 Welcome, David. I've been so looking forward to our time together and obviously with all of our listeners because I know we both share that same sense that we have such a family all over the world. Yeah, it's really precious opportunity and to be able to talk to you and for us to record our conversation and share it with all the beloveds all over the world that are countless numbers of those that are going very deep in their journey with the Course in Miracles and and hopefully that's my prayer is that the Spirit will be offer a blessing through us today as we join and connect so deeply. Absolutely. And you know, I'm excited because usually you have to have had about a midlife crisis or something before you start to go. What is the matter? Why is my life not working out? And I have this thing that I haven't actually accomplished yet, but I want to do something for the millennial crowd because I just feel like that generation so needs it and are so interesting. There are some new kids who just live a couple of houses up for me and they wave and they're very friendly. So I invited them to come down about the 29th or 30th or something of December for just to get acquainted with them and I left them lots of opportunities to not stay. If they didn't want to, I said, come down, have a glass of wine. They're like 26. I found out later, 26, 28, neither 29 or 30, the brother of one couple. And like, come have a glass of wine. You probably have something to do afterwards. So they came at the appointed hour at seven and they left a quarter till 12. Oh my gosh, they were, they were enamored. Well, the thing is, is that naturally you don't give people that you first meet some big lecture, but you can find opportunities to kind of see where they are and reinforce some of their places where they're really spot on. And it just really made me think even more. It's like, where is a room full of millennial kids? I want to talk to you. Yeah, that's fantastic. That's just so beautiful to hear. That's really amazing. And you know, one of the things we talked about, I mean, we've not really talked about this except for like 90 seconds. And that would be it's hard to have anything make any sense at all. If we don't get it that our inner lives and our outer lives are a seamless whole. So I would love for you to say something about that in the way that's most dear to your heart, the way you love to talk about that idea. Well, that is something that is so dear to my heart because like you say, it's at the core. And for me, I go back to the Course in Miracles workbook when I mean, over the years that I've come to work with it and appreciated deeper and deeper. I really see that that the Jesus is like a master going back and forth between exercises to talk about our perception of our perceptual world, which seems to be external and our thoughts. And I think that's the first thing that comes to mind is like, wow, what an amazing idea that the thoughts we think we think are identical to the images and the world that we think we see we perceive. Exactly. So I realized as I was going through this over and over life, oh my gosh, I see what this is all designed for is just to have a unification experience where you have a unified awareness, unified consciousness, and there's nothing external. And, you know, we have a lot of things that come along like saying there's nothing outside of you that is what you must ultimately learn. And another one of my favorites from the from the course is mind reaches to itself. It does not go out within itself as everything you within it and it within you. And I think that's from the workbook. But for me, that's been the whole point of everything is the joy of experiencing the course that I'm simply watching a motion picture of my mind and that my mind is at one with the world, unified with the world and not separate, not out there. And I find that that living experience of that is where the joy and the happiness is because you don't have anything to defend against. Absolutely, like everything here is happening. And of course we tend to think when everything is happening in my mind, we have this crazy notion that my mind somehow hovers around my head. So forget that your mind is causeless. It has no boundaries. It's infinite. It's eternal. So saying that everything occurs in your mind is the same as saying everything occurs. Yeah, period. Yeah, and I and I love it to keep in mind how much our world is a diagnostic. In other words, if you just have no idea what's going on in your mind, take a look at your world. You know, like people will say, yes, yes, I feel so deserving and I feel so good about myself. But if you take a look at their world as as they proclaim it to be, you think, well, there's a kind of a disconnect between what you really believe and what one professes to believe. Or in other words, it's like it's trying to get the disconnect connected. And when you like you say all of us have been through this workbook for I don't know how many times in those very early lessons, it will start out with thoughts or things. Then it will say, look, things are thoughts. In other words, it's like it's we think those two ideas together over and over and over to kind of create this real sense of oneness about that idea. Because if we think for a second that I can possibly be happy and safe and successful. If I really think I'm a separate little thing in a giant objective world that just goes on about its business and doesn't care about me at all. Then the idea that I could really have any influence hardly over my own life, much less anything else is a fantasy. So I've got to get this foundation under me before the rest of all the lessons or the teaching makes any sense at all. Yeah, it's so beautiful to hear you worded that way because having worked with so many students and teachers of the course for so many years. It's pretty much the same with spiritual students where they sometimes they'll want to just lean and wiggle into kind of like a personal mind and and a projected world from that personal mind. And can I manifest and what does it mean when this is in my world? What does it say about