 I came acquainted with the Course in Miracles in New Zealand about six years ago and I've been, I've done the course once, well done through the course once and picked in pieces ever since, not rigidly sticking to the course day by day but keeping it in mind. I haven't done the course twice and I think you need to do it twice thoroughly. But I'm glad that I was able to attend courses. That's it. I thought about anything about it. Very good. Fantastic. He's not even seated at the book. Very good. This is typical of my gathering that people walk in. Wow, this is fun but I don't know anything about it and that's all right. Like to study for 20 years, you never heard of it, it's the same love. I haven't even seen the book. Yeah. That's quick. And there's a lot of them. There's no pictures. It'll be a test in 15 minutes. The book first us was 1990 and I was doing a lot of rebirthing at the time and it went with sort of the whole rebirthing LRT tradition and I was blown away and I didn't pick up any other book I'd said for five years. That's all right. I would have gone through the lessons all of them maybe three times but I don't need, I don't know that you need to go through that many times. I didn't get it that cool. Thought I did and then I'd read it again. I was like, whoa, I didn't get anything. I haven't picked it up in a long time. I don't pick it up anymore but I picked it up thoroughly and there was no group around Cork where I was so I kind of evolved into other areas and I spent a lot of time in India. I spent time in India last year and sort of into the ashram tradition but I still know Course in Miracles is my core place. I know that deeply and so whatever I'm doing I'm translating it in course terms and there is only one truth and there is only one way. I met David in Belgium two years ago and it's very exciting to be here. It's great. I'm excited. My name is Gemma Donnelly and I'm from Belfast as well. I came to Course, she didn't say that. I picked up the book last year and tried to read a bit of it. That was okay, that didn't really work. But I did try, but I put it down again and I picked it up again this year about three months ago and I have been reading a few pages every day doing some of the workbook every day having to go back and read the pages again because you miss a lot of it and go back again and re-read. And I find that not difficult but it's slow going for me. So I'm really here this weekend because there's lots of people in the room who have way more knowledge than I do and I'm here to learn something and how to get a crack as well. That's an interesting word David. You know, we as well as... We want to have a crack. Now the crack is having fun and joy and having fun. It's not a cracker. I'm just getting the interpretation down. Be careful of the drugs. Tom will do the Irish translation. That's why I'm here. Hi everyone, my name is Sarah. I live in Tipperary and I came to the course about six years ago. I thought I was ordering another kind of self-development book that had been referenced through other self-development books I read and then when I got it I tried to return it. I said, sorry, I think you sent me the wrong book. Do you have this by another author? The same title and you went, no, there's only one. I went, right. So I thought I was getting indoctrinated into a cult and years later when I met my friend Linda she said, yeah, a cult of one. So I found that there was not such a strong outside influence that I couldn't withstand. It seemed as though I was just reading a book. So I went with it. So that's by six years. And to be honest, it, for me, it saved my thought process, which was so ingrained in, I suppose like a victimhood thing like a lot of us have, but it was that all the world was miserable and everything. But this book agreed with me that all the world was miserable but it was going to show me a new way to look at it. And so that was wonderful. Next we have Gin. And she's going to be a long story because she's a very interesting lady. You're going to put yourself on camera. I'm going to try. That's nice. You can put yourself into the film. You can see it if I'm there. Yeah, I've had, I've read the course in two years. It started the year before with, I started to get very strong direct guidance to do certain things. And I was guided to go to a gathering with a lady in Sweden and she shared her life story and it was very powerful. And I just felt after that, oh, I need to, I need to know more. It's she, she, she knows something. She has something that I want to experience and explore. So I just called her up and I asked her, okay, is there something I can read? And she said, what about conversations with God? She said, I don't know, I've read them and I want something else, something more. And she said, course in miracles. And that just came straight into my heart and, okay, that's it. It was the Holy Spirit just telling me yes. And so I ordered it. And by that time I was into the psychology studies. So I thought I would be a psychologist, but when I started to read the course, the only thing I could read, it just captured me. So I had to quit my psychology studies and that was after I had met David during the summer 2006. I decided to quit my psychology studies and I started the course and I was just meditating on my own for maybe three months and just prayed and asked God, what should I do with my life? I had quit my education, which was the closest I could come to in the world to what I thought I was. So it was very disorienting too to not know what I would do. So I just prayed for months and then it came an invitation to go to the United States. A very strong calling. So maybe I can tell you more about that later. It was very strong experiences from that. I was guided to go to a meditation center to meditate for eight hours a day for half a year or a whole year. After three weeks I was guided again to go to David instead. About the course, I don't really study. I read it through twice when I first got it and I did the lessons. But now I'm not really doing so much reading or lessons. You're teaching us. Thanks, Jenny. David, it's your turn. I was in university for ten years