 different sharings from those in our community and yeah I'm looking forward to this beautiful experience together. So we're going to be joined today for this session by Francis Su here in Mexico and we have David Hoffmeister who is over in the States so I'm going to pass it over to you guys now. Hi, hi everyone. How beautiful, what a beautiful way to start the day seeing all your smiling faces sprinkled all over the world and Francis and I are so grateful to be here with you and to have such a beautiful topic to devote this whole weekend to so Francis and I had a chance to chat a little bit this morning and as usual very happy, joyful, unloving, humorous, that's our note for the day and a note for every day. Hi, hi Francis. Hi David. Yeah, that's it. I feel so grateful for this journey and I truly see that you know when Jesus says in the Course that the only pleasure comes from doing God's work it became more and more real in experience, so joyful and humorous to be able to dedicate and devote the life to forgiveness and every forgiveness unleashed so much joy and light in the mind so that's really what our life is about and that's what we're here together for just to really dedicate our time together for this one purpose, yeah. Yeah, and it's, you know, I feel so grateful to have all of you in my life and have a course in miracles and for me it's been really a lot of joy and miracles over these past 35 years. I can hardly even contain it. It's so much joy and gratitude and appreciation and even with the Course in Miracles, if that's your pathway then you know you use the book as like your springboard, you know, it's like your trampoline. You're going to go flying in awareness, flying and soaring at the heights of happiness and heights of consciousness and the Course is just your trampoline. You know, like think of yourself as a little six-year-old bouncing up and down higher and higher on a trampoline with every bounce you go soaring up and you starting to look at the trees, up at the tree limbs as you go flying up higher and higher and I like that our topic is vision for a new world because Jesus is quite specific with his use of words. Sometimes he mixes words around but generally when you really get into it, you know, you start to realize that when Jesus is talking about vision, he's not talking about it in the way that most human beings talk about vision and when Jesus talks about a new world, he's not talking about it in the way that most human beings talk about the new world. When he talks about vision, he's not talking about the body's eyes. He's not talking about the vision that the ego associates with the body and the eyeballs and the retinas and so forth and the neuro transmitters. And he's not talking about it the way futurists talk about it or even a lot of people in spirituality and the new age will talk about what's your vision, you know, vision boarding, like manifesting a different world, a better world, having a vision for a better world. Jesus is not using vision in that context at all. In fact, you know, you have to understand the metaphysics of time as Jesus talks about them before you can even start to approach what he means by vision because his vision is a gift and it's always in the present moment. There is no such thing to Jesus as a future vision. Jesus is not visioning a better world. He's not visioning a utopia. He's not visioning a co-commercial. You know, some of you saw a co-commercial years ago where all the children hold hands and they sway like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. I'd like to buy the world a coke. Jesus is not looking for even a world where people are singing and holding hands. Those are great symbols. They're helpful stepping stones, but it's not what he means by vision. And the new world, you know, he's not talking about a new world that's seen with the body's eyes at all. He's not even talking about a new world in terms of perception per se because he's got his own term for the new world, which is the real world, and he says the real world doesn't have endless stores where people buy things that they don't even need and don't even want. He's not talking about a better organized utopian world where there's one world government or there's everybody's loving each other and not fighting with each other. He's actually saying that the world that you perceive through your five senses, he says the world you see must be denied because it's costing you the sight of another world. And he's talking about a world that you experience in your mind, but you don't perceive it through the five senses. So you can see how radical this is. And our friend David from Michigan, he had written in that line. I think it was a line about, I think you wrote a couple of questions, but David Micley was writing in from ACI chapter 31, section six, recognizing spirit, you see the flesh or recognize the spirit. There is no compromise between the two. If one is real, the other must be false. For what is real denies its opposite. And he's basically saying you can't have a compromise between the flesh and the spirit. And he said that in the Bible too, that which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the spirit is spirit. And he's really teaching us in the course that our true vision, the vision of Christ, is not perceptual. So we don't have to try to figure out a better looking world. Isn't that good that we can let go of trying to manifest a better world in the future? That's a big one. It's so beautiful too, because I think when we really go inward, you know, we can start to realize that we have a goal that is far different than all worldly goals. So it takes a while to adjust to a present goal, because all of us have been running around like a hamster in a wheel chasing future goals. And this is not what we're after. And also when Francis and I were talking this morning, you know, some of your questions relate to this idea of no private thoughts