 Well, welcome. Thank you for coming tonight. We're going to have a beautiful gathering here and To start things off after this busy day and bring us into the stillness Svala is going to start us off with the song or two So take it away Svala. Thank you. And thank you all for coming. I'm just so happy to be here I've never been in tournament before so it's very wonderful. Yeah, thank you Say In silence I hear everything In silence I feel everything In silence I see Every rest The illusions I used to believe have gone and disappeared All the truth in silence I hear In silence I feel In silence I stay Oh Jesus, my heart beats for you Show me Oh Jesus, there's no you In silence I think every In silence I see In silence I stay It's enough to live this life Surrounded by Jesus' drive Rest in pain inside everything In silence I stay Thank you so much. Thank you. It's fun to be here. This is, as Scott said, this is her first trip to Portland and this afternoon I kind of had some memories flooding in of my first trip to Portland, which was 31 years ago and it was back in a little bit before that five years before that, 36 years ago when Course in Miracles first came into my hands down in La Jolla, California Southern California down near San Diego and it just blew me away and I picked it up I did lose my breath. I felt a tsunami of love and I felt like, oh, I don't even know what the rest of my life will be but I know it's going in a different trajectory than it had been going and I was kind of excited about discovering what that new trajectory would be So after five years of pretty much using the Course the first two and a half years I used to kind of like an oracle where I would just close my eyes and pray and pray and ask questions and then I would pop the book open as like a modern day living oracle or the Delphic oracle, you know, that the Greeks have oh, this blue book with gold letters it works really good as an oracle and then I would open it up and I would get my answer to my question and then I was so excited I would read on for quite a bit until I got tired but you go ahead and resistance my eyelids would get heavy, I would close the book just follow my intuition, take a nap I could walk down by the river or you know just have a snack or something light and wait until my motivation, my inspiration was strong again and then I would come back and my oracle was waiting for me so it was very much based on curiosity and inspiration it wasn't based on kind of a ritualistic thing it was just what's the prayer of my heart I would ask a question and then wow the answers were amazing and then Jesus would take me I think he would say well we can do this anyway take me to the library and say just go down I'll tell you which book to pick out make your prayer, don't make this course book special we can do this with bumper stickers license plates, we can do this with signs and symbols all around, we can do it anywhere you go you would have to be dependent on one book I'm with you and I think with the course of miracles is with any spiritual pathway and there are many pathways that lead to God the course is just one form of the universal curriculum but it's just there as a tool to be used by the spirit to put us in touch with our internal teacher and the more we make contact with our internal teacher the less that we need scriptures or signs and symbols we still get lots of signs and symbols anyway whether we're reading the book or not so that was in 1986 when the course came and then about five years later was when I kept feeling Jesus was saying to me just go west I was in Cincinnati, Ohio and I said, can you be a little more specific he said, no, actually that's the way the mind training goes I give the instructions, you follow go west so Portland was part of the west as well as a lot of other places that I had not been to or it was my first trip to Portland with Jesus guiding me through the south-west through Oklahoma and New Mexico Arizona, Southern California up the coast and then when I came up through California I came up through Oregon went all the way up to Whitby Island off the beautiful on the Pacific Northwest and I met my friend who I had met at Kenning Gloria Watnick's place back in 1990 when I was up there in the Casco Lungs and she was very telepathic and tuned into spirit and to this day she's just very, very psychic and happy and joyful and tuned in but that was the first trip to Portland and so that was 31 years ago and then we've been guided to come back we didn't put a theme or a topic on the session tonight but we were praying about it and guidance came in how practical is guidance how much fun is it to talk about guidance, our internal guidance and I can really think of no other topic that is as important in the sense that guidance helps strengthen our trust in the spirit it helps strengthen our confidence Kat was saying that there was a lesson that she had trust would settle every problem now you were guided to do focus your mind when her mind was going like this she called a friend of ours Linda and said can I transcribe one of David's was it videos or talks? one of the weekend retreats trust would settle every problem now and that worked transcribing that in fact that lesson really works for us when we learn to give our whole heart and soul to that trust would settle every problem now an amazing idea when we're tempted to think of a problem based on the past and really the call is to let present trust lead us in everything we think and say and do once we surrender over to spirit and we really trust and we live in the moment then everything just becomes like a I think of that song la la la live for today hey la la la la la la for today and don't worry about tomorrow anyway it could be a good theme song but it makes it a lot easier when you trust because you can say I don't want to worry but when you actually trust you actually have an experience where you're not worried you're not holding on to regrets from the past or coulda woulda shoulda or plans for the future and to me that's the greatest joy of this whole journey that's where the happiness and joy comes in and it's a deep journey because when I first read the introduction of the course it was saying free will does not mean establish the curriculum it's just you can decide what you want to take at a given time and then he worked his way to that amazing summary the course can be there for summarizes this nothing real can be threatened nothing unreal exist herein lies the peace of God that sets with all the great teachings from all the centuries from Vedic Vedanta and ancient China and ancient India and that is the same teaching that has been around but what I find with the course is Jesus calling us into the practical application of that to learn to trust so thoroughly and become focused on the spirit and so aligned with the spirit that we live our life without fear we live our life without worry and concern so yeah that has been a joy and that's part of our coming here is just to share that joy actually Svalva's been having some songs kind of spool up in her mind and speaking of trust, that has been the way from the very beginning when we first came together it involved a lot of steps of trust maybe you could share a little bit about that and then we can also start to talk about the music because that has a huge amount of trust behind it too I didn't know I was going to be speaking too much well you have to speak closely I'm going to pull it up, there's a mic oh is that one? hello? yeah there you go that's easy yeah that was in 2016 yeah maybe some of you have shared the story before but I was living in Denmark with a single mom with 14 year old twins and I had been starting the course for 6 months so it was pretty new but I had been through a lot of medications and diagnosis and when the course came in my hands I got it in Danish first and I heard a voice say no father you have to study it in English and I closed the book it was so clear and I felt it so strongly in my heart so I closed the book and got the book in English instead and started studying so I had been studying for 6 months and got guided out of medication and everything it was so clear so thorough like look at this go so much down on this and reduce this and after 5 months I was out of everything and then suddenly one day I was just wasn't really searching for anything but this retreat with David in Holland showed up on the screen and I just felt in my heart that I almost like I had already been there and and I signed up and then I got into huge fear and I sent an email to cancel and didn't hear anything back so I thought ok I am supposed to go and it was such a miracle trip I had everything planned out because I had to fly and I had to take the trains and the bus to get way out in the country in Holland and I had never traveled on my own before so I had it all planned out and then my plane was delayed and I got in so much fear on the plane and it was just praying and praying and praying and because my plans were out of the window at that point and then when the plane landed I just it was like this fear just flipped around so I was suddenly I was so excited I was just in so excitement about that I made it and then I started asking people on the plane how to get to this place I had the address written down and there was a man close by that and my parents lived there and yeah it was just so many miracles just getting there and so many people just showing up and supporting me showing where to buy a ticket and carrying my bags over to the bus and it was so many miracles and then when I finally got to the town it was dark at that point and I got out of the bus and I just said okay Jesus what do I do now and then I heard turn around and knock on the door on the house behind you and I turned around and there was a light in the living room and I walked down there and knocked on the door and this sweet elderly couple opened the door and they didn't speak any English and so I showed them the address and he grabbed a paper and drawn a map for me to get there and then he decided to walk with me half of the way and he carried my bag and it was just like amazing and I was just blown away because there was just like a whole new world suddenly yeah I had no idea what I was doing so yeah and then I got to the retreat center in the evening and he was gonna start the day after in the morning and I walked in the cafeteria and there were some people sitting there and I used to be so shy and just hiding so I got in there and I was just like is this the retreat with David Hoffmeister and they were like yeah so yeah and the next day I met David and I was like I had never I had not been following him as a teacher even it was just like yeah it was just something so strong it was just pulling towards just to go deeper, to go deeper with the course and I had no idea then yeah and then I started hearing guidance