If we took one line from the Course, from the Immediacy of Salvation section, pretty late in the Course ...
Be not content with future happiness for it is not your just reward, for you have caused for freedom now.
So let's just take that one idea. And let's just look at it in a close way
Because it must mean that, if my mind is preoccupied with these monkey mind chatter thoughts,
there must be something deeper that those thoughts are serving,
Why would I keep thinking them unless I believe that it served me to think about those thoughts?
And I would say that if you really chase them down, underneath all those thoughts whirling around there,
there is a belief that some of these thoughts are very importantly tied in to future happiness
Even though Jesus says 'Be not content with future happiness you have cause for freedom now.'
So then we're into this idea that somehow we have to manage our story.
Why would we even care about managing our story unless we were trying to make it a 'happy story?'
And why would we do that unless we believed that it was actually possible
to have a happy story, like the fairy tales. Happy endings.
Most people like fairy tales that have happy endings. Positive. Optimistic.
But you see all those things imply that there is a thing called future happiness
And somehow we'd be lazy, we'd be slacking, if we're not thinking
'Okay, got to manage my finances, got to manage my health, manage my body'
Not good to have a decrepit body, not very positive to have a decrepit body.
And then, you know, even if you got a healthy body, well you better have some finances for that healthy body
Because is not going to do you a lot of good if you're a poor, healthy body
And then you need some excitement too, for that body.
Even if it's healthy and it's got some money, if it doesn't have any stimulation, it's going be bored.
So you can start to see all these overlays, and that's what is being thought about
Instead of being still- and "know that i'm God" like we've been told.
It seems more attractive to be thinking about these thoughts
Like 'much ado about nothing' - Shakespeare called it.
But there must be some kind of an attraction under the thoughts, otherwise we would drop them.
We would say 'This isn't working.'
But we must believe that it still is working, otherwise we wouldn't hold on.
And that's what makes the filter. That's what we're really getting down to, starting to take a look.
Jesus says the dreams that you think you like can hold you back as much as those in which the fear is apparent.
So it shows you how sneaky this thing is.
And everybody's quick to look at the things that they don't like
And how do i eliminate them from the story?
Just give me the story, cleansed and purified of all the negative things
And then I will have a very positive happy story.
But the story itself is made of the fabric of the ego.
And you can take all the black threads out and you can leave the white threads in
But you still are left with threads, lots of threads.
Even white threads are going to block you from the light.
Because God is no Creator of threads. God is the Creator of Spirit.
So you can start to see how profound this is. Then we just come together in willingness and honesty
And we give it over to the Holy Spirit and say show me - Show me my blank spots. Show me my white threads.
I spent years working on my black threads. Show me some white threads.
If they're still holding me back from the moment, I want to know.
We've been talking a lot about guidance. A lot of times people even think of guidance as a very linear thing.
You know, future guidance. Future guidance. And did i get the guidance right?
And second guessing the guidance. It's really a mess. It's a lot of guilt over guidance .
And then it's not really what guidance is for. If guidance is for peace and you feel stressed out over guidance ...
Well then you know something, the ego, has got in there.
So what i would say is, if you believe in the ego, you believe in the storyline.
And you believe the story is a fact.
Like everything's a fairy tale and the story is just a fact.
And then the course comes in and says, "At no single instant does the body exists at all."
It is always remembered or anticipated .
You can see - it's always the past or the future .
But at no single instant, not in the holy instant, does the body exist at all
So what you do is, you have to go from thinking that the story is a fact to what i would call a guided story.
But the guided story doesn't mean that there's a person in the story that's going to get the guidance.
It's your mind that needs the guidance because the problem is the mind believes it is a body
And how is that body going to receive guidance?
Bodies don't really get guidance.
The mind gets the guidance. The mind that believes it's a body gets the guidance.
So that it can loosen up from believing that it's a body.
So i'll give you an example of how this works ...
We have a community in Alozaina, Spain. It's on the Mediterranean. It's not too far from Malaga, Spain.
Beautiful town, tiny little town. Beautiful casa.
And we have, I don't know, 12 or so people there
And they've been working all through the summer and they've been doing collaborative projects -
Collaborative housekeeping, gardening, going to the village, shopping for vegetables, doing a little gardening.
They're just working, learning how to join together and collaborate and let the Spirit move through them.
And so, it came to a point here recently, where they were guided to make a movie.
They all felt it. Every one of them. Like all 12 of them said 'We're to make movie.'