from 1976 to 1986. It was very much a time of searching for me. When I was much younger in high school, people would say, what do you want to be when you grow up? I was always fascinated that people would even know, even as children, they would say, I want to be a fireman. When I was getting into high school, I wanted to study and take this course. I had nothing coming at all. I thought that was very strange. I felt very odd. I would take aptitude tests in high school for interest in your strengths and abilities and your education. The scores would look like a spokes of a wheel. There was nothing correlating. The guidance counselors were trying to come up with something. I had a lot of strengths, I got very good grades, I had a lot of abilities and aptitudes, but then they would try to coordinate those abilities and aptitudes with my interests. It would just give this picture that I wasn't supposed to be anything in this world. That is not what guidance counselors are like. My mother was a teacher in the same school, so she was like, come up with something, help my son find something. He's very talented and he's skilled and he's very quiet and timid and he's contemplative and reflective, but nothing's pointing him in a direction. They would send me off to engineer for a day or the Rotary Club to look at politics or they'd really bend over backwards to try to find something that would be something. But basically the scores were saying that I was supposed to be nothing. In this world, it's like, no, it's not an acceptable answer. You have a lot of skills and abilities you can't just decide to be nothing or be a vegetable or something. It's when people are put into hospitals after an accident and they can't do anything, then you're allowed to be nothing. But you're not supposed to be nothing. So after ten years of university and searching through many, many philosophies and books and reading a lot of books, psychology, philosophy, religion and taking studies and everything that the world had to offer, a very kind of eclectic, general background where I really got to see that everybody was looking at the different world, that the psychologists were not looking at the same world as the scientists and the scientists were not looking at the same world as the artists, that everybody had different assumptions which seemed very confusing to me, like how would we ever have peace and harmony if the two people see the same world? If everybody is so uniquely different and sees a different world, I thought, how are we ever going to have peace and harmony? And I was really interested in peace and harmony and then I felt this voice within me saying it's not their problem, it's your problem, it's your perception, you're seeing everything in a fragmented way. You're seeing separate people, separate interests and there is a harmony and a oneness and a truth that's way beyond this but the problem is with your own mind and your own thinking. Don't ever point the finger or don't ever think that anybody's got it or doesn't have it outside of you. It's all your own lesson. So that's when this thing started with all your own lesson. Every time I would say, but this person yelled and how this person, they don't seem to be very sensitive enough. It's your lesson, Dave, it's your lesson. So then after ten years of university I really didn't know where my life was going to go at that point because I didn't feel guided into a career and I didn't feel any clear sense of what my life was to be but it seems like that was part of how the plan was to go so that then when, of course, the miracles came into my life it's like I just went to a humanistic psychology conference out in California. I was going to many different presenters and it was all very wonderful and yet I had picked where I would go, my workshops and then suddenly I met these people who had a Course in Miracles book and when I opened it up it was just like I had a strong tickle experience in my heart a lot of energy and felt like a giant tsunami of love just like waves of love pouring over me and somehow that I had found that whatever I had been searching for it was like a Course in Miracles because the unspoken prayer of my heart was answered with the Course in Miracles for a systematic way of reaching peace of mind inner peace or enlightenment or truth or self-realization it goes by many names and many different traditions and I knew my whole life would change whatever vector I was on whatever trajectory I was heading on but it was suddenly that everything had shifted from my encounter with this book and my whole life I just felt like oh my life will never be the same and that's exactly how it has felt I was unlike Sarah when I picked it up I had kind of developed quite a bit of discernment so that here we are in the library I could pretty much pick up any book on the shelf so much reading and so much inner discerning that I could pick up any book and just thumb through it and look at the ideas and say this author's underlying assumptions are they believe in this, this, this and this about the world pick up another one this author believes in this, this, this and so I could pick up any book and discern what the author's underlying assumptions were then I picked up the Course and I looked in there and it was like I lost my breath I had to work hard to formulate a question one question which was only four words which was who wrote this book took a lot of effort to get four words out because the feeling was that the author was not on this planet this was not one of the six billion earthlings that was walking around that this was a a divine a divine author I mean even having read the Bible you can read things that resonate in your heart and then there's some things that maybe were passed down and interpreted and you know they did the best that they could at the time but it doesn't, not everything in the Bible is for me but with this book it was like oh my gosh this is like some kind of a scripture from a divine being and I thought to myself first of all oh my gosh I don't have any excuses now I mean I felt before that I would pop open books or hear a song on the radio or the spirit was speaking