 experience the light directly, the light of truth, of love, of innocence, and clear away all thoughts and all shadows, all judgments in perception. And that's how we reach the light, we reach the light by clearing our minds with the Holy Spirit's help, just bringing the darkness to the light and letting it dissolve, letting it just be carried away, and the light is all that remains. So let's go to our lesson today, lesson 21. I am determined to see things differently. The idea for today is obviously a continuation and extension of the preceding one. This time, however, specific mind-searching periods are necessary in addition to applying the idea to particular situations as they may arise. Five practice periods are urged, allowing a full minute for each. So he is emphasizing in some of these lessons, he's calling it mind-searching, specific mind-searching periods. And we're typically used to thinking of our body as moving through time and space and facing one situation after the next after the next. Now he's trying to say, well, even if you can think of situations, regardless of your body is seeming to move through them and experience them, in this day, he says, if you're thinking of situations, you know, they could be from the past, they could be from the future, they could be past memories or future goals and ambitions and visualizations of the body or the person gaining something that it seems to want in the future. Basically, we're expanding now to specific mind-searching periods that basically are for particular situations and for memories and projections of the future. In the practice periods, begin by repeating the idea to yourself, then close your eyes and search your mind carefully for situations past, present, or anticipated that arouse anger in you. The anger may take the form of any reaction ranging from mild irritation to rage. The degree of the emotion you experience does not matter. You will become increasingly aware that a slight twinge of annoyance is nothing but a veil drawn over intense fury. Try therefore not to let the little thoughts of anger escape you in the practice periods. Remember that you do not really recognize what arouses anger in you. Nothing that you believe in this connection means anything. That's why we went through Lessons 5, 6, 7, 8. I'm never upset for this reason, I think. I'm upset because I see something that's not there, I see only the past, my mind is preoccupied with past thoughts. You see, he's got to reverse the thinking of the world, of the belief that external circumstances and situations, actions, are causative and that they are determining the upset in the mind. It's not so. You have to be upset before you can see it acted out in the world. You will probably be tempted to dwell more on some situations or persons than on others, on the felitious grounds that they are more obvious. This is not so. It is merely an example of the belief that some forms of attack are more justified than others. Okay, there's a lot in this lesson. Okay, there's no small upsets. There's a difference between anger, rage, irritation, annoyance. There are no differences. Basically, he told us that the slight twinge of annoyance is nothing but a veil drawn over intense fury and then now we're starting to realize that we don't really, really understand the source of the anger because if we did it, the anger would be God. If you really could see the ego for what it is, it wouldn't be there to experience because you wouldn't believe it. He would say this belief in separation is, separation from God is unbelievable. It's ridiculous. It's unfathomable. That's what we have to come to when we come to healing. We have to really expose the belief that's there in the mind and then we don't get caught up in different forms of nothingness, trying to compare them or say some forms of nothingness are worse than others or some forms of nothingness feel better or worse than others do. No, that's not so. So he closed that section by saying it is merely an example of the belief that some forms of attack are more justified than others. That's the belief. As you suit your mind for all the forms in which attack thoughts present themselves, hold each one in mind while you tell yourself, I am determined to see the name of a person differently. I am determined to see specified situation differently. Try to be as specific as possible. You may, for example, focus your anger on a particular attribute of a particular person believing that the anger is limited to this aspect. If your perception is suffering from this form of distortion, say, I am determined to see and specify the attribute and specify the name of the person differently. So I'm determined to see gullibility in a person differently or I am determined to see weakness in a specific person differently. I am determined to see incompetence in a specific person differently. You can see that it's all coming down to practice that what we're being shown clearly, clearly, clearly is that if you're seeing a fragmented world, you have a perceptual problem and the perceptual problem is from a belief in the mind and thoughts that spring from that belief. The belief in the mind that is, we'll say the source of error is the ego and the attack thoughts that it sponsors, then those are what is used to produce a fragmented world, a world of competition and division and war. It's an ego belief underneath and then there are attack thoughts and clearly as we go and we pray to learn how to forgive, as Jesus really is teaching us to forgive, we clearly have to begin to take a look at what's going on and what seems to be going on in our sleeping mind. What are the seeming dynamics of the ego and the more we take a look at it, the more we become more and more convinced by the Holy Spirit and Jesus that this belief is incredible. It is unbelievable and then when we get more and more deeper into the mind and we're willing to expose it and see it's nothingness, then we're free. Our mind is home free. So you can see that's the