 Welcome. My name is Penelope Chatterton. Welcome to Awake in the Dream. My friends, I have a guest today. His name is David Hofmeister. I'm very excited today because we've had a chance to chat for a while before the show, and we've had a marvelous connection on a very deep spirit level. And I'm happy, and I'm happy to be here, and I feel very awake. And I set myself up for being quite asleep this week. I crashed in a scenario in my own life that I manifested. I just sort of plotted this one. I knew David would come and be in my life and help me feel very awake, and we could explain the simplicity of the real world. And I'm very grateful because I feel very healed. I see a contrast in particular this week as to where I was misinforming myself. So I want to share some of these symbols with you. But before David and I get started, I'd like to read a little bit from Lesson 66 from Accords and Miracles. My happiness and my function are one. Now, my friends, I'm going to scoot down here into what is a talisman just to get to the meat of this particular lesson so David and I can start talking about it. Now, listen carefully to what this has to say. God gives me only happiness. He has given my function to me. Therefore, my function must be happiness. One sentence, as you said, David leaves right into the next one. But the punchline is, are we ready to handle my function is only happiness. I think you and I are experiencing that today. I have felt very electric since I met you and you're the light. And you share my late husband's name, which I also thought there was no accident because a lot of my pain this week was over a death. And now I have a nice David here to share with me and to be awake with me and to help our friends talk about the real world. I want you to help us with a definition, a simple definition of what is the real world? What is the real world? Well, from what we just read, the happiness we could define, the real world would be happy. It would be instead of trying to, as we've done so much in the part of our conditioning, that we can get the right pieces of the puzzle or get things to work out the way that we want them to work out, it's more of a surrender into just a state of happiness where I would also say the word non-judgment really seems to come in there because we've been told by Jesus, judge not lest you be judged. And really it's about surrendering our judgments and that happiness, peace of mind, non-judgment, that is the state of mind of the real world. And that it's possible to live in it. In fact, it's very alluring. Yeah, it's very appealing. And we're there. Of course, a miracle tells us we're awake and we're home. There's no journey, there's no place to go. We don't have to do a 20-part series to show people how to wake up. But today we're hoping, and I'm hoping you can help me, to tell our friends how to be awake. And when you said the real world, can we talk about the basic premise that we are created? We're an extension of love and of God, that we have everything. And I feel like that can't be said enough, that that can go over our heads, we forget that so easily, we have everything. We're whole, we're perfect, we're healthy, we're perfect, we're intense energy, we were created by God, we're extensions, and we keep it alive by sharing it. Yes, that's the premise of what our existence is. We were created as an idea in the mind of God, which an idea in the mind of God would have to share the attributes of God. You hear a lot about God as love, but if we are children of God, if we were created in the likeness and image of God, then we must share the attributes. Eternal, perfect, changeless, these are the attributes. And also to be practical, because when people go through this world, they say, well, that can sound very high and very lovely, and la la la, and go around, and there have been praises, kind of connotations of bliss many, and so on and so forth, but we're talking about a real experience here, and an experience that is extremely simple, and it's only the complexities of the ego that make it seem out of grasp. Something like a spiritual attainment that you have to work hard, very hard to attain the state of enlightenment, whereas what we're looking at is that enlightenment, the real world, is upon us. It's right here in the moment. Jesus kept giving us clues. He said, the kingdom of heaven is at hand, at hand. A hand is very close. This isn't something we're talking about centuries and centuries away. We're talking about a state of mind that is so pristine and so joyful, and that it's right here and now. And so really our only task is if anything comes up and arises in our mind that's not that joy. Happy. Happy. Then it should be released immediately because it serves no purpose if we really want to be happy. And it's the phase of the ego that's done a little detour and decided to have another tiny, mad idea that was based on fear. Anything that's not love is just quite simply a wrong-minded perception. That's what's so great about the Course. 