 And what we start to see from the underlying principle here is that when we define it as being in the world, we all, it's kind of like saying, OK, the illusions, these are real things. I'm making the illusions real. And then whatever I do as an attempt to deal with that is going to be in a defensive mode. So what we want to do is try to get deeper at really taking a look at, is the problem really what I think it is. It adds illusions to illusions, thus making correction doubly difficult. Impossible. If you want to think- That sounds difficult. That's right, it's doubly difficult or even impossible. And it is this you do when you attempt to plan the future, activate the past, or organize the present as you wish. So you can see that's taking it in a very broad sense that anytime I'm thinking about whether it's doctor's appointments in the future this week, whether it's things that I have unresolved in the past, big problems like a debt or something that I'm going to have to resolve or whatever, or organize the present as you wish. This weekend, Chris and I got into the finer points of just orderliness in an apartment, fingerprint on a mirror or coffee grounds like you were saying. That was fit in that last category. Organize the present as you wish. The mind can really think that as a good defense against the spirit, I'm going to have things just be so on the screen and that'll bring some order into this chaotic life of mine, chaotic mind. So you can see where that last sentence really covers a lot. And it is this you do when you attempt to plan the future, activate the past, or organize the present as you wish. You operate from the belief you must protect yourself from what is happening because it must contain what threatens you. What is happening must contain what threatens you. A sense of threat is an acknowledgement of inherent weakness, a belief that there is danger which has power to call on you to make appropriate defense. The world is based on this insane belief and all its structures, all its thoughts and doubts, its penalties and heavy armaments, its legal definitions and its codes, including medical definitions and medical codes, its ethics and its leaders and its gods all serve but to preserve its sense of threat for no one walks the world in armature but must have terror striking at his heart. There's a lot there in that paragraph because you can start to see just rattles it off and most of the way that the world has been constructed with all the legal definitions and codes, the whole medical profession that you've become familiar with through your training is part of the defense, that there's a real threat and that all of these procedures are good at reducing the threat. Even the idea of holistic medicine or doing something for some medical condition, the idea of even working an alternative, what now, what is that gonna do? You know? Yeah, the more you really start to take them. All the more you start to do the same way. Yes, you take a look at this and it's radical but in one sense it's like what's nice to start to get to the bottom of things. It can seem threatening like oh my gosh, what have I got a question to get to the bottom of things but hallelujah, I've been on this wheel for long enough now it's time to really get to the back. I've been looking at, there's the book over there, Ageless Body, Timeless Mind. Yes, the mind is timeless but the body, you know, the whole thing of it being ageless or whatever, we have to, things we've talked about expanding the life span. The definition of life is still seen to be within the body and just by longevity it seems to be pushing it. It's just starting to take a look at all this and whatever comes up is fair game to throw onto the table because we wanna be really thorough in looking at this and whatever comes up, just throw it out. Defense is frightening. It stems from fear, increasing fear as each defense is made. You think it offers safety, yet it speaks of fear made real and terror justified. Is it not strange, you do not pause to ask as you elaborate your plans and make your arm are thicker and your locks more tight what you defend and how and against what. That's what it takes sometimes when the mind starts to go, go, go, go, go into its defensive universe is just to pause for a reflective moment. It can seem frightening because it can seem like this is too big, too big of a ball of wax. Jesus is asking me to look at every belief I hold in my mind and it seems easier at times like I'll just go through some of the defenses and preparations like I've always done. I got through it before. That can be the ego's kind of talking there saying you've done this before. Go ahead, but to really just pause and really do what we're doing now, take a look at it is like the point where we can really get a release. So yes, there's a question about pausing to ask what you defend how and against what. Here we go. Let us consider first what you defend. It must be something that is very weak and easily assaulted. It must be something made easy prey, unable to protect itself and needing your defense. What but the body has such frailty that constant care and watchful, deep concern are needful to protect its little life. What but the body falters and must fail to serve the Son of God as worthy hosts. Okay, what's coming up here is another thing that struck me that I was reading this weekend. And again, at first I said, don't read it. It's not in line with the Holy Spirit. And then I said, but I wanna read it and I wanna see what's coming up for me. John Gacy, who's from Chicago, was a serial killer. And he's being executed this evening. And so there's been, I was in Chicago this weekend. So in the sun times was all the stuff about John Gacy. Found myself reading the story about John Gacy, how they convicted him, how they found the bodies. It was a very grotesque, gruesome story, but it was that contrast that I needed. And something hit, several of these boys were 15 year old boys. I have a 15 year old boy. So as I'm reading this, you know, there's a lot. I mean, there's lots that I can see that I can hesitate that I can pause, but where I become weak. And that's really the word that I think I have to use more and more right now because it's weakness versus strength, because I have the strength in me to be committed to this and then I let weakness overtake