direction of healing. So today in order to support our work with this beautiful lesson, again the lesson is I am determined to see things differently. Let's jump to chapter 11 and then jump down to section 7 and go all the way here to paragraph 4. The perception of goodness is not knowledge or not heaven, but the denial of the opposite of goodness enables you to recognize a condition in which opposites do not exist. And this is the condition of knowledge. So we're here to deny the opposite of goodness and thus recognize a condition in which opposites do not exist. Without this awareness you have not met its conditions and until you do you will not know it is yours already. You have made many ideas that you have placed between yourself and your Creator and these beliefs are the world as you perceive it. Truth is not absent here, but it is obscure. You do not know the difference between what you have made and what God created and so you do not know the difference between what you have made and what you have created. To believe that you can perceive the real world is to believe that you can know yourself. You can know God because it is his will to be known. The real world is all that the Holy Spirit has saved for you out of what you have made and to perceive only this is salvation because this is the recognition that reality is only what is true. It's how beautiful. It's just, you know, it's a lesson in the simple and the obvious. The truth is true and only the truth is true. Spirit is true and images of time and space are untrue. This is the one distinction that must be made in forgiveness. That's why forgiveness simply sees the false as false. How gloriously simple it is, but this simplicity is a purpose of the Holy Spirit, of Jesus in the mind and it is not in the specific forms because there really are no specific forms. Fragmented perception, seeing the pieces and the parts is the problem. So you don't find the solution inside of the pieces and the parts. You have to go back into your mind and see that you need a new purpose, a new way of looking at the world where there was once an egoic purpose of hatred, guilt, fear, shame, pain then it has been replaced by the Holy Spirit's purpose of forgiveness and that's what we're embracing. So the workbook lessons are really transferring the training and learning to practice holding onto that purpose with everyone, everything, every situation, every conceivable situation, every concept you can think of. The only concept that actually is helpful that you might say takes you beyond time and space is the concept of forgiveness because in heaven is pure oneness, love, eternity, there is no need to forgive in eternity but for a mind that's asleep and believing in illusions, forgiveness is required. It's essential and that's what we're really looking at today. You want a simple life, well simplicity starts with guidance, internal guidance. A lot of times people have different forms come to mind of a simple life. We know that that can be a step in the right direction. When Henry David Thoreau, back up in Massachusetts, went to Walden Pond, he was looking for truth, trying to find the sublime truth but he also intuitively felt it would be simple and I think a lot of us have felt like if there is truth, we're pondering the idea that it must be very simple and obvious. When we believe in an external world of fragments and pieces, then we tend to even put our ideas about simplicity and simple onto the form. We tend to try to define a simple life as if simplicity would look a certain way. These are stepping stones. I think anyone who's joining in here today who feels their life is way, way too complex then I think you do have to just open to the guidance and the guidance will tell you that too. It will remind you, you're too complex. Complexity is of the ego. You need to start to expose and release this ego belief system because it's very complex. If you seem to have a complex life in form, it's just a projection of the wish to be an ego and to be identified with the ego. So as you go much, much, much deeper in mind training, you start to realize that the purpose of the Holy Spirit is the simplicity. Right-mindedness, Jesus calls it, that's where simplicity is. He says right-minded seeing can see only perfection. Wow. That's simple. If you're perceiving perception in a way that you feel the perfect divine flow of all things working together for good, of nothing being out of place, nothing being a mess, that's a very, very high state of mind. That's exactly what we're aiming for. So when we're saying I am determined to see things differently, really what we're saying is I'm determined to join and merge with the Holy Spirit's perspective of the world. I want to see how Jesus sees the world. I want to let thy mind be single. Let me have an interpretation of unified awareness. Let me have an interpretation where I make no distinctions between people, places, things, and situations. For years I've said that the problem and ego belief and ego thinking is situational thinking. And if you're thinking in terms of situations, then that is the problem. And basically that is the common accepted assumption for the human condition and the person that the person will seem to have to face many different situations. And yet the mind can realize that all the situations are the same. Nothing I see means anything. They're all identical. Because why? Because they're equally illusions. The illusory world is not really made up of pieces. It's just one tapestry of nothingness, as Shakespeare said much ado about nothing. So let's marinate in that blissful thought and let's maybe turn, go forward again to chapter 26, the transition. And let's jump to the third section called the borderland. And then let's drop down to paragraph five. Salvation stops just short of heaven, for only perception needs salvation. Heaven was never lost and so cannot be saved. Yet who can make a choice between the wish for heaven and the wish for hell unless he recognizes they