 It's so, there's such a high charge of judgment or negativity or just this feeling of wrongness that there was somebody who was wronged or it's just plain wrong and then the mind just kind of goes into this state where it just feels like that forgiveness would be like glossing over something, like over something that was really a crime or really a real offense. So in the workbook of A Course in Miracles Jesus says, your one remaining difficulty is that you believe that you must forgive what is true and real, that you must forgive the true. And when you first read it it's like, what was he talking about you know? And yet he works it into, well actually the truth is true and only the truth is true. It almost sounds like you're back in kindergarten and he's giving you this ABC stuff. What's this? The truth is true and only the truth is true. So he breaks it down. He says, the first part of the statement, the truth is true is real and you have to accept the second part of the statement for the first part to be true. You can't have exceptions and for the truth to be true. The truth is true and only the truth is true. So with difficulties with forgiveness in particular situations like there's a grievance over a particular situation it's like the mind has just adopted a stance where it's saying, oh no, this really happened. There was a real mistreatment that occurred, a real abuse or whatever, a real crime and so on and so forth. And the mind gets just locked into this fixed position where it's like saying, no I will not budge on this particular situation. It could have been different, it could have been better or there needs to be, someone's got to have to make amends. I'm not going to take the first step. They're going to have to, they're going to have to call me, contact me, they're going to have to forgive me before I forgive or it could be any one of those kind of things but it's just the basic lesson where the mind still has made a hierarchy of illusions and therefore denied that they're all equally the same illusion and then it's in this hierarchy it's made some as very negative illusions or unforgivable illusions or whatever, some that it's kind of indifferent about and some that it's like, oh yeah, I can I can let those go and the teachings are that there's no order of difficulty in miracles and there's no hierarchy of illusions that they're all the same and that's why with Jesus it didn't matter whether somebody you know seemed to be blind or deaf or have you know leprosy or they seem to be dead like with Lazarus kind of severe form of sickness, oh he's dead, he's unavailable, he's been in the grave for three days and he's got his grave clothes on and he smells for the high heavens, he's deader than in death, no order of difficulty in miracles, Lazarus come forth you know it's like that's a pretty extreme teaching example actually but that was showing again that it's like with the power of God nothing's impossible you know or if God is with us who can be against us is kind of the way that it was said in the Bible so so those are more extreme cases but but yet like you're saying Sue you come back to okay what do I have what's on my plate to practice with you know I'll tell you a story about the people that brought the course, Helen Shuckman and Bill Thetford, one of the original four is a friend of mine, Judy Scotch and she told me about the day that Bill Thetford made his transition or seemed to leave this earth, he was one of the first two course and miracle students on the planet, Helen and him, they went along taking down the notes and you know doing this shorthand and getting taking down the course and Jesus kind of at some point after they'd done a number of chapters Jesus you have to study the notes oh study the notes oh yeah it's like you ask for a better way you ask for another way study the notes so Bill did he he actually became quite a demonstration is over the years after he retired from his profession and really worked with the course but uh Judy was telling me Judy Scotch was saying that she had invited Jerry Gimpulski and and Bill to come up for lunch and Bill was down in Southern California La Jolla or San Diego so they were supposed to be up there like around noon for lunch and she prepared the meal she was all ready for him and everything and noon time came they weren't there she was very angry one o'clock came two o'clock three o'clock four o'clock she was furious she had prepared this meal and they were probably just having a bunch of holy encounters having a ball together coming up the coast of California but by the time they finally got there and whatever it was she said late afternoon she was so angry she said she heard heard one of them coming up and it was Jerry Gimpulski he came in you know first and she's like where have you been do you see a table over there you know I've prepared lunch and you you guys are more than late you know and didn't call and this and she said and where's Bill and Jerry said well he's coming up the steps behind me but he is so happy and high that it's I don't know if you'll he'll he can hardly keep his feet on the ground he's like Fred Astaire you know with Ginger Rogers just dancing around and so she was like ah so when he came in the door she kind of had her hands ready like this like just in strangle mode like really to get him she was really angry at it and but he was like all over the room because he was so happy he was just telling about his miracles and dancing around the room she was like following around she's but you can't stay angry that somebody is just in pure joy and how do you stay angry at somebody's just joy so then Bill finally after they had their meal and everything you know Bill said well I have forgiven my last relationship and she's like you know like I know you I know you intimately she knew all of his grievances they talked about them all all of them maybe I don't know how many just bunches of them and so he insisted that he had forgiven his last relationships and she saw I'm gonna go down one by one and see every single one because she knew them all what about this one no no it's that he would tell the story about this one and it ticked off all of his relationships and she knew that there was like the ace in the hole there was one that it was a woman that he had loved when he was much younger that was unrequited love that she never seemed to love him back and he was always heartbroken about her and that was kind of like the thorn the one situation that was always down there for him so when she got through all the rest she went ah but what about her and you know I brought her up and he said well you know I