Teachings of Christ Mind

Good evening. And welcome to everyone who’s joining us on the Internet.

Well, it’s another good news/bad news night. And before we get into the book, there’s something I want to address. During this past week someone made a comment to the effect that, “I cannot dare to entertain any negative thoughts.” And the gist of the conversation was that it was only valuable to say the truth—“You’re a child of God. You’re the Daughter of God. You’re the Son of God.”

Well, if that’s the case, then last week was my last ACIM Study Group, because we cannot go any further if I can only say wonderful sweet platitudes about the truth about you.

To engage in only positive thoughts is one of the most wonderful devices the ego could have come up with to keep you from waking up, because I’m going to ask you, “Who is it, or what is it, that would be making a point of only expressing positive thoughts and never expressing negative thoughts?”

Well, someone who’s in charge of himself. Someone who can decide what’s appropriate and what isn’t, and what will get him into the Kingdom of Heaven or what won’t. And obviously, that’s not someone who’s listening within. It’s the ego. It’s the orphan being the best damned orphan he can be—thinking only positive thoughts, never entertaining a negative thought, and certainly never expressing a negative thought.

But how do you uncover and correct errors that are being practiced if you don’t call them for what they are? I mean, what would you think of someone who’s house you had come over to, and you were visiting, and an hour before you got there it was a mess, and all of the dirt and dust was swept under the carpet and the mess was taken and thrown in a back room where you would never go, and in wonderful, peaceful equanimity, they invited you in and you spent the time with them and had this impression that they were very orderly and that they were clean, and that they lived in a wonderful environment. If you knew that there was dirt there that was hidden out of sight, but still there, your reaction would be that they were not a very honest person. All they were doing was providing an impression of cleanliness and order and a valuing of beauty in their environment.

It’s very easy to cover up dishonesty. It’s very easy to cover up error by never expressing a negative thought. It’s dangerous to your awakening because it will block it.

Now, if you’re being dishonest, it needs to be stated. It needs to be said. It needs to be told. Sometimes you are consciously dishonest. But most of the time you are unconsciously dishonest. And in a way, it’s the unconscious dishonesty which is your worst enemy, because if you’re unconscious of it, you’re not going to look for it, you’re not going to know that you need to dig for it, you’re not going to know that effort is going to have to be brought to bear in order to uncover it, see it for what it is, and release it because, having seen it for what it is, you recognize its valuelessness, and you automatically abandon whatever is not of value to you. It’s a spontaneous thing.

So, I will proceed to say things tonight, as I have on other evenings, that could well be interpreted to be negative, because if you’re doing things that don’t work, I need to say, “You’re doing things that don’t work and here’s what they are, and stop it if you want to wake up. It’s getting in your way.” Well, that’s not going to be very pleasing to your ego, but I don’t give a shit!

There’s another aspect here that is extremely important. And that is, that if you think that thinking only positive thoughts and never entertaining a negative thought is a valid principle, then, when you go within to listen to the Holy Spirit, or when you turn to your Guide, you are going to provide this bias to your listening. And so when it’s time for your Guide to say, “you’re being dishonest,” or “you’re doing what doesn’t work,” or “to value your ignorance is stupidity, stop it!” you’re not going to let it in. You are going to block the very guidance you need in order to wake up because of this preexisting mindset that you are practicing. Don’t do it. It’s not called unconditional listening. It’s not called genuine listening.

Now, we’re going to talk a little bit about ways in which you’re dishonest. You go through your day, and as an orphan, you impersonate the Christ. You do impressions all day long. You do impressions of yourself. And the fact that you’re doing impressions rather than being yourself truly, is dishonest. It’s something that you need to see as dishonest so that you can catch yourself when you’re doing it and stop it.

You have many different impressions of yourself that you do, like an impersonator. When you’re at work, the impression you give, the “you” that you impersonate, is the employee—the good employee or the bad employee who’s trying better and better—who’s constantly making sure that he or she gives the messages that will set well with his or her employer and make … what? The best impression.

And then, on break, when you go to the coffee room and you sit down with your fellow employees, boy, you bitch and moan about the boss, and now . … what? You’re doing a different impression of you.

Then, you come home at the end of the day, and when you’re with your husband or wife, you perhaps do the impression of overworked, overtired husband or wife that needs help, that needs attention, that needs support. And that’s the impression of you that you do.