me meaning the mini me, you know, and all the stuff around projections and manifestations and am I in your world or are you in mind and it's very complicated until you have that click where you go. It's all one thing. It's all the same. There's no inner. There's no outer. That's right. Then you just have the biggest smile on your face and you can't wipe it off because you've discovered the point of the whole. Thing is that there is no external and internal anymore. You know, those were just ways of talking about things and and I really, you know, we both have such an honor of the of the four that that came and helped deliver this course was so gracious of you to come out to the FIP event and. Oh, I loved it. There's nothing in the world I would rather do than talk about this material. I know that you you were out there under the tents and anywhere people would come around and gather. You just loved it. I could tell you were eating it up, but I I see to where there's parts of the course where where Ken talked about metaphors and so on and so forth. And there was a good reason for that because I think one of the biggest eco defenses is to try to make things very literal. Yes. And that's a big trap because then arguments arise and there's attack and defense and there's a point and a position and a view and none of those things really have any reality at all. You know, the the the single most was hard to know what's the single most will say a really big problem that people run into that I know you see everywhere all over the world is. Let's see what was I going to say about that. Oh, that people try to learn this rather than practice it. I remember somebody in one of our classes said, you know, it seems like the latter part of the book is written in an easier, more simple way and said it isn't. It's written exactly the same way all the way through, but you are clearer now. In other words, you have really let go of some stuff. It's the fog in our mind that makes this seem like a big complicated work. It's not a big complicated work. Well, if you think you're supposed to learn it like learning a chemistry class, then that makes it a very big complicated thing, but that's not what it's for. It really is a literally take you by the hand. It let's say let me back up a second. It's like it helps us see we've dug ourselves into a hole. And so it jumps in the hole with us and says, I'm going to take your hand because I know how to get out of this hole and you aren't going to do it by yourself. Don't you think? Yeah, I know it's it does. It is so well designed and it's so it really is straightforward if you're really willing to just practice and do what it says. And I think that's another thing that I really would love to talk to you about because you and I have such a fond love of Bill and Bill was a practitioner. I think your book really brought that through and everyone who's aware of it and and the course is not a play in theological ideas. It's not some kind of dissertation or some scholarly thing. It's it's actually a beautiful device that's meant to be used. And I think one of the issues I find as I go around is people some friend of mine that I've known for many years. They said, oh, we we have a group. But when people come there, everybody's shuffling around because of the five additions and to try to even find what can we read the same thing? There's there's so many different forms. And you and I really have emphasized the practice, the practical application of what was given and not get into picking apart things which really don't fit in with the inner and the outer are the same. They're just distractions. Absolutely distractions indeed. In fact, I always like to come back to any time the course says this is the only thing you have to do. Then you should sit up and take notice is like there are 1500 pages, but it keeps saying this is the only thing you need to do. And the idea of the sole responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept the atonement for yourself. And then you go, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the reason why that's the one single thing you need to do is you first of all have to know what that sentence means, which is to finally accept the truth about yourself, to finally trade in all of these notions that you've got about being small and unlovable and unloving and without much to offer all of those things that just hurt us so, so deeply. It's like the whole point of the practice and getting us out of the hole is to take us by the hand and go, you must change your mind about yourself and you do that, you know, through all of these different practices. But the reason why this is the sole responsibility to finally own that you still are home, you still are as beloved as ever. You still are all that is is because of this inner and outer being the same thing kind of thing. In other words, as long as we appear to be living on an earth, you know, we have to use that kind of language. You can't use language that nobody can relate to. Then this, this is how we're going to make sense of this. This is how the world that we're going to live in gets sweeter and cleaner and easier and happier and more beautiful because it takes step by step by step by step. As we change our mind, our outer life changes and this happens all the time. And I know what happens to you all the time, but when I deal with people one on one, for instance, and we go through the, you know, this person drives me crazy. What does this person tell you about you when we kind of go through some business? And I'll tell you the number of people who the next day, I'll get an email that's filled with exclamation points that you'll never guess what happened. That's often the opening line. You'll never guess what happened. Well, yes, I probably couldn't guess what happened. It's like my, and I hope the person that I'm referring to now is listening because I loved your message. Or we'll be listening. She said she'd been having great trouble with her sister for many, many years and they just could not be kind and loving with one another. And they hadn't spoken properly for years. And so