1,200 some pages to say basically that to give us the metaphor like a stepping stone where he's got the Course into our seeming experiences in the world to say, I'm going to give you a ladder. And it seems like you're going to go through a journey of climbing like out, even though this is a journey without distance to a goal that has never changed. Implying that once you reach the top of the ladder, the ladder's going to disappear and you're going to forget the climb, which makes sense in the sense that if God created us perfect, a journey back to God has to be even illusion, an illusion of a journey. Exactly. And to really come to clarity, I call it just to see the false is false. Forgiveness isn't still holding on to something that somebody really wronged you, somebody really did something or that you really have done something to somebody else. But to start to see that maybe my perception of what occurred has been completely mistaken. And what true absolution, what true joy comes from letting go of thinking that something terrible has been done wrong and something has to therefore be done to make right when it's really just more surrender into this state of mind. You know, it is so simple, we were saying before the program, that it is so simple, it's sometimes hard to find words to explain that a letting go process takes you right into the real world, into your essence of the being that you are. And I think we can't say enough how crafty and clever the ego is. We were talking about some examples around work and manifesting deaths and all these kinds of things and these wake up calls that, you know, that the Holy Spirit has been so kind to us to help us get a bonk on the head every now and then when we get so lost. I loved your example about the, is it the friend that was an atheist that needed a big one to start to become real, to start to know who he was that will happen for all of us? Yes, everything that occurs in our perceptual experience, whether it's in nighttime dreams or daydreams or on some hallucinogenic jug or just what we would call everyday experience, these are all perceptions. And the perceptions are just given meaning by the ego in the sense that, you know, whether it's good, bad, I like this, I don't like that. All the judgments, either extremes. Our friend John Mundy, you know, one time we were sharing with him the idea of forgiving the good. And so we got into the discussion. In other words, a lot of times the belief is if I can just eliminate all the negativity in my life, then I'll be happy and wonderful and joyful. But what we start to see is that judgment is like on a continuum. And everything in the world of duality has an opposite. The opposite of ugly, beautiful, the opposite of bad, good. And the thing that you can just lop off one end of the continuum and that's what the other end is really, we're starting to realize that the course is not going to work. So even though it's not a popular topic, I've had people sometimes and I said, you want to do a seminar that may not be well attended just do one called forgive the good. But what it really comes down to when you follow it in metaphysically is a state of detachment where you are living in a state of joy that comes from not judging. And that means not judging positively or negatively. And, you know, we all had this saying we're like suddenly fishing for a compliment. Yes. And we seem to ride out that compliment and feel that the energy that comes from being complimented but then the flip side comes when somebody says something that we perceive as a criticism then we just spin. I know. And we're attached to the good. We're attached to that compliment which is really something to take a look at. Once again, do we need it? Do we not feel whole and full? Yes. So there's no journey. We're perfectly healthy. What about these bodies? How can we help our friends with these bodies that we're in David, I mean? Well, the thing about the body is it's really neutral but the most important thing to do is start to withdraw the investment in it in the sense of endowing it with things. In other words, if we're spirit then we don't really have the need to fix it up or to, you know, do things with it and so forth. And really we can allow the Holy Spirit to interpret the body for us. What does that mean? The Holy Spirit interprets the body as a communication device. That's right. If it's microphones or telephones or computers and the internet and so forth, these are all pretty overtly communication devices. The body seems to, within the ego's framework, serve as more than just a communication device. The body is the ego's home. That's right. The ego is telling the mind, you've thrown away heaven, you've fallen from grace, you've got to be something and you've got to have some home and so it's telling the mind identify with the body. Fix it up. You know, camp out. Make it fix your home and preserve it, you know, for as long as you can. Keep it going. Because it's like, and even these things about extending the life of the body and everything, you know, you can even get into the... Yeah, think about that. The metaphysics of that, but really just like the ego, just trying to hope that the mind will continue to camp out. Yeah. So the release from it is just asking, please reinterpret the body as a means for your glory, God. I don't want to endow it with things and try to make an idle image that will stand before the glory that you are. And what you really end up doing is you end up laying aside your self-concept. The things that are valuable in this world, power, fame, money, physical pleasure, you know, we could just go on with just a list of those