 reminder. The thought that's been going through my mind is a thought that Jesus left with the apostles 2,000 years ago at the Last Supper. Some of you might remember. Today we remember it as Holy Communion and Jesus saying, do this in remembrance of me. Yes, every moment of every day we're to live our life doing it, doing everything in remembrance of the Christ. And that's how we remember God. That's how we wake up from this dream of separation and remember the love of God. Do this in remembrance of me as a dedication to the Holy Instant. Holy Instant, would I give to you? Be you in charge for I would but follow. And that is how Jesus sends us off from the practice of a book of study and workbook lessons and takes us into the living present moment to be the light of the world, to be the spirit, to be the kindness, the gentleness, the sweetness, the exuding joy. That is how we stay in the devotion to God and into the devotion to the Holy Spirit and following the directions and the instructions of the Holy Spirit in Jesus. So the thought that was coming to mind today, do this in remembrance of me, I decided to talk a little bit about devotion. And I recall for myself in the parable of David was 37 years ago when I already felt I was a Christian. I was raised in the Christian church. I took my confirmation when I was 18 years old. And then as I was deepening, deepening in looking for the meaning in my life 37 years ago, I came across a course in miracles. And that is a quickening in my devotion to live a life inspired by Jesus. And so I was out at a humanistic psychology conference in La Jolla, California, kind of in the San Diego, California area. And I was attending a lot of the presentations and workshops that were being given at this Association of Humanistic Psychology Conference. Carl Rogers was there, Virginia Satir, Francis Vom. It was just an amazing time, but also it was the time when I opened a course in miracles for the first time and I felt this wave of love just wash over me like a tsunami of love. And I knew that my whole life would never be the same, that the trajectory of my life would take on a deep deepened devotion, a whole new direction from what had previously come before. And what the devotion to God entails is having a life of trust following your intuition, following the Holy Spirit that voice that Jesus speaks to us in and through in our mind and becoming completely God dependent, dependent on inner guidance, on following that inner guidance. Instead of past learning in that encompasses everything that the ego has taught us. Reliance on jobs and careers, reliance on governments, reliance on legal systems, reliance on economic systems, social systems, everything that the world would say you must fit into as a human being. We have this intuition, the Holy Spirit inside of us saying, you need to become God dependent. You need to listen carefully and you need to follow that inner guidance that you feel. You need to follow your heart, or as Joseph Campbell said, follow your bliss. The spirit is the spirit of joy. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of joy and the curriculum is a curriculum in joy. And devotion is devotion to love. It's devotion to happiness. It's devotion to peace, peace of mind. And that you bring with you for everyone and everything. So you are doing this for spirit and for everyone and everything. And Jesus tells us that if you live this life, everything you think and say and do will teach all the universe. She will be teaching and demonstrating for all the universe. That which is most important. And that is our connection with source and the love that comes from that connection and radiates through us and in us and as us. So this is the devotion of your heart. This is what makes you happy when you're in your function of serving God. You are happy. You are naturally happy. Happy and joyful. And I thought I would read some passages from Jesus about devotion because they're very touching. They're very intimate. And when you give your life over to serve the Christ and to serve the Holy Spirit, then you have no life of your own. Gone are the considerations of time and space. You know, whatever you seem to need will be provided to you. It will show up in all kinds of sights and sounds and symbols. There will be all kinds of reflections. The parable of your seemingly earth life will just light up and glow. Happy glowing shining light that radiates to everyone and everything. So I would like to talk a little bit about devotion. And we could say that if your life is dedicated to the ego, if you're dedicated to pride, to personal gain and personal glory, if you're dedicated to, we could say, arrogance of believing you have a personal self apart from the Creator, that you have a personal will apart from God, believing you have a mind of your own instead of being an idea, the Christ idea in the mind of God. If you believe you're on your own, then that's just pride. And that's the purpose of this world is the undoing of pride. So you don't graduate from time and space and you don't graduate from planet earth. You don't graduate from the body or the personality self until you let it go, until you let go every aspect of time, space, personality. I did an audio years ago, time, space and personhood. They all are unreal. You can't identify with any of them and no eternal life, eternal happiness. So this devotion is very, very sweet. And Jesus is calling us. And I can say from my experience, if I had to kind of summarize the last 37 years in the parable of David is that everything has been taken care of. And it's not from the focus on the things of this world. It's not coming from a focus on achievement or possession or accomplishment. It's not coming from a belief in ownership. You can't really own anything. Spirit just is. And Spirit extends as God just