 There is another use of time. We have the linear world as a hoax. And we put so much faith in the future and spend so much energy preparing for future outcomes. We really are taking our minds and our energy away from the present moment. We're just getting distracted out there. Whether we're thinking about the past or planning for the future. Whether we're feeling regret and replaying, rehashing memories in our minds as if they could have been different. Or whether we're concerned and worried about possible outcomes in the future that we don't like. It's really a distraction away from the stillness and the freedom of the present moment. And so I thought I'd talk about something that most Course in Miracles teachers don't talk about. I don't think I hear anybody talking about it, but it's called hypothetical thinking. That's the problem. It's not so much just the linearity. But when we're thinking about the future and imagining possible future outcomes, sometimes many possible future outcomes, those are hypotheticals. Whenever you're having a conversation with somebody and you're pondering a number of possibilities that could occur in the future, it's common to be saying, well, hypothetically speaking. Just say so-and-so did this or I did that or this happened. Or hypothetically speaking if there was a tsunami or a hurricane or a tornado, or hypothetically speaking like the economists, if we go into a recession or a depression, there's so much energy is placed on these hypotheticals. And think of it in terms of like imagining pondering relationships that you've had. Where are the relationships heading? Will we last? Won't we last? All the energy that's put into hypotheticals in terms of relationships. Or even it could be a spiritual community just hypothetically speaking. And the thing that you have to have in order to have hypotheticals is linear time and you have to have cause and effect apart. As if there are these real scenarios and real memories that occurred in the past and these real possibilities that could occur in the future. It's really a system of lies. It's like a cobweb that the ego has set up. And there comes a point on the spiritual journey where instead of like, we've been talking about practically speaking, we're going to join people this week about next steps, you know, what's coming next. That can be practical but what's even more practical than next steps is starting to explore the whole idea of hypotheticals. Like can they really be hypotheticals? Or perhaps is, you some of you have heard of like, the material and different metaphysical teachings on parallel universes. Sometimes they'll say, well, you got this going on in this universe. But in a parallel universe, you have maybe the exact opposite going on simultaneously. I'm getting divorced in this life and I'm getting married in the parallel universe. It's almost like just a flipside or an opposite. Parallel or simultaneity is an interesting kind of thing. And what you find is that's what the teachings of A Course in Miracles are, is that cause and effect are together and not apart. In order to have hypotheticals, in fact, in order to have past and future, you have to have cause and effect apart. And if cause and effect are together, then what does that mean in terms of time? It means that time is simultaneous and not linear. It means that all time is, we'll say, so to speak, happening at the same time. Fuck about a mind bender. You've been addicted to thinking time is linear and then you're like, what? It's simultaneous. That's quite an interesting idea. Now, if time is simultaneous, then you really don't have any problems. You've just solved the whole human condition and the whole conundrum because problems are always remembered or anticipated. You never have a problem just right now. There is no problem right now. They're always remembered or anticipated. And so, if you could realize the impossibility of hypothetical thinking, how quiet and still your mind would be because you wouldn't waste any more time trying to figure out the future or lamenting the past, trying to plan a better future, or trying to say, I wish I could forget when this happened to me or that happened to me or when so-and-so attacked me or so-and-so grievances. What happened to grievances if time was simultaneous, if it was no longer a sense of the past having a reality, grievances would be gone too. So this is kind of an important topic to start to see the time of simultaneous. Now, some of you have learned a little bit about quantum physics. Of course, years ago, they thought the world was flat and then they thought that all the stars revolved around the Earth and then Isaac Newton comes along and says, no, there's a sun and Earth is just one among planets that revolve around the sun. Everything was turned completely around from what everyone believed. And then we had Newtonian physics, which was basically measuring and inferring the physical loves from what was observable and empirical evidence. And then once we got into quantum physics, then we started to realize that everything that we thought we knew from Newtonian physics, which is basically everything we were taught in our science books and in our history books and everything, was not true. You know, that's kind of disheartening when we've, especially if you put a lot of time into learning things to just find out which the rug just got pulled out. And quantum is completely different than Newtonian. And it's more, instead of time being linear, it's more like out of the entire cosmos, we'll say, of possibilities, that based on your belief system, your mind draws down and selects just so much, just like a tiny little sliver out of the potentiality of everything in time and space. And that's what it seems to be observing through