treated. Oh, it's a temptation. It's just an ego temptation. And what did Jesus do? He transcended everything. He transcended the ego and in the entire ego belief system to express and extend the living experience of the kingdom of heaven within. And he taught us that it wasn't like an earthly kingdom. It was a spiritual kingdom and that we could reach it as he reached it. In fact, it is inevitable. Jesus was just the first to wake up from this dream of scarcity, shame, pain, lack, death. This dark world, dark forces that Jesus just was the first and he's given us a roadmap. That's what a course and miracles is. It's a roadmap. It's like, uh-oh. Uh-oh, roadmap. I've done a pretty good job of hiding myself for millennium. And now he's got to put a roadmap out there on how to transcend me, the ego and time and space. And that's what Jesus is doing for us. It is offering a way out.