So, then you have a teaching like the Course, which basically says, bring the illusions to the Truth.
You cannot bring that experience into the world. And that's a huge thing. I mean,
how many spiritualities are based on the premise
that you can bring the Kingdom of Heaven to Earth?
That you can bring the Divine Spirit, the Divine Oneness into form?
That you can make a paradise on Earth?
Not only for yourself, but for everyone else. That's what's so sneaky about it. It's,
you know, it's still the attempt to bring the Truth into the illusion and just generalize it.
So that, "Oh, no. It's going to apply to everybody.
I'm going to do this for everybody."
And, there's no everybody to do it for.
You know, it's like, again, the whole teachings are: No, bring the illusions to the Truth.
Bring all those thoughts about the painting, to the Truth within.
Bring all the thoughts about the art, all the thoughts about marketing, all the thoughts about distribution,
all the thoughts about friendship, all the thoughts about social relating to society,
all the thoughts about surviving as a human being,
all the thoughts about the human experience.
Bring them all inside to the Light within your mind, and they will disappear.
You see how different that is from bring the Light into the darkness.
It's a completely opposite message of that.
And even the Course has passages like the "I Need Do Nothing" section is so beautiful, because
He's saying, "Make a space in your mind
that is so still and so quiet that you can abide there.
And, practice just this one thing for me, you know, and you will show your loyalty to me," Jesus is saying.
And I'm like, "Okay, what is it?
Just give it to me, whatever it is. Whatever it is that I'm to do to show my loyalty to the Christ Mind, I will do it."
Just one thing and it's: I need do nothing.
That's what I'm... that's it.... That's the thing that's going to show my loyalty?
Well, how many of us have actually given that one a shot?
And you know what happens when you start to give, "I need do nothing" some priority in your mind?
The ego gets stirred up like a hornet's nest.
Like, "Oh no you don't!
You guilty, unworthy, piece of worthless shit! Don't you dare give me this, 'I need do nothing stuff!'"
Because I need do nothing is in alignment with what? Beingness!
Beingness needs do nothing. Beingness doesn't even know of doing.
And that's like a total insult to the ego when you actually start to entertain
the "I need do nothing" idea.
And you even sometimes get "A Course in Miracles" teachers that will say,
"Jesus doesn't really mean you need do nothing."
There are Course teachers that will actually say, "He's not really serious;
He's just throwing you a bone to chew on a little bit. But he doesn't really mean that."
And, of course, then you can go and find lots of passages in the Course that would reinforce that.
Busy, busy, busy, busy, busy! It's easy to get busy in the ego's thought system.
In fact, it is counting on your busyness to take a priority over "I need do nothing."
It's counting on it, because it needs to maintain the guilt.
And if you're just a busy doer, and it always is saying, "Not good enough. Do, do, do, do, do. Not good enough."
More doings, "Nope, still didn't make it." You see how the ego makes up the concept of a doer,
and then it makes it into an impossible situation that you can never do enough.
How many of us have felt that we can never do enough?
We can never do enough to be loved.
We can never do enough. You see how the equation is do, do, do?
Now, I'm speaking at a conference in San Francisco in February.
And they took the title of the conference from the Urtext.
Where Jesus says, "Listen, learn, and do."
And, here I am. I'm speaking at the conference, and I'm telling you, those last two concepts are bogus.
Learn.
Learn what?
You know, this is a course in unlearning.
This isn't learning how to be a better something.
This isn't learning how to become something. Oh, the ego can jump on that one.
And do?
It's very practical in terms of the mind training,
but, remember, the mind training involves the ego.
And doing involves the ego. Spirit doesn't do anything; Spirit has never done anything.
Spirit, the Holy Spirit, is teaching us that, that what you thought you did with separation, you never did.
It doesn't make the error real first and say, "Now we're gonna have to find out a way to
undo this terrible mistake that you actually did."
It's saying, you know, if you can come in with this presence and this stillness
and you can give yourself enough
permission and allowance to really merge with this stillness and see yourself as the stillness.
That's it! Home free!
Be still and know that I am God.
No simpler words were ever spoken.