 There is still mine today, but I'm very, very open to join with everyone in the depth of this glorious stillness. The topic for this afternoon at lunchtime in the Keto was saying, Talk about humbleness. Talk about humbleness. And that's always a good topic because it's a word. And I'd say it doesn't really come into awareness as an experience until you've really surrendered or until you've been receptive to hear the voice for God, the Holy Spirit, to hear the guidance and to follow the guidance. And then as you are willing to hear it and to follow it, then you begin to come into an experience of humbleness. And it's just another word for being totally filled up by the Spirit or totally emptied of the ego. Sometimes people ask me, how did it go in your parable or your experience? And I do remember back in the 1980s when I started to study the Course. It took me about two and a half or three years before I started to really receive guidance and instruction. And a lot of times it's thought, wow, that's really the goal of spirituality. The goal of the Course is to really start to be in touch with your inner teacher. And yeah, you could say that. You could make a case for that. And yet actually when you do come in touch with the internal teacher, that isn't the end of the journey. That's the beginning. And everything before that was kind of like treading water. You were just like flailing away in the pool. You weren't really swimming. You weren't going anywhere. There was no movement. You were kind of pretending to be a human being. And doing whatever you were doing, it doesn't really matter. But actually tuning in and hearing the Holy Spirit is just the beginning. And so that was very thrilling for me. Because I thought, oh wow, this is the beginning of simplicity because the Holy Spirit is so simple that to just tune in and listen to that and follow that will surely lead me into a very simple joyful experience. And so it was amazing even in the day-to-day activities because it was like the internal teacher had lots to say, not just I love you or the things that we think the teacher would say, but very specifics in terms of what to do, where to go. Very practical, extremely practical. And it was quite interesting when I would go to retreats like this or be guided to go on cross-country tours or whatever. It wasn't so much to speak. If I would even hint that I would like to start speaking and teaching the voice would like laugh. Like, well that's funny. Because at the beginning when you start to listen and follow you really aren't in a position. You really have a consistency yet that is worthy of sharing. And even with Bill Thudford the last ten years of his life he really was tuning in, really was listening and practicing. But he didn't really have much to say even. His presence was the teacher. People would feel it around him but he didn't have a whole lot to say. I guess you could say he'd been speaking for many of the years of his life and he was just enjoying the basking and the stillness and the experience, I think. And also really tuning in to be shown what he needed to be shown whatever his blocks were, whatever his sticking points so that he could transfer the training and do his Jim Carrey. Good afternoon, good evening, and good night. And then he kind of laid his body aside on his sidewalk not too far from Judy Scotch's house and literally his heart burst. And so initially when I would go to see some teachers I'd go to listen to Tara Sing or Ann Watt make her different teachers. I was quite still, I really didn't have a whole lot to say because I was receiving so much instruction in my mind that it would have actually been a distraction to speak. And that was the beginning of like opening up to humbleness when I would go to their teaching facilities and their workshops and everything. I would go there and I would enjoy meeting them and everything but then when I would go to the teaching sessions while they were teaching there was a lot of internal instruction going on, a lot of pointers. So you can see it was a very still time of inner discernment of watching the emotions very, very closely noticing everything and then receiving all this instruction while the speaker was speaking. And this would go on whether I was in the kitchen or meeting people at a restaurant or wherever and a lot of time I did a lot of driving. I didn't really fly so I would drive and I would just have music on but I would have that instruction keep being instructed, instructed, instructed. And I think that's part of the humbleness. You really start to see that in a very deep way that even things like speaking and words and the use of words needs to be in alignment to be truly helpful. There's no need to use words like filler space. Sometimes people talk about awkward silences and filling in when two friends have a moment or some minutes with an awkward silence. That will go away but part of it is the spirit's use of words. A specific example of that would be the scribe of the Course in Miracles Helen Shuckman who took down a very rapid interdictation of what turned into being a Course in Miracles and the song of prayer and the psychotherapy pamphlet over a period of a little bit over seven years. And of course hearing her story of how this went working so closely with Jesus was quite helpful and instructive because she didn't always feel like taking notes over times when she would go for periods of time actually resisting taking notes even though the very first instruction that came from Jesus was this is a Course in Miracles. Please take notes. During those seven years there was many times where it was like I would rather not and she would actually try to do anything but take notes and then sometimes find herself waking up in the middle of night can't even sleep and until she would follow the instructions and take notes, come back to the project so to speak. So there was one point when she was pretty high in resistance like a very strong resistance and that's when Jesus told her a good scribe must be under Christ's control. Interesting instruction. A good scribe must be under Christ's control. Interesting use of the word control. In that sense it's actually meaning alignment like total receptivity, willingness. Very different from the way the word is usually used in this world. And so I think that turns into your inner pathway to humbleness is you start to realize that as you seem to go through your day you have this sense that you want to be used in the most positive, most helpful way. In one sense it's very much the St. Francis prayer, Lord make me an instrument. It's really saying let the vessel, let the body be used under Christ's control. In the early years I used a lot of different metaphors from a lot of different movies but some of you might remember Pinocchio. The story of Pinocchio. Pinocchio actually started off as a puppet. Gepetto the puppet maker and so Pinocchio was a puppet and then his desire was to become a real boy. I did a talk the other day about autonomy. How valued autonomy is. And in the world's eyes that's kind of an interesting story because going from a puppet an inanimate piece of wood and going into a real boy seems to be a marvelous transformation when we follow the parable of Pinocchio. He actually goes through a lot of trials and tribulations when he doesn't listen to Jiminy Cricket and he's trying to be his autonomous little boy and not listen to his little wisdom character that is in the movie and that little wisdom character is very symbolic of the spirit of the voice for God. He wants to be an autonomous little boy and it doesn't go very well. He actually tried to dismiss and get away from Jiminy Cricket and then he's taken to Pleasure Island which for little boys seems like a pretty good title. What little boys are often attracted to and it turns into a disaster. And that's very much what it is when we don't listen to our internal teacher. We often find ourselves in an emotional predicament wondering where did I turn? What turn did I take to find myself in this emotional struggle or this particular predicament? So my friend Resta channeled the song from the Angels for a number of years with me early on and one of her songs, you know, she really was just saying I want to be put back on the strings. Put back on the strings. I want to hand over my autonomy. Hand over my autonomy, the belief that I'm an autonomous person with a will of my own and a mind of my own and thoughts of my own decisions of my own, preferences of my own and different individual loved ones that seem to be part of a very subjective perception of the world. I want to get back on the strings. She would say that to me as we would be traveling around. I would love to be back on the strings. And it was fun. I think Nikita had a talk with some people here prior to strawberry where she was kind of using that. Instead of on the strings she was saying how many people feel here that they're on a leash and some of the people who've been living and working with Nikita, they raise their hands. They're on the leash. She says good. I'm glad you feel that. Interesting. That kind of a leash metaphor when we talk about with a dog or an animal that seems like it's more free to be running wild than it is to be on a leash. So these metaphors are very interesting. Especially in the context of humbleness. How would you even know what humbleness is if your entire mind was addicted and devoted pretty consistently to arrogance? It would be kind of difficult to even have a clue what humbleness would be if everything about your life, your personality, self, and your personal history and even your ambitions for the future were all part of arrogance. All of it was arrogance. How would you know what was humble? It would be hard. Proud of your humility. Yeah, even proud of your humility. You could say proud of being humble. Yeah. Those are the lessons that I know I went through where I would get the witnesses, I would get the instruction and it was all really coming down to do you think you know something? That's what it was. It was really all directed at one thing. Do you think you know something? Really do you think you know anything? That's how far it goes. Further you go down the rabbit hole the more that just when you think you've arrived and you've finally landed on solid ground and you're quite sure at this time you're standing on solid ground then the floor drops out. It's like the door is open and you're back in freefall. What's the saying that we talk about here? Two feet firmly planted in midair. Yeah, yeah. That's it. And of course there's songs and I'm free free falling you know it's actually starting to open up and starting to feel more and more comfortable with the freefall. That seems to be the most glorious thing when you actually have that freefall feeling and you start to go I like this because yeah it's like you're not standing on anything as your basis. You're not thinking I have to have a foundation in the world because those