to me in many ways hundreds of ways where I would get little nuggets and I was like panhandling and getting nuggets I was quite happy to be a panhandler to shake the thing and get oh what do we got here look at these nuggets of truth that were resonating with my heart but it was like with this book it was like it wasn't getting nuggets it was like I was under the earth and I had a giant vein of gold like you've tapped into the mother load like this isn't nuggets at all this is like oh my god I'm a divine being and the feeling was I have no excuse now because before I would always say to spirit could you make it a little more obvious you know why should it be so slow and tedious can't there be a direct pathway to God or if you're going to have to lay aside judgment like Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount judge not lest you be judged it's a very simple teaching except for 2,000 years people have been saying but sentimentally I would love to stop judging I would love to be accepting and just whole and complete and totally love everyone universally and unconditionally but practically speaking it seems like in this realm of human beings that that's the teachings of Buddha and Jesus and Krishna and Muhammad and all these great prophets and teachers they seem to be very hard to put into practice but sentimentally people resonate with them they sound really good I would love to be able to say that and mean that without having this anger cutting underneath or this hurt woundedness coming up and saying oh no it's not so it's a lie so that began in 1986 when I first came in contact with the Course that began a spiritual adventure where I for the first 2 and a half years I read the book about an average of around 8 hours a day it was like somebody I was drowning in the ocean and somebody threw me a life jacket and just with a rope and just it was tied to a big ship and just said here just quit trying to struggle and swim just put yourself in the life jacket and be carried along and I was like thank God thank you and then for me it resonated so much I didn't read the Course 8 hours a day consecutively because I had great resonance with it but it's like the ego within me was it was like kryptonite to Superman the ego was like no more please after I would read for a couple hours it would get very heavy like lead weights just like the ego was saying shut down please no more and it was resistance to this bright bright light that was dispelling everything I believed about the world and so I would I would ask the spirit what to do and take a nap have some fruit go for a walk, have a swim something very gentle from love something soft very very soft and light and gentle and then I would come back after an hour or two or three hours and I would open the book again usually with a question I had like what about this there's the answer again then I would get so interested and I would read way beyond the answer I wasn't reading the book even chronologically I was just using it kind of like an oracle that a lot of people do to give me spontaneous answers to my questions so that went on for about two and a half years and then I just felt like in the late 1980s that I said there must be some other people that worked with this book even though it was just kind of like me and the spirit working with it it was a very intimate thing between the spirit and me it wasn't like a group and suddenly I looked in my area I went to a retirement home where there was a student speaking on the course and suddenly I met all these people from Ohio and Kentucky and Indiana and suddenly I had a whole group of people I knew who studied the book and I was going to five course and miracles groups a week so I went from like to talk about the cars that go from 0 to 50 in 4.9 seconds I went from 0 not knowing anybody in my area who studied the course to the spirit saying now it's time for phase 2 you have learned how to hear my voice and I could hear it very distinctly and clearly as the voice of Jesus and the Holy Spirit guiding me like having a little bird on your shoulder and telling you go back you forgot your keys call so and so go here, go there with a small still voice that they talk about in all the spiritual traditions certainly over here in Ireland with the Catholics and the many mystics here in Ireland have always spent a deep spiritual Christian tradition in mysticism and I was hearing this voice so clear and the voice was saying well okay now you can hear me very clearly now the next phase is I want to speak through you which was a big step for me because I was very shy and timid and was always told you know don't talk in public about God or politics unless you went a lot of trouble you should never talk about and this was more like God within me the Spirit, the Holy Spirit saying I want to speak through you and the ego was going oh my God this is the worst nightmare to be shy and to start going around and talking, be like going on Oprah Winfrey and talking about God or something when you're so shy that you don't even have many friends you've never participated in any social groups you were voted most quiet in your senior class the entire male population you were voted the most quiet of the entire 200 and some odd people it was really like a huge leap and yet I did find myself going to Course in Miracles groups it wasn't like I was a student of the Course initially in the sense that I would show up and I was so happy and everything was so clear in my mind to reading it for eight hours a day for two and a half years I had actually done what some preachers and ministers do with the Bible I had memorized the book and you saw the book it's not a leaflet it's over 1200 pages and I knew all the lessons I would be at a Course group I would pop in on and I would sit there and they would be talking about something and they would say there's something in the book about this and I would start off reciting sentence by sentence word by word the whole paragraph and then give the page number and they would all just go because they were struggling with even getting through the paragraph and they couldn't retain what they had just read and I would give the