called her up you called her yes and I invited her we went out we shared a weekend you met with her yes and well we just laughed and it was oh I could see it was all my own faulty perception of her she was flabbergasted that he had forgiven his last relationship she was just struck and then the next morning they were supposed to go to some kind of conference together and it was a beautiful sunny day and he just said he was gonna walk he wanted to walk instead and she said don't be ridiculous you know it's a good pretty good distance and you can ride with me in my car and he insisted and he went off walking in the sunshine and they found that he had laid his body aside right next to the sidewalk on the grass on the on the route that was his transition the body gently laid aside like taking off a sweater or something you know which is a very powerful story you know even for students of the course of miracles that that you know he just basically put it into practice and he had to face that situation where he was making the exception and then finally just go no I can't be that this has the power to hold me back from my goal and so you know it's like you just open to it and then through circumstances or there's always a way that's that's something happens it gives you that opportunity to kind of see the lesson you know to to really feel the love and the joy and the connectedness that was just covered over by the grievance because the grievance was just another ego perception that was just waiting to be released you know there was no there was no salinity to it it was not really what it seemed it just seemed to be solid but it was just another grain of sand there was something in the news about a month ago a month and a half ago you probably heard about it in the case in Austria where a father had imprisoned his daughter yes and they had so she had seven children because and that's hard to forgive I mean I can say I can glibly say oh I forgive that but doing it in here is I think it's beyond me and I don't see how Jesus could forgive that forgive that even yeah I remember when I was at Germany they were talking about that that case and they said oh they put it on the news it's like it's everywhere this man's face and you know and this and this and this and it seemed to stir up a lot of things for a lot of people there was a time where Jesus was talking with Helen and basically I think Helen had a huge resistance to forgiving something and basically it seemed like a mountain like she came up to this solid almost like a mountain of granite that was in front of her and looking to go up over the mountain just seemed impossible and even to walk around the mountain it just seemed like a huge mountain and Jesus basically said come and take my hand and we'll go through the mountain you know almost like just pierced through it it seems very solid but yet it's just as flimsy as all the other illusions it will it will fade away we can pass right through it if we're joined together it's kind of the symbol of being joined and and I definitely have had that I've had three revelatory experiences in my life where I was doing eye gazing and the figure of ground the three-dimensionality collapsed and then this like where the figure would be the outline this blazing light started to pour through and then the whole world just completely disappeared into that light it was like three very very direct experiences of how flimsy this this little film is it's like a movie it's very very thin and yet it just seems when your mind is in kind of really deep into into the belief it just feels like it's solid and and the characters seem very real in it another time I had a friend who was like in in Florida who he was married and they were married couple and their daughter I think she was adopted or she was the daughter of his wife that he had married but still his daughter had been murdered and that they had caught the man and they he went through a trial was put into prison and my friend Jap he he basically he had had a Corsair Miracle Center that he founded in her is his daughter's name Lauren Quinn Center and he'd he'd hosted attitude new healing sessions Corsair Miracle sessions for years in this center that was named after his daughter had been murdered and then at some point he was guided to go to the prison where the man was and face the man and then the Spirit said to him now I want you to I want Jap I want you to write a book and I want you to ask this man to do the illustrations because the man was very artistic to put the illustrations in the book about forgiveness the man that murdered his daughter and and he did he he ended up inviting the man the man drew the illustrations and it was such a symbol of healing and forgiveness you know in his life so I actually did a gathering once or twice I think down there in the Lauren Quinn Center actually in the center named after the daughter but that was years ago that was probably in the maybe on 1992 quite a number of years ago so I went back probably 20 or maybe about 10 over 10 years later the center was gone I went to visit Jap and with all the healing Corsair Miracles for giving the man who murdered his daughter all this and that that had happened I met him and his wife had met another man a younger man and had moved off to Greece and when I walked in this time on him he was he was like I can't believe it all these years I've worked for the Corsair Miracles I feel angry I feel resentful I feel jealous you know I feel hurt I feel victimized you know and after all the healing that I've gone through it's almost like I've gone nowhere David I just the rage is there it was like somebody had stabbed him in the heart with a with a dagger and was emotionally he'd been married to her for 32 years and they'd gone through all that together and then she married she went off to to Greece with this younger man it was like somebody was turning the dagger in his heart so he looked at me and I said I said oh Jap I said he said what what do you have to tell me I said well first of all people are not people first of all I told him that I said she still loves you after everything you've been through to think that somebody can just walk out of your life they don't love you that's that's not the truth at all she still loves you and second of all people are not people people just represent our thoughts and so I said so all your wife was doing was representing your thoughts nothing more than that so I said tell me some more well he was about 10 years older than her he was starting to wrinkle and she was getting facelifts and you know a nip attack here I said ah she was just acting out your