Now here’s the clincher [chuckling]. The phone rings while you’re doing this impression, and the phone’s in the other room. And you go and you answer the phone, and it’s your best girlfriend or it’s your best male friend, and all of a sudden, the poor overworked tired person disappears. “Hey, how are ya? How are things goin? ya know “How was your day? Are we still getting together next week? And your voice has a lilt to it. It’s like … now where did this other person go to?

And then, the next day on your lunch break, you get together with one of your high school girlfriends or buddies, who you grew up with, who you know really well, and who you can really be yourself with, where you can share your darkest secrets, your most serious thoughts, your concerns or your irrelevant giddy nonsensical feelings and thoughts and ideas, and now you’re doing a different impression of yourself … even when you think that you’re with somebody you can be utterly real with. I mean, really utterly real with.

My point is, that you’re doing impersonations of a different “you” all day long—multiple characters because that’s what serves the purpose. Always the orphan, the ego, is doing what serves its best interests.

Now, I want you think of something else [chuckling]: You’ve been doing this impersonation of a downtrodden, dedicated worker, we’ll say, who’s really trying hard. But the odds are against you. Everything is going wrong. And you’re impersonating this particular “you.” And you’re at work and you need to go upstairs to get something from that floor and you leave and go into the stairwell, and all the way up, [said laboriously] you’re taking one step after another. You are still doing the impersonation. You’re still believing the impersonation. You walk as though you have no energy because everything is going wrong. And there’s no-one to see you.

But I’ll tell you something. You do the act—whether you know it or not, you do—you participate in the impersonation because if someone comes around the corner, or comes down from the upstairs unexpectedly, you’re in character. Now, you may think that I’m putting you on. But if you really pay attention to yourself, you’ll see that’s exactly what you’re doing.

Now, this gets by you without you’re recognizing it because you believe, as the orphan you think you are, that this is the way you cope with life. You don’t know that there is a You who is the Christ, who is the direct expression of God, who is what God is Being right there where you are, which is utterly and absolutely stable, in whom there is an absolute evenness of temperament and honesty, one who doesn’t have to utilize different impressions for different occasions, one who, because there is this permanent evenness to, is always at peace and who never feels an experience of vulnerability against which he or she must defend himself or herself by means of impressions.

If you don’t know that, then it is understandable that you would unconsciously employ techniques of dishonesty because, under the circumstances, this is the best way to cope with life.

Now, if you are never able to express or think a negative thought, you will not be able to look at what I just said, because the fact is that if you look at what I’ve just said, and if you accept it as the truth, then you are going to have to acknowledge that you’re being dishonest, even though you don’t want to be, and that you have valued it. And you have always employed it. And because you have yet to make the persistent consistent effort to connect with the Holy Spirit or with your Guide, everything you’re doing is being done in the context of dishonesty, and therefore very little of what you have been being, is real. Here’s the bad news: That is the good news!

The bad news that is the good news is, that you can’t count on anything you have ever believed. You cannot count on or value the techniques you have learned in order to cope with life. There is very little of value that you can draw upon meaningfully. That’s bad news. But it’s good news if you will believe it, because if you will believe it, you will be willing to try something else. And the willingness to try something else is where you break loose of the control ignorance has had over you—the control that your dream has had over you.

The good news is that the death of your concept of yourself is the birth of what you really Are in your mind. And so you must be willing to look at so-called negative thoughts. You must be willing to look at hard facts and not cringe in the face of them. Stand there and acknowledge them and accept them, because the moment you stop justifying yourself, and justifying all of the impersonations or impressions you have engaged in, and the moment you stop justifying the reason why you’ve had to do that, because none of it is valuable, at that moment you will have come to a place of honesty within yourself.

And at that point you will be very clear that you must reach outside of your best concepts and your best reasonings and your best theories, and the best damn mutual agreements that all of you orphans have pulled together and created for yourself as a menu for successful life.

The bad news is that you have been behaving as though you’re out of your mind—your right Mind. You have been behaving as though you are insane. Is that a negative thought? It all depends on whether or not that threatens your security or your sense of well-being.

It doesn’t have to threaten you at all if you truly believe that there is a God and if you’re willing to believe what the Course says, and what I’ve been saying. That in spite of the concept, the image you have made of yourself, you are something entirely different. You are right now, what God is Presencing Himself as, right there where you are.

