 If we took one line from the course, from the immediacy of salvation section pretty late in the course, being not content with future happiness, for it is not your just reward, for you have cause for freedom now. So let's just take that one idea, and let's just look at it in a close way, because it must mean that if my mind is preoccupied with these monkey-mime chatter thoughts, that they must be, there must be something deeper that those thoughts are serving. Why would I keep thinking them unless I believe that it served me to think about those thoughts? And I would say that if you really trace them down, underneath all those thoughts that are whirling around there is a belief that some of these thoughts are very importantly tied in to future happiness. Even though Jesus says be not content with future happiness, you have cause for freedom now. So then we're into this idea that somehow we have to manage our story. Why would we even care about managing our story unless we were trying to make it a happy story? And why would we do that unless we believed that it was actually possible to have a happy story, like the fairy tales, happy endings. Most people like fairy tales that have happy endings, positive, optimistic, but you see all those things imply that there is a thing called future happiness and that somehow we'd be lazy, we'd be slacken if we're not thinking, okay, I've got to manage my finances, I've got to manage my health, manage my body. It's not good to have a decrepit body, not very positive to have a decrepit body and then even if you've got a healthy body, well, you'd better have some finances for that healthy body because that ain't going to do you a lot of good if you're a poor, healthy body. And then you need some excitement too for that body, even if it's healthy and it's got some money, if it doesn't have any stimulation, it's going to be bored, it's going to be dull. So you can start to see all these overlays and that's what is being thought about. That's where instead of being still and know that I'm God, like we've been told, it seems more attractive to be thinking about these thoughts like much to do about nothing that Shakespeare called it, but there must be some kind of an attraction under the thoughts, otherwise we would drop them. We would say this isn't working, but we must believe that it still is working. So you would hold on and that's what makes the filter, that's what we're really getting down to starting to think, look Jesus says the dreams that you think you like can hold you back as much as those in which the fear is apparent. So it shows you how sneaky this thing is and everybody's quick to look at the things that they don't like and how do I eliminate them from the story? Just give me the story, cleansed and purified of all the negative things and then I have a very positive happy story, but the story itself is made of the fabric of the ego and you can take all the black threads out and you can leave the white threads in, but you still are left with threads, lots of threads. Even white threads are going to block you from the light because God is no creator of threads, God is the creator of spirit. So it's really, I mean, you can start to see how profound this is, then we just come together in willingness and honesty and we give it over to the Holy Spirit and say, you know, show me my blank spots, show me my white threads. I spent years working on my black threads, show me some white threads if they're still holding me back from the moment I want to know. We've been talking a lot about guidance because a lot of times people even think of guidance as a very linear thing, you know, future guidance, future guidance and did I get the guidance right and second guessing the guidance and it's really a mess. It's a lot of guilt over guidance and then it's not really what guidance is for. If guidance is for peace and you feel stressed out over guidance then you know something, ego's got in there. So what I would say is if you believe in the ego, you believe in the storyline and you believe the story is a fact. Everything's a fairy tale and the story is just a fact. And then the Course comes in and says, at no single instant does the body exist at all. It is always remembered or anticipated. You can see it's always the past or the future. But at no single instant, not in the Holy instant does the body exist at all. So what you do is you have to go from thinking that the story is a fact to what I would call a guidance story. But a guidance story doesn't mean that there's a person in the story that's going to get the guidance. It's your mind that needs the guidance because the problem is the mind believes that it's a body. And how is that body going to receive guidance? Bodies don't really get guidance. The mind gets the guidance. The mind that believes it's a body gets the guidance so that it can loosen up from believing that it's a body. So I'll give you an example of how this works. We have a community in Alizena, Spain that's on the Mediterranean. It's not too far from Malaga, Spain. Beautiful town, tiny little town, beautiful casa. And we have, I don't know, 12, some people there or something. And they've been working all through the summer and they've been doing collaborative projects, collaborative housekeeping, gardening, going to the village, shopping for vegetables, doing a little gardening. They're just working, learning how to join together and collaborate and let the spirits move through them. And so it came to a point here recently where they were guided to make a movie. They all felt it. Every one of them, like