 I remember once I was in a church giving a talk and I went into some of this stuff and started talking about goals and this and that and how we've all learned all these beliefs and then we have all these specific goals. It's good to be goal-oriented. I was always taught, you know, and how when I finally got to the core, if I was seeing that, that's a bunch of baloney to be goal-oriented because all those goals were specific goals and all those goals were based on the self-concept. That's where the goals were springed from. It's kind of like if you think of an aquarium and a little pump at the bottom that blows the bubbles, pumps the air into it, that the bubble seemed to come up and to float up to the top and to top on the surface. And that's like all these specific goals that I had in my life all the time. Make more money, get this, get that, develop these skills, you know, do this, do that. I mean those are pop-pop-pop-pop-pop, that's all the bubbles. But what about the little thing that where the bubbles are coming with generating the bubbles? I mean, you know, that's finally the point, I came to my point in my life where it's like I'm going to get down there to that generator and I'm going to question that little mechanism that seems, the bubble seemed to be coming from. So all specifics come from the self-concept. Yes. If you want to, the lesson's 24 and 25 and the course just addresses very, very directly. And to me, it's kind of like when I was talking about this and sharing this with this fellow at this church, he started to get a little bit angry because he was saying like, it can't be, it can't be what the course is. Is that advocating? And I said, he's saying, does that mean we shouldn't have any goals? I said, no, no, the course is not advocating that you shouldn't have any goals. The course is advocating that you should have one goal, an only one goal. And that goal is abstract, that goal is universal, that goal does not have a specific reference. What? What does that mean? It's not quantifiable. It's not quantifiable. It's not majorable. It's a goal of purpose. It's not a specific goal. It's not X amount of dollars or a better job or better physical health or a warmer climate or a better looking mate or all the specific goals that are popping up here on the surface. This goal, that's a universal goal, has to be learned very carefully because the mind that thinks in terms of specifics, that's all it can think in terms of. That's what it prays for all the time. Prayer is its desire and it's always praying for specific outcomes. When you think, even you have the thought, gee, I'm hungry, and then something pops to mind that seems to satisfy that hunger. When you seem to have to go to the restroom or you have a need to, you perceive a need to urinate and it pops into mind where the restroom is in the house of the building that you're in. When you seem to go and urinate and it seems to satisfy that momentary, temporary need, those are all answers to prayers. Going to the bathroom is an answer to prayer. Having a Dorito chip is an answer to prayer. Having sexual intercourse with someone is an answer to prayer. Going for a walk on a sunny day is an answer to prayer. Everything on the screen is an answer to prayer. It's just bringing witness to what the mind wants and also what the mind believes will answer that want or will satisfy that want. That's all what the surface is. So the key thing is, gee, I have all these splinter desires and that's part of that self-concept. It's bubbling away, bubbling away down there, sending all these bubbles up. The only way out is for me to have a single unified goal or to bring it to the point that my desire is single. And that I want only God. I don't want anything else. If you think of the center of the mind being like an altar, it's just saying, I want to remove everything but the altar except God. God can't be on a defiled altar. He can't be on something that's made unclean, something that's so pure. We talk about the source. Something that's so pure as the source. You can't put something as pure as the source on a dirty altar or a split altar. Can you not share the altar? All the spirit will do will wait. The spirit will not try to come in and try to take over the mind again. The mind has to willingly empty its altar. The Holy Spirit is not going to try to rustle this world away from the mind. The Holy Spirit, in one sense, even though the beliefs are unreal, he respects or he honors them in one sense because the Son of God or the mind that fell asleep made them. And he has to honor that mind because of what that mind truly is. He honors the source of it. He honors the source of it and he honors the true power of that mind. But he's just working, you know, it's like a general reminder for the mind to voluntarily bring those beliefs to the light or to open them to question. There's no coercion involved. There's no, you know, forcing. I mean, when I started to follow this, the more I would have... I would have some moments of fear where I would just... Again, it would be that ego belief system in my mind saying, you know, if you follow this all the way out, if you really follow what he's saying, you know, the ego is saying you could end up in dire straits because you're withdrawing all of your seeming support in the world. What was before, regarding that support system, you're cutting your support system. That's the ego's interpretation of following Jesus is cutting your support system. It's burning all your bridges. All that learning and, you know, we talk about resumes, learning all the different things that seem to be, like, just such symbols of support that you've worked so hard on to build, build it, polish it, build it, polish it, build it, polish it, as if that's your support and then you really start to follow this and you say, well, wait a minute here. This is the direction that's completely the opposite of all that. Turn around from that. That's where the trust comes in. I mean, you know, where you thought something was asked to be where you thought you were asked to sacrifice something, you know, at one point in the manual Jesus says, the Teacher of God finds that a happy, lightheartedness is that the world can teach no images of you unless you want to learn them. There will come a time when images have all gone by and you will see you know not what you are. It is to this unsealed and open mind that truth returns, unhindered and unbound. Where concepts of the self have been laid by is truth revealed exactly as it is. When every concept has been raised to doubt and question and been recognized as made on no assumptions that stand alight, then is the truth left free to enter its sanctuary, clean and free of guilt. There is no statement that the world is more afraid to hear than this. I do not know the thing I am and therefore do not know what I am doing, where I am, or how to look upon the world or on myself. Yet in this learning is salvation born and what you are will tell you of itself. In one sense, that's what symbolically the messengers of peace are. We probably won't put this on a pamphlet. In one sense, that is just a witness or a symbol of giving your mind permission to let go of everything that it believes and knowing that it is going to be safe. That it may seem disorienting at times. You know both? Durban and Rhonda have been sharing over the last number of months that there have been these moments of not knowing and feeling out of time and space. What am I doing? Where am I? No sense of orientation. And what we're doing is we're like kind of metaphorically holding hands and saying, yeah, that's the way it's going to seem at times. And that we will keep gently reminding each other, good, good, you're not nuts. You don't need to be locked up in a famous asylum. This is a good sign. You know, that when it's, you know, even at times it can seem like, deeper you go, the more at moments it seems almost like you're non-functional. You cannot function in the world. Good. Good sign. Of course, but I felt when that happened to me because I've had that experience of other times in my life where you just momentarily you feel like, you know, you have this sense of like, where am I? Or like even waking up in a sort of strange place, you know, like for an instant you forget where you are or what you're doing there or something. And there's a panic. I mean, in the past it's always been associated with a panic feeling to me, even if it was minor or momentary, and that as soon as I seemed to reorient myself it was like, oh, the panic's subsided. Oh, okay, I remember what I'm doing here and where I am and stuff. And this time when it happened, when I felt that sense of, one of what I think was in the car, I forget where the other one was. I was driving and I just had this feeling of like I had a clue what state, where I was in, what road I was on, what I was doing there, where I was going, anything. But it didn't feel panicky. And that was the distinction that I made in my mind. I was like, wow, that was interesting. You know, to have that feeling and not feel like panicky and feel a relief when it seemed to, when the memory seemed to come back, oh yeah, driving on such a special remedy. That was neat for me. I mean, that was, that was, it did feel like, oh good, this is good. Nothing's a panic of both. Drank is not necessarily scary. We're bad.