 About five years ago, I read The Disappearance of the Universe, and it changed my life. It's probably sound like a cliche, you probably hear that so many times. I never get tired of hearing that. And the way it changed my life is that I knew that the Course in Miracles was the only thing that I ever needed for the rest of my life. And so I read the text, and for the past five years I have not been doing The Course in Miracles. It's always on my altar, I always have it nearby, and sometimes I do actually read it. But I want to ask about inertia, about how to break through the inertia of... If everything I hear you guys say I agree with and I resonate with, and I'm not finding a shred of doubt or disbelief, or I don't think that's true, it's all true, but I resonate with all of it. I don't run home and start doing the workbook lessons. So how to break through the inertia of having all this knowledge and believing in it, but not actually activating it in my life. And the second part of the question is, I wanted to ask about addiction, and about how the Course... I don't even think the word really appears in The Course in Miracles. You don't really talk about addiction, but addiction, and in terms of how to move through addiction. Both of you. I'd say first of all with the inertia. I hear so many stories of witnesses, of people like yourself, that actually sometimes we're in inertia, and then the disappearance of the universe actually helped get them out of the inertia. They'll say, well, it kind of was stagnating, and then that was like a jumper cable just got them going again. But also I hear when I go around the world, a lot of people say things like the use of the Course as a doorstop, as a plant stand. You would not believe all the things that this book is getting used for. Or there's kind of funny stories where at first they hear about it through someone else, or through another book, or whatever, and they get like two, three, four, and then they finally get the book, but they just get it into their house. Then it has to go through a whole journey through the basement, and it's packed away for three or four years. And it's quite amazing to hear all these stories. And what it kind of confirms to me is in one sense it's kind of like a sense of readiness. Like when the Course finds you or you find the Course, it's one of those things that's like getting your whiskey straight up, not on the rocks, or not mixed in with something else. It's like really straight. And because it's so straight up that what you're describing is actually a pretty common experience, it can also be that sometimes people work with it and they just start heartening themselves when they're doing the lessons, they get really heartening themselves or with the text, and they use that as almost like a self-sabotage to really just go, if I'm going to mess it up this bad, or if I'm going to feel this rotten, I'm not going to do it. But they may not even consciously say that, but they just kind of stay away from it. So I think you really have to be ready. I guess one thing for Gary and I, we were so ready that we just dove in. And I even had a group of students back in the 1990s and one time one of them said, David, do you ever just think that the whole thing's like the biggest hoax on the planet and everything? And have you ever just once had a thought go through your mind? What if this is the biggest hoax there is? And I just looked straight in the eye and I go, no, because it's true. I've never in all these years had one thought like that. And I think for some people, I guess they must have some of those thoughts go through. I can't even imagine how I thought like that would be, because I just have never had it. It was such a convincing experience when it came in such a deep sense of like, this is your life's path, this is your journey, run it all the way through. And of course, it was like the only thing that I could focus on. I went from reading lots of books to just reading one book, not even newspapers and magazines. I mean, it was that really just captivating for me in my life. So and then the second part to your question about addiction, I did ask Jesus one time. I said, can you talk to me about addictions? And he said, well, there's really just one addiction and it's judgment. And that all these things seem to be physical addictions, you know, alcohol or smoking or overeating sex and all these different things that the 12-step groups need on. And that's more just an outplaying of symptoms that has many variations. And even if you do whatever quit drinking, quit smoking, whatever the groups aim that, the support groups aim that, even in 12 steps they say that you've got to get in touch with the stinkin' thinkin', they call it. And the stinkin' thinkin' is judgment. And that's really what the Course is aimed at, is really getting at the basic teaching of judge not, lest you be judged. And so it was a really straight answer from Jesus. And I said, oh, thank you. That kind of simplifies the very complicated field in the world. Yeah, it is about judgment. I've seen an unfortunate trend in 12-step programs. People are becoming very judgmental. It's like using guilt. So you talk to somebody else and it's not doing this or not doing that. And it's like their way is the only way, it's their way or the highway. Well, it's not the only way. And I get emails from people all the time, they're extremely harsh, extremely judgmental. And I feel like saying, why not for God's sake? You know, when you look back at the Blue Book, you know, Friends and Dills, stuff like that, there's a lot of tremendous and wonderful philosophy in there. And these people are doing the same thing with 12-step programs that people do with, you know, all these other philosophies like Science of Mind and Mary Baker Eddie, you know, that they devolve it. They don't live up to the original standards. They don't live up to the original ideas. So now it's like, oh, you either behave like me or there's something terribly wrong with you. That's judgment. That's exactly what David's talking about. The real addiction is the judgment, but they can't see it. You know, and so they go on and on and on telling all these stories about how terrible you are. When the truth is, hey, it's not about somebody else. It's not really anybody else's help. So that whole story that they have is made up. It's all fabricated. And the real addiction is the judgment, and that's what we have to let go of. We have to let go of the judgment. That's why, you know, you'll see in the original 12-step ideas, ideas like live and let live. What happened to that? Where did that go? How did that get lost completely? How about live and let live? How about let the other person live their life? It's not either business. Your responsibility is your life, not theirs. So I think that people need to take a step back and remember what the Course says. The Course says that judgment is the cause of all the sorrows of the world. Every single sorrow that you'll find in this world is caused by judgment. That's what we need to let go of. That's what we need to get over. And if we can let that go, the rest will take care of itself.