 I have a question. How can I continue to function within anything that holds objectives and goals that are form goals? Whether that be a work setting, an organization of which I'm a member, a family, a marriage, a country. I mean, anything at all, how can I function within a context that has form goals if I'm determined to have only the one goal of peace? Okay. We have to take a look at the assumptions in your question because we spoke just very shortly ago about the inner and the outer are not different. Your question is asking, how can I function, I a person function in a context that has other goals? So you're applying that, that the institution that you're working in has goals. Institutions don't have goals. Institutions are ideas in the mind that are projected outward. Situations, families don't have goals of themselves. There is no objective society that's outside of the mind. There is no objective institutions or workplaces or families that have different goals than the self. There is only the mind that holds onto concepts and the mind can hold conflicting goals. So that belief in personhood, that subject-object split that we've talked about, the inner and the outer being the same is instead of different, is a very central point in answering your question. So you're saying the question really stands on making that distinction between the inner and the outer. Yes. So the question is a declaration. Yes. The question stands on the assumption that there is an inner and an outer. For instance, that this workplace has goals that seem to be different than my goal for peace. And so there's a conflict here. It's not seen that the institution itself is a concept in my mind that gets back to the deepest level of that there is nothing outside of you, that the world is simply a world of ideas in my mind projected out. And then the mind forgets that it simply is one's own projection or dream and one perceives through the body's eyes and hears through the body's ears and thinks that it's a person in a world that is objectively different from it, that the person is the subject, which has subjective experience. And the world is the object, whether it's the world of my family, my business world, my community, my nation, my planet, my cosmos, and so on and so forth. That world is seen to be objectively different than the me, the small me, that the question presumes that. Now this is very deep and it's very abstract and it's very ultimate, it actually contains the release. And if you can begin to grasp that, then you've got your foot in the door to being released from all conflict. To bring it back to what might be seen as a more practical level of working in a place and I've got my boss is telling me certain things that I need to do and I want peace but there seems to be a lot of competition in the workforce and so on and so forth. The Holy Spirit works with the mind where it believes it's at. So in other words, if the mind believes in separation, the mind believes in a time, space, universe, the mind believes in bodies, the mind believes that it is a body or will save an in a body, the mind believes that it is a person that has characteristics that is working, that has a job, that has a boss will say, the mind believes it has a country, it has a family or community, it's made up this construct, it's projected the construct and it believes that it is the construct. It is the concept. Then the Holy Spirit has to work with that mind to help it see that these constructs, these concepts are nothing more than concepts. They don't have any reality and so the Holy Spirit works with the mind where it believes it's at. So for instance, one starting out working with the Course is not asked in lesson one to lay aside all thoughts, all concepts, all beliefs that one has ever held about the world. No. The lesson starts off with nothing I see means anything. It's a simple lesson that's starting to detach from the meaning of things that the physical I see. A first glimmer of seeing is not believing or the old wives tales about what you see is what you get. It's a glimmer of the idea that there's something beyond what I see with the naked eye so to speak. So one could take the Course and apply the workbook lessons and take an idea for the day seemingly as a person, seemingly into a work setting for instance or into a church setting or into the laundry mat or wherever one seems to go and to use the idea to help loosen the mind's grasp or grip onto these concepts. And so it's just like a loosening of these concepts, a slight detachment little by little and it seems to happen in segments just little by little. So that in the ultimate sense when you carry it out and you hold pieces of your goal, you will begin to detach from the ways of the world in the mind. There may be form changes in the seeming lifestyle on the screen as well but these will just be reflections from changes in the mind. It seems like there would almost have to be form changes that would just automatically follow from and unfold from the changes in the mind. That is the mind loosens up, the form would loosen up. And if you study the life of Jesus, whether it's in the Bible or the Orantia book for a much more detailed study, if you study the life of some of the Eastern saints, like a Mahir Baba or a Ramana Maharshi, if you study the life of Krishnamurti from early childhood on and everything, this is what you see. I mean, when we say study the life, I mean you can look at the form and you can look at what the body seemed to be doing but really when we're talking about life, we're talking about the mind. You can study the teachings of these wonderful teachers and you can hear them speak of the detachment, the Buddha talking about all grief comes from attachment. It's been around for centuries, the mystics have talked about this, that you can see in their life that we don't see Jesus having to deal with when He's on His public ministry with a boss telling him, you really need to do this. This is our business policy, our corporate policy. You don't see Krishnamurti having to deal with issues of his family or his mother saying, oh honey, I don't want you to do that and him feeling very distraught. I mean, these are beings that clearly begin to see that my mind is the cause of the dream world. I am not a helpless victim of circumstances and events and things that happen to me. And beyond that, I am not a part of the world. I am not in the world but the world is in my mind and I can choose to give the world in my mind these thoughts another purpose. I can choose to detach from the ego's purpose which is to use the world as to reinforce the conflict in the mind and to maintain the belief in separation or I can detach and forgive and overlook the appearances of the world. I'm the dreamer of the dream. I don't have to answer to the dream figures because I hear only one voice. I hear the voice for God. The wisdom is really the recognition of who I am. Yes, there's great power in that recognition. Defenselessness and strength go together. Innocence and strength are attributes in the metaphysical perspective that go together. This is not so in the world that one who is defenseless or harmless is seen to be a pushover or is seen to be one that will be just mowed over by the world and a wimp victimized by this mighty external world. But to the saint, the mystic sees of course that the world is not this external thing and that I am not this little body in this giant external world, but as a matter of fact this body and the other bodies and the world itself are simply projections and there is no fear of projections in a healed mind. So it's a matter of being practical. This can seem very deep. This can seem very metaphysical. I assure you that as you continue on and you continue to step one step in front of the other and to follow the voice within and apply the principles that this will seem very natural, that there isn't a sense of the people pleasing and the co-dependencies and so on and so forth of mind that's very insecure about its own identity and needs these externals to so-called to prop it up or to build up its esteem are no longer necessary. That all true self-esteem and self-worth comes from remembering one's true identity as spirit and disidentifying from all the projections in the external world. Seeing the blocks for what they are and simply withdrawing belief from them, withdrawing investment and it's really that simple. One thing we could go into is the whole concept of sacrifice. Actually I guess it's kind of a misconcept of sacrifice. Say something about that. Well to a deceived mind that believes in the world, the world is obviously something. It's something important. It has existence and it has importance and if we get back to our ordering of thoughts or hierarchy of illusions discussion that there are elements particularly of the perceived world that have more importance than others and anything that is a projection that has value to the mind it would be perceived as a sacrifice to let something of value go. It's only the awareness of the lack of value of something, of the nothingness of some projection or something that completely eliminates the idea of sacrifice. The sacrifice comes in in the placing value in idols. And then feeling like that has to be forfeited for some reason. Yes. Probably, well I guess it's always for the purpose of getting something that's considered more valuable than what you're willing to forfeit to have that. Yes, but the idol is seen as having more value than this hypothetical thing called salvation or redemption or yeah, peace is a nice idea, it's a utopian idea. Having faith, in a sense, blind faith in something unseen like God or the Holy Spirit or so on and so forth then you know the mind is still afraid of this light, is still uncertain about the Spirit and it's like the form, the concrete has become familiar and comfortable to it and it's more comforting to it at times it believes to cling to the old, familiar, comfortable than to what it thinks of the risk opening up to something that is very unsure about and uncertain. So obviously hand in hand with laying aside the belief.