 The courses were coming to mind before when I was in meditation, it was just, um, a lot of people pick up the course and you work with it for quite some time, and the ideas still seem to be kind of gibberish at times where it seems like you're learning a new language. It's like it's a completely different language. And one of the passages I picked up today I think is a little paragraph that could be really helpful to us, using the analogy of a baby coming into the world and seeing all these figures moving around and hearing all these jumbled noises that don't seem to make a whole lot of sense. And Jesus is taking that and he's turning it around, there's an analogy he's saying, well that's about how you are now on a spiritual journey. You've learned all these things and I'm giving it to you as plain and straight and clear as you could possibly ever get it, and it seems like these sounds and these ideas aren't making a lot of sense. And it's using the whole analogy in a sense, but you're like a baby on this spiritual journey. He says, of all the messages you have received and failed to understand, this course alone is open to your understanding and can be understood. This is your language, your in italics. You do not understand it yet, only because your whole communication is like a baby's. The sounds a baby makes and what he hears are highly unreliable, meaning different things to him at different times. Neither the sounds he hears nor the sights he sees are stable yet, but what he hears and does not understand will be his native time, through which he will communicate with those around him and they with him. And the strange shifting ones he sees about him will become to him his comforters and he will recognize his home and see them there with him. So it's kind of a neat little turnaround for kind of encouraging. This is just for many a beginning on the spiritual journey, but it will get more and more understandable and comforting. Where is that David? That's on page 437 in the text. That's chapter 22. That's the second section under your brother's sinlessness. Then on page 440 a few pages later there's a statement that I bring up a lot because as I work with this course more and more it's become really apparent that this is a course in non-compromise. It's not a course in gray areas and it's important to get at the meaning of what that non-compromise is. But here's a statement that really seems to summarize that. It's the second full paragraph on the page 440 that says, This course will be believed entirely or not at all. For it is wholly true or wholly false and cannot be but partially believed. And you will either escape from misery entirely or not at all. Reason will tell you that there is no middle ground where you can pause uncertainly waiting to choose between the joy of heaven and the misery of health. Until you choose heaven, you are in hell and misery. And again that flies in the face of the experiences in this world because a lot of times it can seem like, Hey, life is not so bad. Or life isn't as bad as it was. It's better than it was and yet this statement is clearly pointing us in the direction. We were talking about the other day with wrong mind, right mind or black or white, all or nothing kind of thing. But this statement like that can seem steep but the more you really start to go into it, it starts to make some sense in the sense that peace or happiness has to be an absolute. There's no such thing as almost perfect or fairly pure or things like that. There has to be a purity of heart that we're moving towards. That is the goal. And then a couple pages later there's another little one that says, The ego's whole continuance depends on its belief you cannot learn this course. Share this belief and reason will be unable to see your errors and make way for their correction. For reason sees through errors telling you what you thought was real is not. And then the last one kind of a series of them that seems to be boom, boom, boom. Two pages later the branching of the road, the first paragraph on page 444 says, When you come to the place where the branch in the road is quite apparent, you cannot go ahead. You must go either one way or the other. Reminds me a little bit of the Robert Frost poem I had to memorize. The road not taken in high school. It was that whole thing of two roads diverged in the yellow wood and it goes on and on. And he talks how glad he is. He took the path that wasn't the well-worn path, but it was the path brought in somewhere. He says, You must go either one way or the other. Or now if you go straight ahead. The way you went before you reached the branch you will go nowhere. The whole purpose of coming this far was to decide which branch you will take now. The way you came no longer matters. It can no longer serve. No one who reaches this far can make the wrong decision. Although he can delay. And there is no part of the journey that seems more hopeless and futile than standing where the road branches and not deciding on which way to go. It is but the first few steps along the right way that seem hard or you have chosen although you still may think you can go back and make the other choice. This is not so. A choice made with the power of heaven to uphold it cannot be undone. Your way is decided. There will be nothing you will not be told if you acknowledge this. So I think those passages kind of paint a little bit of a picture about this course is that it's one of those things that takes a commitment and probably if you're working with the course and you do decide that it's your path and that you really want to follow it. There's nothing more frustrating than