 And I think probably that is what happened with Jesus a lot. He probably let go of a lot of beautiful thoughts and teachings that probably seemed to catch a lot of people off guard initially, but they felt the kindness and the warmth and the friendliness and the joy behind what was being said. The presence was there, and then that's what turned them toward Him. And the ego, of course, it doesn't really apply that way. When we talk about the scribes and the Pharisees, that's just a symbol for the ego which has a very strong investment in this world being real. Power, control, rituals, being right. And a lot of those teachings that came through Jesus were a total dismaying of that. That's why the scribes and the Pharisees were so angry, it was a threat to their perceived power. They were the ones that were looked to as the ones that were giving the religious instruction from God in the higher places. Almost like the church. Of course, over the many centuries, we've seen the different churches, the Catholic Church and the different hierarchies and the control over money and therefore power and so on and so forth. But with Jesus, He was basically giving this teaching that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand and it's within you and it doesn't have anything to do with politics or power or control as the world judges it. It has nothing to do with that. So that was what the big threat was to the Pharisees and the scribes. They were basically concerned for their positions and concerned, like, if this guy keeps talking like this, we're going to be out of the job quickly. So we've got to be careful and watch this guy, track this guy, do something about that. I shared stories too when I went to Canada one time. I was asked to speak at a religious science church, I took out of the New Thought Church and pretty open-minded religious science church. They were doing a 10-day series, I believe, on the Buddha at the Religious Science Church. That's pretty open-minded. So I went there and I had four people with me that I was traveling with and I spoke a little bit during the morning service and then in the afternoon I just took a microphone and we passed it around and we just had a typical nice deep session, you know, where you really go deep into the mind, which was basically that you have the calling, you have the answer within you and you can access that. It was a beautiful, sweet, four-hour talk. Then when I left, I got back to Cincinnati about a couple weeks later, I think another Course in Miracles teacher was coming up there and his name was Robert Perry and they wrote an email saying that Robert Perry would not be allowed in the sanctuary due to the controversial nature of the previous Course in Miracles teacher. I don't know, what? Controversial nature? I had a good time up there, I didn't see any controversial and telling people that the truth is within themselves and they need that look to ministers and structures and things like that and they also happened to put in the email that the church attendants had dropped the following week by a significant amount after I was there. But see, the message of Jesus is not really meant to be a popular message. This is the ego's world. How do we expect the message of the Christ to go over in the ego's world? If Jesus was a stand-up comedian, chances are there would be some hecklers. If you look at the politicians, Barack Obama and the politicians and all the hecklers that show up at those rallies and those speeches, imagine if Jesus started just sharing these ideas about the unreality of the cosmos and the reality of love, that's not always going to go over big. That's one of the things she starts to experience. I think in this journey is that you're going for an experience. You're not really going for a popularity contest. You're not trying to win over people. You're not trying to, like in the old days, evangelism. Save souls. Win souls for Christ. Thank you Jesus. You know, praise and thongs and all this and this. We're talking about a state of mind that's joyful and happy and peaceful consistently. And that is no small gift. As many who have come before us have made an attempt at that experience. Let me go for that lasting happiness. That is no small gift to go for that. So we were talking at the breakfast table this morning. I was like, yeah, I really just go generally where I'm invited. There was one time when somebody came to me and they said, if everything is just so perfect, like you're talking about, why go anywhere? You know, why go anywhere in the world or why even travel at all? And I said, I know exactly how you feel. That's exactly how I feel. Why go anywhere? There's no impetus for it. I'm not trying to change the world. I'm not trying to build something, grow something, expand something. The Kingdom of Heaven is not like the gross national product. You're not trying to wait until the GNP report comes out. How's our kingdom report doing? How many billions of dollars do we have here? Sometimes when you listen to the Tello Evangelis, you might believe that it had something to do with it. Just send in. We have a plant for you or a statue or a candle. This authentic candle from such and