Table of Contents
Good evening.
Before we begin tonight, we spoke about some rather significant things last week, and I’m wondering whether anyone went home and thought about it and had some “yes, buts,” or some further questions. And so I want you to have time to address those, if there are any.
So I asked the flower what it is and it says it’s thirsty. It says my leaves are dusty. And I get it a drink of water and I don’t spill any. And I dust its leaves and I don’t break any. Something is going on there and it’s not competence. When you said that we were incompetent, it rang so true, but I walk, I drive. There’s this apparent activity of successful living. Can you tell me what that experience is? 1
Let me ask you, first of all, whether as you’re having this experience, you are conscious of being joined?
That’s what came to me, was that this was activity that I wasn’t doing alone. So a lot of what we’re all experiencing is somewhat undistorted experience of the Kingdom of Heaven?
Oh, that is correct. You are not experiencing total distortion.
What I want everyone to be clear on is that this subject of incompetence is not something for the ego to take and say, “Oh, yeah. Yeah. I’m incompetent. I accept that. And I realize that everything I’m doing doesn’t express any competence I have. Yep. Got that under my belt.”
You see what I’m saying? When one arrives at the clarity that he or she is incompetent, he or she inevitably reaches out so as not to be alone, and joining occurs. And then you find, as long as you are joined, that your activities do reflect intelligence and competence apparently. But it’s very clear to you in the joined state where you are asking what is appropriate, and where you are experiencing what is appropriate, and embodying it in your actions, that none of what is happening is happening by any authority of yours. The only authority you have expressed is … lies in the statement, “Thy Will be done.”
So, we are talking about not only recognizing your incompetence, but what naturally follows if you believe what that really means, because you can’t stay in the state of incompetence long without asking for help. It’s impossible. So all I’m saying is that if you’re driving along, or you’re conducting activities, you might say, daily activities, and there’s no clear sense of being joined and of being guided, then what we talked about last week hasn’t registered with you yet in its full meaning.
For a long time I’ve kept Reality at bay and maybe what you called a void or the silence. And then, you know, there would be outburst as the pressure had built up. But I started communicating more consistently with you, and with my Guide, and you know, the circle expanded a little bit. And then what you said about Reality being Divine, and to ask the flower its Meaning, and that all of life is Divine and is conspiring to keep us from being comfortably in our ignorance. I opened up and what I found was that quickly the void filled up. And there was companionship from, not just from you, and not just from my Guide, but from everything around me, and the silence started to be filled up with harmony. And that was a … it was good to realize I’m in a friendly universe.
Yes, indeed.
Just as a fine tuning of this point regarding the flower, when you are in communion with the flower, you certainly will know what its needs are. In other words, whether it is thirsty, whether it needs fertilizer, and so on. But that does not express its Meaning. Its Meaning is Eternal. And when you are Awake, you will recognize and not be deluded by … you will recognize that it doesn’t need water and it doesn’t need fertilizer because it is an Eternal Idea in the Mind of God.
And so, as a fine tuning, as I say, when you’re communing, you will be able to hear what the apparent needs are, but I want you to go further than that in asking the flower its Meaning, so that you are asking to experience its Divine Meaning, its capital “M” Meaning—the Intent set into motion by the Father that appears as the flower that will forever be its Meaning. You see what I’m saying?
Yes.
And it’s the same … it’s the same with your fellowman, because when you are listening for the Truth about him or her, you are listening for the Ultimate Reality, the Divine Meaning that is changeless, but at the same time you will be able to recognize the human need and meet it, even though that is not part of the Eternal Meaning.
That’s what the Course means when it says we have to correct things the way we see them now in order to not see them that way at all. We correct on the level that we think we’re experiencing at in order to not see levels at all.
Oh, certainly the correction will be at the level where the mistake is occurring. But you’re not going to correct them. You’re going to let them be corrected. And the correction will come in the realization that follows your asking, “What is the Truth here?”
Okay. Any other [questions]?
Sure.
There’s someone who is, that I know of that, who is close to me; in fact it’s a family member who I believed to be for a second time and recently at the bottom of his barrel. And he’s not asking for help that I know of directly, like of another person. I’m not even really sure how he’s dealing with it. But when does one know, other than I guess you’re going to say just to listen? I’ve tried to listen in regard to this. But because it’s a close family member, it’s sort of hard to feel comfortable with doing nothing. But I believe that’s how I’m being directed right now.
