 It's a complete change of perception and once again when I use the word perception we need to kind of go into a little bit about what perception is because it's one of these terms that you hear sometimes and it's like a psychological word but we want to come to a real kind of a meaning so you can have an experience of what perception is. So I'll give you an example that I share a lot of times with perception is one time I was invited to my sister's wedding and I went to the wedding and there was they invited people from all different age ranges from you know children in 20s and 30s where my sister was in her boyfriend were in their 20s and then there was people from you know 30s 40s 50s 60s 70s just a wide range of people there and I remember sitting in a living room and I was sitting next to a television set. The television set was right here and I was here so I'm kind of looking out into the living room where couches and chairs and people are all sitting around watching the TV set but I can't see the TV set because I'm sitting right next to it. And the videotape that was playing was Eddie Murphy Roth. I don't know if you've heard of Eddie Murphy. He's a comedian who kind of uses some kind of an adult language sometimes. That's what was on. So I wasn't seeing. I was just kind of looking out over the crowds of armchair psychologists and I was just kind of looking around and as he was talking and everything I looked around and it was kind of like one of these Vincent Van Gogh paintings with different colors because some of the faces were turning very red and the lips were real tight like this and the eyes were real like this and it was kind of like this like anger at what was being perceived you know. And I saw other faces that were red too but the eyes were like shifting back and forth and the shoulders were coming up a little bit like kind of like. People you know watching this like embarrassment. It was red face again but it was just like total embarrassment. And my brother-in-law was just laughing so hard at what was happening. He was rolling out off the couch onto the ground and I'm just watching all this going. Wow. I see laughter. I see anger. I see you know embarrassment. They're all watching the same images. They're all hearing the same sound. And that was my experiential sense of perception is that in this state of mind in which we perceive fragmented everything. You know separate bodies, separate duality everywhere and everything. That the mind is literally reading meaning into what it sees as opposed to the common sense thing you know that things happen. You know that movie made me laugh. That person makes me so angry every time I see him. Or one of our little kids you know. You, Jody makes me so angry. You know it's kind of backwards that something happened seemingly an event happened that determines our state of mind. You know and this was kind of an experience of like oh they're all reading different meaning into the images that they're seeing and everything. And that was kind of a real neat kind of dynamic to see. Because when I got to the course it was like the second lesson in the book. Very fundamental was I have given everything I see all the meaning that it has for me. Now that example kind of helps bring it home for me. It's like oh this is what this perception business is about. So the other thing is that the course says is that you know as you perceive so you will you respond. And also as you perceive so you will feel. In other words I've always kind of been interested in emotions. Like where do emotions come from and what are they triggered from. And you know in psychology they always have to debate when you see a big bear you know and your heart starts pounding. You know what comes first. Does the feeling of fear come first. Do the thoughts you know come you know I better run or you know what's what's going on in the mind. And different psychologists have different theories. And in the course it comes down to thoughts. In other words that there's that in the seed state of mind where you're instead of perceiving unity instead of perceiving wholeness and completion when you're perceiving duality and separation of fragmentation that there's two different thought systems that are being held in this mind. And quite simply you could say one is a thought system of love and one is a thought system of fear. And the vision or what you see as you look out from this mind is very distorted. It's like when a mind is has two diametrically opposite thought systems held in mind that the vision or the perception is very twisted and very distorted. Because the sense the mind has forgotten its true source which is only love and it's kind of like it's it's got an alien thought system that's in the mind. That isn't it isn't natural to have this split of these two thought systems. The natural state of our mind of course says wholeness and completion. You know this beautiful abstract light that sometimes you've heard of maybe near-death experiences or this beautiful light and people have these feelings of unconditional warmth and acceptance. It's a sense of wholeness and completion. So as I got into the course you know the next question a lot of times arises you know well how do I how do I change my perceptions if I've got a perceptual problem. And the first thing the course kind of comes out is that it's just seeing that it's a perceptual problem. In the state of mind which most people would consider the everyday life in the world it seems as if events happen to us that are completely beyond our you know anticipation. We don't have a lot of hand in it. Events just seem to happen to us you know and then the mind just like has to react to these things. And what the course is basically saying is here's what if we use the analogy of a movie screen you know going to a movie theater the course would say that what we perceive in the world you know all these separate bodies, separate trees, separate cars, separate galaxies, stars, everything. That's like the screen. That's like the movie theater view of a movie theater. That's what's happening on the screen. If I have given everything I see all the meaning that it has for me and my perception is very distorted then I need to learn to let go of reading my meaning onto everything that I see and to step aside and trust that there's a presence in my mind the Holy Spirit the higher self whatever you're comfortable with that will read an entirely different meaning onto this world you know there'll be a vision that's entirely different from the way the normal way of seeing. Now that's perception another way I could come at it would be like forgiveness because my gosh how many hundreds of years have we heard you know love your neighbor as yourself and forgive and just forgive and yet it seems like in our everyday experience like we forgive someone and then we have another grievance and forgive again over here then another one comes up and it's like and this one may be like really anchored and we're not so sure if we can forgive. We may have things that seem to happen to us in our past that that literally seems so atrocious or so real you know that the whole idea of forgiveness seems like hocus pocus you know like you know I'll never be able to forgive so and so for what they did to me and everything and once again Jesus is kind of coming through the course of saying you know as you come with me and as you go with me you'll learn what the meaning of forgiveness is that once again in the state of mind we can kind of approach it and get approximation but the deeper we go and follow him in our mind the more we'll approach the meaning of true forgiveness which is kind of like sending him to that high state of mind that we just described when you reach that vision that he calls true perception or healing or the real world in the course then that's where the state of true forgiveness comes where you can literally he could just see the Christ in every brother that he met regardless of appearances you know that's the thing so what I'll try to do is just give one more concept and that's the idea of forgiveness as Jesus describes it is simply reversing the thought the thought system that's in your mind we just talked about the fear-based thought system in the mind which some people may call the ego and basically the main characteristic of the fear-based thought system is that you are tiny and you are powerless and the things that happen on the screen you know are very powerful and real and they do determine your state of mind and you're sunk so to speak the ego says look at your past you know that's the way it's always been in your past forget about the fugitive forget about the present you know your future is going to be just as bad as your past was you know you're sunk you're a sinner you know you're guilty and you're going to always be guilty and so this is in a sense how linear time is you know that's the ego's use of time you're guilty in the past forget about the present you're guilty in the future reminds me of something my old psychology days is determinism you know what's happening outside you determine who you are you got no choice or you got these interesting forces they determine who you are you got no choice and here comes the Course of Miracles and Jesus is saying the present moment is your point of power it's like a gateway into eternity out of the linear time and into the eternal where your heavenly Father is and where you really abide and so Jesus has a whole different use of time in the Holy Spirit so it's like training the mind to start to even think about time differently you have the power by based on your decision to determine your state of mind now the ego doesn't go for that at all because the ego believes that everything outside causes a state of mind so all the courses is helping turn the thoughts around to kind of let it go of these backwards stuff that I'm a small victim of external forces and slowly generalizing the principles to see that we have power and our empowerment is literally our decision