foundations in the world they just fall away and they fall away and they keep falling away and if you identify with the ego it can be quite depressing you know like when will these trap doors stop opening when will I land on solid ground where will I have something to plant my feet on and it's not designed to take you there. I was talking with Nikita too at lunch today and one day I came out and they were working and I walked down here she was standing in the pond there and she had like a like a mop and she had the funniest look on her face too because she was so willing I could just see she was just just radiating all this willingness and and I looked at her and I said what are you doing and she said well I was told to clean the rocks and I said oh and we both just had a moment where we looked at each other like how do you clean rocks actually you know how do you know when they're clean I mean she was given an impossible task actually and that was the glory of it we both had to look on our face like it didn't matter who had told her to clean the rocks and she certainly had the mop down there she was moving the mop around down there you know I was kind of looking and she was looking and then she shrugged her shoulders and her hands went out and we totally connected I said this is it this is the human condition the human condition is that what Jesus calls this world this linear world that seems to be so important Jesus calls it an impossible situation you find yourself in an impossible situation it gives you a context in terms of when you think you have to try to improve the world improve yourself fix the world change the world make the world a better place once you start to get a clue of that and I could tell we had when Nikita and I looked at each other it was an impossible situation cleaning rocks and yet she was there and yet she followed and yet she in her heart she thought there must be a purpose for this even so so it wasn't really about cleaning the rocks it was the willingness to hang in there even when you can't figure out or you can't make any sense of what it is that you're asked to do and that happens a lot in this impossible situation many of us have worked at jobs where we actually go in and are employed to do meaningless things and then we receive meaningless wages and go to stores and buy more meaningless things and go back to work to do more meaningless things and do something that's going on but what would you expect in an impossible situation if you feel bored or if you feel unfulfilled if you feel frustrated what would you expect from an impossible situation those actually seem like pretty reasonable emotions trying to have an existence in impossibility from trying to make something from nothing as Billy Preston once said nothing from nothing leaves nothing gotta have something if you want to be with me something is spirit spirit is essence gotta have something if you want to be with me imagine being sung to by your source you are something with me and you have no existence apart from me I created you to be with me it's a higher reinterpretation of that because Carly Simon's song you belong to me yeah it doesn't make much sense in the world it's possessive on the horizontal plane but just imagine the spirit God, you belong to me you can only know yourself as you know me you can only know anything as you know me nothing can be known apart from me a lot of times I would listen to amazing Christian songs like Kim Walker we were just listening to before we started Christian singers will sing that God is a jealous God and well actually in terms of jealous I think that was the time I heard Oprah Winfrey say that when she was at church listening to the minister that was the line that she heard our God is a jealous God that she went hmm no that doesn't seem right I don't think God is really jealous so she started her journey of awakening by that maybe as a teenager just saying God isn't jealous but what Christian singers like Kim Walker mean when they say God is a jealous God they say our God wants all of you our God wants your attention jealous for your love that's the interpretation very different interpretation in other words I want your full attention because you are one with me you reside in me you live and have your being in me and you need not put your attention on anything else because that is where sleep comes in that's where conflict arises that's where struggle arises somewhere else other than spirit so it's really quite a journey and just like Helen Scheckman heard about a good scribe needs to be under Christ control you could fill that in with whatever you think your life is mother father sister brother or occupation or citizenship or your cultural background whatever you seem to identify yourself in this world even as a human being a good human being must be under Christ control that's your that's your lead in to what I would say is pure goodness not goodness of the personality self but the goodness of the essence that you truly are and so there was a time in the scribing of a Course in Miracles seven years where Jesus started out one day and he said to Helen I love you and I was like okay and Jesus said so for just one day in your life I'm going to point out all through the day where you could be more helpful it's like in one sense you're under the microscope but it starts off with I love you now and the whole day Jesus pointed out every little missed opportunity for a miracle an amazing thing this was even beyond scribing you know a good scribe must be under Christ control now he's looking at a day in the life imagine making a movie of that where you had like a little part of the screen which was the voice of Jesus now it was like things very simple like she was coming down from Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center where she worked and coming down to the lobby I think to go out and she was just doing something so simple as catching a cab in New York City it's a very common thing happens on a daily basis sometimes if you don't have a car and you've got to get around it happens multiple times on a daily basis and Jesus pointed out this man was right there with you actually I think it was somebody I don't think she even knew him but he happened to be right there when she was hailing a cab and he was going in the same direction as she was going you could have offered him a ride Jesus said just under the microscope imagine that when you think of your daily life and you think I'm doing pretty good and I try to be as friendly as I can and as helpful as I can and as courteous as I can and I have my good moments and my bad moments but imagine that for a moment being under the microscope how instructive that would be wow talk about getting into charity talking about open your heart imagine how many minutes there are in a day how many days in a year how many years in a lifetime all those opportunities that are coming all the time and what you really need is some instruction that's why we clear away the debris of false beliefs of judgments, of grievances so that we can tune in and hear our internal teacher leading us and guiding us on how to be truly helpful because it's all for us it's like the voice that is speaking to us the voice that's calling us home inward wants us is happy we were created happy and having had amnesia and found ourselves in an impossible situation you need help you need a guide you need instruction right away if you start to get the context of how impossible linear time is and how much you need help then that a whole new frame of mind you know Bill Thetford was a one collaborating with Helen calming her so she could take down this voice for God message and then he would comfort her with one hand and type out the short hand notes with the other hand he was called in to help out do the best he could rub the back it's okay seven years keep going there was a big collaboration going on that's why they asked for a better way and Bill was important in that he was to comfort and to type it out and so with Bill he was ahead of the department and he never taught classes he just fairly rarely never taught a class even though he was in a an institution of higher learning and Jesus would tell him through Helen you're a professor afraid of professing you put yourself in an administrative position you're afraid to teach and not only that Jesus would say you're afraid to teach because you believe that teaching weakens you when you teach you are weakened you're not that great now that's construction if you just find well maybe I'm kind of shy or I'd rather be not in the classroom you know that's there's a mechanism going on there but Jesus is saying he identifies the mechanism you're a professor afraid of professing but doesn't stop there he says and here's what's going on underneath in your consciousness you believe to teach weakens you there's a lot of internal instruction before you go out and think you have anything to teach anybody in terms of words there's so much discernment there's so much humbleness there's so much opening to stillness there's so much releasing resistance that's so important before you actually can teach what you would learn before you actually can open up and use the mechanism of speaking you know there's a purification that is going on that's very very important and it's all about humbleness it's not about trying to go make a point when people study teachers and teachings and they really haven't come to an actual experience where the presence is doing the teaching not the personality self if you try to teach from the personality self you will be an inconsistent teacher because the ego is not who you are you can't teach consistently from a lie you can't profess from a lie teaching is not just done through words if your attitude doesn't back up your words if you don't have that consistent attitude behind you then the words don't really convey anything of substance and we know this is children when parents, when our parents try to tell us don't do this and don't do that and don't do this and they still, their actions were still showing that they were still doing those things that's when as a little child you kind of turn your mind off and you go you may not even know what the word is but you know it's not right you may not even be able to pronounce hypocrisy it's too big of a word for a little child but there's something inside that goes that's not right, why would I listen to you when you're not demonstrating what you're speaking and then when you look at spirituality then you see all the more wow it would have to be peace of mind would be the demonstration and the words if the words line up with the attitude so be it, if there's a helpful value there, if they don't it's better off not to attempt it because why, because it's just arrogance masquerading as teaching and there's really no point in masquerading it never serves us in relationships in occupations in anything in this world there's really no point in masquerading even halloween