after we finished, she writes this email and said, you'll never guess what happened. My sister called me today. She called my partner. This woman is a person who's a snowbird as we call it down here in the south where they come down, where they live up north, but come down here in Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and so on for the few really coldest months. So she said, out of the blue, as if this were out of the blue, out of the blue, she called my sister. She called me. She was in her right mind. She was sweet. She was thoughtful. She invited me to her home for Christmas was like, how could such a thing happen? You know, she lives where she lives and I live where I live. And it's like, it's because all of this is happening in a non local way. Yeah, you know, because we are living in if we must use these kinds of words. We are living in one mind. When I change my mind in place X people in place Y get it that something is different and they respond to it. Yeah. And so that idea that once I drop my own grievances against myself, which are projected on the others, but they start out as grievances against myself, then everything in my world can change. And the reason why I like to think of the world as a diagnostic is because when we're doing something as radical as changing our minds, the way we're asked to, the fact that we get feedback, you know, the world can give us feedback. It says, it's very good. Are you, are you aren't on the right track? But the intention is not to be punishing. It's to be clear about here's where you are. Here's where you are. You know, do you like where you are? Or would you like to change your mind about something? Yeah, yeah, and I think that's the most exciting. It's like the cause and effect are in the same place. Yeah, it's amazing how it talks about that. But yeah, that we act like a causes here and the effect is going to be five years from now. Cause and effect are in the same time and place. Yeah, yeah, that's it. That's so you do get really quite literally instant feedback. Yeah, and you mentioned too about how we can use that. I think one of the great trainings with the course is it says you will look upon that, what you feel within, but it, we can start to pay attention and acknowledge our feelings because he says the one right use of judgment is how do you feel? So to me, that just cuts through so many defenses right there. If I can just come to that self honesty and how I'm feeling paying attention and then also seeing that the whole world reflects that state of mind that feeling then it simplifies things. It's not a big complicated formula. It's, it's quite simple. It actually is quite simple. And of course you've hit on one of the biggest roadblocks of all, which is we must own how we feel. You know, there's no way for the emotions to calm and the chemicals to settle until I'm willing to actually experience what I'm experiencing in terms of my emotional state. And that is, that is such a major part of healing. And it's the one thing nobody will do. Basically not do I get those one essential steps along the way. I've often said, what do you think would happen if for a weekend people had to give up their phones, their technology, their food when they're not hungry, their sex, their drugs, their alcohol, their, their, you know, the sports to which they're addicted, not in a healthy way. It's like, do you think you would hear a collective howl that could out of the galaxy? I mean, people can't give up that for one hour. And it's because of that terrible fear of feeling how we feel. I wrote a book called Healing the Hurt Behind Addictions and I interviewed about your people. I swear I will never write another book where I interview a bunch of people. I don't know why I do that. It takes forever. A bunch of people about things, but you know what they all said. I think I interviewed about 28 or 30 people with a vast different seemingly array of addictions and I asked them, it's like, why, what did you think about people who finally had to recognize they were addicted to something? And of course they all discovered it was about feeling how they felt. It's like, I thought anybody who felt upset was weak, was interesting. A number of people who said, I feel like I will be seen and I will be weak if I own up to having upset feelings and emotions. Do you run into that everywhere as well? Yeah. Yeah. I think that is a common thing because people want to hide it because they feel it's a sign of vulnerability and they're afraid that they'll be taken advantage of if they expose that. How we made up the story that our emotional state, which is part of our living here on the planet is the enemy is, it goes back to so far. I don't even know how far it goes, but we certainly have to be reeducated about that because since such an important part is telling our, telling ourselves the truth about what's going on with us, just telling ourselves the truth. It's like, well, no, don't ask me to tell myself the truth. It's like, oh dear, we're not going to get very far if we aren't willing to be truthful with ourselves. Yeah. So what do you find is the most, shall we say, with all the people you've spoken to, the most helpful or comforting way to help people see it's safe to be you in all aspects, including having an emotional state that must be dealt with by you and not hidden. Yeah. Have favorite ways that you like to address that. Well, I think I've done a lot of one-on-ones and different types of gatherings, but I do, I do see that the central factor for me in helping people see that it's safe is for me to be in that place of peace, non-judgment, to be exuding, to be radiating that sense of when they sit down, they look into my eyes, they have to feel it right away. Like, I can tell you anything. You're not going to judge me. I can pour my heart out as if there was a dear, dear friend or somebody that they really love and trust. And so even though I've used techniques like dyads to get people together to feel safe in a context of just two people, because it can be more threatening sometimes with the group, I still come down to for myself being in that