You spoke to me about this when it was occurring some time ago. And at that time you mentioned, “Well, he’s gone really down under.” He got way down there. But at that time he was starting to come up again—meaning that he was starting to not listen to that voice that was giving him the final option. So, I’m trying not to be concerned about it because I know that doesn’t help. But at the same time I can be honest in saying I’m not really sure if I’ve heard correctly in regard to there being nothing more for me to do other than what I’ve already done.
You have been hearing absolutely correctly. And you must understand that because Reality is the only thing going on, even though you look at it and call it “the world,” everything will conspire to stand in support of this family member’s realization and healing. And therefore, you will know when it is time. And circumstances will provide you with the opportunity, without your trying to create the opportunity. Even, you might say, in the illusion, Divine Order still operates, because the illusion is only a distortion, or a distorted perception, of Reality, with a capital “R”—God being All. You see?
Yes.
Okay.
So, the more relaxed I am about it, that’s the best way I can be of help now.
Yes, because that is what will allow you to be undistracted when the Divine Impulse to act occurs.
And I am under the impression that he would not appreciate hearing anything I have to say right now, at all.
Not at the moment. That is correct.
Right. Because of his definitions of how he sees me.
No. Because he is absorbed in his own issues.
I see.
It wouldn’t matter who it came from at this time.
Okay.
Okay. Any other questions with reference to last week’s discussion?
I want to talk about raccoons. [laughing] [audience laughter]
Today in modern psychology, there’s a new buzz word going around called “flow.” And actually several authors have written about it. And what it talks about … obviously there’s a . . . in this paradigm shift that we’re involved in, a lot of people are saying that all the depression, all of the dissatisfaction, all of the unfulfillment is upsetting a lot of people so that the old paradigm of psychology no longer seems to be working. So this term “flow” now has come in where it’s linked with happiness—looking forward to going to your job, being happy with your life, feeling like you’re in the flow—to put it … to expand on the catch phrase.
The question that I have, and athletes have the same thing you know, like certain athletes know that they’re going to win that race that day, because they’re just in an altered state of mind, so to speak. The dynamic there … and, of course, some psychologists are more in the spiritual, in the spiritual bent, where they’re saying there is a Divine Connection going on. Okay.
But this catch phrase, “being in the flow,” is so bandied about. I’m wondering if you can be in the flow and not be conscious of being connected with your Guide, or with God, or with … you see what I mean? Or is there always some subliminal realization that something else is going on? Do you see what I’m getting at? Is it not … is it another ego dynamic that we’re talking about? Or is there an actual thing that these people are experiencing where they’re, at some level, they’re recognizing that they’re not alone, that there is Divine Guidance happening, and that’s what’s responsible for their superlative experience?
The latter. Yes.
So it’s not like what we’re doing here. But at some level they recognize that’s it’s just not them being responsible for being in the flow. Is that what you mean by …
That is correct.
Okay. So I take it …
What is different about that from being here?
Well, in other words, the difference I see is that we acknowledge that we’re… that this level of incompetence—ego incompetence, okay—is there. Okay? And that we need help. “Help.” Where these guys, they train hard, they … you know what I mean? And then one day they wake up and they go, “I can feel it. I’m in the flow. I’m going to win this event.” That’s what I mean. It’s just that we’re conscious of the mechanism that’s going on. Or at least we’re see … you know, we have the ability to be conscious.
Yes.
Whether we practice it, or not, is another thing. Where these guys aren’t …
And what I’m after is not only to be conscious of the mechanism, but for each of you to actually engage in it, like the athlete you’re talking about. He’s really doing it. And it has nothing to do with understanding the mechanism. Understanding the mechanism has nothing to do with actually engaging in it; it’s just a thought about engaging in it.
I see.
So, the athlete that engages in it, if you want to put it this way, is further ahead than those of you who understand the mechanism but haven’t engaged it.
I see. I see. Okay, thank you.
The Truth has nothing to do with words. It has nothing to do with grasping concepts. It has nothing to do with understanding mechanisms.
It’s experiential.
It’s what happens when you abandon yourself to the void. It’s what happens when you abandon yourself to the unknown, and allow yourself to be there willingly, without reluctance. Then you feel the flow and you find yourself in it, and your behavior expresses it—not your idea about it, not your thought about it, not your understanding of it. And the fact is that the point of it all is to get the hang of being in the flow where you find that you don’t have to mess around with words and concepts and ideas anymore.
You can feel the flow.
Because the point is not to have the experience so that then you can abandon the experience and intellectualize with everybody about the experience. It is to succumb to the experience.
And this is akin to the creative process great artists are able to get into. They get into an altered state by abandoning their personality, and then they’re taken over by something, and then they create.
They get in the movement. Yes.
So that’s another aspect.