about what to, that I had to meet, that I had to talk to David and I was like no way I'm just gonna sit here in the back and to this retreat and then go back and so but it was so strong and one yeah one of the first evenings we were watching a movie and I went in there and I sat in the front row and then I heard in my mind Svaha now I have arranged it for you now you go and ask David to talk and I was in no way and I was just holding my hands on the chair and like no way but my legs started walking it was something just to go over something so important but I was just so afraid and then I just suddenly was standing in front of David and I was just like like she couldn't speak and I said could I have a one-on-one with you and yeah and then I had a one-on-one the next day and I just heard in my mind what to ask it was just like what is going on with me and and yeah and then when I got back to Denmark I am I was just feeling that I so strong call that I had to follow my heart I had to go so much deeper with this and I was you know I was living with my 14 year old sons and they were with my ex every other week and and I just said okay if I am supposed to follow this and just follow and go and live with David and in the community and everything that has to be so so obvious it has to be so obvious there is no doubt in my mind and and then in the evening I was blowing out candles in my living room and one of the candles it like fell out of my hand and the wax ran over a photo of me and my sons and the wax just only went over me just deleted me out of the photo and I wondered how does this feel and I had this huge heart opening experience like this universal love for them, for myself, for the whole like and I felt such a deep like recognition that it was it was complete like my part was complete with this role and yeah and then the next day I think I was also praying about how to explain how to share this with my sons and we were having dinner and then I just started sharing that yeah that I felt this in my heart and then their reflection was like mom you gotta go, you have to go this is how it was to follow our heart and now you go and follow your heart so and everything was just so given it was like you know I have learned that when it's yeah later on that when it's so when it's when it is the direction for me then everything just is so given and so easy so effortless and so yeah and it was very I think it took me four months to just wrap up everything and then I went to Mexico with one suitcase my sons went to live with my ex and everyone happy yeah yeah it was kind of the story it's a good story just illustrates how we really do need to make strong contact with guidance and really puts that as something that's important in our lives because that's how the spirit takes us into experiences and Jesus is telling us in the Course he does say way back in clarification of terms an experience will come that will end your doubting he doesn't say a concept will come that will end your doubting he doesn't say a ritual or an event or a word will come along the one you're doubting he says an experience so he's teaching us that we need to have a direct experience of God and the way we move toward that actual direct experience of God is through our intuition is through our guidance what distinguishes the guidance from anything else in this world is that if you might say the Holy Spirit can use anything that the ego made and the ego made the words even Jesus tells us that words are symbols of symbols twice removed from reality so words and language is an ego invention type space cosmos is an ego invention everything that we perceive is an ego invention and the good news is the Holy Spirit can use anything that the ego made to help us escape from guilt escape from fear escape from doubt and guidance is really a good example of the Holy Spirit using what the ego made you know everybody knows that in the Bible Sermon on the Mount and Jesus talking about the Beatitudes and I was raised Christian and I always loved reading the red letters Jesus was speaking in the Gospels and I think of all of Jesus' teachings you probably could summarize the whole teaching into judge not and yet for 2000 years people have been going that sounds really good but how do you stop a runaway freight train that's going down a mountain you know you don't Jesus is basically saying you just need to start to realize the judgment is a mechanism that the ego made up after the belief in separation the ego made up many things to protect itself and judgment was one of them judgment in comparison is a way that the ego protects itself from being discovered it's like living in the unconscious mind just under the surface and it's invented a lot of the sense mechanisms to protect itself from being exposed and released and judgment is one of those core ones but if you look at judgment and you say wow if the Holy Spirit can use anything that the ego made then maybe the Holy Spirit can use judgment in a temporary way to guide me out of judgment using judgment which the ego made to guide me away from it to I can reach that pristine still point where there's no judgment where I go ah ha it's so beautiful and the world is beautiful without judgment it's just the judgment and comparison and the evaluation and the ranking and the ordering the preference all of that is what distorts the world and makes it sad it makes it it brings up sadness and anger and hatred and so forth so what a great topic we have tonight and I would say from my experience these 36 years with the Course I really queued in when Jesus said that this course and this pathway it's not really difficult but it is very, very different so I like that not difficult not necessarily difficult we don't have to just throw ourselves into this is too difficult or this is too extreme I'll never be able to really grasp this and just remember that the guidance is not difficult but it is very different for example, Svava was sharing that she had the Course and she was looking at the Course in Danish and then Jesus was telling her the Spirit was saying read it in English well that's English was her third language she was born and raised in Iceland so there's Icelandic number one then moved with her family to Denmark so Danish is number two so you imagine picking up a book like the Course which has some three and four syllable words and it's not exactly it's been channeled through a research psychologist with a pretty big vocabulary and then you can imagine getting the guidance read it, study it in English she had to have Google translate pretty much every sentence she could go a sentence or two and then Google translate, Google translate now again, that's a good example for us of very different and now that was some years ago, 2016 or so and now here we are in 2022 and your English has improved hundreds of percent in that time period but also you're channeling, receiving all these songs that you receive in English and you're singing them in English and then she had to be guided by a guitar go to YouTube to learn how to play the guitar when she was a little girl too she had played the keyboard she was very artistic very expressive when she was a little girl she played the keyboard until her parents wanted to enter her into contests you know, in competition and that just turned her up that skill, that keyboard skill was dormant for decades and then suddenly it got activated when she was receiving all these songs and she could use, was it Logic Pro you know software and then a keyboard so she could bring violins or bringing instruments that she wanted from these skills that were dormant for decades another good example about how the guidance works it's like sometimes when we look on YouTube and we see this child prodigy who can play Mozart or Beethoven or something and they're so young and we start to realize that these skills must have been developed prior to their small years of human development there's a movie called The Island I don't know if you ever saw The Island with Scarlett Johansson where he's pulling from all these memories that are in consciousness so his life in this world is not really where we develop skills that's more of a projection of these amazing skills that we have in mind in consciousness and a child prodigy is a good example how can somebody four or five violin like that when there are concert violins that have been practicing for decades that have trouble reaching that skill level so in one sense we can realize that that's part of the guidance is that we tap into and we start to download and become into or full awareness of skills so I was saying you were very shy and I was extremely shy when I was young in high school I was the most quiet in my senior class and then I went to university and I would kind of mumble my way and eat my words and I had such unworthiness and there was such a fear of speaking and I was extremely shy all the way into the university years even all the way into graduate school but we remember that Moses stuttered and so Jesus in the spirit used Moses to deliver the Ten Commandments Mel Brooks kind of made fun of that word I give to you these 20 commandments and then the tablet falls out of his hand 10 Mel Brooks he just he just cropped 10 commandments he just covered 10 but you see we all have these internal skills that are part of our mind and our consciousness and what Jesus wants to do is use our intuition and use our willingness to listen and follow to build our confidence to let skills emerge and then as we move along even the use of those skills is just to bring us back to the stillness to the I am presence prior to time it's not like Jesus is wanting us to achieve and accomplish things even though to the world that may look that way but it's actually just to come back into the direct connection with God that's the whole point of everything in time and space to let it be used by the Holy Spirit to come back that connection so and then when you start to get into it deeper and deeper I used to go and have lunch with Judy Skutch Whitson and William Whitson her husband and her daughter we've had wonderful meetings with Tamara and everything and every time we would be around this very famous Course in Miracles table where they had all their meetings years and decades we would be sitting and she'd say there's a lot of memories connected to this table and we would be talking what started to come from my own experiences of following the Holy Spirit in Jesus and from their experiences is we could see that we were living a life a very prayerful life where we would just pray and listen and follow you know that Julie Roberts movie was Eat Pray, Love this was Pray, Listen and Follow and I was guided to start non-profit organizations and then Judy was saying yeah so did we that's what foundation for her piece was do you have a business plan? No we don't either when they come to check what's