place of absolute loving unconditional acceptance and love to be the presence of love to be the presence of the Holy Spirit and then it's felt, it's felt there and then they can start to open it up and then when they do open up and we have a great experience and they go, wow, I feel like I just let so much of weight off of my shoulders. I'll say now you can do this. You can practice this and you can find those people that you know are willing to listen and to be witnesses of truth and they are there. Don't think that they're not. Absolutely. And you know what you just said is I love to do this with people as well, you know, when they will call or come mostly kind of call from all over with whatever the difficulty is and so we resolve that and then at some point I will ask them how they feel. It's like so much better. You know, the lightning up has occurred and so on. It's like, well, you've just made my case for me because what you have done is change your mind because the way the hierarchy of what happens is our emotional state is created by our thought processes and when we have thought processes about I'm not okay. Nobody cares about me. I'm not going to make it in the world and so on and so forth. The brain doesn't know the difference between that kind of a threat to one's ego or sense of self or if the lion is going to jump off the branch and get you. In other words, it doesn't know the difference between a physical threat and the kind of threats that we make to and about ourselves all the time. All it knows it says, okay, I'm on it turns on the stress response that causes all those chemicals to be introduced into the body chemistry and it's those stress chemicals which are toxic when they're in there for a great big long length of time are taken up into the cells of the body and that causes our emotional state. So if I don't change my thinking my emotional state can't change because I won't be changing my body chemistry but the key like you just said is okay if 45 minutes later or 30 minutes later or some very short period of time later you yourself must have changed your mind in or I'm waving my arms around like a piece of glass. I if I had to sit on my hands when I talk I would become mute but but that's exciting for people to see. Okay I did change my mind about something about myself perhaps I am more deserving than I believed and that immediately changes your body chemistry see this is a marvelous case of cause and effect from the same place you change your mind now you change your body chemistry now you feel differently now I didn't do that to you I can't change your body chemistry but you were willing to be guided and that's what the course is for it says just let me take you by the hand and guide you through changing your mind about these things and you'll feel better. Yeah like what's complicated about that nothing whatsoever. Yeah it's great because we've grown up in the era when bio feedback was just starting to get going and and now we have things like virtual reality and gaming and things that the Millennials are quite interested in in fact you know that's their generation and it's the same principle you can get such feedback and it's such immediate feedback that that can guide you to notice your thoughts and to make a change yeah thinking. And what and that really is amazing that is way over my head I hardly have time to keep up with. I took 20th century technology much less to twenty first and beyond everything that the kids know how to do but nevertheless it's like and part of that cause and effect always being in the same time and place. I think it's really important to address maybe it's not more important now but it's kind of fun because it's the beginning of the year you know the kind of the clean slate and starting all over again kind of thing is to remember how much we only experience our lives right now and how much right now and there's so much confusion about this is not some kind of little slice of time with the past on the one side in the future on the other. The experience of now is the opposite to time it's not a little slice of time yeah I think we should explore that would you like to say more about that's one of my favorite topics. Yeah well I love teaching about time because even in the people are familiar with the Bible before Abraham was I am I always am teaching the course shares that the present is before time was it's not that little slice in between the past and the future in effectual and and the tiny little blip that's so quickly covered over that you hardly know it's even there that's been all of our history book teaching you know when they draw that timeline and put the present there in the middle. Conditioning all that conditioning and programming but to really feel free of it and another line that strikes me from the course that I always like to use is where Jesus says at no single instant does the body exist at all it is always remembered or anticipated so the wording there is so wonderful it's so miraculous because it's saying we do have to become still we have to really practice and train our minds because otherwise as he says in the workbook when we're thinking about the past or the future the mind is actually blank exactly blank like in denial in deception and so I like these new time ideas I love that we can talk about these openly because they go way beyond the status quo the norm when people talk about the present moment as if you know it's just this moment that's wedged between right here and there I wish we wouldn't use the word moment or now is the only time there is I think when I recorded all those lessons it's like now isn't a part of time it's like part of those words have to be used to make all the language in the Iambic pentameter and stuff work out but it's like now isn't part of time yeah and if we can wrap our heads around that that makes a big difference plus you know in the in the world of metaphor and parable which we all have to use since these things can't be spoken of directly my favorite thing that occurs to me now is that the idea of our past is like made of disappearing ink it's like all the things that we say