extends. And there is no ownership in it. There is no privacy in it. All the thoughts of God are shared and shared equally with everything and everyone. So you might just say it's the thought of God just radiates and radiates and radiates just like light extends. And there is no limit to love and to light. And then you learn as you let that be your guiding principle of your life, then you learn that it covers everything. It handles everything. It encompasses everything. It imbues everything with a gracious sense of peace and joy. And then you're left with just nothing but the grace of God. And there you are in the grace of God always, always held, always totally embraced in God's loving grace. So let's talk a little bit about devotion today. Wonderful topic. And then as we come to the close of this glorious reminder, I will play a song from Svava. And the title of the song is devoted to you. It's a song for God. It's a song for the Christ, the beautiful, perfect Son of God that is pure spirit, pure I am presence. And so that will be our reminder to happily carry with us as we go through the day. So let's just start off with the beginning, chapter one from A Course in Miracles. And some of you know, there's 50 Miracle Principles that Jesus talks about in chapter one of His Course in Miracles. Let's just start today with number 15. Each day should be devoted to miracles. The purpose of time is to enable you to learn how to use time constructively. It is thus a teaching device and a means to an end. Time will cease when it no longer is useful in facilitating learning. Miracles are teaching devices for demonstrating it is as blessed to give as to receive. They simultaneously increase the strength of the giver and supply strength to the receiver. Miracles transcend the body. They are sudden shifts into invisibility away from the bodily level. That is why they heal. Miracle is a service. It is the maximum service you can render to another. It is a way of loving your neighbor as yourself. You recognize your own and your neighbor's worth simultaneously. Miracles make minds one in God. They depend on cooperation because the sunship is the sum of all that God created. Miracles therefore reflect the laws of eternity, not of time. Miracles reawaken the awareness that the spirit, not the body, is the altar of truth. This is the recognition that leads to the healing power of the miracle. Miracles are natural signs of forgiveness through miracles you accept God's forgiveness by extending it to others. So that's beautiful. That tells us why each day should be devoted to miracles. That's why the title of the book is, of course, in miracles. It's basically learning how to live miraculously, to be miracle-minded consistently, and to in the end realize that who you are is indeed a miracle and in the sense of being the Christ. You're a creation of God. You're a creation and an extension of love, and that is something that we always need to hold in mind. We need to remember it. So if we go a little bit later into chapter one, Jesus is talking to us about himself, and he's referring to himself metaphorically as like an elder brother. An elder brother is entitled to respect for his greater experience and obedience for his greater wisdom. He is also entitled to love because he is a brother, and to devotion if he is devoted. It is only my devotion that entitles me to yours. There is nothing about me that you cannot attain. I have nothing that does not come from God. The difference between us now is that I have nothing else. This leaves me in a state which is only potential in you. The quote from the Bible, no man cometh unto the Father but by me, does not mean that I am in any way separate or different from you, except in time. And time does not really exist. The statement is more meaningful in terms of a vertical rather than a horizontal axis. You stand below me and I stand below God. In the process of quote rising up, I am higher because without me the distance between God and man would be too great for you to encompass. I bridge the distance as an elder brother to you on the one hand, and as the Son of God on the other. My devotion to my brothers has placed me in charge of the sonship which I render complete because I share it. So there we go. Jesus is in charge of the plan of awakening and he is in charge of the sonship because he is the Christ. And the Christ is an identity and the whole purpose of everything is to devote yourself to remembering who you really are. We move on now to chapter 4. The Bible says that you should go with the brother twice as far as he asks. It certainly does not suggest that you set him back on his journey. Devotion to a brother cannot set you back either. It can only lead to mutual progress. The result of genuine devotion is inspiration, a word which properly understood is the opposite of fatigue. To be fatigued is to be dispirited but to be inspired is to be in the Spirit. So that's the focus of devotion, to be inspired, to be in the Spirit. And then Jesus says in chapter 4, I can be entrusted with your body and your ego only because this enables you not to be concerned with them and lets me teach you their unimportance. I could not understand their importance to you if I had not once been tempted to believe in them myself. Let us undertake to learn this lesson together so we can be free of them together. I need devoted teachers who share my aim of healing in the mind. Spirit is far beyond the need of your protection or mine. Remember this, in this world you need not have tribulation because I have overcome the world. That is why you should be of good cheer. So Jesus reminded us 2000 years ago, be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. It means he's overcome Satan. He's overcome the ego. He's overcome time and space. He's overcome the body. He has remembered the identity of