 I think that the ego is the belief in sacrifice, and it's the belief that you can leave God and make up an identity apart from divinity, apart from spirit. So that's at the base. If you went all the way down to the unconscious mind, you'd see that the ego is the belief in sacrifice, and as long as you believe in the ego, it seems like sacrifice is real. In order to say, okay, I'm going to desire you God with all my heart, soul and might, I'm going to forgive and be forgiven, and I'm going to come home in awareness to the home I never left in heaven, and the ego is going to say, well, that's just, you know, that's not acceptable, and are you going to give up the good things of life? There's good things on earth. You're going to have to give up the good things as well as the bad things, and you don't really want to do that. You know, you don't even know whether that voice is telling you the truth about this so-called spiritual kingdom, so it's like saying, you know, just be careful about that. But actually what I found in my life was the chorus to me was just one big invitation, and it was like the spirit was saying, just trust me. You know, these ideas maybe seem very radical, some of them you may resist, you know, some of them you may just push away, but just do the lessons and trust me, I'll take you with that trust into an experience. Like, for example, when I started reading the chorus about special relationships and holy relationships, I think most people who read those nine chapters from 15 to 24 about special relationships and holy relationships, they still are thinking in terms of persons and bodies. What they really want from the Holy Spirit is a romantic holy relationship, quite frankly, you know, they're like, okay, I'll read your book, and you know, and it still talks in there as if there's two in the healed relationship, you know, and they call upon the Holy Spirit together and then the Holy Spirit answers immediately and then it gets very disjunctive and this and this. It's kind of a way of taking you in and then the deeper you go in, deeper and deeper and deeper, you get certain to a turning point when you're working with this going deeper, you start to see it's about the holy instant, about the present moment, about letting go of everything that you believe is good and real and true, like nothing I see means anything, it starts off with the first lesson to try to unwind you from everything you believe about the world. And then you get to a certain point where the ego will go, you don't want to do this course because he's going to ask you to let go of interpersonal relationships at some point because he's saying, God did not create this world and God didn't create the body and what's the one thing that interpersonal relationships are based on is bodies. Even you ask people, are you in a relationship or not, their answer is probably going to have something to do with proximity of bodies, what bodies do together and the frequency of contact of bodies and if there's not a lot of that going on it's going to be like, no I'm single. If there's a lot of this going on, a lot of contact, the more the better, if there's a lot of this going on, you're going to say, I'm in a relationship now and that applies like a commitment and so on and so forth. Well you can see the Holy Spirit's taking us to a whole different perception of everything that we perceive and everyone we perceive where in the end we're opening this spiritual vision, the vision of Christ which takes us beyond the body entirely, back into spiritual awakening. That's very scary to the ego, the ego is like, whoa that's really unfamiliar, that's like totally unfamiliar and the ego will say that doesn't even exist, there's just a God and He's going to punish you and if you're really good, if you're a good little boy and a good little girl then you go into heaven, a place called heaven, even makes heaven into a place and if you're not you're going to go to hell, you're going to get judged and you're going to get turned away, that's the ego's version of spirituality, scary, scary, scary but this is the Spirit saying, we're going to take you into an experience that transcends that so maybe we can talk a little bit about relationship that goes beyond the body because you know maybe you want to know a little bit more about that because this is where it's heading, the ego does not like the end and so it's going to fight against the means to take you to the end, the ego does not like the course of miracles, it's like that is not going in a good direction, basically the ego says eat, drink and be merry for one day we shall die, you know, like lift it up because you're going to die anyway and the Spirit's like saying, well actually there's more than eat, drink and be merry for one day we shall die, now relationship I have found in my life that when I gave my life over to the Holy Spirit and Jesus 25 years ago with the Course then then I'll tell you what happened after that, it's just to kind of ease your mind a little bit because otherwise it can get frightening but it's actually been really wonderful, instead of having, I mean most people think of an interpersonal relationship as some kind of fulfillment, if there's something empty there's a hole there and that an interpersonal relationship would bring more intimacy, more connection, more love where there seems to be a hole lacking, there was a woman one time who interviewed all these people and she interviewed single people and married people and she said to both of them what's the best thing about being single and what's the worst thing about being single and she went to the married people and said what's the best thing about being married and what's the worst thing, the single people said the best thing about being single is freedom and the worst thing about being single is lack of intimacy, anybody relate to that? Survey said ding ding ding, she went to the married people and she said the married people said the best thing about being married is intimacy