you know it's kind of interesting some of these symbols of halloween all of the symbols of blood and death and so on and so forth that go with it but halloween comes very food, candy it becomes very close all saints day it's interesting now in america everyone knows halloween but we forgot all saints day, you see how how everything in this world is a reaction against holiness a reaction against divine love even with christmas you know kids grow up and more and more they lose the sense of the nativity scene or any sense of the story of jesus and it becomes about presents what am i going to get for christmas we even invent characters easter bunny yet john is bringing that up too resurrection, it's a little too frightening let's bring in a bunny and lots of candy christmas let's bring in a fat man with lots of materialism with a presence in his sack and let's cover over the meaning and you see how that's what this world is it's just always an attempt to cover over holiness to disguise holiness to keep you further bound in the amnesia for getting your own divinity and your own holiness as a child of god and get caught up into the symbols that were made in hate sometimes people tell me of course i was in university for 10 years so i learned about biology and i remember watching the Discovery Channel and everything about the wonders the wonders the wonders of the human body and you know that's not an uncommon thing and we've even had some great movies over the years about going inside a body and one with interspace oh my gosh that was funny the whole adventure is pretty much inside a human body fantastic voyage those movies they would kind of take science and what we know about the human body and bring in imagination and mix them together and some comedy interspace a lot of very good comedians and then we come into after a while you start to realize this is feeling more like an impossible situation this is feeling more impossible like trying to maintain it with diseases and all the possible things that you're supposed to defend to help this thing survive by defending against all these things radiation and germs and diseases and genetic disorders it just goes on and on and on a litany of fearful things and it's so complicated that no one ever stops to go where did this complexity start in the first place there's so much into the effects of complexity that there's no one who questions is there even a cause for complexity or is this much to do about nothing like Shakespeare talked about is this a whole big ruse is it a big distractive device so that really helped me in hearing the Holy Spirit and reading the Course even Jesus saying when we dress up the body when you dress it up when you hang ornaments on it and when you put lipstick on and do whatever you do to it he says try to make lovely what you hate those are strong words the next time you think about dressing up or make-up or doing anything for the betterment of the body that's pretty strong words that's to make lovely what you hate what you hate no listen I've been working for years I hate my body and I'm finally coming around and now you're telling me I still hate it after all these years of acceptance of looking in the mirror and accepting accept accept accept accept accept to make lovely what you hate because the body was made in hate the body is not a creation of love and hate now we're going to go down the rabbit hole now I'm going to take you with me down down down the rabbit hole we've got all this so called mysterious guilt that you can't seem to get rid of come on down we'll go down we're going to find out what the what the mysteries are what are these hidden secrets in the unconscious mind why is there such hatred of the body well in heaven talk a bit about heaven and nirvana where all is one there could never be an idea there could never be a conception of such a thing as a body or a world because all is perfect as we were saying on the stage there there's no perfect people here that's the truth there's no perfect bodies and it's an impossible goal if you have the perfection of the body there's even some spiritualities that actually teach the immortality of the body you've heard of those where some people say there'll be a hundred thousand saved live in paradise where others say you'll reach a place of awakening where the body is maintained and they call it an immortal body oh contradiction in terms again immortality belongs to spirit in eternity and never can apply to the body which is temporary which actually has no existence at all at no single instant does the body exist at all it is always remembered or anticipated it's a product of time it's a product of the ego it is hate the ego which is self deception the ego made the body and the world and the cosmos the linear cosmos now there are spiritualities again that teach that God was bored God was lonely God was incomplete and I always laugh before I can even get to the second part of whatever the teaching is wouldn't be lonely so we could have some companionship a family the big family seven billion still growing something to complete needed something opposite to God to create to fulfill no no no in fact Suzanne was telling me one time she said can you in very very very short words give me what this whole awakening process is about can you give it to me really short really succinct and just in a way that I could understand and I had forgotten all about it because I said this so many years ago to her and then came out from her mouth again the other day she looked at me and she went damn damn damn damn ah ah I forgot all about that one and what it is the body is part of a projection of a substitute to make a substitute for love the body is a concretized form of sin and sin is error sin is not a black mark on your soul some of us were raised with you're gonna burn in hell because you're a miserable sinner and you gotta accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior and then if you do you go to heaven and everybody else goes to hell I was raised with that but we'll say sin is an error to be corrected and the body is a concretized form of sin so when people talk about the wonders of the body I would say let's use the word wonder in a miraculous way the wonders of God the wonders of spirit but the body is not wondrous at all it's simply it was made in hate okay it was made in hate but the Holy Spirit neutralized it ah brought it around to something useful something that was made in hate actually now is useful in waking up that's pretty good talk about like neutralizing something like with acid or something in a science class it's this body and this world have been neutralized and when they've been neutralized they've been given over to the one the comforter the wise one the one who has all the instructions for awakening and therefore again this is good news it's not bad news at all this is really good news that the body is like the puppet under the control of the Holy Spirit and when I say neutralized I mean neutralized I mean anything that you try to get out of the body or make the body be or make the body do that is not in alignment with awakening is going to be part of staying asleep you're not going to wake up if you're using the body for the ego's purposes why? because the ego made the body out of hatred and it wants to use the body in tricky forms to maintain the hatred to maintain the anger it's a clever thing it's ingenious for a puff of nothingness it's an ingenious puff of nothing and really I say puff of nothing because when you pull your mind away from it it's like Wizard of Oz the wicked witch of the west like throwing water at and a cloak not a scary witch with a green pointy nose I told you about the making of the Wizard of Oz I've been saying that how many directors they had how many different set changes and everything when they did the original production of the Wizard of Oz they did like a sample where they show the movies to a sample audience even Hollywood did that back in those days they did a sample showing of it where they invited parents to come in and they invited children to come in and they showed the Wizard of Oz and the children screamed and cried because they had so many scenes of the wicked witch of the west in the original movie that they had to go back and redo the movie and cut her parts down most of us saw that movie I saw that movie when I was a kid that was the scariest part the movie was the wicked witch of the west so they did a test audience and they went revamped the whole movie fire another director let's get a new this they had to redo the movie because it was too scary it wouldn't go over it wouldn't go it wouldn't sell the world was made in hatred the body was made in hatred but it's now neutralized and anything you try to do for the purpose of the ego will simply reinforce the sleep and everything that you do allowing the Holy Spirit to do it through you you know to be used as an instrument like St. Francis said make me an instrument will be helpful in unwinding your mind from the guilt and the error and waking up from the impossible situation so it's good to know that what is that one thing that you're using this neutralized body for and it's communication it's communication that's the one function of the body now it's communication let the spirit play the piano through it sing through it, speak through it caress through it offer just this softness this love this laughter, this joy it only has one purpose you feel that, you know how good it feels when you're in that alignment when you're being done through with that now not only was the body made in hatred because it was made from hatred but the world was too so it's the whole cosmos hold no graven images before the Lord thy God that's not talking about golden calves and totem poles and stuff like that it's talking about everything in the perceptual, linear world the stars the quasars the black holes hold no graven images before the Lord thy God and then we start to get away from a lot of non-dual teachings because some non-dual teachings will say it's not really so bad and it's not that the world is bad at all because again it's been neutralized it all comes down to the purpose if you use it for the purpose of awakening you will have glorious experiences so glorious that in the end you'll forget the world and just return to glory but there's a beautiful passage in the workbook where Jesus says the world was made as an attack on God a place where God can enter not give it to me straight give it to me straight don't delude it to me don't dance around with me I want to know the kingdom of heaven I want to know the glory give it to me straight is that a popular teaching no you may only have to come to me to hear it or read it in the book from Jesus directly but that's not the emphasis the emphasis is on okay that's a good reason why the world I see holds nothing that I want if you're gonna know God and you're gonna know oneness then obviously you're gonna let go of the valuing of the things