and do believe you know our words thoughts and deeds that we think are the foundation and the support for why we're bad why we're not deserving why we should be guilty and so on and so forth and the core says it in one little sentence where it refers to it from a judicial point of view it says well if you refer you know these things that you're concerned about to the Holy Spirit it will it would be like referring it to a higher court that simply dismisses the case against you yeah it's like always there but if you could imagine because this is the way it really is so this isn't like a fairy tale we're making up that every single thing that we have thought or done or said that's unloving was all written in disappearing ink and it's not in existence any longer ever anywhere as the basis for any of our decision making or any of our beliefs about what we deserve or don't deserve yeah so or if you if you're someplace like in Florida where there's water everywhere or even in your own bathtub you can just you can kind of draw your hand through the water and there's temporarily just a little indentation if you could call water in but immediately it's covered over I guess a better example is possibly a boat going through the ocean that creates a wake but immediately the water closes up and there's no sign that there was ever a disturbance in the water at all so any of those metaphors that speak to you that say realize that all of your foundation your premises for hurting yourself and feeling guilty if you will actually pay attention is like what you mean they're not there they disappeared the water is closed over on top of them yes they're all gone the only thing that remains is anything that has to do with love but all of the non-loving things the fearful things they disappear as fast as they occur which think that's an exciting idea I think it's it's exciting now to me that's the you're right on the core of the radical essence of the teachings of a course in miracles because even though it it uses words of time and it's got 365 lessons and and it's got all kinds of metaphors I feel the core of what you're speaking about now is the essential teaching in fact I would go through the book looking for passages around the holy instant and one of them that I really found that I love is you you cannot prepare for the holy instant without placing it in the future and that points to me where he does come and he says you can bring it into your awareness by desiring it so if our desire is to be fully in present presence fully in the now and we start to devalue the things of time almost like a spiritual dementia where we we actually start to forget because we no longer value the timeline and the construct and all the increments and everything that goes with it then we live in this joy in in this now and it continues and expands and goes on forever and ever and ever and to me that is where you really that kicks everything into the highest gear that there is with the course that's the very essence of absolutely everything you know bill used to say we need to have celestial amnesia you know about things just need to not be relevant anymore and here's part of the idea that we mentioned earlier that that the sole responsibility of the miracle workers to accept the atonement for himself to accept you haven't gone anywhere you haven't ruined anything and here's what we believe as part of the of the errors of our thoughts is we make up the story that well I'm on love today and we and we will selectively perceive and prove to ourselves that I'm on love nobody listens to me and nobody pays any attention to me and I reject it and so on based on what happened back then I mean how many times do we go back to our early history and so on and this happened then well there's some really important things to note about that first of all even here at the time and space level our biology folks are physics folks you know who are so on board about this and that's very exciting we'll say the year the memories of everything are distorted there's a lesson that might even be 182 but I'm not sure about that where it basically says that the childhood that you remember basically didn't exist because it is so distorted by this time count on it you that's not accurate because here's what happens let's pretend like we want to think about our 10th birthday party when nobody showed up and it was so awful well every time you decide to think about that it's like on your computer where you retrieve a file and you make changes to it and then you save it what saved replaces what's there before and you can watch the biology there was a marvelous program on PBS when they could let you see down through an electron microscope every time you decide to remember something you are literally recreating it and it showed all the little neurons growing anew in your brain so it's like there is literally a find and replace going on every time you decide to think about something and so you think you mean my basis for what I decide to think about myself and other people today is based upon something that absolutely isn't there so here's something radical shall we throw in something else radical the radical part is it's not that I feel rejected and unloved and nobody listens to me today because that's been happening all of that time you know what it really is are you ready yes everybody it's because I'm choosing to hurt myself today because I've decided that's what I need to do and then it's more like I make up a narrative of like all of these things that happened in the past to support my decision today what do you think about that I love that I love that that's very quantum it's almost like instead of trying to string meaning along from like little beads that go on a necklace there's this holistic glorious expansive way of seeing the world and you can call it your intuition call it the Holy Spirit call it whatever you want but that is like it's almost like a beautiful snapshot of everything being all inclusive nothing being apart nothing that is is kept apart from the big picture and so I feel like that's very exciting because we can talk about it in any terms