your business plan we pray we listen and follow so she was some decades ahead of me but we're like you've been doing the same thing and then you start through a devotional life you start to realize that Jesus arranges time and space for the miracle that's something we're just not familiar with when we're growing up usually our parents are not telling us when we're children you know you'll grow up to arrange time and space as a miracle worker for Jesus not even close eat your peas but the more I got into it that was the feeling when I took that first trip in 1991 go west I was like how am I going to go west I didn't even have a car and she said well it guided me to a car dealership he said here's the car I want you to have it it was like a three cylinder car it had such a high gas mileage it basically would run on fumes I think sometimes when I would run on a gas Jesus was in there just running a car for a hundred some more miles on fumes there's no gas station just keep driving go west I'll take care of where am I going to sleep I'll take care of that where am I going to give food I don't have any bank savings I don't have any support I have no church support I have nothing I'm taking care of you and that first trip which I came to Portland was very much of a listen follow exercise you know Seekie first the kingdom of heaven and all else will be added unto you we're familiar with that from 2000 years ago and then of course in the course he has a section called with his plan the Holy Spirit 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 borrow your way nothing you need will be denied you not one seeming difficulty but will out away before you reach it you need take thought for nothing except the only purpose you would fulfill there was lilies in the field Seekie first the kingdom of heaven Jesus just like saying in case you missed it I've had it around for 2000 years in case you missed it I'll say it again I'll say it in poetic words I'll just warm your heart I'm going to leave you I'm going to guide you you just have to trust in me and I could start to feel when I took that first trip in this little gold 3-cylinder car just go west just go west it was like wow this is going to be a major exercise in trust because I would always be telling Jesus money doesn't grow on trees just this is a big country where are you going to sleep where are you going to eat he's like this is part of listen follow this is my way of getting you in touch with my guidance you watch I'll handle everything and all you have to do is just be willing and I said yeah but willing to travel I said he knew I was very shy I said you're not expecting to me to talk and give talks or something like this I mean I've just been using the book as an oracle but I'm not like just I don't think I'm ready he's like I know where your readiness is and you just got let's listen follow my instructions and enjoy the holding encounters meet your brothers and sisters in the joy of the moment and trust that everything's provided and to me that was like after ten years of university undergrad and grad I was like this is not how things work on this country on this planet you know and he's like I've been through this all I know this place I know this I know this planet and you have a feeling he knows all I have a feeling he's not even letting on he's like I got this and so that was a big leap of faith and then actually that first trip I was out on the road in that little gold car for five and a half weeks and I would say Portland was like close to the the midpoint out through the Southwest up through California and then Portland and then I did go up to meet and with the island and then came across the northern plane states and down through Wisconsin and back to Cincinnati so the first trip was five and a half weeks then there was a pause and then there was another trip that came in the next year that was six weeks down to Florida and actually during that trip the car was taken and so I was literally talking with a friend of mine we would just walk to the beach we came back, the car was gone and Jesus was just coming in with coarse ideas when I'm looking at the empty stall where the car was Jesus is like just cranking it up a little bit I got you, I got you, I got you even when the car is gone the people we were going to stay with came and picked us up eventually and we went we had a pup tent we had borrowed from a friend in Cincinnati and we went to a course meeting and we told our what was happening yeah we're staying with some friends but our car is gone now they said let's pass a basket of donations I think the it was like $50 $52 or something in so many then we went to a place to look for a tent, a used tent and we found this tent that had the exact price they were selling it to us that we had collected at the course group and we were like oh god here we go it's just like nothing can go wrong when you're in this and following you just are led to holy encounters to shine your light to be joyful, to be happy with everyone you meet and then the spirit literally takes everything that you seem to need and eventually the car came back and it had been stripped and you know the steering column and stripped and everything and of course down there in Miami, Florida it happened so often that they had a whole industry of people that restore cars and people donated money to us and they restored it without the cosmetic it looked like something from Star Wars R2-D2 we were able to drive it it just takes away all your expectations of how anything should go and yet you are so lovingly provided for you it's like you're on some kind of a magic carpet ride like you've got the genie is out of the bottle and with Jesus leading the way and things unfold the logistics are taken care of now that that was kind of like Noctis socks off miracles it just kept coming and coming every road trip was like I was like we could do like more than a movie a week we could do like two week series on all the miracles because every day was so flooded with so many miracles that we were like we couldn't even put this in a book the book would be so big and that would just be from the travels and then as we would continue on I started to get glimpses of really deep experiences like I remember that first trip when I was coming before I came to Portland I was going across southwestern the United States and I was meeting people at course groups and they would say where are you heading west so they told us so they would say well as long as you're going west when you go to when you go to to Abercarpe or if you go to you know Flagstaff or you go out to California whatever they were giving me little strips of paper before iPhones, before email back in 1991 it was good old strips of paper with people putting names and phone numbers I didn't even have a cell phone I would have to be guided to pull over to one of these phone booths and put in the change and then I would call the number on this strip of paper who are you well come on over and people started taking me into their houses they would take me to course groups they would meet my mother meet this one that I had never met with just a name and a phone number on a strip of paper and then you shall call the number when you're prompted to and then they invite you over they don't want you to leave they want you to pretty much live with them they give you food come on here let's do a course group I got my third night out on the road on that trip I think I was in Tulsa Oklahoma and I was just driving along and I hit one of these Miracle Distribution Center list of course groups and so Jesus is like that one it's 11 to 12 on Sunday and I'm like Sunday so I go to it and when I got there there was like 10 minutes left in the meeting I said I'm not going into the course meeting so he has 10 minutes left on the Sunday morning Jesus yes you are so I walk in there's a big having a big debate about sexuality big in the course group debating I'm just sitting there and then 10 minutes later it's 12 o'clock they're like who are you where did you come from I was just traveling through Tulsa I was just guided to come here well come on we're going out to lunch I'll take you to lunch and then after lunch this guy Jack Jack Barnes here come to my condo do you play tennis there's a hot tub there I gotta go do some things here's my condo now when you're traveling people start saying come take you to lunch and stay as long as you want it's just it blows your mind because it's just like what planet is this you know what have I stumbled upon and Jesus was just saying yes I told you I would take care of everything and I did read that he said if you'll do miracles for me I will arrange time and space for you that's how it started to feel it started to feel like a fairy tale like things were being arranged the people I was meeting things I was invited to I was there a whole day with this guy at this guy Jack's condo he had to go off and do some work and then he came back about five o'clock I got a great idea he said let's do a course of miracles potluck on my houseboat tonight you seem to know a lot about the course we've got questions about sexuality we'll just go out and on my houseboat we'll do a potluck and then we'll have a nice discussion so that's what we did we were out on the houseboat the sun's going down the moon is shining we've got watermelon we're spitting the seeds off the side they're asking me all kinds of questions about the course I'm just thinking sir real this is the third night out sir real this is sir real but this is what Jesus is he was just going to knock my socks off saying if you'll just listen and follow me then I'll take care of everything else I'll take care of everything that doesn't matter if you'll let me perform miracles through you if you'll be happy if you'll let me be joyful through you I'll take care of all the rest that doesn't matter and I said what doesn't matter time and space it's logistics you can see because I was raised in a work ethic why do you think I was in ten years full time of university for the degrees, for the job for the careers you know we that's part of the whole Protestant work ethic take care of yourself and he was like saying yeah well I want you to be happy and your responsibilities to accept the atonement to accept the correction in your mind that's your one responsibility not this other stuff this is like the theater I take care of the theater you accept the atonement that's your one sole responsibility and you do that by following guidance and being used as a miracle worker and letting the spirit come through through guidance, through intuition now as I said it's not difficult but it is very different because I was trained to be very analytical I was extremely analytical I was in engineering I was in urban planning these are not I don't call those the intuitive sciences engineering and urban planning so I worked my way from