 If you notice, whether it's your dad wanting to be right, or your mom seeming to be controlling or whatever, in the beginning when the mind is just starting to be aware of these EO defense mechanisms, for years it's like it's kind of kept it down, in a metaphorical sense it's like they're unconscious, a lot of them. Now when you start reading the course everything starts getting raised up. All these devious schemes and maneuvers and games are like right up there, but the mind still isn't invested in the ego and so it sees the defense as in others. And Jesus says, whenever you feel angry or frustrated at a brother for using a particular defense, you could say for being controlling or whatever it is, you're still failing to forgive yourself for the very same attempt. In other words, if I still believe that the defense has a reality, and first I'm seeing it out there and then I'm saying, then I start to pull it back to my mind and I start to say, I'm controlling, I have to be right. The guilt from transferring it from one seeming person body to another seeming person body is enormous because all it is is now I'm going to pull it away off of this person and it seems like the course is saying, yeah you can't keep projecting on your brother and blaming your brother, so the blame instead of blaming them gets turned on to this body and it's the same error though, that's where we get back in the mind body. I have to really start to see that I am mind and that this identity that I thought was not in him, it was in me, is also a construct in my mind as well because otherwise what good is the transfer? Now I'm not so much angry and blaming of my father or my mother but I walk around angry and blaming of who I believe to be me and the error gets transferred but it's not released yet so when you go into these things just think, well this is a step, he talks about it in here, he describes it and it's a phase, this too shall pass, yes. So don't leave it with my body, it's the next step, I mean there's a part of my mind that knows but I would like to hear you talk about that. Well the next step for me was it was like of getting more and more in touch with I am mind, I am not a body on the screen in the world, I'm not a linear construct either, I mean the way I've always conceived of myself as David was, here's David's past, some of the things David's not too happy about that didn't go David's way and so on and so forth, the closet of grievances, people that didn't treat David right, the ones that were special that treated David wonderful and gosh the world wasn't filled with more of those and so on and so forth and then there's the seeming David in the present where I could say where I'm at now so to speak in the old phrase you know this is where I'm at now and then there's the David of the future, whether it's careers or different things we've talked about or even if I put it in a spiritual context, David is moving towards the atonement, salvation lies in David's future instead of a career in urban planning and salvation, even that is I've had to question because what good is future salvation, what good is future happiness, it seemed to be a helpful stepping point, stepping stone to a point and then I started reading like the immediacy of salvation section and Jesus saying be not content with future happiness, don't project the atonement into the future, you have to start bringing it back to the present, well in order to bring that to the present that means I have to let go of the way I've conceived of myself and of everyone else I meet, if I've conceived of persons as these linear constructs with real pasts and real futures coming up and myself as a linear construct with real past and real future then how can I avoid aiming that guilt if I pull it away from others to this linear construct of myself, the shift has been more and more to start to see that mind is not in a linear construct, the right mind is in the present, it's not, the right mind doesn't have a past and it doesn't have a future, it's like a pinnacle or the top of a mountain, if you can get to the top the view is spectacular because you can look at all the little roads below and all the little lines and everything and even that you seem to take and that others seem to be taking and it's all from that point it's all just seen as a false thing so as we get into this more and more one of the sections I want to get into eventually is the immediacy of salvation and the section right before that talks about cause and effect being one being the same as the part and we're going to go into this deeper and deeper to get to the metaphysics but that's kind of a little synopsis of how it's gone for me where I've come back to I'm a point and not a line that's a simple way for me to remember that whenever I start to feel guilty about what's coming up or if you feel worried about that or I feel guilty about something that I lose sense that I didn't tie up or bad relationship I have with such and such I just come back to I'm a point not a line one of the things I'm realizing that I forgot was that I was trying to bring truth to the illusion instead of illusion to truth and just seeing my oneness with God and how everything pales beside that when I get into thinking that I'm anything else or that I have anything else thanks so we were on less 135 and we were just starting to look at at what it is you defend which is the body paragraph for sentence for 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 host yet it is not the body that can fear nor be a thing of fear it has no needs but those which you assigned to it it needs no complicated health structures of defense no health-inducing medicine no care and no concern at all now that's quite a obviously a huge different view than the world but you know even ideas of a marionette or a puppet or I sometimes think of it as like like just a learning device kind of like a pen or a pencil I mean I have to in my mind equate it with