whole paragraph and the page number this was the first edition when it first came out and one of my friends Mary she just was like we got a real joker here and they'd go and they'd look it up and they'd go they'd go and they would read it word by word and the page number and they'd go they thought I was joking because I was quoting the book my paragraph they thought there's no way there's absolutely no way he's quoting this book but that's what was happening so after a few years I started meeting people I was guided to just leave everything behind like Jesus told the apostles you know take no thought for what you should wear what you should do, seeking first the kingdom of heaven all things else I was raised in Christianity so I'd heard these biblical teachings but they seemed kind of far off it would be like how do you apply that in this century you know it's like that's 2,000 years ago it's not practical and Jesus is saying in my mind oh it's practical I'm here and I'm going to perform miracles through you and you are a miracle worker and even though I protested that I was not ready and how could you have chosen me and all the typical things you know he was like saying no you are ready now and I will perform miracles for you sure when you say that you were hearing the voice was it just like a thought in your mind or did you actually hear words it was very much like the scribe of of course of miracles Helen Shuckman she didn't hear an audible voice and neither did I hear like a voice like a voice human voice speaking to me through it would be like through the years it was like a very clear distinct thought pattern in my mind that was very very gentle that could take on any kind of sound it could sound like David or it could sound like a man or a woman it was a very distinct stream of thoughts that was very much like a conversation like you and I talking it wasn't like the committee was meeting and we were trying to talk about the conversation what did you say Christine what did you say David like typically all the chatter in people's minds they hear many voices or the committee meets and opinions and they go this was a very clear like a clear stream of thoughts it was not audible but it was like somebody on the inside of my mind talking to me and then talking through me where I would just kind of relax and start to come out in an audible way so it did take on an audible sound but it was using these vocal chords and so I had read about the prophets of the Bible you know John the Baptist and Isaiah and a voice crying out in the wilderness you know telling the people turn from your ways repent and God loves you and in different things but certainly when I was being raised I was not thinking what would I be when I grow up oh I'll be a prophet or a mystic or a saint that was not on the table that's definitely my parents weren't saying that that was an option and none of my teachers ever said oh you could be a prophet it never came out of the test scores the test scores were more no you're not going to be anything else you're not going to be a construction worker or a sociologist or a chemist you know you're not going to be anything in the world but it didn't articulate prophet or saint or mystic or scribe or all these things that we have we have a lot of words angels and channeler, angel channeler I mean nowadays with the new age there's a lot of names that are there but none of these were like in high school on it just wasn't there so then in 1991 I was told you have worked your last job it was a great job teaching psychology to art institute and having the Holy Spirit teach the class through me for four hours each class it was a spectacular job for training to do what I would be doing which I didn't know at the time what that would be but I had to let the course and miracles come through and the spirit teach about love and oneness and forgiveness using the words forgiveness or oneness or Jesus or Holy Spirit in a psychological setting it was perfect practice to use all my 10 years of education I could talk about curriculum and learning goals I could talk about peace of mind and life and death and things like that but it was not to use any religious symbols in a psychology class and that really prepared me for going out and speaking around the world in 21 different countries and to people of many different languages using many different symbols and metaphors and actually using the modern day parables Jesus spoke in parables because it was so deep 2000 years ago I use movies from Hollywood and all over the world because we have a lot of mystical metaphysical movies coming now and I can teach a whole group of people for example in South America a whole theater full with the Holy Spirit pouring through me and us watching a movie together and the Holy Spirit pouring through afterwards and we all have mystical experiences together like a whole theater full I could have never imagined having that kind of intense experience with a whole theater full of people but the Holy Spirit is like oh yeah no problem we'll use a movie like Groundhog Day the one where he's caught in the loop and out poured through and it was like these young people they were like 18, 19 years old just glowing and beaming and coming up I would show a movie like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind down in South America with Spanish subtitles and Spanish translators and to see a couple of like 20 years old who had been struggling with all these relationship issues afterwards they'd walk down from the theater and they'd look at me like you have just demystified our entire relationship you have just given us like 20 years of counseling in one evening and we suddenly they were like looking at each other with such love because oh so I put the box right there that was intuitive but it was like they were like saying oh my god we've been struggling with our relationship issues and we thought it was hopeless like we were not going to have any way to break through and you've just suddenly kind of in one evening you've cut through all of this relationship trouble and they were like blown away and I said yeah it's the power of God God is so powerful and mighty