 Well, if we say, why do we have the mind, or why do we have the ego, why is a question of purpose? What's the purpose? Really, what you're asking, what's the purpose of the ego? The purpose of the ego is F. It's a death wish, like Freud called it, called it fanatopes. Does it have any help for purpose? Does it have any purpose at all? Does the slightest fit good? No, it doesn't. It's a death wish. Pure and simple a death wish. It's not real, but if you believe in it, you make it real in awareness. It's not real. It doesn't have any reality. Sometimes people ask me, well, everything seems to have a source. So what was the source of the ego? Where did it come from? It's another version of why we have the ego. And I say it doesn't. It doesn't have a source. It's, you know, it's talk about a wild child or a bastard child. It has no source. And of course, because the source of all and the source of reality is love. And you don't get death from love. Death is not a creation of love. Love is life. Life is eternal. Life is spirit. And the ego made up a world where it invents birth and death. It invents time cycles. It invents gradations and degrees. But the ego has no purpose, no healing purpose, and the ego has no source. And with that, the next thing comes in is the only thing that this journey is about is unplugging from the ego, unplugging from the death wish. Because it has no purpose. Now why did this world come into existence? Sometimes we can listen to romantic songs and love songs and love makes the world go round. And you know, it's a wonderful world and all kinds of different things. It's not love that spins this world. This is a world that's a projection of fear and guilt and hatred and anger. And even if you look out at the natural world, you know, we can all get together and watch like the lion came, you know. In the circle, circle of life. You know, we can do our little cartoon things and everything, but actually when you come out into the jungle, what do you find? Wild pigs. You're making a pathway. The wild pigs knock the stones over. Or snakes and spiders and some of you might have years ago heard of this guy named Marlon Perkins who used to go around and film. He wasn't showing his lion came stuff. In the circle of life, it was chomp, chomp, chomp. You could title Marlon Perkins, this film's chomp, chomp, chomp. Everything's eating everything else. It's like a world of cannibalism, you know, everything's eating everything. And the stronger ones seem to survive a little longer. And chomp, they get chomped by something else. And the Islamic comes along and chomps a bunch of everything, you know. So basically, the hatred, the fear, the anger is what made this world and the spirit is here to reinterpret our perception of the world. It was made in hate, but love has the power to reinterpret it. And that's why we're working on perception, getting at a different interpretation of the world. Learning how to begin the world but not of it. How to see the world differently. How to perceive it differently is really what it's about. So it's a good question. I think that's one of those questions that have to be asked. You know, what is the purpose of the ego? Where did it come from? And then finally, I call that the number one question that I get asked. I've been doing this for 20 years. The question I get asked is, how did this happen in the first place? If God is such perfect love, if reality is just all love and oneness and happiness and joy and freedom, how did this happen in the first place? And there's a concept in the Course of Miracles called Atonement. And a synonym for the word Atonement, which sounds like a very religious term, a Christian term. A synonym for Atonement is Correction. So if this world is a seeming error, then the correction is the Atonement. And what is the Atonement? But the awareness that the separation never happened. Of course, that would have to be the solution. We all know this in our hearts. We know that the correction has to be that the separation is impossible. And so theologically, when Ego asked the question, how did this happen in the first place? Jesus says in the back of his book, he says, The Ego will ask many questions that this Course has no answer for. How did the impossible happen? To whom did the impossible happen? And many versions. But he does say, an experience will come that will end your doubting. He says there is an experience, an experience that is an experience that the separation never happened. It's just an experience of pure love in which there is no ego. Of course, if the ego is a denial of love, if it's a death wish, it can't have a reality. And in the end, when people ask me, why are you so happy all the time? You know, what is it? Is it your good bodily health? Is it because you got a lot of money in the bank? Good investments? Is it you got a great love life? Like what's that movie with Johnny Depp? Don Juan DeMarco? Is it what is the reason for your happiness? It's the Atonement. It's the correction. Of course, the correction would be what happiness is. And that's really all, of course, miracles. It's guiding us to the correction. In fact, there's a great line in the Course where Jesus says, this is a great line. He says, you are not responsible for the error. You are only responsible for accepting the correction for the error. Isn't that lovely? Can you see how that would free your mind of guilt? You're not responsible for the error. For whatever you think you did, or you didn't do, that you should have done. Whatever the error is, you are responsible for accepting the correction. He also goes on to say, do not attempt to project the error to the world, to the world of form. Every time we skate good, every time we blame, every time we point the finger, and we say, I would be happy if this hadn't happened, or if only I had done this, if only I was smart enough to realize to do this and that, I would be happy. He's saying, don't project the error to the world because you keep it by trying to project it away. By trying to get rid of it by projecting it, you actually are keeping your mind stuck in Quitsand. You're stuck in it, like flying on fly paper, you're stuck there. When you forgive it, when you release it from the side of you, you release it to the world, and you release the entire world with you. So that's why forgiveness works, when other attempts at trying to fix people, change people, change circumstances, make the world a better place. All of those things are destined to just be delayed when it was to the ultimate inner correction.