And yet their getting into the movement is highly focused with oils, or watercolor, or whatever a medium might be. But then it has nothing to do with when they’re cooking their dinner.
Yes.
You see? And we’re talking about being all-inclusive.
Yes. Thank you.
You are welcome.
So you’re saying we should just let go?
Well, at the bottom line, All There Is, is God.
And whatever you think you are that would let go, doesn’t even really exist. And this is a very important point. If the Ultimate Conscious Experience of Being is for there to be no Conscious Experience of Being other than What God Is Being, then whatever conscious experience of being you’re having at the moment that’s different, isn’t Real, and the one that’s having it, doesn’t exist. Because it’s just a concept of yourself that you are focusing on and identifying as you.
The reason this is important is that, although we tread a fine line, sort of straddling Reality and unreality, the fact is, that because God is All and the one who thinks he’s waking up doesn’t exist, it is important not to value too highly the processes of awakening that you’re going through. Do you see what I mean? It would be well for you to take time each day to contemplate the fact that the Reality is that God Is All, and therefore God is All There Is to you. And that’s a done deal. In other words, the Ultimate you’re going to arrive at is already the Ultimate right now. The accomplishment, you might say, has already been accomplished. And all that you’re doing in your process of awakening is letting yourself into the Conscious Experience of the fact that it’s always been the fact. It’s always been the Truth. You’ve always been the exact, perfect, Holy Expression of God.
And again the Expression of God is God expressed. Do you get it? The Expression of God is not you expressed by God. [pointing to people in the audience] God, God, God, God, God, God, God, [tapping on the glass upon the table] the table, the glass—it’s God.
That’s why it’s called a journey without distance. Because all you’re going to do is in a moment of defenselessness realize that you never were what you thought you were and you never were an entity going through a process of purification to arrive at some evolutionary end point. “Evolutionary” meaning that you started out as something and become more, and more, and more, until at the end, what is there is hardly recognizable compared to the beginning of the journey. You are not going through an evolutionary process. You are simply coming out of insanity. You’re simply coming out of misunderstanding. And it’s you, the absolutely Divine Presence of God, coming out of a misunderstanding of What You Are and What The World Is—which, as I’ve said over and over, is the Kingdom of Heaven.
If you grasp this, you will not value your process of awakening so much that you miss waking up. You see? Because the one who’s apparently in a process of waking up is part of the illusion. Now, because the one who is in a process of waking up is really the only one there is—in other words, God did not create His Self-expression that’s you, and then you through your imagination created a second creation. If anyone is deluded, it’s the Son of God—the Divine One That You Are right now—because you are right now the very one God created, the very one God Is Being in this very moment as His Self-expression. You, in your misinterpretation of yourself, identifying yourself by means of definitions you have created, will seem to be in a process of letting go of what has nothing to do with you—the Divine You That You Are. And so this is where walking the fine line occurs, because Clarity, or Sanity, regarding yourself is going to be experienced right where you are at the moment in terms of the definition you’re holding of yourself in the moment, and the undoing of it.
But mind you, even though there seems to be this process of letting go of distorted perceptions of yourself, you can become preoccupied with that process. And that’s what … that is why it’s important to remember that the Ultimate About You is present right now—never was altered, even though you have imagined it was, and you believe your imagination—so that you might understand that although there will seem to be a process, the process isn’t necessary. The process isn’t the focal point. And that will speed up the return of your Sanity.
Wow.
So what’s the focal point then?
The fact that the Ultimate is already the fact. The end of the journey is where you are experiencing this sense of a journey that is no journey at all.
So all of this you’re not talking …
I’m sorry.
The question was, “So what is the focal point?” And that’s what I was responding to.
Continue …
So, in all of this, you are not responding to Michael, the man sitting over there on the chair, and you are not responding to Judy, the woman sitting over there on the couch, and you’re not responding to Ryan, the man sitting here, all coming as individuals.
Nor is the chair you’re sitting on “wood,” or the couch she’s sitting on “fabric.” It’s all God and it is Meaning that expresses incredible Divine Intelligence and Love and Truth and Life, even though it seems to be inanimate, and so on. All of this that could be defined as you were defining it, is not the way I’m experiencing it.
And so what seems like all of us coming from disparate places tonight and for different reasons, that’s all the illusion, and we are the One Mind Son of God, present right here, right now, for ever and ever, waiting to wake up to the fact that the …
That you’re already there. [audience laughter]
… many is the illusion, and that we are One right now.
Exactly.
And right here.
Exactly.
And we all love each other to a very deep and incredible degree.
Indeed.
[in the background] And that doesn’t blow us away.