things. What's the receptacle of all those? You know, a famous mind. If a mind is in fact, it doesn't really have an image to be famous. You know, a body that has a lot... a mind that has a lot of money. You know, you can see that all of those things that I just mentioned involve the body and are really part of the self-concept. And the immense, unspeakable, just unutterable joy of just laying aside the pursuit of those things is just wonderful because you just can relax into a state of oneness or an acceptance of just the living moment instead of being on the wheel of time. You know, if I just have this amount of my bank account and I just have this much prestige or publish this book and, you know, it's like the hamster, you know, just when will this end? You finally say, this is a game. I'm not going to play the game anymore. I'm going to just relax and enjoy and wake up. Yeah. It is easy, and yet it's easier said than done, but I think what we're trying to do here in this process is to help ourselves be very awake and to make it very simple for ourselves. And being of one mind, David, maybe we can help our friends with our oneness, the concept of this oneness that we all are, because we're all here together. We're all connected. So any wonderful thoughts and any leaps that you make, we all go with you. And that's, I thought that if we could help our friends with that just a little bit more about that one mind. Well, it's like the one mind is just peace and contentment. All the mystics and saints have just talked about coming to contentment just to relax in the moment. And comparison is an ego device, Jesus tells us. You know, for only the love makes no comparisons. So every time, whether we're comparing an image of ourselves with trying to improve ourselves or we're looking out at other people and comparing ourselves against someone else, then that is the ego. And it's very stressful because how good is good enough. But if you begin to relax and say, love makes no comparisons, then you can start to get in touch more with just that natural spiritual essence that resides in each of us that is there always, but it's just been cut over. I would love to almost have you say that again. I think people need to, it's always there. It's always there. Love is not something that needs to be attained in the future. Love is something that just needs to be accepted now. And all that means is to clear the mirror of our mind to all the dark thoughts, all the self-depreciating, the loving thoughts that are flowing around. That is the ego. And the message that we're sharing is that we are not an ego. We have a loving, divine creator and we are an offspring of that creator. And we have everything we need. And if we let go, it will all come to us. We'll be taking care of, we'll have all those things that the ego says we've got to go get. Those are blocks, we're receiving it. Which is interesting. We almost turn it upside down and look at everything backwards. It seems, I think that's where we can get the idea about sacrifice. Because I think that the spiritual journey, a lot of times people have images of the aesthetics and the mystics and the saints that have gone through fasting and walking through the desert and basically saying, if that is the way to God, then sorry, it's not for me. And basically what we learn from the Course and what we really teach is that it is not a sacrifice to give up nothing. And basically you have to start to be convinced by the Holy Spirit that the things of the world are nothing. As long as they seem to be something and people have come to me and said, well, I still think there's a lot of things in this world that I value. And it's going to be hard for me to give it up. And I said, why would you give up something that you still believe was valuable? We have to come together and allow the Spirit to convince us that there is something to take the place of our experiences in the world. Why would you give up something that you still believed was serving you? So while there are many seeming pleasures, both psychological and physical in this world, and it seems that way, they seem very real. You have to have an experience of a miracle, of an intrinsic joy that bubbles up within you to have something that's a contrast to the pleasures of the world. They all seem to experience the pleasures of the world in various degrees and they're fleeting. It takes a lot of work to get more. You reach the point in the spiritual journey where manifesting is a key idea. And I don't want to deny that that has a place. If I believe I'm a helpless victim and I have no power at all, the idea that my mind is powerful and I can make things happen in my life based on the power of my mind could be a very helpful stepping stone towards me understanding that I am a mind. That I've created it, that I've got it. But the step beyond manifesting is really once you've gone through, I call it the magical phase of manifesting, then you have to come to the place of do I want to be happy? Do I want to be eternally happy and at peace and at rest? Or do I want to still keep trying to construct the dream and have the scenarios and the scripts to come out the way that I want? It's still implying that I know that's in my own best interest. And so that's the step beyond manifesting because how many manifest things and money and even