fear of aging that's all it was and and then going off to be with the younger and I said all it was perfect you see I was all I could he was just like oh my god give me that dagger you know let's get let's get busy here we got we got some joy to find so it's like so she was just acting it out people are just thoughts they really aren't real people they just reflect thoughts in our consciousness so your fear of aging and your fear of death she acted out and and then I said and what happened to her and he said what I said she moved to Greece like she like she left you aware I said that's a sign you know a beautiful sign your fear of aging and your fear of death moved away you know he was like looking at me like oh my god like just giving him a little reinterpretation here I got that dagger out and then I said it's like you know what is it that you feel so sad about he says well it's like I'm lonely I thought we would just be growing old and white together like on golden pond you know movie and we would just be in the rocking chairs watching the sunset over the lake just together and everything and this just shattered my picture of of my retired life with my soulmate and everything and I said yeah I said but I said you know he said and I'm lonely in this house it has all these memories and this and this I said yeah I don't know that you need such a big house all by yourself and he was getting all concerned about having to go back to work and how he would manage financially I said yeah I think you maybe you just need to lighten up so he said yeah I think maybe I could sell the house so I went off for a walk and I met two people on a walk that were like looking for a house and I came back I mean I moved quick with the boys get the knife out and let's move forward in a hurry let's get get the wound healed and so he was like whoa and I said yeah they're interested in the house you might want to talk to him and then he said he had this had happened a little while ago so he had this woman that he was kind of interested in I said well we should have a big gathering here at your house while you've still got your house and so having done this healing center he knew all these people but he hadn't been in touch with any of them so me and his new friend he called his girlfriend and they called all these different people we had this big gathering in this big house happiness joy beaming faces photographs his his son came you know all his family members came it just we just lit that place up you know like a big celebration and everything I said here how's that handle your loneliness he's like whoa like how few miracles there like we had the whole place and then he was like hmm well but I don't know what I'm going to do with my time and I said well what what kind of things have you always wanted to do but you never really gave yourself the opportunity to do and he said well I I I do like to write and he said I have written some fiction stories short stories and so he showed me one of them and it was a total miraculous story about a it was about a casino and there was this character it was like the Holy Spirit character there was helping them all get out of their addictions to money and greed and everything and helping them it was it was like a parable he writes these fiction stories that are really like parables for awakening but he never published them which I got the book or got one of them put it on the web for him and you know he just he loved to do that and he had a great skill for that but he just had never given himself permission to do it I said oh you have great ability for this you should do more of this so I was there a few more days he started to get more interested in this girlfriend and she came he was there at the party and everything since then he's married her so you know his fulfillment he just continued on in life he didn't like get really sad and just go into the grave with how his soulmate left him and this and that and at the very end I said he was I think from Mississippi a southern part of the United States and he had a southern draw and I looked at him one day and I said what is it if you could do anything with your life what is it that you would do and he looked at me he's probably I guess at the time in the 70s with his face starting to wrinkle up and he just said in his slow southern Mississippi draw go fishing go fishing he wanted to go fishing and I went that's your meditation he just wanted to put the the boots on and the rubber things you know him and a group of buddies just go out there and they just stand in the stream let the stream roll by just out there losing track of time and space that's his meditation he didn't have to be in yoga postures and work on his breathing and all this stuff that was his meditation to go fishing and so I said you should do that you really should but that was just an example again about how for him he he had gone through so much forgiveness but he was beating himself up because of this hatred and this anger and jealousy and envy that came up with this situation but again it was like no no no no no no let's let's not go there you know you've come too far I'm joining with you now to look at at the blessing of this even though it doesn't seem like a blessing and right now it will end from this higher perspective you know you'll be able to see it and what joy it is for me to be able to go with to meet with people who I have people sometimes they call me and they're crying when they call me and they're laughing 10 minutes later it's just it's totally miraculous we've had some of those conversations even so you know the power of the miracle when you can have such a turnaround from what seems to be such a dark state where everything feels like the world is closing in on you to just popping through like you pierce through the clouds and you're back in the sunshine again and and the more we teach it the more we let the miracle just extend through us then of course we become very convinced that if everything is love and a call for love and we learn to recognize the calls for love instead of perceiving them as a tax we actually see them as calls for love we let the love pour through us as an answer to the call for love and then you can't extend something that you don't already have I mean that's how the Holy Spirit convinces us that we are love is by extending love through us over and over it washes away the ego it washes away every kind of limitation that we have every unworthy thought that we've ever had about ourselves just gets washed away over and over you know we keep teaching what we would learn just to keep gently just let it happen or have a