 Since there is no ego apart from our own mind, that even when you start to pick up so-called negativity or whatever, still the lesson is our own lesson. The more we're able to recognize the ego, you just are able to say, ah, it's the imposter. And little by little, that's why you can be defenseless literally anywhere. Because you don't start to think of the negativity as somehow being outside you, of people, you know, thinking things about you or doing things about you. You recognize that it's just the ego is the ego. And when you start to recognize the content of the ego, and that it's not true, you know, it's not created by God, then that helps get a real detachment. Without getting into all the analyzing of, well, your ego and my ego and the collective ego and la-la-la-la-la-la-la, just, you know, recognizing the false is the fault of buying the bait. The more, I think when we go as a spirit, the more and more you start to see that the unreality of those thoughts. That way the mind starts to detach from them, and therefore the guilt leads. Because it's only the mind's investment that these are real thoughts. The mind gets so invested in these thoughts as being real that that's where the guilt comes from. It's one thing, for example, to say, boy, am I invested in this body? And boy, am I invested in my house and my car and the form things around me, you know? But when you think about it, how invested at those private thoughts that seem to be just whirling through there, that seem to be like a private world in there, you know? That here comes the course along, and it's saying, you know, there aren't private thoughts, there aren't private minds. That every thought you have goes into the constellation of the whole sunship. And that's why it's so important to discern between these thoughts is to let go of the false thoughts. Because you literally release the entire sunship, and you're able to do that. It's a full-time job to keep track of your own state of mind and your own emotions, you know? Not alone with everybody else. Yeah, it really is. It's just a full-time job. It's literally, that's the belief in the mind, that the mind doesn't believe that it's worthy enough to watch the mind that closely. So what you're saying is like, when you see me or I would see someone in that terrible state like that, it's our own lesson. Yeah, first of all is how do I feel about it? Am I really at peace? Or am I starting to, like we talked earlier, get pulled in or buy in? Because the first thing is to come back to a center-peaceful place. And then from that peaceful place, that place of relaxation, there may be a behavioral component to the miracle. The main thing is to be miracle-minded or to be in your right mind, to be free of the fear in whatever form. And then, from that place, there may be, in other words, the spirit may work through you. It may just be a smile. I mean, it may be metaphysically that they can't hear some of these ideas that we're talking about. Or it could be just a smile. Or it could be a pat on the back or a hug. But in any event, or it could even be a word or two of encouragement, but the spirit will automatically, when we step aside, will come through us. And it will be the most natural, comfortable thing. You know, it will just be like an out-picture or a flowing through. But our main responsibility is to just be absolved of fear, to be in our right mind. In other words, miracles can't be worked through us while we're in a state of fear. Right. And, you know, it was hard for me. You know, I just wanted to say a couple simple things. And then, part of me wanted to, like, move into judgment, which is real hard for me. You know, a lot of times, especially when I'm dealing with something that I was, you know, caught up in, you know. Yeah, actually, right? Yeah, that's just the Catholic issue. Speaking of that a little bit deeper too. Like, for instance, even the Catholic idea, you know, that Beverly was in the convent for nine years. And a lot of times when I go around, people will say, you know, oh, boy, I'm a recovering Catholic and I've gone, this is a heavy ingrained in this and that, as if, you know, it's like, and it's all Jesus' stuff and I've got it on there in this and that. But I think for me, the pulpit being there, I guess, is, you know, kind of like, you know. Next month, in the sense that, you know, is we travel around in a semi-course, because they'll tell me the Catholic horror stories, even with nuns hitting them over, you know, the fingers in this and that. But remember what the Course does, Jesus simplifies it all, and he says basically, you know, it's the ego thought that the way that Jesus describes it is, you're a mind, and when you believe in the belief in separation, you have a lot of guilt in the mind. And therefore, if we just take it from that level, forgetting about upbringing and background, we'll leave the world out of it for a second. We'll just talk about, like, the mind. The mind that believes it's guilty, you know, that's the problem. And therefore, it will automatically cause forthwitnesses from the world that will reinforce the guilt that is already believing it. In other words, no one comes to this world like a blank slate. A lot of times, it sounds kind of romantic, the idea of little kids coming in and they've got just two little eyes, and they have done nothing wrong, and then the parents and the society and the world messes them up. And Jesus is kind of going, no, no, no, no. It's not that at all. And then the child would be a victim of the environment and the parents and the upbringing and the Catholic Church or whatever. And we're still back into that victimhood. Jesus is saying that the mind that believes in separation and feels guilty will cause forthwitnesses. It may seem to be I'm a person in the world and I'm confined in Catholicism, or maybe I'm abused as a child, or neglected, or maybe I grew up in an orphanage, or maybe it could be one of many things. But basically, the mind will call forth and interpret what it sees as limiting it. Like people say, I can't stand all this stuff in the Catholic religion about sacrifice. The ego is the belief in sacrifice. The Catholic Church, so to speak, in all of the experiences that happened in there, were just the witnesses to what's already in the mind. The mind has to believe in sacrifice before it can see sacrifice in the world. So you can see where what we're doing is like, people will say, but I've come a long way. I used to be in the Catholic Church and then I kind of moved over to Unity, and now I'm in the Course in Miracles and this and that, and I've gone from believing in the vengeful God to not get everybody to, I've come to the realization that God is love. They go home and, you know, oh have we come to the realization that God is love? Do you see how the mind can do a little mind game? That's what I'm saying, you