such, from lords or from, you know, the CC or something. There was a teacher one time that was charging money for taking people into these caves, mystical caves in Israel. Or sometimes you'll see that these little bottles of oil, the actual oil that Jesus Christ was anointed with on his feet and selling these little bottles. It's just amazing how the ego will just try to commercialize anything. I was in the Southwest a number of years ago and I went to this beautiful little chapel that had been built and the chapel had a legendary story around it that they had a group of nuns that had come from Europe and they'd come over there and they had wanted to build this chapel kind of like the Southwest is, it's quite dry and air down there and this was a bit isolated and so forth. And so they just kept praying and praying and a carpenter showed up and built these beautiful, they actually had part of the chapel in the area built but they had no way to get to the loft to the top part and this carpenter showed up and built this beautiful kind of a spiral staircase with these steps they were locking and they'd never seen anything like it the architecture and the way that these without the means of support there's just one step that was supported by the next and the next without any kind of under support and the legend spread that it was Jesus. Jesus had showed up in Southwestern United States and built this staircase and then mysteriously disappeared. I went there, I heard the whole spiel but then I went and looked at the steps I couldn't even walk on the steps they were roped off, you know just like now if you're part of a museum you could look at the steps, you could walk on the steps and then they had built around this chapel a shopping mall nothing like a little bit of commercialism and there's some of you had this chapel with these legendary steps so called and then this shopping there, you could go with all these shops they've been totally commercialized and you know that's the ego's trick it's just going to try to commercialize everything Christmas was just supposed to be a simple reminder of holiness, you know of the holiness, of symbolic of the birth of the Christ coming to this world a world of darkness and chaos a beacon of light and then you look at how commercialized Christmas is did you buy me something? am I on your list? okay then, I'm going to cross you off then it's all this exchange and materialism Easter, you know great symbol of the resurrection chocolates bunny rabbits Easter egg hunts you know, you've got to sniff around even find a resurrection story there going on in Easter anymore the ego is so commercialized anything would remind a sleeping mind of holiness it's got to be covered, covered immediately and covered in disguise and Halloween, that's kind of interesting how they, you know, skeletons and death and candy all combined death and sweetness put together interesting and then Halloween was kind of a reaction to a holiday that was a little more pronounced over in Europe, All Saints Day you know, Halloween was just put right next to All Saints Day it did the job when I was growing up, I never heard of All Saints Day I heard of Halloween, that was a big deal trick or treat listen to that, trick or treat it's not even subtle that's the ego's plan for salvation trick you or treat you treat you nice in all kinds of ways that the ego has set up to trick you so it's not really trick or treat it's trick and treat you get tricked and treated in a way that really is not a real treat at all forgiveness, the miracle offers an actual treat when the mind is caught up in conflict it needs forgiveness to come back to stability to stabilize, to find consistency harmony, you know, coherence to be in alignment, you know it will take a miracle to have that alignment and it's not really like an intervention from beyond this world we could say that the Holy Spirit was given simultaneously as the answer and so as long as the ego has seemed to exist the Holy Spirit has always been there it's just that Jesus was the first to kind of tune in so much that he's our symbol of hope it's not what it seems this world is not what it seems and it's more than that it's really not anything at all but it's just definitely not what it seems and so that's why Jesus is called like an elder brother or a way shower not a figure to be worshipped basically a lot of this ideas of praising God and praising Jesus and everything God and Jesus we could say really have no ego with which to receive the praise so you know if you just constantly are just praising, praising, praising like sometimes the praise of God is Lord we lift your name up how many times do you have to lift the name up we lift your name up, we lift your name up and then out of the church the same old lack of integrity and things in front of you following the ego so it's more your kindness and your gentleness and your friendliness to your fellow brothers and sisters and yourself that's how God is praised because the kindness and the gentleness and the love was the way you were created and because you were created that way to acknowledge yourself as you were created that is the greatest way of praising the Creator