Spirit which is one with God. That's why Jesus said I and the Father are one. And when you give yourself over to God, I remember it was a very strong experience for me in 1986. It was a very internal experience and I feel myself just fully coming under the guidance and the direction of the Holy Spirit. And it was coming from my heart's devotion for God to know God, to remember God. And then I can remember the thoughts going through my mind. My life is never going to be the same. Those are very prophetic words. If you take this moment, this instant, to just say, okay God, from now on all for you. The best part of that is when you seek first the kingdom of heaven, all else will be added into you and everything, the finances are taken care of, the survival concerns of the body, food, clothing, shelter. If you seem to need to have a transportation of the body that is provided. That's the most glorious thing I can say is when you actually say yes in your heart, then everything, every small minute detail is part of a given plan to help you realize that this world is a simulation, that this world is not reality and that this world is not your home. Time and space is not a creation of an eternal God. You don't get the temporary from the eternal. You don't get the finite from the infinite. You can't make sense of what is ephemeral, of what is passing here today, gone tomorrow. You will never find happiness in the changing images and the purpose in your mind that lights your mind up, that allows you to look on the world differently through forgiving eyes with the Holy Spirit and Jesus. That is the one decision that you make. You give your devotion to that decision. You make that decision in this moment and then you let go of all the effects of the world in that decision. You open up to the awareness that you're the dreamer of the dream. You're not at the mercy of a dream that the ego made. God is spirit. God creates eternally. So a dream is a dream and if you're going to go rowing, rowing, rowing your boat gently down this dream, you have to remember that merely, merely, merely, merely this world is but a dream. That takes it away. Why would you be concerned with the hallucination unless you forgot that you made it up and you wanted to pretend that you were at the mercy of something not yourself, not your mind. That's what this world is. At the mercy of externals like the weather or financial conditions, at the mercy of the environment or the built environment, at the mercy of governments, at the mercy of gravity and all the laws of physics. It's like if you begin to see that you're the dreamer of the dream, then in that recognition you realize that you are not bound by the laws of physics, but you transcend the laws of physics even because of who you are, because of the power of the mind, because you have a source that is eternal. You transcend the laws of time and space. There's no gravity left in your mind. It reminds me of that song, zero gravity. Now you are in zero gravity, no limits to hold you back, nothing to hold you down, nothing to keep you at bay, free to shine and shine and shine and share and extend. Totally fulfilled, totally without a need in the world. And as you begin to listen to guidance, that's what the guidance will teach you, is that you have everything and that you are everything, that you don't really have needs. But while you believe you have needs, then the Holy Spirit will meet those needs in very unconventional ways. Talk about manifesting. The symbols will be used to help you unwind from the belief in needs and the belief in the hierarchy of needs. So this is very, very precious and very, very dear. And when you go on this journey of just saying, yes, okay, I'm going to devote myself to you, God, and I'm going to follow your Holy Spirit and Jesus, and I'm going to wake up from this dream of scarcity and separation and conflict. I'm just going to wake up to the reality of joy and the reality of peace and love. And I will do that by listening and following your instructions. Day by day, I remember the first time I picked up a Course in Miracles in Hawaii, California there in 1986. I believe it was the summer of 1986. And then that began a deep intimate relationship. Maybe before then, I thought of Jesus as a friend, as a historical figure, as someone who loved me, who was there to comfort me. But when you say, yes, and you devote yourself, you devote your whole life to this, then the relationship with that spirit, with that presence becomes extremely intimate. And in fact, that is your intimate relationship. It's an intimate relationship with your Christ self, with the Holy Spirit, who has a remembrance of your Christ self. That's the Holy Spirit's function, is to remember who you are when you believe you're something else, when you believe you're a body, a time-space creature. The Holy Spirit is the gentle reminder, oh, choose again. You are much more than a body, much more than a person. You are eternal spirit and always have been and always will be. So that devotion grows stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger. That devotion is the answer to, are you willing to help me save the world? That's the call from our Holy Spirit. Are you willing to join me, to collaborate with me in saving the world, in restoring peace and harmony and love, the natural extensions of God? Are you willing to come to that state of mind? And when you come to it, you bring all your brothers and sisters with you, because brothers and sisters are our opportunities, they're our reflections, and when we see ourself as we truly are, then we see them as they truly are. And none of us are bodies. We are eternal spirit. We never have been bodies, as Jesus tells us in the Course. At no single instant does the body exist at all. Remembered or anticipated, but at no single instant does the body