of this world there's a line in the what is the real meaning of sacrifice in the back of the book in the teacher's manual where he said God's teachers can have no regrets on giving up the pleasures of the world that says a lot does it mean you have to become a Buddhist nun or a monk or anything like that it doesn't mean anything in terms of form it's not like a formula where you have to now go out and try to conform and find the right form but it does mean to just open your heart up and say okay I want to be guided I want to awaken I want to know the truth I want to know myself I want to be in alignment I want to be in flow and I would say it's so joyful that that's been the whole seeming journey has not been sacrificial at all I don't have a day that goes by or a thought that goes through my mind of regret I don't regret anything of course you can see by following this book and these teachings it would rinse the regret away when the underpinnings are so clear it's so clear it's like saying I'll teach you what's valuable and what's valueless and you don't know the meaning yet but I'll do that so that's the journey it's really a journey without distance but it really is starting to to take it in and then you start to really discover what this is all really about where you anticipated a loss you find a happy light-heartedness instead is that Carly's Simon song anticipation remember that one is keeping me waiting anticipation what you find is everything that you anticipate God is going to take from you or every anticipation of loss like I'm praying to God now what's next what are you going to take from me now anytime you're in that perspective of feeling like taken away from like you're losing something that's just a misperception that's just an ego perception and when you flip through into the miracle you find a happy light-heartedness instead where you anticipated grief you find a happy light-heartedness isn't that wonderful that on the opposite side of a grievance is a miracle is the ah damn, damn, damn, damn ah and actually you can live in the ah you can live in the ah you can live day to day moment by moment ah ah you can actually live in there there's no need you don't really live in the damn, damn, damn anyway that's just confusion that's just doubt that's just hesitation and when you really give it over give it over, give it up as they say in the churches give it up, give it up for the Lord that's right I understand a little like Donna I really like that that gospel that gospel music and Donna I just I had to try to explain that when I came down from there and they're like what happened in there that was like an explosion they heard that all the way up and down the canyon it was louder than the music and we were inside in a chapel I got a film and got back over here to the monastery and they were so curious what was going on my god that's right it started off with a good old gospel piano rendition and then it took off from there none of us know what happened but it was beautiful we all felt the joy I'm glad they recorded that too I've never seen so many crying faces that they were crying out of sadness but they were laughing so hard that they couldn't stop crying it was that explosive but that's living in the awe that's really what this is about and all this other stuff this metaphysical stuff is just preliminaries preliminaries it just sends you off it sends you in the right direction and there's so much more to it the metaphysics are just like a launching pad eventually you just actually forget it you just lose track of it all you don't think of it it doesn't come into your awareness that's like a little trampoline you're supposed to be like a kid get on a trampoline and just keep bouncing higher and higher until you just launch out of there you just launch and you fly you don't ever come back to the trampoline you don't ever have to come back to the trampoline whenever I thought something was going wrong something was being taken from me it's just been this assurance like no you don't know your own best interest this is in your best interest whatever seems to be happening is always in our own best interest there is nothing apart from our own best interest it's just a distorted perspective that tells us that we're lacking something missing out on something and that perspective is just not real it just doesn't have any value or any validity whatsoever so that's my spiel for today that's our sermon here today and now I just want to open it up because then we come into a practical application really that's really what we're about transfer of training practical application I hear a sigh over there thanks again for the invitation down the rabbit hole one of my favorite parts of the course of miracles actually is the song of prayer it's so beautiful and I'm feeling it would be lovely to hear you speak of that about it and some of your thoughts on the song of prayer yeah to me is giving some words and metaphors to the seeming journey of a rising up back in the 60s we called it raising consciousness and I think that's really what the song of prayer is about it's about purification and it's about opening up to a clearer understanding of prayer about a clearer beholding of the power of prayer and the power of the mind I'd say out of all of the song of prayer it's just amazing teaching but there's always something that stands out and the one that I like the most this one launched me into mysticism the one sentence a certain sentence just leaps at you and you just are taken by it like lifted up and the one sentence that really helped me in my journey into mysticism was the secret of true prayer is to forget the things you think you need the secret of true prayer is to forget the things you think you need because the things you think you need the best way to see them is you're going to offer them up to the spirit to the Holy Spirit as a present I was using that example the other night of like a little child who comes with the poop to mom and dad to get a present with such glee what's that dripping on the carpet when you offer the things that you think you need up to God then is the secret of true prayer that unleashes prayer that releases prayer prayer is your desire prayer is the desire of your heart and prayer to the sleeping mind is fragmented there seem to be many desires many preferences that are part of the human condition part of everyday life and they seem to be natural in this realm in heaven there's no sense of these things for years I've said once you start to understand in the quantum sense that everything that you experience in your mind or your consciousness is really the experience of the whole universe so I've used that saying sometimes when you want a Snickers bar the whole universe wants a Snickers bar because your mind is the whole universe and the secret of true prayer is to forget the things you think you need when you go to that place of complete acceptance when you go back inward to that place of God spirit call it whatever you want no thing that's whatever you want when you go into that you release the power of prayer to take you home and so in the song of prayer prayer is described as a ladder and then the top of the ladder is given some words and I love those words that the top of the ladder is given because the top of the ladder is when the ladder disappears you don't get to the top of the ladder and go tell your war stories or you know what I went through to get here damn, damn, damn, damn you know you don't recite the steps once you get there actually when you get to the top the ladder disappears and never was it's like remember this is an impossible situation so you're in a hallucination of rising up you're already there you already are who you are and always have been but it's just a hallucination of a ladder that disappears when you reach the top and the way Jesus Bible sounding phrase at the very top what's the top of the ladder prayer father what is your will for me wow that's an open mind you see there's not asking for specifics you're not give me that Porsche when you're at the top of the ladder it's not there anymore father in Christian terms father what is your will for me and then the ladder disappears so in what we would call this realm the realm of perception that's what we've been talking about all week that's what I've been talking about that's what Lisa's been talking about emptiness I was in the hot tub this morning talking to Lisa and she said someone had come up to her and said looked her right in the eye and she said I am empty was her answer emptiness some of you know about Buddhism that's been Lisa's seeming route emptiness form is empty emptiness is form no sutras and everything what do you think all that's about that's about empty your mind everything you think you think everything you think you know empty your mind of false desires let your desires be purified let your focus be on God let thine eye be single is what Jesus said let thine eye be single let your perception be single and when your perception is single you're right on the verge of Christ vision which is not perceptual at all it's just pure light but the entry point you might say into vision is unified perception let thine eye be single unified unified field they call it in quantum physics unified wow quantum physics and Jesus come together unified field let thine eye be single wow it's all the same it's all coming there so I also have tremendous gratitude I just had tears of gratitude kind of coming through as I went through the song of prayer and I've done workshops on it and all kinds of things over the years but it's I like that song talking about a song of gratitude is really what it is between creator and creation which is all spirit just a spirit song of eternal gratitude just eternal gratitude eternal gratitude and I think Jesus for the metaphor of song I think that's a beautiful metaphor to use for prayer here we are at a music festival and you're bringing up the song of prayer yeah so beautiful thank you hi I really feel to sort of ask about this seeming contraction that can happen but really getting down this rabbit hole about that the body never was you know in the first place and that it was made in hate especially it's like ok say it never was if this doesn't exist but then you throw in that you know we made it in hate you know or ego seemingly seemingly it was this thing was made and it was made in hate of hate so it's like to me like I laugh because it gets me excited because this is the uncompromising situation that I've been looking for from my mind you know because I have faith in what is offered from A Course in Miracles as you know for me to be to me to be back to that experience so I get excited like yeah that's full on like yes this is it let's go I'll go with you down the rabbit hole as best I can right now but what comes up is so as we as we may hear those things and contract a bit because like you know you go through these phases and you know you're having these awakenings