the human senses, this tiny little sliver of perception. And in The Course in Miracles, Jesus says, perception is selective. It's so selective that you're only perceiving what you want to see. And what you don't want to see is not there. That's how powerful the mind is. You just perceive what you want to see and what you don't want to see, you don't see, you don't perceive. You just feel the emotions that you want to feel. And the emotions that you don't want to feel, you don't feel. It's like a filter based on the ego, based on the belief system of the ego which just selects perception. Some of you have probably had the experience when, you know, you go out, let's say, to buy a new car, and if you've ever had that experience, when you go out and out of all the possible vehicles you could get, you select a car, you select a make, a model, and a color. And isn't it fascinating when you get on the highway with that car and you start looking around and you go, damn, I can't believe it. Because it's really, it's like it has got to be more than coincidental that you start seeing that make and that model and that color driving by you and then driving by you again. Can you drive him by it? And it's like, what's going on here? Is this my mind or what? You know, we sometimes laugh because we'll be in the main house over there, we'll be in there having, you know how the main house has those big windows, giant windows with the kitchen and everything. And we'll be in there just talking and all our encounters and everything. And as we're mentioning names here, you're always on cue to come across the screen. All we have to do is mention your name and there you go. We'll talk to a couple of talkers and they'll mention another name and you go, there you go. It's like the Truman Show, they're on a loop. All we have to do is think of them and mention their name and there they go. Every time. Interesting. Fascinating. I mean, if it happened once or twice, you could say it's a coincidence, but when you sit there all day and it happens over and over and over, it's like, fascinating. Just was thinking about them, there they go. Like, here I am, that's me. And so we're going to get into a bit of quantum tonight, because it's like the way we've been thinking in linear terms has, it's just full of guilt. You know, it's like the past, the karmic. The past seems to repeat and we seem to be making some of the same mistakes again and we can even recognize it. Like, we scratch our head, like, this looks vaguely familiar, this relationship thing I'm dealing with, didn't I? Just, and then the time before, and then the time before it's like, here it is, it's kind of like that Carly Simon song. And if you're willing to play the game, it will be coming around again, it just loops, like in the Truman Show, they're all on a loop. It just keeps coming around and around and around. I'm supposed to say, scientifically, not at random at all. It's like these same patterns over and over and over. It's kind of like this idea in quantum physics of superposition that out of all the potentiality and all the potential places that people and things and everything could be, your mind just locks down on a particular picture or outcome and selects it. And so it may seem like people are doing things to you. It may seem like the environment, the weather, all the things of earth and all the things of time and space are doing things to you as a person, but really your mind has just selected the scene to be exactly as it appears. And no two people see the same world. Of course, if you believe in private thoughts and private minds, how could we expect private thoughts and private minds? What do we expect to see? Six and a half billion different pictures that all are in total agreement. No, the ego didn't set up. That's why we have so much fighting and conflict is because no two people see the same world. Every person sees a different world based on their preference system and then there's always conflict. So in a sense, from that quantum perspective, you can see why in interpersonal relationships where you have two people relating to each other and they aren't seeing the same world, conflict is guaranteed. Even if they're soulmates, they live in total bliss for two and a half years. They're going to wake up one morning and say, you believe what? It's going to come because of the way that it's set up. And we can say that there's only one unified perception of the world and that's the Holy Spirit's perspective. That's why we're trying to tune into the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit sees a unified world and there's no conflict in a unified world. That's the quantum field. Everything is totally unified and connected. That's why the Holy Spirit doesn't perceive conflict as the way the human beings do. You may say, oh, I need a bill to be paid but I don't have the money, please Holy Spirit and then whatever, you get the check in the mail and you go, thank you, Holy Spirit, you saved me, you paid my bill. You can interpret it that way. But it's not like the Holy Spirit is like some kind of human character. You need some money for that electric bill. That's just not the way the Holy Spirit works. It's more when you relax and when you trust and open up you can get symbols like bills getting paid or parking spaces or those kind of things where everything flows in your life in kind of a harmonious way but it's just a reflection of your state of mind. When you're in harmony, when you're in alignment the whole world looks in alignment. Everything feels just right. Everything is just in perfect place. Jesus says you cannot be in the right place at the right time. You really start to feel that harmony and perfection of everything and that's why we're going for alignment.