there and then he got me over to psychology, philosophy, sociology he got me more into the arts and sciences like keep coming education and advance education and then I left the university I had gone through school psychology and I was in this program called educational foundations which is basically studying what is education for and then I get to the course and I open it up and he says your problem is learning after 10 years full-time education now you're saying yeah you learned this whole world of time and space you never once paused to ask yourself why you were learning this whole thing now you have to unlearn everything and I'm like oh my gosh I was kind of proud about the 10 years of university and he was like there's like a chip on your shoulder I'll take care of that too so you have to understand that's why I say it's very very different it's not that it's difficult I can't really say that my journey of these last 36 years has been difficult that's not a word at all I would say very miraculous but I would say that it was so different than anything I've played for my life than any ambition I ever had for myself than anything I had ever pursued or thought about pursuing and Jesus was saying but you can do that with my guidance that this world is learned and that you can unlearn it my mother was a history teacher and she was in education most of her whole life and I spent a lot of time in structured education but I could tell I was on a pathway of listen and follow and learning to be more intuitive and more and I was simply guided they say what is guided is provided well that's the way it's gone for me it's been very very provided then it started to get kind of surreal even on the first trip out I got all these strips of paper and I remember working my way out when I got to Los Angeles area Los Angeles area is so big so vast and my little car all the strips of paper out of my pocket and I threw them down on a bedspread and I said I'm just going to get a map this was before the days of GPS I'm going to get a paper map unfold the map and I'm going to plot all the invitations and the phone numbers that I got on this map of Los Angeles and it was a line and I was like this is what this is prearranged you've prearranged by giving these strips of paper in my pocket he's like yes it's all prearranged everything we do we seem to do in time and space as part of a prearranged plan even Helen Shuckman who's the scribe of the course before she started getting you know the visions and the dreams and hearing that voice this is of course the miracles please take notes Helen Shuckman was told the world is worsening to an alarming extent and people are being called from all over to accept their part in a prearranged plan prearranged you mean this whole thing is destined you mean the script is written you mean we're just watching our destiny right in front of our eyes every day and it's all part of Jesus has already handled the whole thing it's all a prearranged plan and then when you study the course you do the workbook lessons workbook lesson number seven is I see only the past he's telling us straight out that we're just perceiving through our five senses our consciousness we're perceiving the past and then when you get into the course a little deeper like workbook lesson 158 he says you know we are but looking back on the journey imagining that we are making it reviewing what has mentally gone by he's telling us over and over that what we think is such a big deal is a prearranged plan you're literally viewing a script that is already written out nobody is in the human condition is at that place of seeing it as a written script but that's why we're talking about guidance tonight because here I can tell you 36 years after that first trip where I got the things were laid out on the map is this written already am I just walking through something that is already done already prearranged and he was like yeah you'll see that we need lots of experiences we need lots of evidence we need lots of lots and lots and lots of experiences before our mind starts to feel that surreal feeling gets stronger and stronger like we're dreaming of course mentions that you're dreaming for most human beings their nighttime dreams don't seem to be at all like their daily life they seem to be different and he's like saying no you're dreaming all the time you're dreaming at night you're dreaming during the day the world you perceive is like a motion picture of your unconscious mind so you're just experiencing your mind and if you get to lesson 152 you know you start to realize that there's no exceptions to it the power of decision is my own and there are no exceptions that I'm always just experiencing my state of mind from my consciousness the thing about it is the reason it doesn't seem to be just a dream is because the unconscious mind is so pushed out of awareness and Jesus at one point he called it the unwatched mind but at one point he says there's two parts to your self-concept there's the dream that you dream in secret and then the dream that you gave away so what we see right now is this room and this world stars and planets and everything is the dream that was given away as if it's happening to us and we have no control over it and then there's the dream that we dream in secret which is the unconscious mind that Freud talked about and Carl Jung talked about that a lot of psychologists have talked about a lot of, I mean there were spiritualities that talked about the unconscious mind, the shadow and that's the whole point of us going through all these experiences is to slowly and hopefully steadily raise this darkness up to awareness and give it to the Holy Spirit raise the darkness to the light that's the formula for awakening don't try to hide it don't try to repress it don't try to deny it and so out of these 36 years and now we have communities that we live in we just practice no people pleasing no private thoughts we're going for transparent communication we're going for hide nothing we're going for it's okay spill the beans somebody's tell us instead of like don't say it sometimes we grew up in families don't say it I can see you're upset don't you dare so we're reversing that now we're going through a healing experience and we're beginning to let it up well maybe we've got such great music I told you how it's been coming through Saba maybe we could have another song and then we'll just kind of work our way with maybe some Q&A we've got enough microphones because I know you're curious I can imagine you're curious because we're all curious right we're all curious about guidance we're all connecting about learning to be more open transparent and I was feeling to sing this is a new song it just came recently so it's called the flow of life and I was thinking about it when you were talking it seemed pretty wild to be real as a child life just moves when there are no rules it is all beginning to grow into who I truly am I took the chance knowing nothing fell down into a deep dark hole it was gross falling it is so to grow into who I truly am I finally saw the game the silly game of shame I've so much that I got in touch with the flow the joy of life it's playing it's all it's a flow it is all truly it is all it is all it is all in god's it is all it came very recently you hadn't had a song just drop in like that for quite a while right yeah over a year actually yeah been used in different ways yeah writing poetry and podcasts and yeah so yeah it just showed up it's suddenly it was there yeah I really love it yeah it's a good reminder that Jesus says miracles are involuntary it should not be under conscious control because I've seen Spava just so go out and paint and paint one painting and paint the next and the next or write poetry or the song drops in like oh I haven't had a song for over a year and then here it is you just heard it just comes out but that's part of I think the real dedication to miracles because they just come so naturally without like a conscious effort of trying to do something and that was one of the hardest things for me was you know when I would read the course and I would when you have Jesus saying I want to perform miracles through you he's like what is how am I going to tell my parents about this you know it just there's a lot of doubt and resistance that can come up when you start to just thinking of yourself as a conduit or a channel or a vehicle kind of like Saint Francis' prayer Lord make me an instrument of my peace what a beautiful prayer in the 1200s that he had and what a beautiful demonstration Saint Francis was he was so simple and I think to me that's where our willingness comes in we have to just wake up every day and just be willing to be used or to serve the greater plan in some way we don't even know the specifics or the details but slowly Jesus has been able to teach me that's okay you don't need to know the future you don't need to know how it's going to work out just keep showing up for me just show up with willingness like just like a little puppy dog with puppy dog eyes you know show up and keep showing up again and again and again and then just hold the miracles we hold them just see that they're happening all the time even Albert Einstein said there's just two ways to look at this world one is if nothing's a miracle and one is if everything is a miracle that's one of the most eminent scientists of all time telling us that it's possible to see everything as a miracle so to me that it's just like it unfolds just let life unfold just let it show itself show itself and you start to get more and more relaxed with it because you start to see like Jesus says miracles are natural when they do not occur something has gone wrong you see how different that is from our old way of thinking where we were thinking of miracles is extraordinary you know we're supernatural and he's just saying no they're natural it's a natural way of gazing at this world it's a natural way of connecting with your brothers and sisters it's a natural way of being and he tells us that miracles are experienced through prayer that prayer is the medium of miracles so that's good to know too that prayer is the medium of miracles not effort is the medium but prayer which is our desire and our heart that's the medium of miracles early on for me too I mean I did go off after my 10 years of university and I lived in a hermitage in the woods and then I started to go deeper into the experience of what Jesus was pointing to and then over a series of months I had three revelatory experiences where it was the disappearance of the universe where time and space completely disappeared when I would go into these revelatory experiences it would be like the three-dimensional world would collapse and it would look very surreal almost like two-dimensional and then this blazing light would start streaming in through some of the cracks and then the whole