So …
So Michael can’t wake up without everybody else waking up. It’s not an individual thing. It’s the wholeness awakening.
I’m going to put it this way. There are those of the Brotherhood who are Awake, but the simplest way I can put it is that our being Awake is not completed until you are Awake.
Because it is not separate from the Oneness that is here present with us now.
That is correct.
But until you are consciously experiencing it, you cannot join in the communion that is Unity. And so part of our Conscious Experience of Union is held up from being experienced because you are distracted by your processes, and your commitment to your perceptions. And so, you could say, we are not experiencing our Wholeness completely, because part of our Wholeness being experienced is your experiencing yours/ours. Yours which is inseparably part of ours. Yours which is inseparable from you experiencing yourself and all of us together as ours.
There are those who would say that if you’re Awake, if one is Awake, why would he bother with you? Well, because you are part of me. You are part of the infiniteness of me. And as long as that part of the infiniteness of me is insisting on isolating himself to his own private, personal interpretations of things, I can’t enjoy full conscious communion with him. And so, you could say, well, it’s self-serving for me to help. But it’s not a selfish self-serving. It’s because although you don’t recognize your Unity with me, I do. And you are embraced, consciously embraced by every one of Us Who Are Awake; not just me. You are consciously embraced—supportively, but not manipulatively—in your, you might say, being distracted from your distraction long enough to let something else register with you, because that’s where the communion can occur. And that’s where the beginning of Unity occurs.
Now we had better get into the book. And we might as well start with you.
[Editor’s Note: The section heading is: WHOLENESS AND SPIRIT ]
The miracle is much like the body in that both are learning aids for facilitating a state in which they become unnecessary.2
Yes. And we’re going to stop right there. [some audience laughter]
They become unnecessary as learning-tools. If you were looking at God and saying, “That isn’t God,” then that which you are looking at and denying the Truth of becomes the point where clarification needs to occur. Therefore, that which you are calling “not God” becomes a learning-tool. And once the learning has occurred and it is recognized for what it is, it ceases to be a learning-tool. But it doesn’t disappear.
So there is no sacrifice involved?
That is correct.
I don’t have to wake up and lose my family and friends and all the people I love and everything that has ever meant anything to me.
Or what you call your body.
Right.
Exactly. Exactly. The fact is you won’t lose anything. You will have it more completely.
Continue …
When spirit’s original state of direct communication is reached, neither the body nor the miracle serves any purpose. While you believe you are in a body, however, you can choose between loveless and miraculous channels of expression. You can make an empty shell, but you cannot express nothing at all. You can wait, delay, paralyze yourself, or reduce your creativity almost to nothing.
Just a moment.
And you may do it by becoming preoccupied with your process of awakening.
Continue …
But you cannot abolish it. You can destroy your medium of communication, but not your potential. You did not create yourself.
And it’s because you did not create yourself that you do not have the capacity to un-create yourself. And it is because you did not create yourself that you do not have the capacity to successfully think that you have created yourself and can creatively modify that creation indefinitely.
Continue …
May I [say something]?
Yes.
And then, therefore, I take it that we can’t screw it up either.
Of course not.
We can delay it. We can delay it, but we can’t screw it up.
You can sidetrack yourself, as in a daydream in a school classroom, but you can’t make the classroom go away, and you can’t make the education that is occurring there stop. That is right.
Hallelujah.
But you can miss the learning for a while.
[in the background] That’s stupid rest.
Continue …
The basic decision of the miracle-minded is not to wait on time any longer than is necessary. Time can waste as well as be wasted. The miracle worker, therefore, accepts the time-control factor gladly. He recognizes that every collapse of time brings everyone closer to the ultimate release from time, in which the Son and the Father are one.
This is important.
He recognizes that every collapse of time that he experiences individually by virtue of the miracle, brings everyone else as well, closer to the ultimate release from time. Just as there are no private thoughts, there is no private enlightenment.
Continue …
Equality does not imply equality now. When everyone recognizes that he has everything, individual contributions to the Sonship will no longer be necessary.
What do you think that means?
… individual contributions to the Sonship will no longer be necessary.
There never have been individual contributions to the Sonship.
Yes, there have. Every time … every time you have allowed a miracle to occur and you have become clearer, you have made a contribution to the Sonship, because what I’m going to call the absence of illumination which seems to be present in the Sonship who is having dreams becomes more illuminated. And so you have made a contribution, an individual contribution to the increased Conscious Experience of Oneness of the Whole Sonship.
‘Cause I let my Light shine. I get it. I …
Yeah, that’s right.