that he reaches us in our spirit here and we just like that song you raise me up you know to all that I can be it's just like lifting us higher and higher into this realm of perfect divine order that our hearts have been calling out for we've been crying out for a sense of harmony and love and unity and I was like oh my god this is it this is the answer that I've been praying for so I took off in 1991 with I was guided to get this little three-cylinder car which every sprint that had good gas mileage and back then the price of gas was I can't even remember it was so low it's the number below that I can remember but I would be able to just go off and go go go for miles and miles hundreds of miles in this little car and spontaneously be guided by the spirit you know how Jesus said I told the apostles I will make you fishers of men you will go out and cast your net far and wide and I will bring the whole human race back into the fold of love you're not really going to convert anybody you're not going to change anybody you're not to save anybody to rescue anybody you're not to correct anybody everybody's just perfect the way they are you don't have to give them advice and you don't even have to talk about this stuff unless they ask you unless they say whoa you are happy you are so happy and joyful what is going on or I've done television shows where friends of mine said David look at you look at you on the television show you look like you're stoned you look like you've just been you've had crack you've had you're cracking with a crack I mean you look like you really look stoned and I'd say I'd just be myself and it was funny when they would say I was stoned because I had a life that was more like John the Baptist in the Bible I didn't live in the cave and eat berries but I didn't go out on my first date until I was 27 years old that's unusual in this world shy that's a bit shy and so that was unusual and I didn't do drugs I didn't smoke cigarettes I didn't drink alcohol it wasn't like I was raised in kind of like a strict religious order where you couldn't do any of it I just didn't do any of it I didn't drink alcohol I remember one time I was with a friend he said here I have some of the beer and I was like taste the beer go back to the water and juice or wine or anything really wasn't I mean occasionally I would have emotions I wasn't into swearing and cussing and you know a whole blue streak of swear words or cuss words I would have been like a model student maybe in the Catholic church or something but I wasn't into Catholicism I wasn't into vows and rituals I was just kind of quiet and contemplative and pondering and I think behind all that pondering for all those seven years before I even went out on my first date was there's something fishy with this world I don't even know what it is but there's something not right there's something to miss I don't know what it is and nobody's given me a straight answer nobody else knows either everybody knows there's something fishy about this world but nobody knows what it is so by that time at 27 my first date was also the time I discovered The Course in Miracles which was interesting timing for my first girlfriend she was like what are you onto what this is she was a traditional Christian and all I can think that The Course in Miracles must have been very threatening most threatening for her because she was raised with Jesus and Holy Spirit and again all your stuff in church from the Bible to the book that's saying that the world is an illusion and it's all images and that God didn't create the world and that you've done this to yourself and now there's a way out there's a way back to the king of heaven or to nirvana or to oneness but you have to forgive in a different way than you've been trying to forgive you've tried it before and it hasn't worked because you were poorly taught you were taught by the ego how to forgive the ego how to stop of its own theologies and its own religions and it didn't go anywhere it just was like spinning your wheels in oil how you worked didn't get any traction you weren't having any movement so then I really felt that I started traveling in 2000 in 1991 and that's when the miracles I was reading about miracles for the first five years and I was having synchronicities and I was having questions were answered immediately which I was thrilled about but I didn't know the intensity of what a miracle was I had been raised a Christian of course in Christianity walking on water and multiplying the fishes and the loaves and parting the Red Sea it was like that was all miracles and yet I really didn't know the intense joy of miracles which is what I was really wanting the synchronicities were all kind of a lead in towards something that was much, much bigger an actual experience not sitting in a course group and go change your mind change your perception that's nice but it's like to tell somebody just change your mind just change your perception look at it differently your boyfriend cheated on me don't tell me I changed my mind I want to kill him but this was like not sitting intellectually bantering around ideas but when I was guided to start traveling I was impelled almost from the inside like a giant wave was grabbing me and saying you are now you are now mine the Spirit said and you will travel wherever I guide you to everything will be taken care of Jesus told me you will never charge a penny for anything you do you will just accept donations and love offerings that was a bit steep I would talk back to Jesus even though he was friendly gentle you will never charge a penny for anything you do what about like counseling making a book a booklet, a DVD, a cassette nope nope nope a little consultation fee occasionally nope can I is there any way I can just ask them to kind of you have to do this and this no no no no you will never charge any money for this freely you have received freely you shall give and everything shall be taken care of I thought that was a bit extreme maybe that is so in heaven freely you have received you shall give but this is earth we are talking about and I was still fairly young I was in my 20s this might be good for a short period