me. But where I become weak is the thought that Michael could be hitchhiking and a John Gacy pick him up and then do a gruesome murder on him. And so I have to let go of the fact that bodies are not real and all this other stuff, but the minute, something like that, I mean, just the thought of that, I mean, what I'm defending the whole thing, I think that this is such a reality. It seems very frightening to the thought of letting it into the time of this morning. It is, to just let this go seems frightening. So the idea of sickness to just let go, I mean, I even thought the sentence here is, you know, this body needs me to take care of it. My God, if I don't, it's just gonna go to pieces. And then on the next breath, I think about all the times when my mind wasn't on my body that a symptom never occurred, because my mind wasn't on a symptom, my mind wasn't on the body. But those are, I mean, this is a real, because this is happening right now, we're talking about the body, the hitchhiking, the whole thing, it's real hard for me to let go to, and I can see the freedom with letting go, but I don't have that right now. So that's what just came up here. I remember when I sat with Beverly and we were talking about this issue and I was just, I mean, the body was so real to me and I just looked at it and I said, you can't tell me I'm not a body. And she said, I'm not gonna sit here and align with that thought for you. And I said, well, if I'm not a body, then what am I? And she said, Krista, you are a mind. And so there was like, that really clicked in for me. And it's like, I feel like that made a really big shift. The Holy Spirit was operating that night for sure, because I mean, I had heard that so many times before, and then all of a sudden it was just like, oh, yes. And so I noticed that, I think probably for the first time since that weekend, I've forgotten that. So I need to say that for myself. Yeah, as you were just beginning to talk, that was the thought that kept coming, is that as we keep coming together and talking about our perceptions and talking about our beliefs and talking about our thoughts, you know, minds have beliefs, perceptions and thoughts. You know, it's lifting it out of this conversation that we're used to talking about. I mean, I remember Marianne Williamson was on Oprah one time and she kept talking to Oprah. We'd have to take the conversation to a different level. We've got to get it out of this context. It was so fear-based and so body-based. And that's what each coming together does in the sense when we continually keep tracing it back, tracing it back, tracing it back, there has to come a time where there is an experiential shift of a feeling of a more of a loosening and a lightening from it. No matter how many angles we come at it from, if we talk about the right mind and the wrong mind, from the wrong mind's perspective, that the body is the reality and that bodies have private minds. Each body has a private mind associated with it and from the, even a higher wrong mind perspective, you know, where you get into those stuff about souls and mind, body, spirit and a lot of the mixtures of things, this and that, which is still, even to say it's part of the higher, higher concepts of the wrong mind is still the wrong mind. We want to really lift this into above the battlefield, which is the right mind, which knows without a doubt that I am mind and that all of these projections and images and even false concepts and beliefs are not me, it has a good view from above, perched above it can see the wrong mind, the entire world in cosmos and each thing we do is an attempt to get clear and clear because if you come from background in training and nursing and so on and so forth, the whole thing of the body and the neurology and the brain and all that stuff, it's just common, that's what's the common wisdom and it's not wisdom at all. You know, it takes to really come higher to start to see the fallacy of that is a great leap. So we'll just keep at it. Another thing that came up this weekend, this is all body stuff though, is the idea of abortion. I was adamant against abortion and I was at church on Mother's Day and they had all these abortion pay by rows, by I don't know what all there is and bumper stickers and all these stuff and I've always been adamant against abortion thinking, oh my God, if Elizabeth ever got pregnant, that's killing, that's murdering, a fetus and even last week, I was flicking the TV and what I flicked on was the miracle of life and it showed the baby inside and all this and I'm just watching this and I'm wondering, that's a body in there, how it's forming. I mean, this body thing is really hidden and even on abortion, I can't even argue anymore. I can't, you know what I mean? It's like, but it's a little bit disorienting. Nothing is making sense. Nothing is feeling oriented in my brain right now. In fact, and then my body is falling apart so this is completely disorienting, you know? Steve was talking again about a career, somebody brought something up and I said, nobody would hire me right now. I could not complete a task. Can't even think about working. Just remember that you are working, you are doing the highest possible work. Whole other fear, Elizabeth's education, great big thing in the newspaper the other day. Education has gone up 9.4%, I haven't let that go. That's in my mind that that is very important that she get educated and that somehow, if I become a Course in Miracles teacher and I'm not making any money, I'm letting everybody down. That's where I'm at. I mean, all this is coming up. It's creating havoc right now. The course keeps coming it back to, oh, it's my perception again, it's that thing of, my perception is twisted. What I conceive of is even a good future, a good education, a good way of growing up for my children, for other children, whatever, you know, it's a construct. And at the beginning it just is like whatever you can do to bring it back to just that one idea that it's a perceptual problem. It can seem like a long stretch from how does a solution to my perceptual problem handle Elizabeth's four or six or whatever years of college and how many tens of thousands of dollars. One of the things that Rhonda shared with me about talking to Mandy was that she had to like let go of her idea of herself as a mother and relating to her.