relationships and so on and so forth, there has to come a point where you sense there's something more and that you're willing to go that extra step. Amazing. But the trickiness of it, I think is what I'm hearing today which needs to be pointed out that the ego is amazingly clever. It's amazing and we fall for it but it's okay, we're not supposed to judge that. We can see what step it takes and then when we get the wake up and we have the contrast, it's that letting go and experiencing something better than that. And that's the wake up. That is what being awake is about. That's being happy. That's our function that was given to us and we have it. That's pretty profound. Again, it's extremely simple and complicated and it's very ingenious. And I just use those words complicated and ingenious as a stepping stone to describe it. Also, when you get into this glorious state that I'm feeling and we're feeling now, the ego is nothing. And to describe it as ingenious and so forth is to try to... What we're always doing when we do that, again, these are symbols, but it's to say that it can't be taken lightly in the sense that when you have emotions or fear comes up, fear is not to be repressed and stuffed. That when we talk about really becoming free, it means to look calmly at the ego. And the only way you can look calmly at the ego is to be in your right mind or to be with the Holy Spirit. To look at the ego through the ego is terrifying. And every time in one's journey when something seems to happen and you think, oh my gosh, I don't know if I can handle this, that's just the ego judging what's occurring. That's a movement of healing, the movement to wholeness is always occurring. And it gets back to one of your original things when you were talking about happiness and you were talking about what is really our function in happiness. I came to the realization one time that God's will for me is perfect happiness. And that was very striking kind of realization because I'd heard many things in my life about well, there was a plane crash, well, God's will, or what happened and this country invaded that country, that's God's will. And you have to go into it carefully because what we start to see is God's will for us is perfect happiness. And that we have free will but as Jesus points out there is no free will in this world. And so a lot of times people will associate free will and choice in a synonymous way and what we're learning is that free will is beyond the dream because it's our state of creation and that the only reflection or slight reverberation of a free will is the ability to choose. So we have to be look at that closely, choose what? What do we have the power to choose? So it seems like as through the ego's lens of being an autonomous person it seems like I can choose to do this, I can choose to do this, I can buy this, I can buy that. What we're learning from the course is it's much more simple than that. The choices of the world seem to be endless. And they seem to get us nowhere even when we seem to get good at making them with good education with good knowledge behind us still unhappy. But we get to more of a discernment and the choices between the right mind and the wrong mind. We're looking at ideas that are radical. We're being taught that sickness is a decision. Well, if sickness is a decision then I want to be informed about my decision making process in my mind. I've had people that say to me one part of my mind is happy about hearing sickness is a decision. It's empowering because I feel like I'm not at the mercy of all these forces and germs and earthquakes and tornadoes and plagues. On the other hand I don't know about the responsibility that comes with that and you have to get into level confusion with that too because I don't know if I like the idea that I'm doing this to myself. They basically will say to me David, who in their right mind would choose to be sick? And what I say to them is you've got it. Who in their right mind would choose to be sick? Obviously sickness is a wrong minded decision. That's right. And the next step for me is always teach me more about discernment. Teach me more about the discernment between the right mind and the wrong mind. Because if I'm still attracted to it is a wrong mind in any way then that's where the choice will come in. And we want to be in the real world. In the real world it seems the more I hear you talk it gets simpler. It's beyond words it's an experience of letting go totally and going for who you really are. Think about two minutes to go David. Let's see if we can pull this together. The real world is highly energetic. If you can imagine being happy and then you can kind of just imagine extending that happiness goes beyond the ups and downs of the world. That seemed to be just the way of the world. And it takes first a lot of willingness to even open your mind to the idea that there is a high constant state beyond this world. And then to let go into it. And it's yours. It's yours for the asking. It's yours for the asking. And we didn't get very far out of that garden and the Holy Spirit is with us. And when we do get lost it's wonderful to know that we have this wonderful oneness, we have this company. We can release and say I'm getting nowhere with what my ego is thinking of. I defer to better judgment. God always has the best idea.