of time he was saying no for your whole life you will never charge a penny for anything you do I thought I don't understand such freedom I thought I don't see how you can survive I don't understand that I said okay see those trees out there Jesus the money does not grow on trees I can't just wait until the bank account I have nothing left and then just go out and go pick pick pick picking the bills off of the trees or the coins like the flower petals just picking coins and Jesus said yes I know you don't believe that you will be taken care of but I have told you I said it in the Bible I talked about the lilies of the field look at the lilies of the field they neither spin or toil not even all of Solomon is tired like that I told you clearly in the Bible I told you for years to just trust me and I will take care of everything no matter how radical it seems this is what I am doing right now I am saying the same thing and then I came to a passage in A Course in Miracles and Jesus said now read this sing it every day you know it was once you have accepted His plan God's plan or the Holy Spirit's plan once you have accepted His plan 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 making in your way no stones to trip on and no obstacles to bar your way nothing you need will be denied you not one seeming difficulty but will melt away before you reach it you need take thought for nothing except the only purpose that you would fulfill He said I am giving you your purpose you are getting it all right here it is a complete package I am there with you in your mind you won't have any difficulties as long as you stay tuned in to my channel stay tuned in to this radio station God FM God FM, God AM maybe FM because it is not so much talk it is more easy listening so it was like God FM and then just stay tuned in and then that is it you have no more troubles everything not one seeming difficulty you will melt away before you reach it that was that was intense that was like way beyond anything I could ever imagine the voice of the child and a little child shall lead them yeah that is how I was no more great we are loving the sound he is telling my visitor Maria in the little one so anyway I thought okay so then I started just following and I felt impelled to travel but I didn't have any kind of church affiliation I had not much money in the bank I thought hmm we will see how this travel goes then because it is not very prudent I had learned in this world it wasn't prudent to just go off traveling without money that could be a dumb idea and there was a woman who had been in the convent from 14 to about 22 who had worked with me when I was a co-op student in university and she had remet me years later and I was so happy that she just went what happened to you you aren't even the same person it's like you aren't even near what you were what have you been doing what have you been reading I told her about the course of miracles she was working three jobs and she heard in her mind quit all of your jobs she was going with David on this first trip that he was taking which was a big leap for her and then there was a priest who heard that he was to come along too but she and priest did not go along well she had left the whole Catholic system because of the priest she was like her mouth was dropped and I said oh father John wants to go with this on the trip she was just like you've got to be kidding I've just got away from the whole priesthood thing I'm not going on the road with a priest because she did not take her final vows as a nun she was supposed to be like a bride of Christ at the end and she had left Jesus at the altar and I told her I hate to tell you but Jesus is back for you Jesus is behind the altar you may leave a man behind but it's like this one is not going away it's more like the horror movie's Freddy Krueger that never dies Jesus, well he really never dies you may try to leave him in the dust and he's like smiling at the next corner he ain't going anywhere so she ended up the priest ended up talking with her I said the script is written it's all perfect it's already happened so we can't have any conflict with this why don't you two just have dinner and they had dinner and the priest came to me and said definitely I'm not supposed to be going but he gave her a donation after she quit her three jobs the priest said here's the donation you're supposed to go and off we went and there were so many miracles of being given a Urantia book some of you might have heard of that it's a book that the last section of my life and teachings of Jesus in great detail it's really a spectacular book but I went to a Course in Miracles group at a church my first day of traveling and the facilitator would you please speak at our Course group and then afterwards the group was over he said would you speak at our next group I thought how strange to have two Course in Miracles groups back to back why don't you just consolidate that was a book that gave the full life of Jesus all of his trials, his temptations more detail than the teachings of the Masters of the Far East or the Aquarian Gospel of Jesus Christ just a in tremendous detail the life of Jesus all of the temptations that he went through how he had to apply divine principle like you and I do going through puberty yeah we all made it through puberty some of us were better than others but it was like Jesus had to go through the same things in this world he wasn't born perfect he wouldn't be a very good role model if he just came here as deity and splashed into earth and said all his love all his God how do you relate to that it would be like an alien coming from another world he went through the same ego temptations that we did and he transcended them so all of that was in that book and then the miracles really started where it's like the joy became intense I was taken care of I was offered places to stay, offered money to put guests in my car brownies and cookies like grandma would bake for you it was like I met a blind man who was just so happy in spirit I met hundreds of witnesses to God's love just by going out and not trying to have a plan but just to follow the Holy Spirit's guidance moment