Then when I was working with what I was talking about …
But it’s interesting … it’s interesting to be aware that the individual contribution you give in that instance is not because you initiated it, but because you set aside your sense of authoritative-self and let God be you more clearly.
Yeah. Being clueless brought me there, but I had to let go of being clueless as, you know, that’s not something I can hang on to and go into that experience.
That’s correct.
And when I was asking I got the … which I’m finding that you are very willing to work with concepts, and work with me in concepts, whereas I’m finding that my Guide is not very willing to work with me conceptually. But, and I don’t know where it came from, but I got the idea that what we’re talking about was Zen. That when I was joining with the flower, or with the wood that I was working on …
I can understand why your Guide doesn’t. And I’m not going to join you right now in conceptualizing it as being like Zen. [some audience laughter] Stop it.
That was a concept?
Of course.
But it’s talking and somebody had an experience.
Ah. Somebody had an experience.
And then they conceptualized it.
Yes.
And then somebody wrote it down. And somebody fixed their motorcycle using that concept. [some audience laughter]
Yes. And…
And get over it.
But let’s … but talk to me about the one who had the experience. And talk to me about the experience. And talk to me about you’re having the experience. And to hell with the letters “z-e-n,” or a concept. We’ve been talking for a number of weeks based on what we’re reading in A Course In Miracles. Tonight I told you that the athlete who actually let’s himself into the experience is further along than you are, further along than what we’ve been talking about. What we’re talking about, we’re talking about for the purpose of leading you to a point of curiosity great enough to let yourself abandon yourself to the Flow, to the Movement. And so to hell with the word “Zen.” To hell with the words, “a course in miracles.” If it doesn’t register with you that we’re at the bottom line talking about your abandoning your present sense of yourself and not getting hung up on the process by which this sense of yourself apparently yields to What You Truly Are …
I’m sorry this is me, Paul. I lost it. [pause] He’s continuing:
You will not begin to be engaged in the movement, the transformational movement of coming back into your Right Mind.
I won’t be engaged in it?
No, because you’ll be too self-satisfied.
Well, it felt good when I, you know, had this experience of harmony and I saw life as good. And, you know, I mean this week that felt good.
Okay. Put simply, until you realize that it’s all about an experience, and you’re willing to abandon making a great deal out of your process, you won’t yield into the experience, you won’t engage in the experience, and therefore you will not take … you will not take the first essential step which constitutes the return of your Sanity.
Damn. All them big books I read screwed me right up.
What you let them do to you, what you made them do to you, screwed you up. If they had managed to inspire you to abandon any sense of self-confidence that you thought you had, then you would not be screwed up, because you would have let yourself into that place where God can register with you and reveal to you that He is All There Is of you, and that you are not anything of what you had been imagining you were.
And that happened, too. I mean that happened, too. That was part of the experience of some places in some books.
Yes. But what the books did to you that wasn’t helpful is the use you put the books to.
Yeah. The metaphysical models and the conceptualizing everything.
Indeed.
So we should let go to the Flow, realizing that All There Is is God, and we’re in Heaven, and there is nothing bad that can happens to us. But that gets pretty hard ‘cause sometimes things look pretty scary and that knocks us right out of this Flow.
It can tempt you to get out of the Flow.
So even when it’s scary, we should push right ahead and say …
No. You should. Pushing ahead is willfulness.
[laughing] Just let it come on. Come on, bring it on?
No. Because what’s scaring you is not What The It Really Is, but your misperception of It. And so you’ve got to stop right there where the scariness is occurring and reach beyond your spontaneous definitions based on your past experience to say, “Father, what is the Meaning here? Father, how do I see the Wholeness of Being identified here where I am afraid that lack or loss is going to occur?” You must persist in substantiating the connection. Because when you become afraid, scared, it means you have already withdrawn into a private perception.
Scared is just a sign that we’re out of the Flow.
And out of the communion. And out of your connectedness, your connected experience of the Allness of God. And therefore, not connected where the uncovering of the Movement of God that has to be happening there, can be revealed to you as What It Really Is. Yes, it gets scary. But it only gets scary to your ego.
Because we can’t be harmed at all in Truth because of Where We Are and What We Are.
But it’s scary to your ego because it means that it can’t be in control. And you are not honoring your ego, and that scares your ego, because the one thing, as I’ve said, that the ego cannot defend itself against is disregard. So, yes. Yes, it can seem to get scary. That’s not inevitable. But when it does, it means that you have been willing to distance yourself from the communion and look at it all by yourself. And you’ve got to reverse that.
But that’s what we think everybody else here is doing. Because we think there is an “everybody else” here, and so it’s hard to take the step acknowledging that there is no “everybody else” here, but only the Son of God.