are not the same. Okay, let's just call the wish for heaven forgiveness. And let's call the wish for hell, you know, fear. Okay, let's keep it simple. And who can make a choice between the wish for heaven forgiveness and the wish for hell fear unless he recognizes they are not the same. This difference is the learning goal this course has set. It will not go beyond its aim. Its only purpose is to teach what is the same and what is different, leaving room to make the only choice that can be made. Okay, this is the aim of the course and its only purpose is to teach what is the same and what is different. And then the mind has to then make the choice when it can see what is the same and what is different. Okay, spoiler alert, I'm going to tell you what the same is and what's different. I know we're only on lesson 21, but let's get at it right now. Who wants to wait? Why wait for heaven? Why wait for happiness? Why wait for joy if you can have it now? What is the same and what is different? What is the same is all of the images of the world. They're all projections. They're equally unreal. They're illusions. They're all the same. The ego projected them all and the ego is a death wish and the ego doesn't know what anything is. It's a belief in separation from God and it projected every single seeming image in the cosmos, the linear time-space cosmos of distorted perception. So all of the images that seem to be separate images that are separated by time and space at different coordinates in time and space. They're all the same. They're all the same. And that is a key thing. And what is different is the two different purposes in the split mind. The ego and the Holy Spirit are different. The ego is a death wish. The Holy Spirit is the comforter, the bridge home, the healer. The Holy Spirit is the voice for God and the ego is the ego believe in separation. So in the split mind, the ego and the Holy Spirit are different. In fact, they have no meeting point. They never meet. They never meet. The Holy Spirit never shakes hands with the ego because how can you shake hands with something that doesn't exist? It's a phantom. It's not real. Belief in separation is not real and the projections of the ego, belief in separation are not real. There are unreal effects of an unreal cause and all these effects are the same. There are different forms of illusions. There are not different forms of nothingness. In the Eastern philosophies they call this world maya. It's not good maya and bad maya. It's not better maya and worse maya. It's not a specific good maya and a specific bad maya. They're all the same. All the effects of error are the same because error is error. It's not real. Sin is an error. It's not real. God is not the creator of sin. God does not create error. God does not create living your time. And when you start to realize what is the same, when you come into forgiveness, ooh, it's quantum. It's quantum. It's simultaneous time. That quantum love song that Kirsten received, you know, there's a great line. It's quantum physics, baby, love radiates, undefined, you know, it's whoa. It's quantum. Because in the moment everything is simultaneous and whatever the dreamer is looking at is seen as false. No need to try to pick and choose between the dream. When you're aware that you're dreaming, that's forgiveness. You just have to have a lucid dream. Why not today? I am determined to see things differently and I'm ready, Holy Spirit, for a lucid dream today. I want to see the world. I want to see a dreamy, peaceful world that I'm aware that is just a dream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily. The world is just a dream. The cosmos is just a dream. Let's not take this so serious. I don't care what it is. That's what the lesson's for. Let whatever rises in your mind, whatever you feel, anger, disturbance, annoyance, irritation, doesn't matter what the degree or the direction of the error is. It's false. Just let the false be false. Because why? Because it is false. That's it. So Jesus continues here with the sixth paragraph. There is no basis for a choice in this complex and over-complicated world, for no one understands what is the same and seems to choose where no choice really is. Choosing between situations, choosing between illusions, for no one understands what is the same and seems to choose where no choice really is. The real world is the area of choice made real, not in the outcome, but in the perception of alternatives for choice. That there is choice is an illusion. Yet within this one lies the undoing of every illusion, not accepting this. I've kind of taken down lots of books from Jesus, big ones, small ones, fat ones, skinny ones. One little pamphlet that is really dealing with this section and this talk today that I'm giving is called Purpose is the Only Choice. It's a little pocket book that you can order and you can stick it in your purse or stick it in your pocket, your back pocket. You can carry it with you and it's all about coming to the realization that purpose is the only choice. Not trying to go find choices in the world, shopping choices, food choices, drink choices, clothing choices, transportation choices, boyfriend-girlfriend choices, friend choices, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Let's go back, let's go back. This paragraph is the ultimate of simplicity. There is no basis for a choice in this complex and over-complicated world, for no one understands what is the same and seems to choose where no choice really is. The real world is the area of choice made real, not an outcome, but in the perception of the alternatives for choice. Love or fear, which will I hear? I choose to hear love's voice. It's a matter of choice. That there is choice is an illusion, yet within this one lies the undoing of every illusion not accepting this. It's just talk about fundamentally letting go of everything that you have believed. That's a big one. It's the belief that there's choice in this world. When I'm posting these lives, I look