and some of us are having more mystical experiences some of us are just having more just heart opening kind of like feeling okay experiences but then you hear something like that and it seems the mind can go oh how much more is there go now wait this is made in hate and I sort of felt that you know what I mean I felt that maybe some of the group is I don't know I just felt that I didn't necessarily feel that although maybe I must have it some level so the fun what I want to get to is this I believe strongly also it's true somehow this can be totally joyous this experience of some kind of thing that's leaving we're on our way out of thinking that we are here I totally believe that it can be lighthearted and fun it must be possible so what maybe can we hear or think on with that little subtle trickery that as soon as we hear that that ego just see how much more now it's made out of hate what does that mean how far now to go still yeah it's so beautiful that that song came to you unwind your mind because in that book that's just coming out that it's it's almost like a how-to manual you know it's because it's got the students asking the questions and the spirit giving the answers and I'm just getting already lots and lots of comments lots of emails sent to me lots of feedback like oh my gosh like these students in the book are asking questions that I had even asked I didn't even know what the question was but they're so sincere and they're so open and there are like the rabbit hole has many many questions in it but sometimes the feeling is why you're asking my question wow I didn't even know I had that question told you now I'm really ready to read the answer whatever it is because I identify with the question so I would say as we go down there joy is always available optional and that's good to keep in mind I know in this book probably I'm pretty sure there's quite a bit about reversing cause and effect because what I've been talking about and what Lisa's been talking about is that there aren't any causes in the world you are not at the mercy of the world you were not at the mercy of the world and everything that has been part of the teaching of the world through parents and teachers and scientists and everything that involves linear time even Newtonian physics and everything it's all part of a lie like when you go to a party and for example somebody says what sign are you is that a common thing so I asked that at parties can I have your phone number they skip over all the what's your sign maybe that was back in the 60s and 70s I don't know what they talk about nowadays at the bars but what sign are you what's your astrological sign in the sense of astronomy and astrology and the stars and all the thing you know now we have the Enneagram and they heard me teaching at all these different course of miracles gatherings and somebody said we have a big conference going on Enneagram conference and we'd love to have you come and speak at our Enneagram conference and so I said okay so I didn't talk a lot about numbers and I did go to Sweden one time and the guy who picked me up at the airport he kept looking at me and he said what number are you and I tried to make it easy on him I said I'm all of them and he said David and then the same thing happens to me with astrology or with somebody I mean and they were like what sign are you and I said I try it again make it very easy and be very accurate and I say I am all of them and oh that's not an answer but actually what I'm trying to do with this is to say that there's nothing of the world that causes who you are you aren't a product of the world you aren't a product of mom and dad you aren't a product of genetics here we are in Mormon land family trees and you can trace it back generation to generation no, no, no you are not a product of genetics you're not a project of the stars of astrology you're not a product of your environment some of you think that you were born at this particular time and space and you had to deal with whatever the Vietnam war and all these different world events that seem to be important to the world environmental events but you're not a product of that if someone asks you at a party where are you from you're from heaven actually you're from Nirvana use any language that you want that's the actual truth of it really that's the factual truth of it and when you say I'm from and you fill in a city or a country or whatever that's a lie that's actually a lie that's actually saying you're a product of something in the world do you think that I am this I'm talking about before Abraham was I'm talking about the presence of love that is before the world was that is before the Big Bang, before the cosmos some of you will get to see the movie Lucy you'll get a taste of that at the very end of the movie that you're pure light you go back past the the gases and the formation of the planets I mean you go through it all you'll see that that I am this is actually true that you aren't human and you've never been human ever and you actually have that experience which is what Pete is bringing up that I call the reversal of cause and effect so this is basic cause and effect teaching and basically God is the cause and we as the Christ are the effect and we're together it's not really in heaven there's not a place where the father begins and the son begins you know it's all one spirit so I'm just using it in terms of cause and effect teaching that I and the father are one is what Jesus taught he was just basically saying cause and effect are one that's what he was teaching when he was teaching I and the father are one cause and effect are one in reality in heaven and then in this world cause and effect gets split off and turned around that's where this whole idea of a split mind comes in you can't have schizophrenia without a split mind without a split mind you can't have any kind of disease of mind without talking of a split mind that's the original error that's the fall from grace the belief that the effect can leave the cause the belief that Christ can leave heaven and take on a form take on a world take on something that's completely unlike heaven linear time is definitely unlike heaven it is not even close it has no resemblance whatsoever to eternity we may see eternal is like a fragrance or something here but believe me there's nothing eternal in time and space even the stars that burn out their castes you know it's all temporary it's always ephemeral so when you're talking about joy it requires a clear alignment with true cause effect relationships and therefore every time you think that something happened in the world that closed your heart you feel a contraction and you think it's because a word that was spoken let's use that example David's happily talking in all of his joy and then he goes the world was made as an attack upon God a place where God can enter not bummer bummer was having a happy day having a good day beautiful music sun shining birds are tweeting having a great day great day until this guy arrogantly ruined my day with one sentence took my piece of God away in one sentence bummer shut me down I contracted I closed you know that's that's as if words have causative abilities and then we're it's little kids sticks and stones can hurt my bones but words can never hurt me well when we grow up as adults we still have words that seem to hurt words that seem to sting but it's only the interpretation that's what I've been saying all along it's only the interpretation in the mind is where the contraction comes it's only in consciousness it's only taking something seriously instead of laughing at it even that idea that I just shared I think that's a laughable idea only because the ego's not real but it's just used as a way of kind of saying is there an incentive to come to true cause and effect that's really what unwind your mind is about bringing everything back to the true cause and effect relationships I had a friend of mine I did a cause and effect workshop with the students years ago Jeffrey he he actually listened to the tape over and over and over he was actually transcribing it for teacher of teachers I think and then eventually it probably made itself into this book but he listened to that tape he told me like he listened to the whole workshop like seven times before he started to get a sense of what it was talking about and the mind to reversing cause and effect is so strong that the ego is putting on the break saying no please don't go down there that's getting way way too down low in the rabbit hole that's getting almost to the core if you reverse cause and effect so God is the cause Christ is the effect in this world cause and effect is causative and your sleeping mind seems to be at the effect of the world you hurt my feelings you make me mad don't think about when you were a kid did you ever say that with your siblings you're grounding me you bitch no we wouldn't say that to mom because but if you did you would not be here today some of us the moms that we projected out there if we said those words that was death the ego would run away but the point is there's a belief system that the world makes us who we are the belief that we're even born into this world through an egg and the sperm and the whole deal this is all part of a lie it's a very elaborate lie it's very pervasive don't you notice I mean I took biology and I was like trying to follow biology and I said man this is really complicated and you go through all this gestation and you make it through the teen years and then you finally get to adulthood and it's just worse I think it's gonna get better when I'm an adult but it's actually worse, it feels worse I was playing in the creek I was just having fun playing in my summers and then I got into all this learning and learning reinforcing all this false cause and effect so Jesus calls these thoughts about there's causes in the world spurious cause effect relationships spurious like oh my thank you thank you lord my mind's infested thank you I've got a major infestation going here okay better now to find out about this infestation than to just be wilderness go along and be afraid of dying afraid of growing old afraid of getting ill and having pain and suffering that's how the mind goes why do you think people invest so much in and try to eat healthy exercise, do all these things to fight off death to prolong life to fight it off because it's not painted a very good picture growing old and getting sick and dying is that the purpose of life get a gold watch for so many years of loyalty to a company and then you just go down and let the worms eat you no please so you actually have to what's the point where you start to admit okay I've got an infested mind it's infested it's infested and it's the pesticides and none of that works that stuff is just no you need forgiveness you need forgiveness without forgiveness I will still be blind you have to come to see that that's the answer and hallelujah the problem is and that the answer