exist at all. There we go. Relief. No guilt in that statement. Just pure innocent I am-ness. Yeah, that's it. So as we move on through the day, I would basically tune in and share what Jesus has to share with us, which is, I am calling you out of the world. You don't have to handle things first. You don't have to build your resume and submit it gingerly to Jesus. Basically, why don't you just turn in the resume right now? Just hand it over, whatever it looks like. It doesn't matter if it's blank. Jesus doesn't care. He says he needs devoted teachers. Your devotion you have, your willingness and your devotion you already have in your heart, so you can offer that now. You don't need anything else but that devotion, and that devotion takes you all the way. You have an endless supply of devotion, let me tell you. That's what I've learned seemingly in the parable of David over these last 37 years, an endless wellspring of devotion. Never runs dry, never evaporates, stays strong, stays clear, stays true, stays real, stays vibrant. So as we go along, let's listen to a song here by Slava, and this song is, it starts out with love is my destiny, my one and only goal, a life in ecstasy merged with my soul. That's how it starts, and then the theme of the song is the devotion to you, God. It's that I devote everything to you. When we put God first, we realize there is no second or third or fourth. You don't prioritize God in terms of many devotions. You realize that in the one devotion to God, that all the other devotions disappear. Maybe it won't seem that way instantly. Maybe we'll say they seem to fade and grow dim and disappear. That's the way it went with the parable of David. There were things that I used to be interested in. There were things that I would call hobbies. There were things that I would call now just false desires. There were things that I wanted from the world, and all of those seem to fade and grow dim and disappear. And that's because when you put God first, there is no second. There is no second. There is no third. There is no fourth. When God is first, there is no plan B. When God is first, you don't need something to fall back on because you don't have a hesitation or a doubt about putting God first. When you put God first, it's practical. I mean, how practical can it be when everything is orchestrated? Everything is arranged. Everything is handled. Everything works together for the good. You accept all things exactly as they are because of your devotion, your purpose. Nothing is out of sorts. Nothing needs to be fixed. And nothing in the world needs to be changed because your perception of the world has been lit up. You have a different interpretation of the world. It's a glorious interpretation of the world. It's the beginning of the lesson my mind holds only what I think with God. If God is my source, then why wouldn't my mind hold only what I think with God? Because everything has to come from the source, and the source is love. So let's enjoy this song from Svava, devoted to you. And just let it wash over you. Even if you've got a little twinge of hesitation, just let this song wash away that little speck of doubt, of hesitation, and realize that when you devote yourself to God, to the love, to the oneness that is, the eternal life, then the things of time will fade and grow dim and disappear, all in devotion to you, oh beloved creator. Step forth in devotion. Yeah, make that decision. Just give your life over and let everything be handled. You know, toss those cares aside, toss those concerns and worries for the future. Toss them aside. Please, please trust me. Trust believe in these words that everything is handled in your devotion to God. We call it divine providence. You know, there's a beautiful passage. Obviously, people remember the Bible about, look at the lilies of the field. They neither spin nor toil, yet even Solomon was not clothed as they. Yeah. And with the Course in Miracles, you know, Jesus, he gave it to us all 2000 years ago, but now he's just reaffirming it. There's a section in course that's kind of been nicknamed the promise. It's talking about the Holy Spirit. Once you have accepted his plan as the one function you would fulfill, there will be nothing else. The Holy Spirit will not arrange for you. Without your effort, he will go before you making straight your path and leaving in your way no stones to trip on and no obstacles to bar your way. Nothing you need will be denied you. Not one seeming difficulty, but will melt away before you reach it. You need to take thought for nothing, except the only purpose you would give. And basically that's forgiveness. When Jesus taught forgiveness, he was basically saying that you only have one responsibility and that's to forgive, to release all thoughts of error, to release all concepts from your mind, to hold on to nothing, to come with an empty altar that you may have only the devotion for God on your heart, on your inner altar. When you have devotion to God and God only gives, then you are giving and extending the light of God, the light of truth, and you have need of nothing else. It's an amazing experience when you realize that you need only give and that the world is forgiving and forgiveness, a release of error, release of doubt, release of shame, release of all guilt is the only purpose of this world. It has no other purpose. Isn't that wonderful to release the world from guilt? Every day the opportunities arise just to let it go. Let go and let God. Let God be God. Let joy be joy. Let peace be peace. Don't fight against the recognition that God's will for you is perfect happiness. So thank you. I'm glad you tuned in. I hope you remember this devotion to God and I hope you decide for God and you let the Holy Spirit decide for God for you. Let the Holy Spirit guide you in every moment and you won't regret it.