all 12 of them said, were to make a movie. So it wasn't like they had to get a debate on it. They all felt they were to make a movie. And then they started making the movie and they started doing like storyboards and they had a couple cameras and then they started to come up with some, you know, some variation and some things. But it was very spontaneous still. And then a storyline started to emerge and they were going with it and they did their first day of filming. And then it emerged who the main character of the movie was to be. It was kind of a given thing. They didn't plan it, but our friend Ludwig from Sweden was to be the lead character. So then after the first day of filming, Francis was telling me they said, okay, now we've got more scenes for you tomorrow to shoot. So we want you to carry over in a natural way so in the movie. So when you get up in the morning, don't shave because it's going to look really strange from one scene to the next if you've got a beard and then no beard. It's just too much, you know, the other receiving this movie. So they get up the next day. Ludwig forgets that he's the main character, so he shapes. He comes out, they all go, Ludwig. Now, is this a problem? No, because they immediately said, what's going on Ludwig? What's going on in your mind? And he was like, I forgot, I shaved. He said, no, just go deeper. And he was like, I don't want to be the lead character. See, in his mind, he didn't want to be the lead character. So it wasn't a Freudian slip. It wasn't, you know, the characters act out our thoughts and desires. He actually shaved because he didn't want to be the lead character. So then they said, OK, who here wants to be the lead character? And then they got one, Anders, said, I will be the lead character. I feel cold, really, to be the lead character. So he becomes the lead character. At least they film him and everything. He gets so into the emotions and everything that he forgets it's a movie. He so wants to be the lead character. He gets so into the character that he forgets that he's acting. He completely forgets it. They had to go, Ludwig. Anders, Anders, we're filming. He's lost awareness of the camera. He's lost awareness of the moviemaking process. Now he's so in it. So you have to cut, cut. Because you see there's two things going on, but the merge occurs when we get so into the flow of the moment. And we're so in the moment that we forget about everything else. We literally forget about everything. We forget about the characters. We forget about everything. And that's really what the whole thing was about. It wasn't about making the movie. It was about just getting so relaxed and so into that guidance and that flow. And that's what we always talk about with guidance. It's not really linear. It's just all about being in the moment. That's the only purpose of guidance. It's not if you follow this guidance you'll attract the right partner or you'll be wealthy you can be a famous spiritual teacher. There's no physical linear rewards to this. The fact, the whole point of it is to forget the linear and that's the reward right there because you feel the joy of God, the peace of God. Yeah, it's an experience of the present joining with the spirit and it doesn't matter what the guidance is really saying. So it's not about getting it right or getting it wrong. It's really about joining in the moment with the spirit. And then the spirit gives us props like over all along the way to stay tuned in with him but he's really calling us in a deeper experience that's staying attached to the form and thinking that guidance is about the form. You see how the world of time and space is like saying, you know, like atheism is a belief there is no God and of course if there is no God then there is no guidance from God so you're on your own. Just study books and learn things and make decisions and weigh the pros and the cons and analyze and figure it out, man. That's what the world says, figure it out do something with your life make something of yourself, figure it out and then we're open to this thing called guidance but not guidance as some separate thing from you but that moment, deep feeling of being totally self-honest spiritually honest and tuned in in alignment with God and then, like I said, the form is absolutely irrelevant, absolutely irrelevant. You don't have to justify it you don't have to prove that it's spiritual or prove that it's guided you are in it, you are it and then that is the convincing right there and how beautiful that is to be that authentic. Yeah and the reward is the experience, really you know you're following the guidance by the way you feel so it's not about the form, it's not but it's just that you will know as you take the steps yes, I am following what's given me because I feel it I am just parking my heart I totally resonate with what I'm living like I am full of joy I can feel just that the current is caring me and all that is really showing you that you are in tune with spirit and the form is used because we're still believing it and as long as there's a belief in it the spirit will use it to undo whatever belief is still there whatever construct, whatever character concept is still handled onto and so the form is irrelevant but it's going to be used so it's not also saying oh if the form is irrelevant why would I follow the guidance then but it's just seeing that the guidance is this deeper invitation and by allowing the form to be used the way it's given then I just I stay tuned in this in this experience and the eye that I think I am disappears really in this experience