Now, I want to cover a point that there was some unclarity about from last week. It’s two paragraphs above where we’re beginning tonight. The last three sentences:

I pointed out that there’s a built-in safeguard as you wake up, as you have a shift of perception. And the best way I can express it is, that it’s like the example of a werewolf. One who is a werewolf is normally an everyday human being like all of you, but when the full moon comes out, an episode begins, and that normal one turns into a wolf-like hairy creature who spends the night as a predator, killing.

Now, the werewolf is like the orphan. And the orphan believes that in the presence of truth, he will turn on himself and destroy himself … and I’m going to add, if he could find himself. But the normal human being that he is, at times other than the full moon, is nowhere to be found. He can’t find the real “him” to kill. But if he could find him, he would. But at the end of the night when the moon sets, and he gets closer and closer to being the real him again, the werewolf is disappearing, so that at the point that the real one that he is, is fully present, there is nothing left of the werewolf that would attack him.

It’s that simple. You are afraid that the closer you get to the truth of you, the closer you get, through transformation of your mind, to the experience of the Christ that you are, that you will turn on It and rend It, except that as that happens, the orphan who values not knowing who his Father is, and not knowing Who he really Is, is disappearing. So that at the point that the Christ of you stands forth, perfectly clear, there is no orphan any more present to accomplish anything or do anything.

I hope that clarifies it for you.

Let’s go into the Book.

Now, you couldn’t possibly do this if you can’t dare to think a single negative thought.

Believe me, if you haven’t already asked the Holy Spirit to take it away from you without your having to be aware of it, you will arrive at a point where you ask that. But it can’t be done.

… there’s that word again, “dispel” …

You gotta go back and lift the carpet up and get your broom and get that dirt out yourself. The dirt you put there, you gotta take out.

And you will never realize it if you’re not willing to look at, or consider negative thoughts.

But before we go onto the more that it covers, let’s go back here:

Man, you’ve got to be willing to take a look at the degree to which you do express hostility in one form or another every day. And get satisfaction from it!

I don’t care how nice a person you think you are. And I don’t care how much you hold that in the forefront of your awareness. The fact is, that the hand behind your back that’s out of sight, engages in unkindness multiple times during the day. And the saintly one you think you are, doesn’t even notice. Dishonesty again.

And you must begin to be honest with yourself. You are all very ready to be hostile—even through jokes, through humor. That’s a really good way to disguise hostility … is to make people laugh. Hm-m, but it happens every day. I won’t say especially on the “Tonight Show.” [chuckle] But, it happens there every night.

You are very ready to be irritated by this, that or the other thing. You have a pre disposition to be irritated, ever-present. You may not let it out very often, but it’s there. Why is it there? Because you don’t believe you are the Christ. You do not believe that you are the very Presence of God, Himself. You think you are an orphan coping, who must use every means at its disposal to defend itself against the polarities of life that are constantly eating away at you.

And you think that your expression of hostility is an expression of strength. And that’s why you value it. And that’s why you don’t think too badly of it.

… fear …

… or to be hostile …

See, you would be willing to look at the ego and find out that it doesn’t exist, that it isn’t real, that it’s a fabrication of the imagination. You would be willing even to look at that, if you didn’t know that in doing that …

Which is what we were talking about last week.

Sounds crazy doesn’t it.

… in other words, behind the ego, what’s being covered up …

You would instantly remember that you are your Father’s Son or Daughter the moment you acknowledge the existence of a Father. The moment you acknowledge the existence of a Source, that means you are not the source of yourself. It brings you back into the clarity of a relationship with your Source that makes you something far different from the orphan you have believed you are.

… your right Mind, your clarity …

How? By saying, “Father, I’d rather see it my way. Father, I’d rather do it myself. Father, I would rather give the definitions to everything myself. I’m going to do that for awhile. See you later, Father.”

… and I want you not to read this as though something else is attacking you. Your fear of engaging in attack is what I want you to consider …

Your fear of engaging in attack is nothing compared to your fear of engaging with love.

… meaning, keeping your true status out of sight …

You would catapult yourself back into your right Mind if you would let the memory register with you.