world would disappear and so what Jesus says in the chorus is revelation unites you directly with God you just have a direct experience of the light that's beyond perception and revelation is temporary by nature because obviously if it wasn't temporary you just would disappear into the heart of God and so those are like big glimpses but for me those were very much boosting my trust boosting my confidence it's almost like you get a chance to pierce the veil and then you can look at the veil in a different way than you ever did before it has less reality for you I think it was John Lennon that said something like the closer you come to God the less real that this world seems and the closer you are to the world the less real God seems and when you read the chorus it's like that's what Jesus is saying this is a perceptual realm that was made to keep God out sometimes people say ego is edging God out it was made by the ego to block out the light and that's why we need so much guidance and we need to let miracles come through us in order to shift our mind to a place where the miracles seem natural and then we're not so concerned about the outcome that's been like something we've watched over time is we're less and less concerned with the outcome the more you start to feel it's part of a prearranged script why celebrate some outcomes and be disappointed with other outcomes when Jesus is saying they're actually the same and I will help you see it make this year different by making it all the same he's actually leading us to go beyond differences and I think the highest teaching for me was when Jesus was saying the Holy Spirit doesn't see error so if you really want to be happy you have to look upon the world the way the Holy Spirit sees the world the Holy Spirit looks not to effects for he has already judged their cause but because of the images is the ego so the Holy Spirit has already overlooked the error and that is really what true forgiveness is it's overlooking the error it's not saying I spot this error I record this error you did this wrong you did this you know the temptation in the human mind is to start to keep score okay you're on thin ice you make this mistake and then this one this one kind of build a case and you join with the Holy Spirit you won't see error at all you will overlook the error entirely you see how different that is from human forgiveness which is you did this to me and this and this and this but out of the kindness of my heart because I'm such a devoted Christian I'm so devoted to Jesus I'm going to let it slide but watch it I've got these 5 cases they were used to building a case and then trying to forgive and in the song of prayer that Jesus dictated to Helen Shuckman he says well when you collect the evidence and the grievances and then you forgive after collecting the evidence he calls that forgiveness to destroy pretty strong words from Jesus what we consider forgiveness is forgiveness to destroy and he's just saying just keep coming back to me I want you to see the world in an innocent way I want you to see the world prior to error prior to error remember how he said before Abraham was I am he's like saying come and join me in the I amness and you'll see how delightful God is and how innocent you are but it is just I think like a letting go of goals of the world you know I remember when the first time I was watching that movie Gandhi I adored that movie and Gandhi was walking I think in South Africa with this American reporter and the reporter was going wow you've done really well down here and everything and finally the reporter his name was Walker and he turned to Gandhi and he said Mr. Gandhi you're quite an ambitious fellow and I was watching and Gandhi's response was I hope not I was raised as American ambition will grow make it better and I hope not I had to stop the movie what did he say that was a compliment Gandhi and you're saying I hope not I hope not so the more you go in with Jesus you start to realize that he's hustling us and directing us to find the present moment he's teaching us how to be present with God right now not to look for our worth in the future with our ambitions and goals wow that's the whole instant and that is so different than I expected Jesus you know that contradicts all my programming and conditioning as an American as a human being that is contradicting my past conditioning and what Jesus is saying is the conditioning is the ego he said rather you make your decisions based on present trust than on past learning so every day that's it that's a real navigation to make all your decisions based on your present trust based on your intuitive your higher self that's right in there guiding you step by step with everything in the face of the temptation to fall back on past learning in the face of temptation to think you can take the day off Jesus I got this one I know enough to navigate this day and he's like really you really think you can navigate the day without my help he's like saying no no do we have a song about letting go and letting the trust and the guidance this word I see the light of heaven expands in me leaf all set every and clearly see that all this want me to live want to to give a simple life want to live it is your voice I hear so clearly it is your light answer it is your love I feel so deep this is the vision that shows me life they say to live to forgive they say to give a simple want to live to live they want to give if you I release from all with you leave this silly game it is your breath that your strength turns water to it is your Iceland show me who our grace brings me closer to live I long to live to give a simple life in peace I want to live a simple want to live a simple want to live to such a healing bond to the soul it just rolls off your tongue it is completely just given I have never written a song it has come I haven't even tried I don't think it would come anything I would sit down and try it is just given for all of us what is beautiful is that when you really just say in a prayer I give you everything to use for your purposes it is just more spectacular than of course anything we could even imagine in terms of form we are used to taking the past and trying to imagine the future and Jesus is saying well this whole realm was made by the ego and it is all fantasy it is all dreams but if you give it over and just let it be used for the spirit you will become indescribably happy from that purpose from letting the spirit use what the ego made so for me it started off I just used the course in Oracle and then after some years I go to a course group and then I go to my first course group and by the end of the week Jesus has me in five course groups how did that happen and then I used to go to this Tuesday night group and I would just show up and be willing and then people would go around read the paragraph or two and then discuss what they were reading and then had questions and they started so they would personally read a paragraph and then there would be a pause then somebody would have a question and then all the heads on Tuesday night would just turn to the David Kirk it was like a comedy show if you had filmed it you wouldn't believe it because they would all read and somebody would have a question what does this mean then all the heads would go so I find myself being some kind of a conduit even at course groups but it was funny and then the travels I told you about the first one, the second one but then it went on around around the United States I went to 49 out of 50 states the only one I didn't go to was Alaska and what was the name of the airlines we were on today we were on Alaska Airlines Jesus like thinking of Alaska you're on Alaska 49 out of 50 and then I went around around the globe many many many times to 44 countries the most fun though is when you're going to a country like Argentina and you don't speak the language and you know Jesus is going to have a party he's just going to have an absolute revival of a party but I was not thinking of going around the United States and Canada but I was not thinking of world travels and then I was walking with a friend who I just met a man named David we were walking in Indianapolis, Indiana through a park in winter and he said you should go to other countries and I said what I said I think I would need to go to other countries he said passport passport and I said well I don't have one of those and he said does your mother have like a birth certificate yeah so you could call her up and get a passport so I was by then I had a cell phone and I said mom do I have a passport yes so then he said he said I think you should go to Argentina I said Argentina and he said I entered I'm a business man so I've entered travel a lot and I entered these contests frequent flyer miles and I entered the contests for frequent flyer miles for Latin America like group otaka and different ones and I said you did he said I won he said what was the prize he said a million I said you have a million frequent flyer miles on latin america airlines he said yes I want to take you and you can pick any two people you want I'll fly you down first class it's on me flyer miles for the good of the plan he was of course a student so mom do I have a person yes so I ended up going down there and I did 19 consecutive gatherings in a country I had never been to and one of the women she said you're going to have a big problem when you get to Argentina and I said what's the big problem she said you speak English and they speak Spanish well that's true but I think Jesus has got this so when I got down never have you been to Argentina when I got down to Argentina there was 14 great translators great translators that followed me around Jesus just sent the ones he wanted so it was like a revival some of the women were running down the aisles but it looked like one of those revivals Pentecostal and Jesus can turn a party take a shy guy who speaks English down to Argentina and then whoosh you know it was just mind blowing and but that's how we come back to that thing you know when we are just willing to show up and I was willing I was willing I didn't know how anything was going to work but you really don't but I was just willing to go and then when I would go the translators all showed up too and it was amazing and people were crying and you know you do face all the darkness all the dark thoughts and all the struggles and misery that human beings go through comes out in these heart to heart gatherings and somebody to share anything and some people just start weeping and crying and they're going through all kinds of things I swear we've had healings there's been an exorcism or maybe more than one exorcism there's even been a raising the dead experience this is not the kind of stuff that we grow up thinking about but it's in the course he says you can heal the sick and raise the dead because you made sickness and death and can