we want but we know what we feel when we feel whole and complete and included and we feel very fulfilled because there's nothing better than going you mean actually my my foundation that I was resting all of these presumptions and my selective perception on because if I have decided today that nobody listens to me let's just make up a story you know a lot of people feel like they're not listen to then we will selectively interpret remember how the course very early on says you know we make up the meaning of everything and you know it's very it points that out all the way through so I'm if I just decide nobody listens to me I will selectively interpret I will add the script maybe somebody didn't hear what I said maybe somebody thinks I don't want them to say anything in other words we don't know what's going on with anybody else but I will selectively make up a story and I will point to selectively invited so to speak proof that I'm right and you think why do I want to make myself right if I begin to realize right now in this moment I can start all over again in fact I do start all over again I just keep repeating the same script over and over but what if we go well I'm going to stop I don't have to repeat a script when I realize that my foundation has vanished it's like what there's no foundation there nope no foundation put it and and the course is let me install another foundation you know a foundation where you can see the reasonableness and the inevitability of you really are loved and adored you know back to that's the only thing you're asked to accept and realizing that your past doesn't carry any weight is one of the ways that makes that easier to accept that yeah you know which is and and there there's a reason why we don't do that because you think what it's that easy I can just realize my past doesn't exist notice how your ego mind it's like but I'm about to jump into my screen here it's like I have to sit back we don't want to do this but for two reasons one we are deeply deeply wedded to the idea deeply programmed that we are undeserving would you agree to that yeah you're running to that all the time yeah that we simply are undeserving and when we deeply believe possibly a lot of it's unconscious but that doesn't mean it's any less powerful if we think we're undeserving we think we're guilty and once we really buy into the guilt remember it says our only major addiction is to guilt we're just kind of in love with guilt and the way you know that is how upset people get at the idea of hearing nobody's guilty like no no that can't be right it's like don't take the villains away they've got to be villains in my life they've got to be people who are mistreating me because if they aren't the wrong ones and the guilty ones our deepest fear is that will be proof positive that I am I've got to stay in the victim mode of being the unfairly dealt with mode or I'm doomed I think well this is truly insanity on display yeah it's like the line where Jesus says to the ego the guiltless are guilty I mean that's like the bedrock and so this idea of social justice or justice you know there is justice the justice of heaven the justice of knowing my will and God's will are one and and God's will for me is perfect happiness there's the justice of heaven but it can't be found and you know when you were talking before about bill saying we should call it celestial and I was thinking of that famous line from the course you know would you rather be right or happy it's really would I rather be right about this selective perception idea as if I can make my own identity and I can pick and choose between the perceptions what I like what I don't like what I accept what I reject or would I rather be happy and see that I've had an entire amnesia a celestial amnesia going here and I don't claim any of it I don't claim any memory or bad because who am I to judge yes in the good and the bad I let it go you know they the that marvelous line of would you rather be right or would you rather be happy really is do you want to let go of guilt or not you know of course long time ago I don't know how long ago shortly after I moved into my house and I've been here a long time there was some little boys in the neighborhood who at that time were around 8 and 10 and they kind of hung out at my house when it seemed like interesting stuff was going on so they were out in the driveway watching we were building something I'm gonna what and so I asked this little 10 year old I said would you rather be right or would you rather be happy and without a seconds pause he said I would rather be right because if I were right then I could make a lot of money and I could get people to do what I want to do and you know like that would be the ideal he had no need to think about that at all there was no deliberation it's like right off the bat being right is certainly better you think well one at 10 when we're all programmed to think being right is being better than being happy then there's a lot of work to do yeah that that does remind me I think it was a true recollection of John Lennon's story where he was about that age and he came inside and his mother sat down and explained to him very very carefully that the meaning of life the point of life the value of life was happiness to be happy and when he went to school he was given an assignment which said basically pretty common for all the kids what do you want to be when you grow up and he simply wrote down happy and turned the paper in to his teacher was teacher promptly said oh John John John no no no you you don't actually you don't understand my question and John said very quickly and matter of fact we back no I think it's that you don't understand life this is in the early grades but that was such a sweet story because his mother had told him this is the most important thing I'll ever teach you so pay attention and he not only took that he internalized it so much that when he was given the assignment what do you want to be when he without hesitation that is a little child shall leave them. Yes, yes. I will refrain from telling you about my amazing granddaughter evidence that's not