The Infinite One That I Am.
The Infinite One That I Am.
Yes.
Expressing as …
And so the ego throws out this fantastic suggestion that you may be able to experience clarity and be in your peace in this situation, but that doesn’t mean that everyone else will. And everyone else still has their mutually-agreed-upon definitions of everything with which they try to govern you, and that will put you at risk. And therefore, it may not be wise for you to continue to yield to the Flow, because it will cause you to be vulnerable.
Now, the fact is that conflict cannot be experienced in Unity Consciousness. Conflict can only be experienced by one who is choosing to look at things by himself. And so the one who is afraid that he could be at a disadvantage—even if he is clear, because others aren’t—is seeing the inevitable conflict, or is experiencing the inevitable inner conflicted-ness that is inseparable from having been willing to look at things privately. And therefore, has lost his peace, which is the fundamental element of Unity Consciousness in which, if he had chosen to stay there, he would find himself able to be utterly appropriate, whether others seemed to have seen the Truth or not, and that resolution will occur and vulnerability will not. But that takes trust. And that takes willingness. And it takes Someone Who Is Awake to tell you what is happening so that you can recognize it, and dare to trust, where you couldn’t have mustered up the courage to do it based on the insufficient information you currently had. Okay.
Let’s continue …
When the Atonement has been completed, all talents will be shared by all the Sons of God. God is not partial. All His children have His total Love, and all His gifts are freely given to everyone alike.
It is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom—All of Himself.
Continue …
“Except ye become as little children” means that unless you fully recognize your complete dependence on God, . .
… oh, there it is. [audience laughter] There’s the deep, dark secret that’s hidden in the darkness. There it is bold as life. “Except ye become as little children” means that unless you fully recognize—fully—fully without reserve—fully recognize your complete dependence on God.
Continue …
… you cannot know the real power of the Son in his true relationship with the Father.
And I won’t tell you, and no one will tell you what that means ahead of time, [small laugh] because your ego will grab hold of it and see it as its ultimate potential if it shuts up until you get to that realization. And to whatever degree your ego can be slipped into your back pocket so that it can get into the Kingdom of Heaven, you will not get there, because you will not fully recognize your complete dependence on God. And that’s why I mentioned last week that once you realize your complete dependence on God, and joining occurs fully, you will still be completely dependant on God because you were never created as an independent anything.
Hallelujah.
That’s how absolute this is.
Always be a part of God.
Now …
“Except ye become as little children” means that unless you fully recognize your complete dependence on God, you cannot know the real power of the Son in his true relationship with the Father.
That’s as far as one can go in encouraging you, because your ego says that to be completely dependant means to have no power. But this is telling you that when you do acknowledge your complete dependence, your total personal incompetence, you will know the real power of the Son in his true relationship with the Father. It is not going to be a loss of any kind.
Continue …
The specialness of God’s Sons does not stem from exclusion but from inclusion.
Indeed …
All my brothers are special. If they believe they are deprived of anything, their perception becomes distorted. When this occurs the whole family of God, or the Sonship, is impaired in its relationships.
The whole family.
If just two, because one can’t do it by himself, if just two move into distorted perception, the Whole Sonship becomes impaired in its relationships. Impaired only this far, in that those two who mutually joined in a definition at odds with What The Father Was Being are unavailable to the rest, and out of all of the Sonship there are two whose relationship is impaired with the rest. But everyone, all of the Brotherhood—and I put this in quote[s]—“suffers an impairment of relationship when just two decide to become independent and behave as though they are and ignore the rest of the Brotherhood.” It does not cause all of the rest of the Brotherhood that has not indulged in these mutual definitions to have impaired relationships with each other.
Is it ever been that there’s no one not Awake?
Of course. You might say in the beginning.
Ancient times.
No. It would be better to think that it was in this very moment. You’re not having an accumulated experience of ignorance. You’re having a current experience of ignorance. [audience laughter] It’s at this very moment [audience laughter] that you’re choosing to not be Awake.
So there, see there’s another concept. Tonight I’m not going to go with you there anymore than your Guide will. Stop conceptualizing. You can see that it gets you into trouble. Because you can paint a picture of ancient times, oh, my God, and the dinosaur bones. [audience laughter] And the caveman if there really was a caveman.
I just get so excited.
But the point is that when you draw this very creative picture of time, ancient pillars and …
You’re better at it than I am.
Indeed. [audience laughter.] Indeed. And submerged civilizations …
Wow.
… with the fish swimming around.
Atlantis.
And you create these marvelous images.