Now I’m going to back up because here’s one of the negative thoughts:

“What do you mean I don’t want the separation healed? I’m studying the Course because I want to wake up. I’ve been a student of truth for 20 years because I want to wake up. What do you mean … ?”

What I mean is, that you don’t want to lose the right to be the determiner of your life, because you think that’s your purpose. You think that’s your reason for being. And if you’re going to lose that, you don’t want the separation to be healed. It’s that simple, and it’s that black and white. It’s that stark. Because it’s that stark, it’s that simple—nothing complicated or complex about it at all.

Continuing … 


Attack is an exercise of power, isn’t it? It’s you standing up for your rights over and against somebody who’s imposing theirs upon you. It’s your salvation. It’s your power. It’s your opportunity to exercise authority.

… [laughing] from being suddenly catapulted into Heaven.

… what? …

And you know what? This intense and burning love of God and His for you, is the evenness of your being, the invulnerability of your being, that I spoke of earlier, that you may not have been aware was there. And your ignorance of it was what allowed you to believe that the using of multiple impressions and being dishonest in various forms throughout your day was justified because that’s what it took to cope with life as you’ve defined it, or as other orphans have defined it for you. You see?

That evenness in you is your intense and burning love of God and His for you, that is there in you right now. And this is what you really want to hide.

This is the bad news that is the good news. You’re wanting to hide your salvation. Oh dear, fifty lashes for you. You want to hide your salvation. That means that your salvation is at hand. That means that your salvation is presently the truth about you—actively the truth about you. And the experience of it is available to you the moment you stop denying it, the moment you stop objecting to the realization of it because you want to hold onto to your authority and don’t want to break the separation.

… and here’s the word, “honesty” …

… as we discussed last week …

… love …

Remember I said nobody likes a good guy? And loving people are wimps who do not have what it takes to stand up to the harshness of life and take command in the face of threat and harm?

… this sudden catapulting of you back into your right Mind, for you could not control the happening of it—

Would vanish. It’s not at all desirable or delectable to the orphan to have to abandon control over its world. Because whatever degree of success it has had, is what has given it apparent valid identity. And it doesn’t want to lose the identity it has worked so hard to establish.

… that which is nothing more than your Right Mind …

So, have fun trying to exclude Him. If He doesn’t will to be excluded, you’re pissing in the wind.

Well, if you don’t believe me, believe Paul. When it comes to the point where you’re asked to let the Holy Spirit respond to everything, or to let me respond to everything, or to let your Guide, who is fully Christed, respond to everything, the question will arise in your mind, “Well, what about me? I mean, you’re just gonna flush me down the toilet??”

And you’re not going to be happy at the prospect of not being able to introduce any of your uniqueness into the mix. And you will think that if you do, it will crush you into nothingness.

When I say to Paul, “Let me respond to everything.” The picture that comes to his mind is a poster he once saw of a tail of a whale above the water as the whale dove, an exquisite picture. And underneath the picture, the caption was: “Extinction is Forever.” Paul feels as though, if he lets me respond to everything, he will become extinct.

You, when you arrive at a point of willingness to let your Guide respond some of the time, like he [Paul] let’s me respond some of the time … when you arrive at that point, your Guide is going to push for less and less of you, the orphan.

You’re not going to like it. And you’re going to feel as though it will cause the you that you think you are, the only “you” you’ve ever known, to become extinct. It’s that black and white. Paul ignores the fact that even right now, when I’m speaking, and he’s letting me respond, he is fully present. He hasn’t gone anywhere. But his reason for being is not to make an impression. He’s not impersonating anything. He’s not expressing a right to be a little bit of himself … at least the self he thought he was.

His experience of being, right now, is very different from his experience of being when he’s on his own—able to be his cute little self, an occasional smart-ass (with good connotations), a pleasant fellow to be around, and one with good morals, and so on. This is one of the impressions he does.

But right now he’s not doing an impression at all. And so he doesn’t recognize himself in it–none of the triggers that say, “Yeah man, you’re doin’ it, you’re doin’ it, you’re doin’ it! None of the triggers are happening and yet he’s being it. And the reason for yielding to the Holy Spirit, the reason for yielding to the Christ, is so that you have the opportunity to experience what it feels like to be yourself, truly. And initially, it doesn’t feel familiar. You see?

So, that’s what it means.