abolish them both this is Jesus cracks this is this is the way the truth and the life and we have to realize that with us having contact with his course that he's got his his sight set on the atonement on us accepting the atonement he says it's our only responsibility what about all the other earthly responsibilities I'll take care of that now I want you to do this very important thing for me because this is what is for everyone it's a perceptual hallucination that you're having but if you follow my instructions I can take you back into your mind far enough that you can see it for what it is you can just see the illusion for what it is and remember the truth and and so I think that's the thing I had to keep doing all along was like oh my gosh this just seems so far beyond remember the singer John Denver who would go far out this is like to use John Denver's word this is far out this is really far out but you start to realize whether Jesus is like saying yeah it's the only game in town it's the only purpose that there is it's the only purpose worthy of your holy mind is to give yourself over to this do we have our roving mic there it is Kevin let's open it up we're ready for the question answers comments who wants to go first that question is around I'm new to the force so I have questions about two different lessons and one of them is around the concept of non-compromise and then the other one is about what happens in the holy relationship when we get this ego struggle and how these two points intersect and I'm also new to your talks and I've been just like kind of looking for the opportunity to just absorb and receive some guidance in these realms so if there's any words to add to that okay thank you thank you yeah I think that's the tone that you get when you come to the force is first of all it's like a non-compromising feel and then there are some parts of the course for you just comes right out and says we've believed entirely or not at all okay that's like super super super non-compromising but he also knows that he reaches us with our willingness and we just have to have that little spark of willingness just that tiny little spark of willingness and openness to kind of begin to ignite or reclaim the power of our mind or start to come back to that entire feeling that we're not the mercy of the world we're not the mercy of all these external forces and even things like people liking us he mentions some of those things in work of less than 50 I am sustained by the love of God he disclosed in this world you believe you're sustained by everything that the love of God mentioned being liked and knowing the right people and yeah that's the human condition we seem to we go made up relationships and made up a world in which it seems to be highly interactive and what people's opinions are of us we care a lot about what people what they think highly of us or lowly of us it seems to a lot of people if we're with a career or a relationship people will get into people pleasing co-dependent relationships with their pets with their animals before you know it the animal seems to run the house we can talk about that you should see our community but he's he's unity the middle name we came up with three names tiger depends on where she's at yeah he's multiple personalities but that's good practice because the non-alpermising part is basically with our mind saying you don't watch your thoughts closely enough and your emotions just go on the roller coaster ride based on this ego conditioning and you really need to pay closer attention to your thoughts and watch your mind even in the bible Jesus was always telling the apostles since he would go out on the mount to pray he would just say keep your lanterns lit and keep watch and I think he was just telling keep to faith in what I'm teaching you watch your mind, don't wonder it's easy to get distracted but we all know that it's easy to get distracted so it is on compromising but still he never gives us more than we're ready for and then with relationships a holy relationship is really an amazing you could say teaching and writing accomplishment because holy relationship is based really on giving and when we believe in the ego we're used to relationships being giving to get the getting mechanism is always the ego and so when we're even looking at getting into a relationship the ego is like what am I going to get from this or sometimes people will come right up and say that in a relationship what's in it for me there it is that's the ego what's in it for me and as we start to open up more and more and be used by Jesus and the Holy Spirit in a more of a broad way that brings a blessing to the whole universe then we start to move in a direction where training our minds to a holy relationship where our question is what can I give what can I share what can I extend how can I be truly helpful that's a new way of thinking for us and to start to think that way in more of a predominant way because we're used to breaking everything into compartments and certainly that's the same with relationships and then Jesus is saying whatever you perceive is lacking any situation is what you have failed to give that's so helpful because that brings it back to again to what we're willing to give and he's not talking about necessarily giving in the way that we've been accustomed to thinking like we think of giving in terms of physical terms a lot and financial terms and philanthropy for example we think of the great philanthropist Jesus he's got number 7 in his characteristics of a teacher of God where he's talking about generosity and he says that what he's teaching with generosity is actually the opposite of what the world believes generosity to be so it's like how fascinating because we have our ideas of what generosity is and then we're talking more about going into deep prayer and coming into this attitude like the beatitudes of love and acceptance and respect and equality and all those things that's what Jesus feels is truly generous is when we're in the beatitudes that he talked about 2000 years ago whereas the ego has all kinds of ideas of generosity and it's usually very tied to physicality and to materiality and money and the more you give the ego is like watching even in terms of that like why you gave this much and then it will slip in its expectations now you need to get something back like when it was Christmas we got away from the holiness of the present moment and then even as children we got into the gift giving thing and then our expectation what did you get me for Christmas I got you this you see the reciprocity it's so ingrained in the human condition what am I going to get back what's coming back to me as a person and Jesus is trying to rinse that from our mind so I think that's an ongoing thing that's where prayer and inspiration comes in every day just letting yourself be used for miracles and saying what can I give today what would you have me share what would you have me extend I know from me I mean if Jesus had showed me a motion picture of how my life would go in these 36 years I just would have run the other way imagine being shy and then seeing the fat boy YUMPS that's a nightmare for somebody who's shy that's an absolute nightmare but but I was just willing to kind of step into it even when I started to put stuff on the internet I was like when I was in university I was not so thrilled about the internet or taking classes about the internet or developing web pages or doing anything like that I didn't even like email I was kind of anti I was anti-tech I was shy and I was anti-tech and then Jesus said I can work with that I'll use you as a mouthpiece and before long they were saying I was a technistic I said I'm a technistic that's a strange combination but it was just because Jesus kept saying when you do these talks please put them on the internet so people can listen to them when you do these videos please put them up at the beginning it was like upload that video to YouTube I said what's a YouTube what is a YouTube or you know every single new technology Jesus was right there on the front of it I was like this is a good one use this what is that I don't even know what that is but I had to be willing to kind of even do that put things up and be transparent that was just not my way to share things on the internet this was way prior to Facebook you know and little by little we just start to just what can I give what can I share what can I extend and then the more we're willing the more Spirit just takes it and expands it in ways that we can imagine and it does that with everything it does that with our relationships it just absolutely expands everything expands our perception of what we even think is possible so I think it's good you're just starting out with a course what an adventure I know for me I'm trying to convey it's been a major a huge adventure but it's just started with that little spark of willingness thank you for asking that hi so I've been doing the course for about five years and certain things have gotten a lot easier to do but I'm coming up with I want to be willing I want to hand things over but when I get triggered and then I'm deep in it and I know the truth but how do I get out it's like I see both sides but I'm just society says you shouldn't be treated that way your partner shouldn't do that but I'm treated like it I have the ego saying this and the parts like well this just isn't okay you should walk away but it's presenting itself again to me for my lesson but how do I make it easier for me because I'm resisting it's hard that's kind of my question how do I get out of it a little bit easier yeah I think I think at some point I started to see a lot of those things that you're talking about and just like this does seem difficult you said it wasn't this seems very difficult and this is intense and Jesus would just kind of talk to me gently and just say well it comes down to this belief in worthiness like he's saying for most human beings they have such a deep feeling of unworthiness and that's how the ego set it up made all these bodies and then made us body dependent and then we think I just want some love and then you try to do a partnership and then this unworthiness comes up and then the partners and the people they act it out you know Goldblow Award Oscar for the act acting out of that dark unconscious belief so I think for most people the the purification and the letting it out and letting it out is very intense because it's reflected back to us really in partnerships it's very close it's like right in our nose it's like right in our face it's extreme you can have the thoughts from the course and you say that sounds so beautiful that's so poetic and then this is absolutely insane this feels like I'm dying here and how do you put those together but I think as you start to read that passage where Jesus says nothing you think or do or say or make can establish