and no people pleasing. And we love to make that so practical, because I know a lot of you do ask about those two premises that we live by in our community and live our daily lives by and how does that relate to vision for a new world? How does no people pleasing and no private thoughts relate to that? And Francis and I, Francis found some passages today that were just amazing from a course of miracles that really give us a good insight into that very topic. Yeah. And I do like, you know, Jesus constantly refers to this course as a curriculum, but it's not just a book itself as a curriculum. It's actually our whole journey, our whole life in his eyes is used for one purpose, for correction, for healing and to remembering this memory that we repressed and surprised. So I always find it's really good sometimes to put everything in perspective, because it's very easy to get buried into the daily decisions. You know, David talked at the beginning about, it's a time idea. And this idea is so deep and is so fundamental to everything. We're living our life as if there are new decisions to be made every single day and every single moment. As if all the past is still recycled in the present and then cause for our real mind energy and decisions. So basically this, I do want to read this because it kind of give us a perspective of what it takes to gain the vision, you know, that Jesus want us to receive as Holy Spirit's gift. So this is from chapter 12. And he said, you cannot lay aside the obstacles to real vision without looking upon them. For to lay aside means to judge against. If you will look, the Holy Spirit will judge and he will judge truly. Yet he cannot shine away what you keep hidden for you have not offered it to him and he cannot take it from you. We are therefore embarking on an organized, well structured and carefully planned program aimed at learning how to offer to the Holy Spirit everything you do not want. He knows what to do with it. You do not understand how to use what he knows. Whatever is given him that is not of God is gone. Yet you must look at it yourself in perfect willingness for otherwise his knowledge remains useless to you. Surely he will not fail to help you since help is his only purpose. Do you not have greater reason for fearing the world as you perceive it than for looking at the cause of fear and letting it go forever. This is just really giving everything, putting everything into perspective. This is an organized, well structured and carefully planned program designed by Jesus and Holy Spirit for us to pretty much look at everything that is not true and offer everything to him willingly without hiding, without suppressing and that is healed through the offering really. Yeah, it is great to have that context because 2,000 years ago Jesus appeared for the first time in a manger, a stable among animals and straw and there was Joseph and Mary and eventually there was some others, other characters like three wise men coming to visit bringing gifts. That is a symbol to us. Oh, wow, it is nice that holiness was demonstrated and acted out in that life so beautifully and so we have a human example of how it is to be as loving as God is. How wonderful that is for the human race to have at last an example. But of course the ego is in the mind so it tried to distort that symbol, bring in some punishment and sacrifice and penance. It tried to dress up that symbol with as much darkness as it could, drape as much darkness over that symbol to defend against what it was really pointing to. And then with the Course in Miracles, it is like the Christ makes an appearance where in New York City, one of the most populated cities in the world, that is not a manger and in a very competitive medical center, Columbia University, whoa, that is a lot different from the manger and to two psychologists, a man and a woman. That is a lot different than a manger. And Francis and I love to kind of use the example of Helen Shuckman and Bill Thedford because they really didn't know what hit them. They didn't see it coming. And actually they were two strangers who met in New York City in 1958 when Bill hired Helen to be an assistant in the program that he was overseeing psychology program. And so seven years after these two strangers are brought together seemingly in this lifetime, two strangers, then here comes the Christ again making an appearance not in a manger but in New York City in the terms of words that are being put down in notes, shorthand notes. But I think the example of that for all of us is that like Francis was just sharing, this is so deep, this curriculum, because this is empty in our minds and undoing everything that we believe in without exception. It's undoing and emptying everything that we believe in and as difficult as it was for Helen and Bill to even take down the message. Beyond that it went against everything that they believed in. So they were research psychologists, they believed in time and space, they believed in physical and mental illnesses, they believed in all of the struggles of the human condition and they suddenly have this glowing message of love and light and forgiveness that comes to them and they have to do what Francis just read, they have to then begin the process of actually forgiving as Jesus' top forgiveness which is offering to the Holy Spirit everything in your mind that's not loving. And for the human race, that seems to be a lot, there seems to be a lot tied into this sleeping mind that's perceiving itself as a human race that a lot that needs to be surrendered. And they, at the beginning, they just saw it as an answer to a prayer that was not something for the whole world. And I think Mary and Joseph had a little bit of that same feeling. For them they were having a baby. They didn't necessarily, you know, take on the whole thing of, okay, let's be careful here, we've got the Messiah, you know, they saw it as a baby, you know, and no one had any idea