know, it's being raised and not feeling the same way, and yet I don't want to be into Catholic bashing. That's what you want, I mean. That's what the ego would like to turn off on the Catholic Church somehow, or the Catholic nuns or something or other, and you can see the stay at the Lord thing, you can see the backwards thinking again, because if it was the Catholic Church that taught me these beliefs that are giving me so much problem now, then the Catholic Church would be either victimized or they would be either one. Of course it says that, you know, the Catholic Church taught me what I wanted to teach me, better way of saying it, you know, that from a mind level, if I believe in guilt then I'll perceive that the world is teaching me, my parents, the Catholic Church or whatever, what I wanted to teach me. So you see the Catholic Church is absolved then, you know, it's like, okay, here we go, it's back to my responsibility, my mind, my guilt that I believe in. And all Jesus is doing is saying, you know, this is what's going on. You're plugged into a fear-based autism and you have a lot of guilt, but your guilt is not real. I mean, that's not who you really are. You don't have any real reason to feel guilt. Guilt is not justified. And then the more you start to open up to the Holy Spirit, you're gonna see how silly and ridiculous this game of guilt and fear is. You know, you just come to a point where you can't accept total responsibility for the ego at that point, without trying to project the blame for it anywhere else. And you bring it all the way back to, I made this thing, and it is this that I have done and it is this that I would undo. Then the Holy Spirit, when you bring the cause back to the mind, then the Holy Spirit will shine it away. But it doesn't get shown away when it gets projected. That's how it kind of stays reinforced. Good news. Maybe you can say a little bit about backward forward thought. I know we mentioned it either yesterday or last night or this morning, but I think that's real helpful. We started to get into it. Earlier today when we started talking about cause and effect where, you know, God is the cause and the source and the Son is the effect. Now what happens when the mad idea of separation is not laughed at and taken seriously is that cause and effect are split off. In other words, that in heaven cause and effect are simultaneous. The Father and the Son are one. They sing a song of eternal joy and gratefulness to one another. Even though, you know, you may say one is the Father and one is the Son, it's like they're just one. They're so mixed in together because they're one of one will. That there's really no point where the Son leaves off and the Father begins. But to the ego's way of thinking, when the belief of separation is taken seriously, cause and effect get split off and turned around. So in other words, split off from heaven. You know, like heaven now is not in the picture. They've been split off and turned around so that now my mind, my state of mind is the effect. And the world in the ego system is seen as causative. But that's why it seems like all the events that happen in the world have the power to take our peace of mind away. Somebody seems to cut us off in the highway or somebody seems to steal something from us or leave us or, you know, say something to us that we don't like or, you know, say one thing and do another or whatever. The cause has always seemed to be on the script or on the screen. And basically how this happens if we get to the metaphysics is that the mind believes it's separated and that started the secret dream. And this is the unconscious. This is the secret dream that we have going on that the mind believes is terribly guilty for separating from God. But that's too horrifying so that gets jammed down. And now the dreaming of the world comes, which is basically the world comes from the secret dream. But the dreaming of the world is like the way that the mind tries to, it's like a giant smoke screen or a giant hiding distracted device that keeps the mind distracted away from this very, very deep feelings of unworthiness and guilt of separating from God. So the mind gets distracted. But the only thing about this dream is that now it seems like the mind believes it's in the dream. It's a little dream figure. And it believes that it's a mercy of all these things that are happening. So once again, cause and effect has been split off and turned around. So in other words, this is the first part of the secret dream in the mind, which it doesn't want to see. And then the second part is the surface level in which things seem to be happening to me completely without my will, without me having anything to do with it. You might hear teenage children say, I didn't ask to be born into this world, you know. Finally with an angry, quiet parent. Yes, it's got like to the parents. I didn't ask for any of this, you know. Or, you know, you can say it about family. You know, why was I born into that family? You know, if I had my choice, I would have picked another family or that school or that Catholic church or why in this country? You know, once I've been born in, you know, into royalty in England or something, you know, or something like that. But basically the underlying thing is I didn't ask for this. Like, hey, I didn't ask to be here. I didn't ask for to be mistreated by my parents in that case. I didn't ask to be abused here. I didn't ask for when I was in the seventh grade and my teacher embarrassed me by making me put my nose in the chalk hole on the board. You know, all these kind of memories of, you know, I didn't ask for that, you know. I was humiliating. I was disgusting. That the dream world basically, it seems like all these events happened to me and I had no say. And the mind is just completely forgotten that the whole dream world was made off of this, the underpinnings of the dream world or off of this guilt that's very deep within the mind. So that's why it's important to start to pull back from all of this distraction to the busyness and to go within and to get in touch with the beliefs that are holding up this dream world. Because if you can get down, it's kind of like if you go to a stage play, you know, and they've got this beautiful set, you know, for the Broadway stage play and you go around behind the set and you see these wood supports, you know. Jesus is kind of saying, don't get too caught up in how nice the, you know, the backdrop looks. You've got to come around behind and get to the supports. And literally when you, if we look at these supports, we'll take the supports down. The world will, you know, will not seem to be so big and horrible. It'll just seem to be what it is. So that these underpinnings literally make the world and at no point trying to change the backdrop. But there is, it is important to change the thought that are the underpinnings.