a granddaughter but this little girl who's now seven has got the whole system about compassion down pat I've never met a human being of any age who is more compassionate than she is and she's been that way since she was old enough to you know be out of a crib. Wow, it's just amazing and she's lit up like a light bulb all the time and just being delighted to do things for people which which reminds me of one thing and once again you know kind of the beginning of the year is just an excuse to to say all these wonderful things and that is the idea of being truly helpful is another thing that's important to commit ourselves to shall we say at all times but certainly at the beginning and for those who may not be course students yet or who aren't deeply into it there's a little prayer at the beginning and a lot of times people refer to it as a healer's prayer all of the course doesn't call that but bill had to go make a presentation someplace about a subject that he was not entirely feeling competent to to be involved in it was sort of loosely in his field but not his area of expertise but the people at the medical center thought it would be politically correct for him to go do this and of course bill didn't think talking to large groups of people was a fun thing to do anyway so he was very worried about this that he was going to make a fool of himself and so on so forth and it was right about that time that Helen got the in the old old text like the first edition of the book it's on page 24 the one that says I am here only to be truly helpful remember that yes yes and it's like I don't you know I don't have to worry about what to do or what to say because he who sent me will direct me but if you go back and look at the first line I'm here only to be truly helpful it doesn't say be helpful when it's convenient be helpful sometimes because the implication is if you don't want to be helpful only the implication is then sometimes you don't want to be helpful or you don't care whether you're helpful or not and those aren't going to work out well for us when we're in the I don't care whether I'm helpful to you mode or not yeah what I'm saying the purpose has to be out front like this setting the goal section because it's funny you would even bring up that prayer because I just did a interview on a radio show yesterday with Jennifer Bradley and she basically said David I remember you told me about that prayer at the beginning of the book I am here only to be truly helpful and that when you were doing the course that prayer was so impactful that you decided actually felt guided whenever you would come to a doorway a walkway any kind of walkway whether you're going to the grocery store or the cleaners or going to the bathroom or to the course group you would just pause silently and say have that course prayer go through your mind almost like setting the reset button yes because I wanted to be so fully truly helpful and only truly helpful when I would walk through that door and of course that was just my mechanism to get me to practice the prayer exactly exactly and of course it goes on to say that you know I'm I'm content to be wherever he wishes knowing he goes there with me will ego minds aren't content to be wherever anybody wishes it's like no I'm not content for that like I have my agenda for where I think I need to be and where I need to think I go to get my way in other words it's kind of basically the course is so about black and white opposites if I'm not interested in being only helpful that I'm interested in pursuing some sort of my own ego agenda and what we're trying to be saved from is following our own ego agenda so it says well if you could just do this simple little thing about decide only to be truly helpful this is a safeguard so to speak against lapsing back into deciding if I get my way about this or fix these people about that then all will be well it's like no it will things will all only be well if your goal is to be truly helpful which is going to be truly inclusive it's going to be truly my focus is on you and your welfare whoever the you is that's in front of your nose you know that's the person to whom and with whom you are to be truly helpful for reasons that are absolutely cosmic like this is the way of all the people in the whole world these are the we too need to be together right now yeah yeah that's a great word content content because it that prayer I feel is a purification period it is clarifies our purpose it washes away greed washes away ambition it washes away future goals it washes away thinking about other people and other places and and not really being focused truly in the here and now and and that's where we're being guided to be is just be present yes in other words the whole point of everything is you don't have to think about your past in other words when you're thinking you aren't present and so you don't have to think about your past because it has disappeared in other words there's not anything really there to think about okay end of story about the past we can just let all that go the ego mind will scream and yell because since it's just fictitious anyway its own sense of continuity its own sense of even existing requires that I have this great lineage of like see I existed a long time ago because all these things are going to happen I'm going to exist in the future because of all these things that are going to happen so the idea of being living in the present is anathema to the ego which is the whole point because in any present moment especially in this moment focusing on being truly helpful it's out of the picture yeah it objects to being sent out of the picture that's why you get some pushback about this and why you have to be devoted and dedicated and it gets to be easier and easier to be devoted and dedicated to this when you really firmly believe like it says at the end of the book it says people's lives start out differently it says some walk gaily on the path for a while and for some the pain is felt at once but all roads in the world lead to the same place to being dead now it's not just talking about the death of the physical body is talking