break so if there's any more questions you'd like to hear it over we started the thing that we the vision board and it's funny when you're saying about cracking the opening and seeing the light because it was actually a conversation that we had we'd started to do these visuals just aboard and at the beginning we just said we'd pick images that made us feel good and you know it was interesting because a few of us did it together in a kind of a fun arrangement at the house and we said we'd all put our own ideas together and the interesting thing was one of the people had four things on their board or maybe five and they were very specific exactly detailed and then some of us had loads and loads and loads and loads and loads of little images and there were all kinds of different things that were from scenery to things that we saw as beauty or joyous or laughter or people jumping for joy or big smiles and there was a couple of fun ones all right and a bit of fashion in there as well and we were actually having this bit of a debate afterwards to say because it was so many different interpretations I have to say my own was very busy lots and lots of different images and we were questioning ourselves as to would it have been the right decision now there is not obviously no right or wrong but would it have served us better to have had five images that were very very clear or was it actually better to have loads of different things that just made you feel good and talking about the cracking over the head we sat down afterward we did it and the following day he says you know actually because you spent all this time and merged in all these fun things that you absolutely loved it felt like something had cracked open and the light had come in so we were having this debate anyway amongst us so you can see the light on it but we were delighted to take sides and go back and tell how wrong they were yeah the cracking open because it's like it's kind of how it goes where where you go for goals and aims in this world and and there seems to be some fulfillment it's definitely part of a training of the mind seemingly to just practice clearing and opening to feelings of joy and happiness but the forms the specific forms whether there seems to be many or even a few but the forms are always the bringers of the answer to prayer that in the sense of using symbols that are still meaningful to the perceiver so that's why some people see you know angels or the mother Mary appear in in India it might be you know an elephant or a goat or something like this it's something completely different but so the prayer is like the the specific forms are the bringers in form to the emotional experience that the mind is asking for and so that's important once you begin to see that you see that that's always whatever you seem to experience in this world is always answering the prayer of the heart or you know how it's that God God knows the prayer of your heart before a word is spoken before you even utter the words and say I want this or please help me with this or that and this is good because you can clear on cause and effect that you start to see that the images and the objects whether there's a few of them or a lot of them are are part of this tapestry of images and symbols that the Spirit is using to lead you to guide you to that innermost spot in your heart which is just pure joy and happiness and contentment it's like step by step using the symbols to take you in deeper beyond the symbols so in that context you can understand everything much more clearly that whenever we pray for specifics which like in the the movie the secret and the vision boards and so forth when people had a lot of symbols of getting exactly the house they had envisioned or exactly the partners so forth but whenever you do this imaginary thing where you're trying to imagine they imagine something that you want it's still looking at the script and saying out of all of these possibilities I want to focus in on or narrow down on this particular object or outcome or event that I really want to draw into my awareness whereas the deeper you go spiritually you start to realize that that the script is written and that the idea of trying to pick out a specific thing that you want is like picking something out of the past and drawing it out and focusing on it saying I want to have this again in the future which actually maintains the wheel of imaginary time and Krishna Murthy was probably one of the great beings of our of the recent century who who talked about that whenever you desire something specifically you like you're anticipating it and you're wanting it to come forward into your awareness in the future and that's how the time the movement of time unfolds is wanting the past to be repeated in some way that is desirable thinking of course you know what's best and what is most desirable so that's how the perpetuation of time goes on and eventually you start like with my friend Les you know you start getting more and more to the sense of okay I want the state of mind that's what's my I'm going to use the power of my mind for I want a state of peace or joy or freedom or happiness or however you think enough the more when we began the process which was selecting the images versus placing the images actually onto the board there was a huge shift because you started off with loads and loads of things that were maybe more about material items and actually when it came to putting the things on the board there were more about feelings experiences you know like you might have an image of a person on a mountain you know with the clouds and the expansiveness and that would attract you more than you know when I actually came down to it we started with loads of photographs of things and they're the things that ended up getting shifted there was a couple of things but it was much more about the actual experience and the freedom and the sensation of joy and the sharing and the that type of thing was more poignant when it came to actually making a decision about placing this it was quite an interesting process in itself between where it began and where it finished and now it's just a pretty thing to look at you know now it's just something that actually you get a bit of joy of looking at and if you're in a moment of disturbance with yourself or out of alignment with yourself when you look at it in one of the images that I had that's central which is interesting because when we placed them we did it quite quickly because the kids were coming in and there was pictures everywhere and glue and glitter and we're thinking the kids are going to have a field day and it was quite