your worth your worth if this is established by God there's this deeper feeling like wow if God is the one who created me and established my worth and if I'm going through all this it must be like some kind of major flush and I think that's what the course is it's such a straight shot at bringing the darkness to the light there's a point in the course where he says you will not go on alone mighty companions go with you and for me it's taken different forms like when I traveled around the world there would be certain ones just showing up that were just like oh it's so helpful to feel their love and feel their nurturing and feel their support and even when I was guided to start nonprofits or to start communities I've had different communities that have sprung up in different parts of the world and they were intense too because it was really like an experiment in transparency and the ego is saying don't ever let this darkness up because everyone will leave and you'll just be completely alone if you let it up so it's been quite a journey of expression sessions and things but overall that's worked out really well too it's this sense of looking to the world to meet our needs we look to a partner to meet our emotional needs we look to jobs and careers to meet our financial needs we've been addicted to this ego thinking looking to the images all the time for our needs getting met and to me that was the whole value and listen and follow because I was saying from the beginning to Jesus I do not know how this is going to work this sounds way beyond me this sounds like a pie in the sky idea and whether you're saying go west just it's not enough information that's just not enough information it's west in the United States from Cincinnati it's a big country but then he was like just give me a chance let me show you work with me let me show you your mind has to flip from this fear and doubt and suspicion to have lots of miracles I knew I needed lots of miracles I needed to be sledded with miracles before I'd start to turn things around because the conditioning was so strong so Jesus would just say well each day should be devoted to miracles and I said well that's going to be interesting because I've been devoting 10 years in university and I've jobs and I've been putting my energy into a lot of things but wow it's one thing to read your book but then to just jump in wow this is this seems like a big leap but that's the thing that has been convincing I mean even with the idea of hearing the voice of Jesus in the course Jesus says it's very rare for anyone to hear the voice for God and then comes in with the work of glasses the voice for God speaks to me all through the day without interrupting my activities at any point like I had two guys from one guy from Italy and one guy from Argentina they love getting on with me because they just have a session like applying all these questions to me and everything but we were going through the workbook and they were like well here's where Jesus starts talking about hearing the voice for God and then he continues on in the workbook and these two Gabriel and Henry were like we didn't hear the voice and now we're doing all these lessons where it's like talking to us like we can hear the voice but we can't hear the voice so then they were rolling it back David we're trying to really ask me questions like what about why can't we hear the voice and I just was saying well I think it's to the extent that we're kind of invested in this world that blocks the Holy Spirit he says the Holy Spirit is as loud as your willingness to listen and if I'm invested in all kinds of things in this world and all kinds of ambitions and outcomes that must mean I don't really want to listen to the Holy Spirit because I if I'm invested in the world I would perceive the voice of the Holy Spirit as a great sacrifice what have I got to give up woe is me, what do I have to give up now, what's next do I have to give up and Jesus had to convince me that by following him that it was joyful, it was fun it was happy I used to even say I said why would anyone go for truth if they thought they had to struggle for a whole life can't this be fun and Jesus said yes I'll make it fun for you thank you that would help you're going to get me attracted to miracles if the fun factor is strong so I think it's not easy to look at but when you look at the things that come up it's like, you know the ego is singing that Pat Bennett song treat me right I've got to be treated right and then the spirit is like saying well what is it that you're invested in or what is it that you want to be right about or what is it that you're so strongly holding on to with your hands gripped on that you're making yourself you're disturbing yourself by clinging and holding on I mean for me travel was great because I as David did not really like to travel I used to go out with my family vacations and my sister and I would be like my mom was playing I see something that you don't see and the color of it is green and after like once through Missouri and Nebraska and Oklahoma I see something no stop it when do we get to the hotel the motel at the swimming pool they want to play any more games we're bored we hate this this is terrible we won't go on any more vacations unless you have motels with swimming pools we're not even getting in the car so I did not like to travel but then Jesus used the travel to undo my dislike and my preferences with the new purpose it wasn't for sightseeing it wasn't for you know and I think that's the way you have to kind of see it with relationships too like wow I need a new way of looking at this relationship where I see it as a way that extends the blessing and I think the more devoted I became to this new way of looking at the world I had people just contacting me sending me movies, sending me music inviting me to places far off places I mean he was a judge over in Hungary and he's writing to me love your stuff he's taking spiritual pilgrimages and doing all these things and he's a judge that's what he does for a living I'm like wow what a day job he's like totally swept away by Jesus and he's a judge during the day and then he's like here's my family you know and nowadays you can do the phone here they are they all want to meet you and oh hi there and everything but eventually when you start to really give yourself over to it you start to draw forth people as witnesses to your own calling of your heart after years of traveling I finally was guided to this little house called the Peace House which Spava is just about ready to take a trip to she's going to try to remodel the top floor of this this house was built in 1847 but I had people wanting to rent houses on the same street I was on because I was just happy they went to live nearby and be my neighbor and come over for tea and things like that and I thought how cool I was not looking to set up a community but when people start moving on your street what are you going to do okay let's enjoy and then it starts to move in that direction because your purpose is that way so I think it's the same with your relationship if you're really wanting to open up like you say five years with the Course and you want it to just deepen into it your heart then Jesus will arrange time and space even in terms of relationships and people don't realize how deeply Jesus will do this even with the publisher of A Course in Miracles Judy Skutch one time I was visiting her and she was telling me that she was married to a man named Bob and they were married and then she got there was a speech writer for the President of the United States who was in Washington DC who contacted Judy and said why don't you come to Washington DC and she said no no I'm not coming to Washington DC my husband and I are living in the Bay Area and this and this speech writers he said well you really should come and I want you to meet somebody he's been involved in the military and this and that I'm not interested in anybody it's in the military and she said he said he's the Course in Miracles so she goes over she meets this tall handsome ex-military guy and he starts talking to her and she's a married woman and he's over there and she's talking to him and the more they talk the more at some point they go to some seminars together they're in the same hotel different rooms and everything but finally they're sitting together and she tells me on the couch and she's like what's this whole thing about and she basically asks to her and he says I think we should ask Jesus what the purpose of our relationship is she said that's a very good question let's ask Jesus right now so they ask and then she's like after a few minutes what did you hear he said I heard everything what our purpose for our relationship is everything and he said friend and trusted confident and lover and he went through all these things and she's a married woman so she flies back to her husband Bob and Bob's into the chorus and everything and Bob said what happened did you meet him I want to meet this guy that's not a good idea that is not a good idea he says I really want to meet him it's just such a good feel invited to come to our house that is not a good idea at all so finally he persists so finally William comes and flies all the way across he's like what's the one sleepless in Seattle he flies across and comes there and he's and her husband Bob is so happy and the two hit it off like their long lost brothers adore each other and everything and so she's watching this he's there for some days and she's thinking this is not good at all and then one day she's doing the dishes and the two men are out where she's doing the dishes screen doors open she's listening and they're talking sports sports teams, sports scores talking to me and then suddenly her husband Bob said to William what are your intentions with Judy in the middle of a sports talk and then William said my intentions are to marry her and she said then they went right back to talking sports how's this for your divine intervention so finally when William finally leaves she goes to her husband Bob and I heard what you were talking about I was listening I heard you talking sports don't think I don't know what you said to him don't think I wasn't paying attention and her husband said that's William she said yeah that's William he said I already showed you he was channeling from Jesus he had his own notebooks he was filling up and he had already shown her a passage that said what appears let Judy go with William and she said what you mean the dumb notebooks that you're filling he said I'm tuning into Jesus and Jesus escaped I already showed you this passage oh my god well sure enough she ended up marrying William and the three of them worked for decades together translating and sharing the course in all these languages and that was even showing how Jesus arranges even relationships for the purpose of awakening you