by moment the witnesses flooded into my awareness before I thought I knew what a synchronicity was this was more like a fairy tale like where the prince this happens to the prince and then this happens to the princess and it felt kind of magical we're in the land of Ireland in angels and everything yes, that was what my life was in the middle of the United States I was having all these kind of mystical, magical experiences where it felt like I don't have a life of my own but I don't need a life of my own if this is God's life for me miraculously in this world then so be it I just wanted to be happy and I was very happy so this went on for a few years the travels, people started coming to me and calling me their teacher an interesting phenomenon when somebody comes to you and says, you are my teacher I was like, what? and they were like, oh this is that stuff in the teacher's manual I guess when the teacher is ready the students appear, when the students are ready the teacher appears, you are my teacher I was like, hmm wow, I didn't plan on that, I'm just a shy boy from Cincinnati not going around having students or whatever, they started to appear we would have sessions like this to go into things very deeply you know, every day really and that began another phase and those were just some of the early phases, that only takes me to the mid 1990s since then it's opened up to the point where it's like in around 2003 through a lot of series of events I was given frequent flower miles and I started to travel around the world in 2003 and so that brings it a little closer up to date, so for the last five years I've just been accepting invitation like Tom said, I think we were in Belgium and you were just sitting there one day when you come to Ireland I want you to come to Ireland it just felt like a yes a big strong yes and so that brings us up to how I seem to be here with you all for this weekend through Monday morning who could stay if you would like we have the whole weekend so basically as Tom was saying, we don't really have a structure we want this to be the most impactful weekend if you've never heard of the course before feel free to ask any questions it's not like you're expected to know anything about the course of miracles because the truth is the truth and love is love and spirit is spirit if you're just kind of if you're new to the course and you're kind of intrigued by some things please feel free to ask any question about a course of miracles about any spirituality that you ever have encountered in your life from a religion to a esoteric spirituality there are no questions that are taboo or off limits you can ask any question that you like there are no questions for me that are too personal or that are embarrassing so my life is an open book and people do ask me about everything when I'm in South America they will pull out down to the most I was down there teaching in South America they were like are you having sex and I was like not now so they got out of passion fruit they really thought that I was missing out they were getting the passion fruit out and trying to hear more but nothing is too intimate nothing is too detailed or personal feel free because we're all in this together truth wants to be openly revealed there aren't any real secrets or mysteries in fact I have a friend who was a priest for years and he would hear all these confessions from all these parishioners and he would say that they would not only confess all that they've done but they would ask him all these questions and he said many of the questions that they ask he had no answer for he thought oh my God so he would just tell him it's a divine mystery that was his one answer whenever he got to a tough question when he couldn't he would just say that's a divine mystery and there we go okay thank you father but he said I've listened to you David for years on MP3s and audio tapes and CDs and it's like you never even hesitate after someone asked you a question it could even be the most difficult seeming question like there's no possible way you would know the answer to that and you just pops up through your mouth immediately you don't even hesitate or have to ponder the question and of course shake and scratch your head and go oh that's a tough one he said so I I really see that there's something going on that's a vibrant experience for you and Tom also asked me to talk a little bit about of course the miracles and how it seemed to come into this realm and especially if you're new to it or if you're brand new to it in 1965 in the United States in New York City this is like the major story of 2000 years ago except this is the modern day version of how Jesus came back to the world so to speak there were two psychologists at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City and they lived a pretty typical stressful life of living in a big city and having a profession she was married and her collaborator Bill was her boss and they were in a very stressful work setting and basically one day her boss said you he said we cannot continue living the way that we're living it's too frustrating and too painful there has to be a better way of living in this world and he was often talking to this woman named Helen who was a colleague in his department and she would always be very critical and most of the time very harsh but this time she was uncharacteristically open and she said you're right Bill and I'm going to help you find it this better way and then suddenly she started having visual very visual dreams that were in color and kind of a psychic phase that preceded this small still voice really like an inner dictation of thoughts that said this is a course in miracles please take notes and being a research psychologist she was very very had a lot of anxiety psychologists generally lock people up or give them drugs that are hearing voices especially about this is a course in miracles please take notes she was very nervous but her colleague just stroked her arm just kind of would say just take it down if it is crazy we'll throw it away and if it's not then we'll just keep listening and keep taking it down so that's how it started off basically with