quick but I noticed that the hand there's a beautiful hand which looks like a spiritual image that's in the center of the board and the actual layout of it is quite miraculous when you look at it as a whole because it never was never originally in my head that that was it was going to be a process of choice but it ended up being something completely different but now it's just something when you're having those moments you look at it you think that really gives me a lovely feeling it makes me feel good and it doesn't give me because there's not all this material stuff it doesn't give me any of that jarring of oh I haven't achieved this or there's none of that experience look at it it's more about oh it feels good to look at this it has a a nice calming effect yeah like a reminder of the experience and a reminder of what I'm chasing you know not what I'm choosing so that if there's something that's out of balance it's like hey this is what I'm choosing this makes me feel good this is where I'm going to continue to you know follow in that but it was a fun and interesting experience and everyone and doing it together as a group made it a lot of laughs you know it was a lot of fun yeah yeah it's beautiful beautiful example and it does seem that people open up and progress I know I just recently heard that they for decades they've been surveying Americans on what's what their top priority is and it's always been one answer money money money money and this year they said for the first time something took the number one spot away from money the first time in decades free time free time just the sound of it you know freedom to use time in a helpful way you know it's like a movement away from this kind of obsession with material things and getting and so forth so you know it's those are all just symbols of like spiritual evolution where oh yeah we've tried we've tried it with a lot of the toys and everything and now you know we're getting we're getting zooming in to to what's really meaningful what's really truly valuable what we want to you know hold on to and our awareness I think Jesus said with all that getting get understanding yeah if you understand yeah yeah peace and understanding Jesus says peace and understanding go together and cannot be found apart so so it's not the understanding of the world in terms of how things work or analytical understanding but but that wisdom you know that wisdom that's that's in our hearts it's all knowing this knows all the answers and has always known them that's where we find the peace it's like you you really do start to just let go yield away all those associations of what you think you know what anything means and I've had so many of those experiences it seems more and more surreal or feel very lighthearted but but you just don't value and hold on to those old meanings anymore you just your mind's making way for the new like Jesus says you know you can't put you know new wine into old wineskins you can't keep using these old paradigms and judgments and categories that have been around for centuries if we're going to really experience consistent joy so the the old just seems to fall away even with relationships I mean I think you know we've always thought of relationships in terms of bodies frequency of contact people will say yes but how much quality time do we spend together you know those have been kind of our barometers but now it's like the mankind and the whole human race is ready for an evolution into what Jesus calls holy relationship which is all based on giving and extending and it's not based on getting or owning or possessing it's not it's not like a co-dependency it's dependency on God for everything where you fall in love with God and then therefore you fall in love with with everyone based on that and it's a very different way of of looking and perceiving it's like like there's a there's a family therapist in the United States named John Bradshaw and he he did he drew it out one time as a mathematical equation which was on the blackboard one half plus one half equals one that's kind of the old paradigm you know find your other half find your soulmate find the one that will complete you will give you that one that wholeness and John Bradshaw said well the only problem is it's not a plus sign in the equation it's a multiplication sign one half times one half equals one fourth you feel you feel worse than ever in that kind of paradigm you feel like you're lacking now you feel dependent shaky unworthy you know you don't have stability so he he said it is a multiplication sign but then he he erased it and he put in one times one equals one you've got to come from a state of wholeness you've got to come from a state of knowing that you're loved and connected that you have all this love to give and share then you meet a partner who reflects that and you both come from a place of giving and sharing not give and take or you know trying to balance things out you know as if we both have to work hard and we both have to make the best of this and this and that to more of just coming from a place of wholeness and seeing that wholeness reflected around you so I think you know of all places that's really where the paradigm shift from the ego's use of setting this world up on specialness and trying to find fulfillment and special love Jesus spends nine chapters in the book talking about special hate relationships and special love relationships and there's no topic that gets more words or more attention than that of relationships so it's like in traditional spirituality it was like emphasizing meditation and service perhaps now Jesus is saying okay we can bring relationships into the realm of spirituality but you need careful training because the ego wants to use the relationships for its purposes to keep you sleeping to keep you guilty you know to keep you feeling like you you gave and you gave and you gave and never got anything back there must have been something faulty going on in your mind because giving and receiving are the same so if you feel like you gave and gave and didn't receive what you were giving it's not the partner's fault it's the perception it's it's what's going on in your mind that has you still looking to receive something and if you look at the prayers of Saint Francis and Mother Teresa and so forth there's always an emphasis on the giving and the extending you know make me an instrument of your peace you know I want to love rather than to be loved you know instead of looking to be loved looking for a partner or for people to adore you and love you and this and that to get into the the giving aspect of just for the joy of it just