and the worst thing about being married is lack of freedom, very interesting that your marital status would have such a big impact on your freedom and your intimacy as if your marital status determines your freedom and your intimacy so why is this so skewed, why are the results so even though everybody cannot and relate to them it's because the freedom that the single people were talking about was freedom of the body and in the Course of Miracles Jesus says what do you want freedom of the body or freedom of the mind for both you cannot have, he comes right out and says both you cannot have so if we're looking for some kind of a mix between heaven and earth where we come into an interpersonal relationship where we get the best, best of both worlds, the best of the spiritual realm and the best of the carnal realm okay tonight new show you know mix and match you know let's get the best of both what the Course is really saying is you can experience heaven only by giving your full devotion and attention to heaven by focusing your full attention on the kingdom of heaven you bring it into your awareness and when your attention is split and you're desiring other things you get mixed results and it's very conflictual so what I've discovered is there's a purpose when I've joined in this purpose I found the intimacy and I found the freedom but I didn't find either one in personhood or interpersonal relationships the survey was looking only to the bodies that were single and coupled bodies and it was looking for the freedom and the intimacy right where it could never be found and that's why they were they were discontent both the single people and the married people were saying we're not fully content there must be something more and how does that work with relationships well when I gave gave my mind and resources everything over to the Holy Spirit then I could see that the body was just a communication device and I this body and other bodies were used in a way to be a witness for a state of mind that was beyond this world I mean it kind of gets your attention when you come across in this world happy people you know even when you're going through your day it doesn't matter if it's a waitress in a restaurant or you know it's somebody in a butcher shop or it's somebody here or there you just you don't know where it's gonna be when you find somebody who's strikingly happy strikingly peaceful strikingly joyful it's like it gets your attention it's like oh hi hi I like to get to know you spend a little more time with you what's what's going on in your life and for me I've drawn a lot of witnesses like that because because it's all been about sharing this deep message people say how do you how do you gain a sense of intimacy without interpersonal relationships well I've been traveling in the parable 31 year 31 countries and for 20 some years and what I found is in sharing this message when I would go into countries where they did I didn't speak the language I thought I don't know how that's gonna work because I just I'm not bilingual or multi-lingual here I know how this will go over but even the translators that were sent to me I never went to hire or look to find translators and some of the gatherings I had anywhere from I think in Argentina there was like 14 translators that were always around me when I did these gatherings just sent spontaneously and I found that as I was letting the Holy Spirit rip through me and pour through me and they were going and excited sharing it in Espanol or whatever the language was Mandarin or you know German or French or whatever we were both being used for a very holy purpose we were both tuned in to that purpose and there were actually times when we ended up doing simultaneous translations where both of us were speaking is like Pentecost and what it wasn't a cadence of one and then the other we were both speaking the same content in different languages and just kind of look looking at each other and amazement sometimes because there wasn't really translating going on we were like doing channeling with two different languages at the same time just like in Pentecost when everyone was all all the languages were being spoken and the joy and the glory to me that's intimate that that that is a most intimate experience such a feeling of deep connection and love and then I was paired up with all these different translators around the world and those were the kind of experiences that we were having and yeah recently was in Belgium wasn't that last months ago or something we were in Belgium and that was what was going on the French and the English and it was just the glee and the joy of that we could feel it everyone could feel it was very deep and intimate and also a sense of freedom because when you have that that connection and you're so connected to the spirit you do feel free you don't feel bound to the world you don't your mind is not thinking about how am I going to survive and what's going to happen tomorrow and how am I going to deal with that you know the typical things that the egoic mind is in your mind is lifted up into a realm that's higher than those doubts and fears and concerns and you're just you're like you're just emanating from this higher place that's the ultimate freedom the freedom is it's not freedom of the body there are even those that came before us like Gandhi you know Gandhi was quite happy when he was in prison you know he wrote most of his writings in prison you know he spent decades in prison and he was very very happy exchanging vegetarian recipes with you know the prison you know he was he was really doing what people would say people do when they're not in prison he was doing in prison all he was showing us is it's a state of mind prison is a state of mind and that's what the matrix teaches us to Morpheus tells him it's a prison for your mind you know if you cannot smell taste or touch a prison for your mind and now we've come upon the course and living the course and found that that is actually the gateway to a free mind