standing at the branching of the road and delay. In other words many people have tried to take this course and thought well I wanted to bring happiness to peace in my life and I want to hold on to the world as I've constructed it and be peaceful and in one sense that's like standing at the branching of the road because the whole point of the course is to help bring about a transformation of the mind where you let go of the world as you've constructed it and open your mind to vision in the mind and I think at least for me these passages really kind of give a little bit of a glimpse of that and I don't know if anybody who has any experiences or questions about that branching of the road, it's not a branching of the road like the old way it was kind of like there was always the do's and the don'ts of spirituality and depending on which church, which philosophy, which spirituality went in it was like well let's see what these people believe. These are your do's, these are your don'ts. Toe the party line, be it good whatever and what the Course is doing is saying it's not a matter of do's and don'ts in form but it is a matter of do's and don'ts in terms of thinking or right thinking or wrong thinking so everything we discussed we really want to bring it back to that there's so many controversies in this world that are just based on right behavior, wrong behavior, morality, ethics and that's another delay maneuver. It can be a spelling point but we'll just start talking about some of those things but it's definitely not where we want to say it's just another delay maneuver. Yeah that section has always been real meaningful to me and when I wrote that account of my experience that was the one that came to mind because it just seemed to relate so perfectly to how it's felt to me all along the way of coming to the branch many times and I think that this was probably the first time that I really, really realized it in a much deeper way that it wasn't a branch in doing one thing versus doing another it was a branch in coming to the branch of choosing right-mindedness versus wrong-mindedness that's the branch and what I do is automatic comes from choosing one or the other but that's the choice, not the form you know like you said it's not a choice in form it's not a choice of well, like going to Cincinnati when I, it wasn't about going to Cincinnati versus not going to Cincinnati that wasn't the branch was, you know, the right-mindedness versus the wrong-mindedness and many, you know, everything that it says and there's exactly the way I experienced it about the first few steps along the way is what seems the most difficult and it's only because you think you can go back and undo it you know it's like well I haven't gone that far maybe I can run back away, you know you know and it's like no once you've chosen it says you have the power of heaven behind you it can't be undone, you know and so then it's like that's helpful to me to read that and say oh yes just the first few steps that are difficult remember that because at first it's like oh what have I done this is too hard, this is just too hard I can't do this and what we will do is to then proceed the downiness wrong-mindedness yes, yes and to see that dowing yes exactly that that was being wrong-minded and that again it was making that choice again in each moment it's like each moment you come to that branch and each moment you make that choice it's not like oh yes I made that choice back when I went to Cincinnati well I'm glad that's over you know it's like no every moment you know it's like every moment you come to that branch and for me that was just you know a symbolic representation of a time when I felt it real strongly being at that branch but it's just it's every moment that I'm choosing right-mindedness and wrong-mindedness and yes when I have the dose it has to be wrong-mindedness and the wrong-mindedness was happening as the eye is creeping in and taking out the whole spirit is going to be yes or no? exactly and that's why it's really important to go into it real carefully because as the teacher of God goes along the teacher of God is being called out of the world as Jesus was saying years ago and all of the sages and mystics and all of the traditions the perennial wisdom have talked about and to be called out of the world or to be in the world but not of it so to speak it still seems to be there's a body walking around but the mind changes enormous and again as things go along the teacher of God you know there are things in the world that people seem like they're appropriate situational appropriate behaviors like a lot of times you know to go to a funeral and to cry and grieve seems to be a situational appropriate behavior you know the teacher of God is being called out of the world by Jesus and Jesus at one point says make your invulnerability manifest in other words you are to be a messenger of peace and joy regardless of the circumstances you know you aren't going to have situational appropriate emotions or situationally determined emotions you are going to have full experience determined emotions and again that can seem a little awkward as the teacher of God begins his journey because it's kind of like how should I be feeling here kind of I've always felt this way when I've walked into whatever hospitals or when I've walked through cemeteries or when I've gone to funerals or when I've seen bloody accidents or I've seen movies where they still chase things and blood and guts and everything I've always reacted this way now there's a transition taking place where we're being asked to perceive the world everything differently we need to change that