down on YouTube and I see scientists say, scientific proof, there is no free will in this world. It's right, he's right. You could just watch that video and let yourself, let your mind be convinced that there's no free will in this world. Free will is in heaven. God grants us free will and our creation is the Christ. That's free will. But in this world, the will has been in prison and now it's a matrix. It's just the script is written. Where is the choice in the script is written? Where is the choice in destiny? The scientists are now starting to get onto this. Everyone's coming onto it. They're reflecting my mind. That's why I look over on YouTube to see the, oh wow, that's cool too, that scientist is in it. He's reflecting it too. Paragraph seven, we're again, we're in the borderland, chapter 26, the transition, section three, we're on paragraph seven is not this like your special function where the separation is undone by change of purpose in what once was specialness and now is union. All illusions are but one. And in the recognition, this is so lies the ability to give up all attempts to choose between them and to make them different. How simple is the choice between two things so clearly unalike, ego, Holy Spirit, clearly unalike. How simple is the choice between two things so clearly unalike. There is no conflict here, no sacrifices possible in the relinquishment of an illusion recognized as such where all reality has been withdrawn from what was never true. Can it be hard to give it up and choose what must be true? Holy Spirit, atonement, correction, you're not responsible for the error, but you are responsible for accepting the correction of the error. Wow, that sounds pretty simple. I'll say that again. You're not responsible for the error. You're responsible for accepting the correction of the error. But I'm bum. Oh, happy days. Happy days. I hope this is making sense to you because not sense in a physical sense of the five senses, but I hope you're feeling the joy of this. You're off the hook. Your mind is off the hook. And you say, well, I still seem to see a world. No problem. That's not a problem if you're dreaming it. But it's a problem if you think you're a person stuck in it. You need to have a lucid dream. You need to become aware that you're dreaming in order to be happy. And before you wake up from the seeming dream of the world, you have to be consistently aware that you are the dreamer of the dream. I've talked about this in a lot of different ways and shown bunches of movies and come at this many, many, many, many, many, many different ways. But this is the joy that you find when your mind is freed up. This is a borderland of thought where you just have this superficial feeling with everything and you're aware that all the decisions have been made, but you're just kind of watching it. You're watching it in the moment and you're watching the decisions, the seeming decisions that have already been made just kind of drop like dominoes, wouldn't that be a happy day to watch all the decisions? As if they've already been made and it's like dominoes when you tick the first domino. That was a beautiful symbol in the movie Hypnotic or Depends on whether you see it in Mexico or the United States Hypnotic Hypnosis. But yeah, that is a beautiful movie, Ben Affleck. And at the end, when he gets reunited with his daughter who has this symbol of this vast powerful mind and he comes in the meter, he has to follow the dominoes. It's very sweet, very, very sweet. So thank you for joining me today. Just remember your lesson. I am determined to see things differently. Just remember that what is the same cannot be different and what is one cannot have separate parts. What is the same is the sameness of all the images of the world. What is different is the purpose in the mind, the split mind between the Holy Spirit and the ego. And the only purpose of Jesus talking about the mind in terms of right mind, wrong mind and sometimes people get caught up with that. They say, oh, the course is dualistic. No, it's not. It's just he's simplifying choice down to from many, many, many, many choices down to right mind, wrong mind because he wants to make it clear that it's a choice of purpose that is where spiritual awakening comes in. And then once you see the purpose is the only choice that you have, it becomes obvious that the wrong mind is not a real option, because the wrong mind is the ego. And then your right mind, the atonement is the correction, is all that's left because once you bring it down to purpose is the only choice. You're not fooled by the many forms anymore. Then you have to choose the innocence. You have to choose the forgiveness, choose the Holy Spirit's purpose, choose that interpretation of a unified world. And then you see, of course, that the problem was only in your mind. And it's not a real problem unless you believe it, the separation from God. But if you don't believe it, you won't perceive it. You'll see the real world. You'll see the happy dream. You'll see the unified perception, true perception. He calls it in the course. Wee! Exciting. It's exciting. And some of you know that this yesterday was the beginning of the Aquarian period. It's, this is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. This is the dawning of realizing that there are no problems apart from the mind. And then why not sing a happy song? Why not have a happy tune inspired by the love of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit and Jesus? Ta-ta-ta. Grab your coat and get your hat. Leave your worries on the doorstep. You know, leave your guilt on the doorstep. And shame and pain on the doorstep. Just direct your feet to the sunny side of the street. Hint to here. The pitter-hat and that happiness is your step. Life can be so sweet on the sunny side of the street, in the sunny side of the mind, which is the right mind. That's where the light is. This is it. It's simple. It's simple. God bless you. I hope you enjoy my singing as much as I do. Bye-bye.