about living in that dead state and it says people have died on realizing it says some men will die this is my paraphrase will die when you realize none of your ego plans are ever going to work out they're never going to bring you happiness they're never going to bring you ease or contentment or delight or just the deliciousness of being alive it's like but for those who are willing to say I can see that this is a dead end what's a better way I'm willing to change my mind I do want to see things differently then it's like all the help in the world rushes in on a moment by moment basis and it says and then you can reach heights that are beyond anything you can imagine heights of happiness because then you can become then you can start to live out of right now when you think I don't have an ego I have to support or defend or promote or anything else why wouldn't I just stay here with whatever the experience is right now and allow healing healing healing to take place what's more important than that nothing at all yeah that's the fundamental thing I would say that we've been sharing of of since there is no inner and outer since everything is connected it's it's quite like the difference between Newtonian linear empirical physics and quantum physics in which everything's holistic everything's connected everything's a whole I know in the military for example in the Pentagon they have like a war room or they have a situation room it dawned on me one day I just thought how could you how could anyone even know what a situation was because where does the situation begin and where does it end who drew the lines between situations situations are hypothetical thinking yes if cause and effect are apart and it can be broken into zillions and zillions of different pieces different scenarios different situations and it just dawned on me that situational thinking is the problem holistic thinking is the answer that's with the Holy Spirit you know my mind holds only what I think with God yes situational thinking so 10 years of university for me a degree in urban planning among other another degree I basically got the course and I thought I have to throw it all out because I have to be here and be present to be taught to be shown to let it be revealed to me the way things really are not the way that I thought things were because once you get into situational thinking then you're going to analytical thinking oh and you're done analyze you're gone you're down the rabbit hole once you're done analyzing possible situations and so basically that's how fundamental this state of mind is that's different from the time thinking and so to kind of just I wish we could talk for 14 hours but I think that would wear everybody out so to remember every moment really is the beginning of a new year it really is true that right now is the first moment of the rest of your life and you are not bound by a non-existent past so you can make a radical change now you know just imagine what if starting now you think could this possibly be true that what the course says is accurate that we are still absolutely an expression one one of an infinite numbers of expressions of love and I will always have nothing but the attributes of love itself of the eternalness of being infinite of gracious and happy and peaceful and beloved and you know all of the words in the dictionary that fall on that side of the spectrum and you think I we just need to keep remembering I can begin to adopt those ideas about myself today I can rewire my brain about that to think of it in the terms that we're used to thinking of this in and nothing decides for me but me if I can see I'm better off although my ego will hate this just let it scream and yell set it over in a corner someplace let it scream and yell I'm better off claiming the fact that I am so dearly dearly loved and appreciated and supported and held and embraced and our hands are all being held now I can accept that now and I don't have to remake any reference to anything that's happened before this in fact I can't I have to come down on one side of the other do you want to be a separate afraid miserable pathetic ineffective separate person or do you want to claim what's true about you and start off on an entirely different trajectory for the rest of your earthly life since we are speaking now of our experience here that's the choice make the choice happily I get to keep resetting and remaking that choice all the time but the sooner I anchor myself in this being a much smarter choice the better off I am what do you think about that I love that I think we could summarize it as like now is the is the gateway to the you that God created you to be and and that gateway is so precious that you you don't want to dismiss it or deny it or minimize it even because it's so glorious you know it's like right there is just open up the gate and step through that's it that's the choice that's it Oh David it's been wonderful to have a little chat with you today we'll have to do it again there are another topic or two yes that we could I'm sure I'm sure so so we will do to be continued and to all of our listeners and viewers we so know you're right here with us we so appreciate you we appreciate every single determination you have to to be helpful to love yourself to appreciate yourself let the golden rule apply to you not just other people it's like treat yourself as if you were absolutely precious yes amen to that oh my gosh so on that note we surely wish you not just the best new year but the best new life the best new moment the best new opportunity to keep choosing again you know that's the way the course ends in the very last section of the very last chapter it says choose once again is once again trials are but lessons presented once again that where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one and escape all pain that that prior choice brought to you yes and you think every moment is that choose again moment and the pain disappears when you stop choosing for the author of pain yes it's that simple yes so thank you thank you it was marvelous and we'll talk again soon hmm thank you thank you my dear