And Paul—the orphan Paul—is convinced that it would not only make him little, it would make him extinct forever. I mean, if the extinction was only going to be temporary, that would be tolerable. Okay, maybe he’d be willing to try it. But if the extinction is forever—meaning that never again would he be inclined to employ the orphan mindset, never ever again—now that is like, permanent. [laughter] Unalterable. Permanent change.

That threshold, and the willingness it takes to move over that threshold is something each one of you has standing, or waiting for you, right in front of you. So you see, why waste another moment doing impressions of you [laughter] tonight or tomorrow, or the next day?

… His Love …

Now wait … I want you not to think of this in grandiose terms. Just listen to the news every night, and you’ll see that the popular belief is that magnitude lies in defiance and that attack is grandeur.

The orphan is a war monger. Piece of bad news: You, if you are choosing not to be joined, are war mongers. In one way or another, you delight in conflict and it gives you a feeling of invigoration. At the least it doesn’t bother you enough to stop.

… “made up” by means of your definitions and mutual agreements with other orphans’ definitions.

It isn’t so much that God would take it away from you, [laughing] but if you let yourself be moved by the intense and burning Love of God that’s in you, you would throw this world that you’ve made up away.

How much more negative a thought could be expressed?

Again, you must not be afraid to look at negative thoughts.

Don’t avoid the dirt under the carpet.

Pretty black and white.

[Chuckling] Extinction is forever for the ego. Extinction is forever for the orphan mindset.

Not a nice thought, but one you must look at.

Now …

… you know, in the hazy, misty darkness, …

Listen again …

… the Christ that you Are, that you never stopped being…

… imagined …

Here’s another not-so-nice thought:

… [said facetiously] You slippery dishonest ones that you are …

Here is the bad news that is the good news.

Well, what kind of suffering? Well, let’s just say for starters, the suffering you might find yourself feeling when you’re willing to consider honestly that you are always being dishonest, and that you don’t know what anything really means. And that you really don’t have a sound basis for doing anything constructive toward your awakening all by yourself.

And mind you, we’re talking about the Holy Spirit—that which is nothing more than your Right Mind. So when you are bringing these things to the Holy Spirit, you are bringing the attention of your distorted sense of self to that which is nothing more than your Right Mind, where adjustment can occur, where redemption can occur.

… which is your eternal sanity …

Invite it in. Don’t stand there arrogantly complaining about the injustice of what’s happening.

… what?

Negative thoughts. You see? If you don’t dare to think a single negative thought, you will not be able to do this. And you will remain in a comfortable dream state of holiness and impractical meaningless cloud-nine religiosity.

This is the good news.

… in the orphanage …

See? As long as being an orphan is so god-damned important to you, you are not going to acknowledge there is a God that is your Father. There will be no remembrance of Him and His Meaning to you as long as you are valuing the orphanage experience.

… that’s “his” with a small “h” meaning yours.

Now, obviously this is good news. But its talking about actually doing it. And that’s the bad news.

See? Don’t save a little bit of right to be hateful just here or there.

Meaning, where your right Mind is not welcome. And if it’s not welcome, you cannot experience your Sanity—your whole mindedness.

What’s the good news? The good news is that you aren’t what you thought you were. The good news is that you aren’t what you think you are. And separate and apart from whatever you think you are, you exist in an eternally stable, even environment or state of being, and it’s your Birthright to be experiencing everything from there. And it is present right now, in you, As you.

Stop wanting to be small. Stop wanting to be small-minded—picky, irritable, ready to jump at a moment’s notice to disqualify another, or stand arrogantly above another and minimize his value—because you’re being as bad as him, because you’re being as much of an orphan as him, and you’re believing your perception of yourself as much as he is. And that won’t get you out of it and it won’t get him out of it.

And someone has to change. And you know what? It’s you. [addressing everyone] psssst … and you … and you … and you … and you … and you … and every single one of you … and Paul.

I’m going to say this for Paul and everyone: Try extinction!

That’s the good news.

I love you and I don’t want any of you to suffer a moment longer, ignorant of the experience of what you truly Are, an experience that is available to you at this moment. And there’s nothing you can do to prepare for it.

Let go of the preparation. Let go of the use of impressions. Let love in. Remember your Father.

I look forward to being with you all next week. And I look forward to your all having an interesting week.