something to kind of be a symbol of how insignificant I mean most you wouldn't consider putting all this care and concern and careful watching over a pencil normally you know a pencil you use a pencil for what a pencil's for writing and then you set lay it down when it you keep sharpening it as long as you need it and then when it gets too short so that you can't hold it anymore or the lead breaks for the final time it's gone I mean it's it's laid aside in that sense you know thinking of the body like a pencil to me is a is a helpful metaphor defend its life or give it gifts to make it beautiful or walls to make it safe and you but say your home is open to the thief of time corruptible and crumbling so unsafe it must be guarded with your very life and we've gone into this in a number of ways obviously defend its life whether it's through security systems or mace carrying mace or guns or medical things give it gifts to make it beautiful that's this we had that whole section on compliments and adorning the body and so on so forth it's really kind of making it out to be more than it really is and mom gave me this bracelet from a graduation and birthday and I opened it and it wasn't the response that she was looking for because I looked at it and I said oh mom you know that's really nice and she said don't you like it when did you really like it you know and I said I really do it's it's a wonderful symbol you know of you and you know thank you and she goes what do you mean a simple she was married did you show it was Steve did she she wants this first and I so I tried to explain I did explain that you know for me I can look at it as a symbol but I don't want to look at it as something really adorning right now because that takes away from its purpose and she began to understand but just a little disappointed in the reaction in that sense it's the best use of a bracelet because it's like a it was a starting point for for you to just share it open kind of the conversation to go into something in that sense it's not evil it's not good it's not bad it's oh the Holy Spirit can make use of everything including bracelets on ours that's not neat it is not this picture fearful can you be at peace with such a concept of your home yet what endowed the body with the right to serve you thus except your own belief it is your mind which gave the body all the functions that you see in it and set its value far beyond a little pile of dust and water who would make defense of something that he recognizes this you know it's like all this fuss over a pile of dust and water who would make defense over it but the key thing in there is it's what endowed the body with the right to serve you except your own belief and it is your mind so we're back to that thing again of how we don't have to blame the body we don't have to even blame the bodies of others if they seem to be acting out if they seem to be doing these things defense mechanisms so on so forth that they seem to be just heaping the the in the wealth and the possessions and all these things you know it's like none of that matters it's it's my mind what value have I assigned to the body in the world that's the only place I have power to change is my own beliefs as long as I try to change the figures so to speak in the bodies and say whether it's abortion or any thing you can think of then it's like I've already said that there's a real threat I'm already saying that illusions are real and therefore you have to come up with the right way of dealing with this terrible problem or whatever it's out there the body is in need of no defense this cannot be too often emphasized when Jesus says that he means it very literally it will be strong and healthy if the mind does not abuse it by assigning it to roles it cannot fulfill to purposes beyond its scope and to exalted aims which it cannot accomplish such attempts ridiculous yet deeply cherished are the sources for the many mad attacks you make upon it for it seems to fail your hopes your needs your values and your dreams if you believe it's your home then of course it would make sense that I would have a lot of hopes for it a lot of needs and values for it you can see where the body would be more than a pile of dust if it's my home if it's me if it's my identity I mean that's the most powerful thing that that there is is identity and that's why whatever the mind identifies with it will defend if it's identified with spirit then there's nothing to defend because spirit is invulnerable it's in a state of grace but if I defend the body or defend maybe my friend's body if I'm identified with this being a close friend then I would be concerned there or family or even then the more external things that seem to go beyond the body the house defensive about my house defensive about my car defensive about my job or my boss or those kind of things my kids yeah those are kind of just extensions of this body body self-concept here the self in quotes that needs protection is not real the body valueless and hardly worth the least defense need merely be perceived as quite apart from you and it becomes a healthy serviceable instrument through which the mind can operate until its usefulness is over who would want to keep it when its usefulness is done in that sense there need merely be perceived as quite apart from you I mean it I would say that to have that shift experientially comes more like I described it as like the trickle and the stream and the river and the ocean that when I first started studying the course you know I'm just trying to grasp some of the ideas and and like bulbs are going off but it's like I'm not being used as a teacher of God yeah I'm not in the river I the trickle is is a start and I'm grateful for the trickle because it's like this is what I've always wanted my life when you really start holding on to this is your only purpose and you start seeing making that commitment to be used as a teacher of God and every single situation is seen as