is readily available wouldn't you put all of your mind energy in going for the solution once you finally discovered what the problem was it was an infestation of consciousness you know once you I've never heard that word Holy Spirit's using new words infestation maybe it's because we're out in nature I don't know bugs and all the mice mice in all the rooms mice traps all over the place it's an infestation we were so funny we were at the hot tub and we were laughing because there was a few of us out there and Francis found the mouse up in the thing and it was just the problem that it was in the room and then I think Suzanne said they get up on your bed on your bed just the imaginations for a while I mean it was just a noise an annoying noise but now you're saying they climb they actually can get up on to a bed and oh yeah aren't you just a thought of it now you know why you're worried about infestation just so if one of them comes in the middle of the night you wake up you know this is and so this is in the mind and the reason it's infested is because the cause and effect is split off and turned around it's really scientific really cause and effect have been turned off split around if you leave all the religion out of it all the different things you go flip into a new vernacular just cause and effect that's the problem is cause and effect not in reality because God and Christ are one but cause and effect have been split off and turned around so this is why you practice the mind training this is why over the years we've been together reversing cause and effect you're practicing with everything you can practice it with food you can practice it with sun sunshine I mean I've had so many funny parables over the years one time I went to Argentina and after I was staying with a friend I found one of these floaty kind of rafts I could go out in the pool Argentina sun and I was just laying in the pool letting the breeze blow me along laying in the Argentina sun and then the daughter of my friend came out and started screaming get out of the pool get out of the pool I was like what what she goes the sun David the sun like just white boy from United States just think he's coming down to Argentina and just laying out there in the sun get out blowing kisses to the sun cause it was a mindset the sun the sun the radiation from the sun it'll burn you to a crisp you're gonna be red you're gonna be sore you're gonna be painful no the sun doesn't radiation doesn't cause pain separation from God the belief in separation from God causes pain the belief in separation is not a real cause that's another learning and forgiveness it's not a real cause and then when you see that you're free of it but that was that or around certain foods I went up to a hermitage one time in Michigan Harrison Michigan and I would go there for weeks or months or whatever and I had another hermitage down in Kentucky so as a simple mystic I just carried my food from Kentucky up to Michigan when I moved up to my Michigan hermitage and my friend Thomas came in one day and he started looking through my shelves and he was going this what what what kind of food is this he started reading the expiration dates and years not days not months years it was expired for years and he was like what he just started pulling stuff off the shelf I'm going to have to go to the grocery store and buy you some fresh food and fresh fruit and fresh fresh to get you to have a fresh decent meal and so on and so forth but it's cause and effect you see that's just another basic thing of time it's a mesmerism around the age of food and what happens to food and what old food can do to you and on and on and on and on or organic you know it's like when I was traveling around the country and just going around around I was told eat what's served but I was never told by Jesus ask whether it's organic or not eat whatever's served as long as it's organic no he didn't put that caveat with it there was no disclaimer there was no additional thing but eat whatever you have served it's kind of like he said you know abide where you are taken in and where you are not taken in dust off your sandals and go on you know and he said those things you know it's not what you put in your mouth that defiles boy wouldn't that be great with all the health care education we got going on now all this education about be careful what you put in your mouth and he already said 2000 years ago it's not what you put in your mouth that defiles it's what's in your heart that defiles what is in your heart that defiles reverse cause and effect reverse cause and effect so we were talking about that today follow your heart isn't that a lovely phase follow your heart wouldn't you really like to know what that means wouldn't you want to go down the rabbit hole on that one and really get to the bottom of follow your heart really from Jesus Christ one who actually followed his heart who actually transcended the world and who is I would say appropriately called way shower the way shower is one who who's gone through the darkness and come pierce through into the light if I was going to have a teacher I would want one who's done it before it's deep it's uncompromising it may stir things up but when things are stirred up it's just false cause and effect ideas that something in the world can do something to our consciousness when it was actually our consciousness that made the world and ultimately our consciousness is the world there's not a projected outside world and an inner consciousness as if there's two it's really the world you perceive as your consciousness if you are having a frightening time if you have a lot of fears that come up doubts, insecurities and you're quite frightened on planet earth will say that's just because it's an infestation of consciousness and the good news is it has already been healed it's not that it will be healed that the spirit will someday heal it has already been healed but it is a question of how deep down the rabbit hole you want to go do you want to go toward that healing do you want to actually be shown do you want to have it all demystified and just start to realize that it's just consciousness and it's just thoughts that are the problem even the word consciousness I mean a lot of us have heard the word consciousness for a long time some people even talk about Christ consciousness as consciousness is the domain of the ego that's an interesting line consciousness is the domain of the ego so some teachers tell you well you've got a relationship classroom going on there and you've got a work classroom going on and you've got a classroom going on where you live in your environment no sorry those aren't classrooms those aren't classrooms those are projections those are distractions to coming to the classroom and your classroom is consciousness you're going to go right smack on the domain of the ego and ask for the Holy Spirit's help right in the middle of your consciousness right in the middle of the infestation is where the healing occurs you can't solve a problem where it's not but when you come back into consciousness and we talk about raising consciousness remember in the 60's hey man raise your consciousness they were onto it come to a higher sense but ultimately you're going to have to transcend consciousness all together if consciousness is the domain of the ego you're not going to find reality in consciousness people say that's mind blowing yeah it sure is that blew my mind so it's I would say who knows maybe we'll end up coming together again after everybody's read Unwind Your Mind and it'll be like wow let me tell you this last year I have been working on reversing cause and effect and coming to see the cause and effect are together and that time is simultaneous instead of linear and I've been coming into this mystical experiences more and more consistently because of the healing that's occurring in me and that's the context for it it's really not mystical it's not mystifying at all it's not mysterious it's really just application application one time I came home and I think I came home to the peace house and I think there was two people living there and they really believed that the milk had gone bad whatever they call it, sour and whatever and so they know that I like my glass of milk so they just watched and they didn't say anything and they didn't even give me a hint or a clue but I don't believe in bad milk so I actually I went there and I poured the glass and they watched me drink it down to the bottom with a little white whisker see I wasn't in the damn, damn, damn, damn I was in the mind over matter mind over matter everything that you experience is an interpretation of mind everything without exception and you just notice how your mind wants to go but what about it's going to try to make exceptions to that so we had people like Mary Baker Eddy on the planet and that's uncompromising I get tears in my eyes when I think of her that's uncompromising there's no mind in matter there's no life, truth, substance or intelligence in matter well, if that's the fact and that is the fact then you can unplug that's what even at the beginning of the Matrix movie with the simulations and he's going there and they follow the white rabbit which is his next step to meet Trinity and then to meet Morpheus the guy says hey man looks like you need to unplug you need to unplug what are we unplugging from false cause effect ideas in the mind false beliefs and what is the world but false evidence appearing real that's the acronym for fear but where is the world coming from except consciousness and false beliefs so if you want to live in spiritual community I'd say wow, if you get into this what I'm talking about that's your spiritual community whether you're around other bodies or not doesn't really matter you're going through a transformation of consciousness you're going through a healing in mind you're unwinding from the world you're unwinding your mind back to God back to pristine I amness and then as you go along you're going to meet people you're going to meet mighty companions and you're going to have the most amazing people and books and music and all kinds of spectacular things show up and you can rejoice in those you can go full into the joy with that you can just say thank you God thank you thank you for everything that you're giving me thank you for this day thank you for all these witnesses thank you for opportunities to practice true cause effect relationships thank you for all these opportunities to forgive or release these erroneous thoughts and beliefs you can appreciate the hugs appreciate the laughter appreciate the music appreciate the paintings and shapes and sizes and colors appreciate the expressions of affection appreciate giving affection receiving affection relaxing wow isn't it great to relax just lay on the grass on a sunny day and go thank you God you know and because you go into full gratitude and appreciation and in the meantime all these these opportunities arise from