So it wasn't like they had to get a debate on it. They all felt there were to make a movie.
And then they started making the movie and they started doing storyboards and they had a couple cameras
And then they started to come up with some narration and some things, but it was very spontaneous still.
And then a story line started to emerge and they were going with it and they did the first day of filming.
And then it emerged who the main character of the movie was to be. It was kind of a given thing.
They didn't plan it, but our friend Ludwig from Sweden was to be the lead character.
So then after the first day of filming, Frances was telling me, they said,
'Okay now we've got more scenes for you tomorrow to shoot, so ...
We want you to carry over in a natural way, in the movie
So when you get up in the morning don't shave
Because it's going to look pretty strange from one scene to the next if you've got a beard and then no beard.
It's just too much, you know, how they're receiving this movie
So they get up the next, day
Ludwig forgets that he's the main character so he shaves. He comes out, they all go, "Ludwig..."
Now is this a problem? No. Because they immediately said "What's going on Ludwig?"
"What's going on in your mind?" And he was like 'hm, what's going on? I forgot, I shaved."
They said, "No, just go deeper." And he's like ...
"I don't want to be the lead character."
See, in his mind he didn't want to be the lead character so - aha. It wasn't a Freudian Slip ...
it was like you know, but the characters act out our thoughts and desires.
He actually shaved because he didn't want to be the lead character.
So then they said, 'okay, who here wants to be the lead character?' And then they got one.
Anders said 'I will be the lead character. I feel called really, truly to be the lead character
So he becomes the lead character.
They film him and everything. He gets so into the emotions and everything that he forgets ... It's a movie
He so wants to be the lead character. He gets so into the character, he forgets that he's acting.
He completely forgets and they had to go "Anders, we're filming."
He's lost awareness of the camera. He's lost awareness of the moviemaking process, now he's so in it.
And I was telling to Frances, so you have like - Cut! Cut!
Because you see there's two things going on, but the merge occurs
When we get so into the flow of the moment
and we're so in the moment that we forget about everything else.
We literally forget about everything. We forget about the characters, we forget about everything
And that's really what the whole thing was about. It wasn't about making the movie.
It's about just getting so relaxed and so into that guidance and the flow.
And that's what we always talk about with guidance. It's not really linear.
It's just all about being in the moment. That's the only purpose of guidance.
It's not, if you follow this guidance you'll attract the right partner, or you'll be wealthy
or you can be a famous spiritual teacher.
There's no physical, linear rewards to this.
In fact, the whole point of it is to forget the linear
And that's the reward right there because you feel the joy of God, the peace of God.
Yeah, it's an experience of present joining with the Spirit. It doesn't matter what the guidance is really saying.
It's not about getting it right or getting it wrong.
It's really about joining in the moment with the Spirit. And then the Spirit give us props.
All along the way, to stay tuned in with Him
But he's really calling us in the deeper experience than staying attached to the form
and thinking that the guidance is about the form still.
You see how the world of time and space is like saying, you know, atheism is the belief there is no God
And of course if there is no God, then there is no guidance from God. So you're on your own.
Just study books, learn things and make decisions. Weigh the pros and cons. Analyze and figure it out man.
That's what the world says - figure it out, do something with your life. Make something of yourself. Figure it out.
And then we're open to this thing called guidance, but not guidance as some separate thing from you.
But that moment - deep feeling of being totally self honest. Spiritually honest - tuned in alignment with God.
And then like Armelle said, the form is absolutely irrelevant. Absolutely irrelevant.
You don't have to justify it. You don't have to prove that it's spiritual or prove that it's guided.
You're in it. You are it. And then that is the convincing right there.
And how beautiful that is to be that authentic.
Yeah, and the reward is the experience really. You know you're following the guidance by the way you feel.
So it's not about the form. It's just that you will know as you take the steps,
Yes i am following what's given me because i feel it.
I have a spark in my heart. I totally resonate with what I'm living, like I am full of joy.
I can feel just that the current is carrying me
And all that is really showing you that you are in tune with Spirit.
and the form is used because we still believe in it.
As long as there's a belief in it the Spirit will use it to undo whatever belief is still there
and whatever construct, whatever character, self-concept is still held on to.
And so the form is irrelevant that's going to be used.
So it's not also saying, oh if the form is irrelevant, why would I follow the guidance then?
But it's just seeing that the guidance is this deeper invitation
And by allowing the form to be used the way it's given, then I just stay tuned in this experience.
And the I that I think I am disappears, really, in this experience