this inner voice saying this is a course in miracles is a required course and basically describing that free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum but it does mean that you can decide what you want to take at a given time so that basically we're all here to learn how to forgive or to release illusions from our mind and remember God's love but we really even choose the curriculum it's already determined forgiveness is the curriculum for everyone and love is the you might say the outcome of following the curriculum you clear away all the obstacles to the awareness of love's presence and then what's left is love you kind of peel the onion or you clean the mirror clean the mirror off so that the light can shine through and then you realize that you are the light you're not even the reflection of it you are actually the light of God so basically it's a self-study book there are people that seem to be teachers of the book although teaching is actually a demonstration of a state of mind it's not words or merely words it's actually a state of mind that can use the words but it's more of a demonstration your attitude your attitude is the teacher so it doesn't matter who you're with whether you're with a cat or a dog or a goat or a cow or whether you're with a human being or you're with your computer or a calculator it doesn't really matter who or what you're with it's your state of mind that is teaching the whole universe what you believe you are and when you open up and release these ego beliefs you are kind of transmitting or radiating and extending this vibration of divine love that is what God created, it's perfect and whole but it takes a lot of clearing away of the obstacles and that's what the course is really about it's about removing the obstacles to the awareness of love's presence it doesn't even claim to teach it says this course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love for that is far beyond what can be taught it's not a book that's saying I will teach you how to love it doesn't even go that far it just says I'm here this presence is here to help you remove the obstacles to the awareness of love's presence and then you will see how powerful and vast that you are how perfect you are, how innocent you are how you've never sinned how you've never had the ability to really make a mistake or be something other than the way God created you it's very loving and so now if we bring it up to present day where I am with the course I just recently helped get the course down into South America a mass media edition so that tens of thousands of people who want to read the book down there who have been raised Catholic and they want the real experience of Jesus I've been involved with that I've been involved with a lot of world travels I do write answer emails on my global mailing lists it's about 3,300 people I travel where I'm invited I also do like longer retreats and people just come and visit me and we have a lot of rooms here I notice there's a room right across the hallway that just has a smaller table so Tom was saying that you may want to set aside some time for like one on one talks because a lot of times there may be something you may want to just talk through and just bring up I don't feel like you want to bring it up in the larger group like it still seems pretty intense or something you would rather not share at this point with everyone you just want the time to talk it through I did that in Australia they opened up a span of time about like 3 o'clock but there was like 30 or 40 participants so I don't know I ended up going into the evening doing one on one all afternoon in the evening but Tom was just saying it would be nice to make that available maybe about 5-10 minutes and if it goes over or under 5 and that might happen today or tomorrow it depends on how many people if there's not so many we could it could be half an hour where we just go walking off in the Irish countryside along the road just out in the sunshine and I've done I was just down in Australia in Byron Bay they were in this big barn and then people would just go out we would go on these walks down this country road up and down about 15 minutes out and 15 minutes back and I'd come back the next one would come out of the barn so it was like a train but it was very relaxing it was a warm sunny day and bright sunshine like this beautiful backdrop so it doesn't have to be in a room it can be anything now, while we're on the subject of how the book came about would you tell us where it's at and there was a query about copyright etc. would you bring that up to date and then we'll do the copy yes originally the first four participants were Helen the scribe and she took the book down from Jesus shorthand with a very powerful scrabble ability not to say that she wasn't nervous and anxious and had a lot of resistance that's why it took seven years to get this book into this room because Jesus would say what I just said was this what you wrote was that go back and he had to do this over and over because the ego resistance to this divine love and light was enormous and it took a lot of patience and a lot of time, seven years to get this book into this room and that was just a shorthand note there was a longer version called The Urtext which had a lot of personal references Jesus working with Helen and Bill about many of their own issues sexuality and many things some of that stuff was edited out to make it more acceptable and helpful for the whole planet and then it was edited down and then the book they were told to copyright the book and they thought like most of us would think like how do you apply for a copyright for a book that's from Jesus I mean you know you can't go into the copyright office in the United States and go they say okay author Jesus Christ of Nazareth get out of here get out of the office next in line so they were guided to they were told to put anonymous which in one sense Jesus is kind of anonymous in this world it's a presence Christ is really not a man or a woman it just seemed to speak through a man 2000 years ago but it's universal love it's not masculine or feminine it doesn't have anything to do with duality