Well, for one thing, you can come to the conclusion that because your ignorance was so long in developing, it must be going to take an equally long time for it to be gotten out of. But the fact is that it was at this very moment that you created a picture of the past. And it’s in this very moment that you’re choosing not to be Awake. And it’s in this very moment that you are already the Ultimate Divine Being that God Is Being right there where I see you. That is what is here at this very moment.
So stop conceptualizing. Stop making it hard for yourself by having these incredible pictures. And begin to be curious in this moment to see the Ultimate that’s going on right now. I said last week, you are experiencing Eternity right now. There is nothing else to be experienced. And you are experiencing Reality at this moment. There is nothing else to be experienced. It’s not off in the future. And it’s not unavailable in the moment. But you’ve got to start being curious. As I’ve said before, you’ve got to be willing to look with innocent eyes—eyes that are not looking through preconceptions where you see what you expect to see.
I had some experiences this week of letting my Light shine.
Yes. But don’t slip back into the old habits. Do your best not to get into concepts.
That’s been what’s the conversation’s been going on.
Indeed. Okay.
We have the Brotherhood. We have Awakened Brothers. We have unawakened Brothers. And all of them also are fully present right here, right now.
Absolutely.
Because there is no other place, there is no off in China for all those Brothers to be, except in our conceptualization, because those Brothers also are right here, right now, with us as present as each of the bodies I see sitting here in this particular expression of the Sonship.
That is correct. And every single one of them is completely aware of everything that is happening here, right now, and also aware of what is happening at other places in the Universe that have nothing to do with A Course In Miracles, or anything to do with those who are in a process of awakening. There is nothing unavailable to the mind that is not insisting upon having a separate, private perception of things. All that is going on is being experienced simultaneously. You are correct.
Or a concept.
No. It is not a concept. [lots of audience laughter]. Turn it into a concept and [snaps fingers] lose the learning.
Indeed. [audience laughter]
Now continue …
Ultimately, every member of the family of God must return.
Because they never left. [single audience laugh] They … ultimately everyone is bound to realize where they are.
Without a map.
Indeed, continue …
The miracle calls him to return because it blesses and honors him, even though he may be absent in spirit.
Yes …
“God is not mocked” is not a warning but a reassurance. God would be mocked if any of His creations lacked holiness.
Or lacked Ultimate-ness. Or lacked what He had created, what He had expressed of Himself right there, which was All of Himself.
Continue …
The creation is whole, and the mark of wholeness is holiness. Miracles are affirmations of Sonship, which is a state of completion and abundance.
Pretty simple. Miracles are un-coverings of What You Already Are. And What You Already Are is complete and abundant. Miracles are like glimpses that afford you a truer sense of yourself, which naturally leads to further glimpses.
Continue …
Whatever is true is eternal, and cannot change or be changed. Spirit is therefore unalterable because it is already perfect, but the mind can elect what it chooses to serve. The only limit put on its choice is that it cannot serve two masters. If it elects to do so, the mind can become the medium by which spirit creates along the line of its own creation. If it does not freely elect to do so, it retains its creative potential but places itself under tyrannous rather than Authoritative control.
Yes. Because if it chooses for the voice for fear—there are only two voices—the Voice for Truth and the voice for fear—if it chooses for the voice for fear, then everything that follows will be one form of defense or another. And defense is always attack. And so it becomes tyrannical in its attempts to control life so that the threat it perceives doesn’t harm it. In the process, it harms others, apparently.
Continue: It says it right here.
As a result it imprisons, because such are the dictates of tyrants.
Yes. However, it only imprisons those who have also mutually agreed to these terms.
I don’t agree to them, so whenever any of you gets tyrannical, I just smile. It doesn’t strike fear in my heart, because I haven’t joined you in your mutually-agreed-upon definition that causes you to see everything in a polarized state, that causes you to see Unity as polarity. And which automatically calls for defense.
Continue …
To change your mind means to place it at the disposal of true Authority.
Yes. To change your mind initially appears to be you abandoning your mind, because you think that thinking is the indication of the presence of a mind. You think that if there is a mind present, or if mind is functioning, it is functioning as thinking. But it isn’t true.
To change your mind means to choose again. You have only two choices. To listen to and obey the voice for fear, or to listen to and obey the Voice for Truth. This does mean abandoning your thinking. But when you have abandoned your thinking, you find you are still conscious. And when you’re not thinking, there is no voice for fear speaking, ever. And in the silence you can hear the Voice for Truth and place your mind at the disposal of it.
Continue …
The miracle is a sign that the mind has chosen to be led by me in Christ’s service.