giving giving giving like the flower gives its fragrance you know it doesn't tell the wind where to blow the fragrance blow it to that cow but not to that goat or you know it doesn't it doesn't tell the wind how to use the gift it just gives the gift and lets the wind carry you know to wherever and I think that's just in human relationships that's just a very new kind of concept because it's like oh no I will direct the fragrance to where it's to go and you know and there's a lot of expectations that come in with that and people can feel quite locked in in that way so sometimes a goat gets frightened you know it's like why are we why are these things coming to earth yeah yeah that's what I've seen in in that you know when I've tried to demonstrate in my life that kind of love and give me the freaked out nature sometimes people accept things and they're they're quite delighted and then they're just wondering what's the catch yeah yeah you know yeah and maybe sometimes with me maybe there is a catch maybe I am trying to get something but a lot of the times I wasn't but they still were wondering yeah and that time showed them that there wasn't but yeah it was interesting again yeah it's quite a it's quite an art in the sense of Gary Fromm wrote a book years ago the art of loving it's like because the spirit knows what's best in every situation we're back to that inner listening and being tuned into the spirit because until unless you're tuned in then yeah sometimes the most you can offer someone is like a smile I mean that's an absolute maximum if you go beyond a smile you go over to have them they're like rigid like there's too much fear and that's why it's so important to become more and more intuitive because the spirit knows what is best in every situation when the ego tries to get in there and and oh I know what's best here then it's you get mixed results oh yeah very funny yeah we've got a sort of philosophy like in Freemason which is based on something that Charles Lamb had said do good do good by stealth and be found out by accident and a lot of people actually find that quite difficult to cope with give example I mean I know my thing is I like to sort of leave a coach on people's desks and not tell them I don't know anything like that but a friend of mine said no I've got them the same way and I was like why how does that make that act any better for you because you've received gratitude back if you don't if you don't for the right reasons you don't need gratitude all right that's exactly the same thing I think yeah yeah it's very much like the bible about don't let the left hand know what the right hand's doing I mean it's it's the same principle or I think in twelfth step programs they they emphasize anonymous and anonymity because the ego just wants to jump on to this idea of giving oh yeah and then giving for for recognition for attention you know it will just bring in a whole bunch of other motives or the giving in fact I I participated years ago in a in a project called uh it was like a crisp the holiday project or whatever which was the slogan was you are the gift so even though we would go to nursing homes and in the hospitals and so on and so forth to sit and talk with people or to bring them cookies or take animals in for them to to pet or whatever it was like the slogan was always remember you are the gift who you are your state of mind that you share is the gift it's not in whatever you're doing don't get caught up in the task and I kept hearing that from the Holy Spirit all along it would be like David it's the the message is important not the messenger and uh so when I first was starting to do this and and the miracles were pouring through me a friend of mine wanted me to speak at a big national course of miracles conference in the United States and the director man setting the whole thing up said could you send a resume and some people around me were like laughing they were going resume you don't even have a resume and he said could you send a photo they said you use all your photos for healing you don't even have any photos hanging around uh and when I did put something together just to send off to him uh to answer his his request it got lost in the mail yeah it was like uh and and the spirit said I reminded me again they said the spirit said you will not have a spiritual career uh that was what I was told again I would not sell anything and I will not have a spiritual career almost like you've done that before do you want to wake up or are you going to go back to this thing again so even the game of writing books and doing publicity and you know flying around and blah blah doing talk shows and this and this and this it's very sneaky you can it can turn into a profession again and before you know it you've got you've got something to do an image to maintain uh something that's got to be protected uh something that's expected of you or that you expect others you know I've heard people say well I can't come there unless I've there's 50 people there or I can't come without sufficient numbers and this and that that's that's when you're getting into a spiritual career you know the egos just hopped right on the old spiritual journey and said great let's turn it into a career and you know and and for me one time I was asked to write an article for a magazine called on course which was had a wide distribution of Course in Miracles magazine and the man my friend John Mundy who was the editor said write a write an article please and then send in a photograph again and my friend said you don't have photographs you use them all in your healing process of bringing up all your intensity and and then you just threw them all away once once they actually didn't have a charge on any of the photographs it's like no purpose for them anymore and I said I know somebody snapped a picture of me and my friend Beverly when we were hopping in a car in front of before one of our trips so I sent that photo in and it just came out as figure ground black and white in the magazine you couldn't see the facial expressions you know exactly there was nothing there you couldn't see eyes or nose or anything and again the spirit is like the message the message the article was fine it was just bigger ground you know and I was you know this was early on when I was just working with the course so it was like the spirit was like giving me very strong messages like do not go down these destructive roads truth is simple and you want this experience of it and truth doesn't involve numbers it's not about reaching a threshold of so many people in the world believing something a certain way he said no no truth is