see how different that is from the human perceptions of even relationships you know some people would say Jesus would never do hmm if it's for the plan of awakening yeah so there's a part that I talked about earlier in the introduction to the course where Jesus says free will does not mean you can establish the curriculum just means you can decide what you want to take at a given time and then in the manual for teachers Jesus says that you can't even choose the form of the curriculum that's an amazing thing in terms of spirituality we think that we as persons can choose whether we're going to study the course of the rancher book or Buddhism or Hinduism it's all part of a free arranged plan everything we think we're deciding on our own is just symbols and it's all meant to loosen us from believing we're a body we're a person we're a personality and I've seen that Jesus will orchestrate everything he obviously took a shy guy from Cincinnati he turned it into more than WKRP in Cincinnati he took me all over the world in ways I couldn't even imagine and it still has that feeling like wow I just need to show up with willingness for the miracle and then the rest is just given and that applies too with relationships when you have difficult relationships or you start to get down in yourself repeating the same patterns over and over that's just another opportunity to just choose again and say okay I'm giving this relationship and saying to Jesus I mean it I'm giving this relationship to you to use for your purposes and that's what I did all of a sudden I had all these relationships even recently I got a prompt to call this friend of mine who I met her name is Tanya I met her I think about 2013 down in Georgia and she was originally from Ukraine and she wanted to start a quick Russian subtitles onto my videos and so I told her who to hook up with so she did that and then suddenly this Russian course community around my teaching started to grow and grow she said it's there in Moscow and there in St. Petersburg and that was years ago now she's said would you would you do there are a lot of Russian speaking people all over the world that are working with the course and your teachings would you do a zoom call so that's what I'm going to be doing on November 8 with Russian speaking people from all over the world but you see how different that is of letting Jesus arrange the relationships it's like turning from this little thing into a symphony into a huge symphony especially for a shy guy from Cincinnati this is like unheard of he's doing a big symphony but it still comes back to that willingness of just wanting to be truly helpful and serve the plan in whatever way would be most helpful that's all my prayer is and then things just show up but you see it's it's based on the giving motive it's not based on what am I going to get from this person we don't we're not we're just going to show up and beam it out and it'll be a collaboration of Russian English and course all over the world there's another one I think she's going to translate for me and she lives in Oregon there's a Russian speaking one who's right in Oregon is going to be on that and Tanya is in North Carolina but that just shows how it's just a broader perspective of relationships and the more broad we let it be the less we feel co-dependent the less we feel I need this, this, this wanting to give and feeling blessed by the relationships and that's getting we talked about holy relationship it's very expansive because it's based on giving and it gets away from that you know like with relationships co-dependent relationship it always comes down to these expectation and demands there's like a line here's the line you cross this line it's open and then Jesus says in the Course the Holy Spirit never demands and the Holy Spirit never commands oh my gosh what kind of relationship would I have if I followed the Holy Spirit and I never demanded or commanded another person you know that you could see that it would be transforming that would be otherworldly it feels like it would be otherworldly and in that one sense it is it's kind of like it's in a different realm than the egoic so yeah I just would hang in with it and yeah, expect miracles first off I just want to thank you for all your teachings through the years I first was introduced to the Course through Mary Anne Newton's book or returned it out so it's been in since the 90's sometimes a very slow journey we had a teacher that introduced the Course and wanted to do a six week program there were several of us signed up and six years later he said it just went on and on so I had a really beautiful long time with a wonderful teacher so really blessed to have that I guess my question is about being predestined what came up for me was if it's predestined then is our suffering just caused from our resistance to what's predestined yeah, that's a good way of summarizing it there's a part in the workbook I think it's lesson 135 where Jesus says something to the effect of should you not accept if you but knew that everything that seems to happen is gently planned for you by one who knows your good wow, just one sense like that and it's like wow but that's a good way of putting it that it's just a resistance to to the form and resistance we mean thinking the form should be different and the ego's plan of salvation is if something was different in the form if someone acted differently or thought differently or behaved differently I would be happy and then the Holy Spirit's plan is if I would just change my mind on the world I'm seeing then I would be happy so the Holy Spirit's plan is entirely focused on a shift of perception a change of mind, a change of purpose and the ego's plan is all 100% focused on change of form but when we want to change of form it definitely means we have expectations and I like that part in the manual for teachers where one of the characteristics of teachers is patience and Jesus says patience is natural to those who trust no outcome already seen or yet to come can cause them fear wow that's got to be a deep watching to be able to watch with the Holy Spirit but I think you're right onto it and then you do start to pay attention to where you notice the resistance and then you start to really go hmm this is disgusting like for me when I've gone through I've gone through all these years and then I started knowing my appetite started to go away and I that's interesting I think I was wasn't I doing something over in Europe one time where I didn't I just quit anything for some weeks and I was just kind of who's just the way it was but then ego could say that's just not human you know ego will have it's one thing to go on certain kind of keto diet and this but just to stop eating that's just because it's a past association you know it's just an association with food it's an association with tasting and things it's just all these associations and I do find that the deeper we go these it's just Jesus is gently loosening associations and where we resist that loosening of associations is where we have an investment there's like an ego investment I wanted thus no I should be able to have the Hudson Sunday and the Enlightenment I didn't need a Hudson Sunday for it I wanted I'd like you know you can see it just goes back and forth because it's like slowly it's almost like evaporating ego is evaporating there's even one part in the course where Jesus says do not breathe life into your failing ego isn't that an interesting line do not breathe life into your failing ego like let it go it's it's fading it's fading let it let it keep fading and then the ego hell no I don't want to fade I want to be in charge so it's good that you're on to it I mean it's good that you can even articulate in that kind of simple way because in the end we want to be loving with ourselves we want to be nurturing with ourselves we want to be with ourselves we don't want to fight and kick and struggle we don't want to turn things into a challenge we just want to go go softly into the night I just wanted to share also one of my experiences that was huge for me enlisting times I lived in a duplex for 19 years things were not great but you know and I heard a voice say you're gonna move we're moving you're gonna move and then next came and you can do it the easy way or the hard way and my whole life I saw I've done things the hard way and I said okay I'll do it the easy way and I just prepared and I sold Edward and 90% and that journey forward that happened in 2018 I want to say and I literally had nowhere to go that I knew I just moved forward to that exact sale getting rid of stuff giving people stuff just getting that out and it led me down this path of house sitting, pet sitting you know a whole different stream of income living in beautiful homes I had friends that took me in said you're gonna come live with us after this year long house sitting she said you're gonna move with us So you go on your trip and we're on a trip and then I came back. She called while I was on the trip and she said, hey, I said come back and live with us and stay with us until you figure out what you want to do, but we bought a new house. Would you house it for us in the old house until it sells? Sure. I'll do that. And then just right before, I knew it was selling and it was going to sell. And so it was February of 2020. They just picked me up and moved me to the new house. And then the pandemic hit. And everything has been such a miracle. And since then, I'm a massage therapist, I have my own business, so very dependent on working, but they weren't charging me rent. And everything was so provided, it is just such a miracle. And I had, I stayed with them, I was six weeks off from the pandemic. I've had two hip surgeries, so I was off six weeks. I would have, had I stayed in the duplex, I would have bought it to have my home or feel like that was something I had to do. It would not have worked out, I don't think. But that sounds right, it's going to be when you do this. You chose the easy way. That's so nice, you gave an option, one harder, easy, easy, let's go easy this time. Forever chains less, I bask in the light that I am. A bright, eternal and just, some divine love. A pure essence, I am bright and whole. But why should eternally, as a child, devour a pure, bright and re-assigned child? This song, holy song, oh God, eternal, never born and never dies, forever eternal. Such gratitude and thank you, get the reverb going. We just, it's been one big collaboration and we really just joined with the spirit here to pray for a blessing so that we all feel blessed. Because when we feel inspired, then we can show up, we can come forth and say, okay, I'm here, just excuse me, just be in my life and that's what we need. We just need to keep building our trust and faith and confidence. So thank you so much for inviting us here. So be well and stay inspired, stay in love. Thank you.