how impactful that baby's life would be, how important it was in the overall context of things. So I think what Francis was just sharing is so important because that's what no private thoughts and no people pleasing is based on is the sense that God doesn't know of private thoughts and the Holy Spirit has the capability of shining them away if they're freely and willingly offered to the Holy Spirit, then they're gone. That's what Francis was just reading. But the human race is an attempt to hide, to keep them unconscious, to keep them secret, to keep them protected, to keep them hidden. That's what the human condition is, is trying to hide attack thoughts, hide grievances, hide fear, hide darkness. And Jesus is saying, oh no, no, it goes the other way. The Holy Spirit can take them away if you offer them freely. And that's why we encourage the sharing of private thoughts. I know David's Mickley was asking that was one of your questions was even like, does that mean I need to share all my private thoughts with the Holy Spirit? Yes. With your friends and neighbors? No. There will be people that the Holy Spirit will send you that you feel a safety with, that you feel a love of protection with. You feel safe in letting your darkness up with certain ones. And those are sent by the Holy Spirit. It doesn't mean you should go out and spew your private thoughts all over your cat, your parents, your friends, your neighbors, like a machine gun. And you just kind of spray, spray those private thoughts out on anything, on the garbage collector, on the postman, on the bartender. Please don't do that. It has to be that you have to be willing to give them to the Holy Spirit. And where you have a sticking point in giving to the Holy Spirit, then you'll be sent the mighty companions that will give you an opportunity to actually speak it up, to speak it up in the safe context of healing release. So that's, that's a key that people ask about the private thoughts. And I think no people pleasing fits with that too, Francis, because that's, that's just a willingness to not hide, hide things from yourself, really, to have honesty. Yeah, I think that is the essence. Well, you know, the deception is so, it's so profound that if it left to us to make decisions and to be in charge of our healing, it's basically insane. So really this whole journey is for us to turn this trust over and letting up every single agenda and private agenda, private interest, wanting to be liked, people please, private thoughts, because even just reading that, you know, you can just realize, wow, we're in good hands. There is a well-organized, well-structured curriculum aimed at a goal that is destined. And, you know, it's not, it's not something that we have to figure out. Actually Jesus also says somewhere in the course that, you know, the plan is set and the plan is not made by you. You don't need to know the plan, but you do need to take on the part that's giving you to learn in any given moment. That's all that, that's our part is, to really receive what is right in front of us as a forgiveness lesson and be willing to learn that, be willing to look at what we're trying to hide and protect and willing to put aside and let the spirit judge for us. So that's really our part, you know, that's what I was thinking as we go along this journey, I do feel it's simpler and simpler because we learn to use one approach to solve all problems and we're not really relying our own strength or own skill, so to speak, to trying to look at the problem and solve it because just because the deception is so profound, it's beyond the understanding that we can grasp. Yeah, that's what you read, Francis, the part I really liked about was at the beginning of the second paragraph, we are therefore embarking on an organized, well structured and carefully planned program aimed at learning how to offer the Holy Spirit everything you do not want. Before Helen Schuckman began hearing the inner dictation, the inner voice, which started off by saying this is a course in miracles, please take notes, but before that she had a lot of visions and dreams and she got a message to kind of prepare her mind for the why, like why this was going to happen because you can imagine for a research psychologist, psychologists tell people that if you hear inner voices, that's called schizophrenia. She's something about to happen to her that she would normally diagnose as a pathology and in order to prepare her, she was told a message that the world was worsening to an alarming extent and people were being called from all over to take their part in a prearranged celestial speedup of spiritual awakening. And this was back in 1965. Now we look at the world and we go, holy Jesus, if Jesus was telling her in 1965 that the world was worsening to alarming extent, wow, aren't we fortunate? We're in the full blown extent of the worsening extent. We're facing it now. If we thought it was difficult in 1965 then now look what we've got now. And what I mean by that is that Helen needed a reason, some kind of context because she had agreed to this assignment we'll call it in a way, way, way back in a previous lifetime she had agreed to let this ability, scribe ability be used for the whole, whole life. And yet that was out of her awareness. She wasn't conscious of this ability. She didn't realize she had such an amazing scribble ability. Jesus, of course, he knew. He knew it was all part of the plan but she was unaware of it. And so when she first got hired by her, she had to tap some other job offers and she didn't particularly want to work in a medical center and but because he had called her and left such an urgent message there was like a sense of urgency in his voice. She put meeting bill for this job interview at the top of her priority list among all these possibilities. And when she went in when she first met Bill for the first time she heard this inner, inner voice speak to her and say, there he is.