here and now treats the truth as an experience that you can open up and have right now you don't have to wait until you cross a threshold or something in the future oh yeah yeah that's the punch line alive and my dad we don't have to think like that anymore it wasn't matter but the answer to me well from the ego's perspective I mean the little child was like the two no no not that bit her and him and I was like sit back into the same but he died instead he went you know if he'd gone and not for guilty that she died I just didn't see a lot like that it's fantastic well that's true there isn't no longer than that except for Solaris yeah Salah the fire was loving yeah humans no the plan was giving the opportunity for the humans but I didn't know that they resolved and think for themselves it didn't feel that way well I mentioned that at the very beginning about him he's chopping chopping chopping and he cuts his finger yeah it was huge so it that scene did come around again where he's chopping chopping chopping he he seems to cut his finger but there's no no blood which was kind of just a little symbol but if it ended there then that would have been fine but why did she came in and like no you genuinely didn't get except for Hollywood you see changing something to make it well she had to deliver her lines that's my point though he was forgiven in the healing yeah but is it because oh people might get that let's have a walk at the end of the stage seriously because I studied I don't need that what's that about I've done that I chop off ends of films too and it reaches the crescendo this is where the juicers came in and said they will get that are we filming the ending they do partially reviews where they bring it shows people when people were tapping up watching this film would change the ending all the time but everything is forgiven that was just so she could deliver her line everything is forgiven in other words it's all it's all forgiven and then we don't have to think like that anymore in other words this still is one trailer or question am I dead am I alive you know but but birth and death are inventions of the ego yeah the ego made up the the realm of time and space it made up the bodies it invented birth it invented death and I was sharing a breakfast the course says the ego will pursue you beyond the grave you can't just die it's like those freddy kruger movies you know that keep coming back and threatening and threatening you know you can't it's never going to stop until you see that silly that that love is all that there is and there could never be an ego that could tell you to be something that you're not you know you can never take it seriously that that there's anything other than love so I that's what I thought was nice about you know we don't have to think like that anymore but but in order to not think like that you just have to give up everything you think you know about everything in the world you know nothing birth and death and bodies and growth and even our concepts of spirituality you know reincarnation that's got to go eventually and then I tell people the course has got to go you've you've got to get to a point where you go look at the course and you go okay out with that too because the truths can't be explained or described it's just it's an experience that's beyond the words and the words are just set almost like a like one of those trampolines that you can just go boing and jump on and then go springing springing beyond them to the to the point where you don't need the words anymore and it does say that in lesson 189 forget this world forget this course and come with open arms unto your God you know it's just a beautiful invitation to go beyond the the symbols and beyond the words and even when we talk about it it's like a holy scripture you know it's like well let's remember he says words are but symbols of symbols twice removed from reality oh that's a good clue about how putting words in their place no matter how poetic and how beautiful they are they're symbols of symbols twice removed from reality so they're they're concrete symbols that represent thoughts which are still symbols which are still twice removed you know it's it's once removed from reality because reality is abstract it doesn't have any form there's no specifics in reality it's just pure love so that's why we're we're using the specifics but we also keep in mind I look forward to the day when I can just say okay thank you book you've served me very well now I can can just shine my light and be the truth not you know have to quote it or anything like that you see yesterday when I said about your own reality you had a different words but I something about your own illusion project your own illusion yeah that's great because then you can enjoy all the stuff with the secret and and you know the Abraham material and on and on there's so much stuff but with but it's kind of more of a catchphrase now it's almost like the next step in human evolution is you create your own reality and then beyond that is oh I projected my own illusion and thank God that there's something greater than the illusion it's waiting for me it's actually instead of me seeking love it's nice to think of it as love is seeking me wow love is seeking me and I know that what it seeks is what it finds loves on a sea commission and it's going to find you and there's nothing you can do you can play hide and seek if you want in time and space but but love is too powerful it's it's it's the only reality there is and it will find you and in the end it's almost like isn't that fun even when you're dating you know when you're being pursued isn't it fun to be copped okay you can have me then imagine that that's what's going on the love is seeking you and finally you go all right you got me I'm yours you know that was a Kenny Loggins song he Kenny Loggins did a song called forever and the very end of the song is always thought I'd be I'd be yours and then the song just goes higher and higher and ends with this glorious crescendo but forever in my life always thought I'd be I'd be yours which is really a song to God kind of saying in the end I'm yours you created me I'm yours and I could never be anything other than yours and it's like that true loyalty in this world you know there's so much about interpersonal loyalty you know our fidelity loyalty trust but those are all just practice grounds for really being loyal to God and how would you be loyal to God but except being happy that God created you happy then the best way to be loyal is to be happy and it's so simple to think oh my God that's what God's will for me is perfect happiness not