Oh, darn it. There’s that word “led” again. [audience laughter] Led like sheep. Don’t you have a lot of derogatory phrases relative to being led? Led around by the nose.
Well, if you’re not led by me, if you are not led by an Awakened Brother in Christ’s service, then you’re still choosing to hold onto a supposed capacity that you think you have to be authoritative on your own. And the fact is that you’re being duped. Because if you’re not listening to me, if you’re not listening to the Voice for Truth, you are listening to the voice for fear and you’re not succeeding in being a self on your own that has a capacity to think on its own and be creative on its own.
You have only two choices. To be led around by the Voice for Truth, or to be led around by the voice for fear. Either way you’re going to be led. I don’t mean you specifically. The only thing is that when you’re led around by the voice for fear, the voice for fear lets you believe that you’re doing it yourself. And doesn’t that feel good?
Continue …
The abundance of Christ is the natural result of choosing to follow Him. All shallow roots must be uprooted, because they are not deep enough to sustain you. The illusion that shallow roots can be deepened, and thus made to hold, is one of the distortions on which the reverse of the Golden Rule rests. As these false underpinnings are given up, the equilibrium is temporarily experienced as unstable.
Yes. You all had that experience.
Continue …
However, nothing is less stable than an upside-down orientation. Nor can anything that holds it upside down be conducive to increased stability.
So the Golden Rule is do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And the reverse of the Golden Rule is do it to others before they do it to you? Is that …
That is a fair rendition, yes.
Okay.
Do it to others before they do what you think they’re going to do to you. Powerful, isn’t it?
It’s big business.
You create a picture of another through the use of your imagination without checking in with God first to see if that’s the Truth. And then you act toward them, based on the picture you have created. And you do to them whatever you pictured them doing to you. Yes.
It’s upside-down thinking to think that you have any authority separate and apart from your Source, any capacity for creativity on your own, any apparent capacity to actually be reasonable, or to express reason that is valuable. It is upside-down thinking to think that you are an original thinker. It is upside-down thinking to think that you can be a leader. It’s all the insulting things that you really are—helpless, incompetent, incapable, unable, and unreal …
(I’m sorry. Just that I … that’s me Paul [who] said I’m sorry. Just a moment.)
… and unreal—in the sense of being a presence which is refining itself and engaged in actual real processes of awakening. You see? It’s so insulting. But it’s all true. And if the Truth of it can register with you, it will cause you to withdraw your intensity and your investment and your commitment to furthering all of the things that are not insulting to you, which the ego tells you is true about you, and actually beginning to reach out and say “Help.” Knowing that in the act of genuinely saying “Help,” you provide the environment and the occasion for a miracle, a sudden shift in perception. And any one of those miracles can be the first domino that causes a spontaneous and total awakening [snaps fingers] now into the awareness of What You Truly Are and were, the moment before when the domino … when the first domino fell. And that it’s only a blink of an eye, time wise, between your ignorance and your Ultimate Total Clarity. I can’t say it any more clearly than that.
And with that good news we will end for the evening.
Thank you.
You are welcome.
You will be Awake before we get to the end of this book [a lot of laughter by everyone] at this rate.
Is that a promise? [a lot of laughter by everyone] Who said that, Paul or Raj?
Not Paul.
Is that a promise?
We are kind of taking our time.
We’ll be dead before we get to the end of this book. [more laughter]
‘Cause I always heard that we couldn’t take it all at once. Like this business of a half of a blink, well, I … boy, that’s everything to me. But then I’ve heard other comments that it wouldn’t be fair to us if we got it that fast. You know, we couldn’t take it.
It will happen at the fastest rate it can without your experiencing a loss of identity in the process, because there is only One You, and that identicalness, you might say, that inseparable Oneness of You must remain intact as your experience of what you are grows into Wholeness. And if you can bear it, you might say, it can happen in an instant.
What’s the likelihood of that at this point in time?
It doesn’t matter. That isn’t where your attention should be.
I know. I know that. I just thought I might get lucky. [laughter]
[with the mic now] I just thought I might get lucky. [laughing]
I understand.
Well, because you surprise me all the time, you know. Every time I think I’ve got it figured out, you know, where you’re coming from, then you throw a curveball in, you know. So I might as well …
That’s because it doesn’t work to conceptualize and think you have it pegged.
Right. Right.
The minute you think you have it pegged, you have yourself like a butterfly mounted on an exhibit board. You are pegged, and you are stabilized, and you are stuck, and you are immobilized.
Or I can’t take it all at once, so I better not expect it to happen in half a blink.
Indeed. Indeed.
Well, I’m happy to hear that.
Okay.
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