time to time to release release this erroneous thinking it's a joyful life I have to say when David was talking about the happy dream about us coming into a happy dream the happy dream comes when our mind becomes clear when we're into right-mindedness we turn the world from upside down to right side up and when you see it from that perspective it's glorious it is a happy dream and you don't have any kind of false expectations that you're looking for you're not going around looking in time and space for what inform is going to fulfill you that's the human predicament of you know it's like that old show lost in space remember Will Robinson danger Will Robinson danger you know that's the ego in our mind danger danger danger my gosh there's no way to have fun you can't be going around a planet in danger Will Robinson you know it's just you're all locked up you're all chained up as Lisa used to say I'm all chained up that's how we would starve into our holy I'm all chained up let's join thank you thank you for that you're entitled to joy may you have a joyful life that exact same moment when you came out with the sour milk story I was sitting there thinking right before I came here I felt like I wanted a nice cup of coffee so I made a cup of coffee poured the milk in it take a drink a sour first Chief Steve says man you just put two giant spoons of coffee in it and you can't fit it away right and then I thought well Dave he drank that sour milk so I was like that's good be authentic that's good too that's good I didn't tell you to do what I do I just said think like me think like me don't do what I do think like me I just want everyone to think like me like think with God is what I'm saying here I'm giving these examples here some people walk on hot coals you're like hey let's take the sour milk wow this is a trip isn't it we sit in there sometimes we sit in the main house and we'll just sit around they've got all these windows around us and we'll sit there and talk for hours and we'll mention someone and they come walking right by as soon as we mention them and then we go and talk about somebody and then they walk right by it's such a strong reflection of my thoughts or images I have made a workbook lesson from the course there's not an inner and an outer it just happens over and over again and we laugh and laugh and laugh and then you talk about somebody you haven't seen for months or whatever there they go they're there too like you're in some kind of a spaceship Star Trek episode of Holodeck here they come but that happens a lot all the time somebody's like all the time okay we're doing it virtually we're doing it virtually yeah it is like Solaris hi baby hi there yeah it feels like during this time here I'm feeling a lot of contraction and expansion and contraction and it feels like there's a loosening of something during this process and this leads me to when you were talking about cause and effect what came to me was because this keeps has been coming up a lot but I also feel this week a loosening of this that there seems to be a connection between cause and effect this feeling of attack, defend and the authority problem and I feel like maybe there's something you might be able to offer around this that might be helpful in letting some of this go even more fully yeah yeah I think there was workbook lessons that started to work with me on that like all things are lessons God would have me learn and I know I spent quite a lot of time and focus just following and following and following the teachings about God as the author of reality and it was this cause effect thing too the author is the cause and Christ is the effect and in this world there's such suspicion that it's just a right it seems almost endless it just keeps coming up and the authority problem just rears up Christian was talking briefly about that encounter with the cup down in Florida wow have I had a lot of those kind of encounters it's part of rinsing the mind it's part of forgiveness it can be with parents or elders or people that seem to be in positions of authority and then when you get into spirituality and spiritual communities it's just it's almost like it seems it just rolls on and on and on like you're just dealing with this idea of authorship and authority I liked when Helen was describing Jesus after she encountered Jesus speaking to her in her mind I like the way that she described Jesus's voice it wasn't an audible voice in her mind it was a very clear train of thought and she was hearing very rapid actually and she said that there was this authoritative voice that was speaking to her she used the word authoritative and I thought how interesting as I'm working with my authority problem she's describing Jesus as authoritative I talk to a lot of Catholics they're quite afraid of Jesus from their training they like Mary not that much afraid of Mary really afraid of Jesus and they like the angels most everyone I meet around the world I like them, they're my buddies Jesus I don't know but the angels because there's again the voice of Christ is authoritative it's certain certainty is frightening to the ego because the ego is doubt is fear, is hesitation of course it's going to be trembling the ego knows there's something above it but it doesn't know what that is and it's really afraid of whatever that is that's above it so to speak so I think it plays out I think it's beautiful that you have allowed like to work yourself to work with the Course and to work with Patrice and to work with a little group a course group in your home I think that's like that's been like a really good starting point I'm sure you've had a lot of opportunities just in there when Patrice looks in your eyes and speaks with all of the authority the certainty the voice of Christ coming through her you know that's your roommate what have I got in my house what did I let in my house that's there and then with the group that comes in and then recently you've done some travels so that kind of opens up opens a little wider when you're moving around such opportunity to look at the authority issue that's really pops up it could be police officers or law officers GPS when person navigating the other driving that's right the driver just trying to follow not knowing where we're going so it comes up and it certainly of course it comes up in relationships because it's kind of this control thing I think that's really at the core of all authority problem issues this control like the personality self is quite ambivalent about control sometimes it wants it it wants to grab the leader role sometimes it wants to push off the leader role and it wants to follow guide me show me I'm in the lead you it just flips back and forth between the leader and the follower and Christ the presence of Christ is more like don't walk ahead of me I may not follow don't walk behind me I may not lead walk beside me and hold my hand on the self same road that's the Holy Spirit when we read that we go ah the other parts damn damn damn damn I'm a follower again they want me to lead I can't lead you lead no I'm going to lead now but tomorrow it just goes like that back and forth back and forth and I think in the end guidance is what is of the spirit that neutralizes the whole thing it takes you you transcend this impossible situation and you start to see the impossibility of leading and following but it has to come in through guidance it has to come in through your your willingness to engage in that guidance there was a very famous Course in Micro teacher who wrote me an email one time I think he was drunk because he mistakenly sent it to me instead of his assistant and because his assistant was asking him a question something about David's traveling to this country can we offer some of our contacts and he said no don't give David any of our contacts in that country because David is stealing students and I just had such a laugh when I first saw I don't think it was intended he probably was drunk and sent it to me by mistake because it wasn't addressed to me it was about me but it wasn't addressed to me but it was it was just a good reminder again to you know I think that's kind of funny stealing students in that point in my life I transcended the teacher concept so I didn't see myself as a teacher or students or ever having had students you know it's just it's a state of mind but that's where everything is equalized you might say in that state of mind when you come into the presence you know that's what the whole purpose of all the mind training was that's the purpose of hanging in there of going with this and you start to really have that experience yeah when you said you talked about trusting guidance I think yeah I'm still moving into that I'm kind of leaning into that trusting that it's there for me as well as between I trust her guidance more than I trust the guidance that I yeah it's beautiful that you're aware of that because even with living in spiritual community that's where the transfer you know has to come you have to start to see that it's always been coming from in your awareness and your consciousness and it's coming through in that way and it's not really from persons but we have role models we have bright witnesses we have people that we seem to trust wow and then the spirit is saying ok now it's beyond the flesh trust in me stay with me, abide with me I mean the higher self that inner voice that is part of an undoing one time I was in the monastery over there and I was at my desk and I think Helena came in and Lisa came in and then they started crying and I said what's going on here and they said you are going to die one day and they started crying they were mourning the death of David it's good to start early maybe you know to start now I have no plans of checking out or anything but they were you know it's just a thought any kind of thought of a loved one a thought of loss of a loved one, a pet, a friend even with these seemingly proper monasteries it's been great we've got the monastery up for sale I like that I feel like it's all just an inner experience it's good if you put things for sale or you do things like this where people notice their attachments or no please the monastery goes and strawberry strawberry is not the monastery we call it strawberry state of mind strawberry state of mind is invulnerable strawberry feels forever it's that but we have things that happen seemingly and it's only the interpretation of loss it's only the interpretation that holds us back you know in one sense you could say a priest has been like a mentor like a teacher you have great love for that and most of the time that's exactly what you're feeling is just gratitude and then every once in a while it's like my golly can't believe she said that or whatever and that's where the authority problem just appears wanting to bolt wanting to bolt I can't take it anymore but you know underneath all that I definitely know I know I'm exactly where I need to be and I know just from knowing you both and knowing what