created me to be happy and when I'm happy I'm honoring God by saying thank you for creating me happy and so it's just that the ego is so frightened of that love that it makes up its own versions of happiness like happiness games but when you follow the games you're never happy I mean they're they're called happiness games but but they don't really make you happy once you have achieved the goal of the happiness game in the world or you think you've got there there's always something back there going maybe I could be more happy which means that it can't be true happiness because you could never be more happy than than you were created that would be impossible so it's just like we try fame and fortune and money and possessions we try interpersonal relationships and children and and even setting up healing centers and and somebody asked me one time well if you're so awake and happy and joyful enlightened how how many enlightened students do you have like I want to quantify enlightenment like five ten fifteen you know what's your quota what have you produced you know how many happy teachers have you produced if you're so happy and I said well it's just it's all one mind it's not really quantifiable in terms of that you know and it goes past all this stuff for centuries about disciples and devotees it's just a state of mind persons don't get enlightened you may think about Buddha or Krishna or Jesus or this and this but but but if you take person personality persona you follow it back to the Latin persona is mask how can you have an enlightened mask I mean that makes no sense to me Buddha was enlightened Jesus was enlightened even you'd have to go beyond the traditional teachings that would say that there's human beings that reached the stage of enlightenment when it's actually the mask never reaches the state of enlightenment and people have been talking now for centuries about the second coming of Christ when is Jesus going to come back they were all excited in the first century it's close he said the kingdom of heaven is in hand first century no second century no third century it's in hand it's in hand no four six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve st. Francis it's the kingdom of heaven it's close 13 14 15 16 you know it's when you forgive the world and you wake up and you see that you are the Christ that's the second coming of Christ it's not that some man is going to come back with long hair and blue eyes and walk on water or walk on the clouds and say come up here with me I will rescue you from the world like some people believe you know they just kind of lift people up in the rapture they'll be sowing or knitting or out in the fields all of a sudden their bodies will just start to go up thank you how many centuries does it take 495 well I'm happy and we but you know it's not going to be like the body is just raising up into the sky it's like you've got to forgive the world do your inner work and accept yourself as the living Christ and then that's the second coming of Christ there really is no first or second but in those terms wouldn't that be of course the second coming of Christ is when when you realize it for yourself that you're the one that's the story of the matrix you are the one you know Neo you rearrange the Neo letters you get one which is what Morpheus his teacher was telling him you're the one and that's what Jesus is telling us in the course you are the living Christ and you've just forgotten it you fall asleep and you're wearing a mask and you're playing small when you're shoot you're vast beyond comparison your magnitude absolute magnitude created as magnitude as God created you so practically speaking I mean we were having an interesting discussion at the breakfast table because I was sharing a parable about I mean if you really want to go into the deepest realm you do have to get into this thing called hypotheticals all of history is hypothetical and all of the future is hypothetical and really we were talking yesterday that the present moment is the only time that there is but to human beings that just sounds very like wishful thinking like sentimentally that sounds good like wow I would love to have my state of mind know that the present moment is all that there is because practically speaking you would have no more problems if you knew that you live only in the present moment time couldn't touch you you know the ego could try to zap you with past guilt and it would be like having a shield where all these arrows come and you've got this armor on you got your present moment armor on all these arrows from the past come fire you clink clink clink clink they can't penetrate the armor then ego tries to fire future worries and concerns clink clink clink clink your armor is too strong because you're so in the present moment that the arrows from the past and the future can't penetrate the armor that's what akritali is talking about with the power of now you know if you really live in the now you are invulnerable invulnerable how's that for a word that describes yourself most people don't use that word even some throughout history might have stopped hitler might have thought he was invulnerable but it proved otherwise napoleon was marching up here through belgium where belgium is in waterloo nope sorry you're not going to rule the world you know the little man in the horse nope stop as far as you go you know in this world no there is no invulnerability in this world there's no person that's invulnerable and even the idea of power when we talk about power like like a president or a dictator or you know you think of eva perone or vita you think of presidents and kings and like rulers Caesar and you can go through history and everything I think we could look at something like well well is political power a really power of course not god didn't create political power there's nothing powerful about politics what about military power nuclear weapons now they're working on star wars shooting missiles out of the sky and and all kinds of high technology they invented some kind of a an invisible ray that they could fire that as human beings feel pain with now but it doesn't permanently harm them it just makes them yeah like it's like a gun that they fire to kind of break up rebellions or yeah you should use with potential rebellions or things like that it's like they keep coming up with new weapons inventing more and more weapons and but military power is an oxymoron too I mean people have always joked that military intelligence is an oxymoron you know that's always been the running joke that that's a contradiction in terms military intelligence but military power