a gift you are for her and what a gift I see the gift just shining and glowing and how through your collaborations and you're diving into this thing together it's just you both have been lifted and lifted and you couldn't have done it alone yeah I feel such love and appreciation I feel honored actually that I was able to behold the witness whenever two come together in a holy relationship whatever one seems to need the other provides that brings tear to my eyes when I think of that because it's so simple when we join in holiness I get many many witnesses of that where people tell me I couldn't have done it without him or you know she gave me so much and yet it's just a reflection of how big your heart is how gracious you've been how willing you've been you've just drawn forth these witnesses and most of the time that's what it is it's really relatively rare when the authority problem rears up but it's so intense that like in the James Bond car you want to find the eject button going over the cliff I came out of here and it feels like it takes up so much space but that's just a perception too that's not necessarily real to sing that song but it was just my imagination running away with me thank you so much thank you Alisa the thing about reversing cause and effect is definitely fascinating for me and I just wanted to share a dream that I hadn't see if it speaks to that for you I dreamed that I was a group of people that couldn't figure out how to die so they decided that they were going to divide into smaller and smaller people they kept dividing and kept dividing thinking that maybe they could die if they got smaller and smaller and smaller until it was just an infinite amount of particles or something and they still couldn't die oh I like that they still couldn't die oh wow cool what a dream that's lovely Sylvia help me add something I'm wondering how you distinguish between the voice of guidance or whatever form that takes from the voice of ego and I'm guessing that it takes different forms for different people but maybe you could speak to how it shows up for you and any thoughts about how it shows up differently for different people yeah I call that a question of discernment I feel like that the whole seeming journey is a journey of discernment clearly coming to that clarity of the voice for God and the voice of the ego and I would say yeah everything that I seem to do and everything that I seem to experience I've tried to be as transparent and write about it express it on the internet I tried to be like a transparent mystic where anything that I found helpful in that discernment is a long devotion actually not like a simple thing the simplest way is how do you feel but the ego generates all kinds of feel good even emotions that aren't aren't really the spirit either it's just part of a trick so it takes a lot of discernment and then that cause and effect stuff that I was talking about really helped me because sometimes people say the ego can but the Holy Spirit never commands and never demands so I kind of get the feel for the voice is there some kind of commanding or demanding going on here at all and I said that's not it also the ego is big on external causes it's always teaching that there are external causes and that gives it away it can be as clever and sound as good as it wants and as soft and mellow as it wants but when there's the belief in external causation or it will try to say that that somehow you can have a little mix of heaven and hell it would like to have a mixture of heaven and hell and so thoughts that support mixing real thoughts and illusory thoughts it's very clever that way you have it takes a while to look at that there's a lot of signs and symbols along the way some of you are aware of conversations with God the old Donald Walsh it's a lot of helpful things in his books and writings because it starts to open it up from the church and organized religion to this intimate sense of talking to God or as John Denver said talk to God and listen to the casual reply and that's helpful and yet when you go deeper into those teachings there's still this idea God had something to do with the world and it's actually still if you go deeper into those it's still dualistic teaching so another thing that basically is of the spirit is it's purely non-dual it's always from a non-dual perspective from a perspective that transcends heaven and hell and these opposites and so that was good help for me when I would listen to lots of non-dual teachers and I would kind of listen and discern and let the spirits do the discerning it gets finer and finer and finer to that point of make no exceptions the teachings of the Holy Spirit are always non-dual so there's feeling components to it there's components where you see that the spirit doesn't try to mix mix the two worlds or mix some version of duality and singularity and then there's that pure non-dual essence that comes through teachings like the Course and a lot of other Data Vedanta and a lot of other wonderful non-dual teachings so I find many things are helpful many many things even movies like we watched that movie The Kid and that was a beautiful teaching that helped clarify the voice that voice within versus the voice of the world the image consultant and you could just see almost juxtapose what was helpful and what was not even discerning through movies yeah comes in many ways Sylvia the Course teaches us that perception is an outward picture of an inner condition so I don't remember where I read this but the example was a woman who understood that but what she saw she was an animal lover and what she saw was someone beating a dog to death and it traumatized her because she felt responsible because she perceived it then she was the cause in her mind and can you speak about that? yeah when people read that line in the Course perception is an outward picture of an inward condition those are still metaphors because the mind that's sleeping believes in inner and outer and when you actually give yourself over to those workbook lessons though the master Jesus is zooming the mind in to start to see that there really isn't an inner and an outer that that's one of those metaphors in the text but if you look at his strategy he starts off with nothing I see means anything so he's starting off with perception I have given everything I see all the meaning it has for me he's still talking about perception and that all meaning was given as if there's an inner inner thought or inner ego that's giving this external world all the meaning that it has I have given all he's talking egoically there at the beginning then he finally gets to lesson 4 and he starts talking about thoughts and he comes back talking about thoughts in number 10 but as he progresses through the workbook like my meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world he's making a connection between the thoughts that you think you think and the world that you think you see because he knows at the beginning being he's perceiving through 5 senses he believes it has a little private mind with private thoughts whirling around they're sometimes even associated with the brain and brain activity which isn't the truth but it's where the mind believes it is and then as it goes through it's starting to make the beginning connections between the thoughts that you think you think which aren't your real thoughts and the world and the images that you think you perceive which aren't your real perceptions and this isn't your happy dream either because as long as there's an inner and an outer then there's guilt because it's just not the truth so a lot of time, course and miracle students they'll be very sincere and they'll be working with the text and doing the workbook and everything if there's something like a cancer or a dog that's beaten up or their house cuts his file and they go oh well I burned my house down today it's going to be guilt inducing I killed off my mother, I burned the house down now this body has cancer it's this association of the error still seemingly the thoughts and the manifested world are different in the actual external world the healing is starting to realize is that there isn't because in the end that's what lets go of this belief in mistreatment that we were talking about attack thoughts I think it's less than 23 I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts now the way to do that is you have to actually come to just see attack thoughts as attack thoughts in this world it's acted out in various ways some seem to be the victims some seem to be the victimizers and in the world of form those are very different positions no one in the world of form would say victims are the victimizers they'd say the victims are victimized and the victimizers are the perpetrators and we have names for them terrorists and so on and so forth so once you realize that attacking and being attacked are both the same because they're just attack thoughts then you're willing to let them go but as long as you still keep playing these roles and believing you're out on the screen then it's always oh they hurt me they wronged me they stole my money they lied to me they cheated all these things you get caught in believing that victimization and attack are real once you start to realize that it's all so to speak in your consciousness then you're willing to let them go you start to see that attack does not serve anymore it doesn't serve your peace of mind for sure but the end is is that the inner and outer are the same so you see how this goes way beyond this idea of persons creating cancer or a personal mind creating cancer and dog or whatever because there's always still guilt into this like wow I'm doing it to myself and shame on me it's very very dark a line that I like to emphasize is you are not responsible for the error you are responsible for accepting the correction for the error to me that puts the emphasis right on the correction right on forgiveness and it takes it off of like fault finding including fault finding in your mind and identifying your identity with those thoughts oh I created that cancer no no no that's not true I created that scenario I created that situation that's new age mumbo jumbo it's not it's guilt inducing it's still kind of sees cause and effect as a part and now it's kind of coming up with a metaphysical story that still is not accurate we have to actually join with the Holy Spirit and see that this world is an unreal effects from an unreal cause the ego made the body the ego made the world it's an unreal cause it's an unreal effects and ideas leave not their source so that also means that these atrocities so called judgments are really out there you have to find the villain within so to speak which is the ego and the Holy Spirit overlooks the defiled altar overlooks the villain and sees the innocence but that all comes from unified mind so what you're describing is kind of in the metaphors I cut on a run and using the run to beat yourself up you know not helpful