I don't think I'm as clear about no private thoughts
and I was wondering if you could expand upon that idea.
Actually there's a part in the early part of A Course of Miracles workbook
where Jesus says "You have no private thoughts,
and yet that is all that you are aware of."
So private thoughts are really like judgments.
And he's saying in truth, as the Christ,
you have no private thoughts.
All your thoughts are thoughts that you share with God
because God created you with these beautiful, Christ thoughts,.
We'll say it's a Christ idea and you share all your thinking with God in heaven.
So in truth you have no private thoughts and yet he says that is all you're aware of.
So the Course in Miracles workbook is really an opportunity to
bring these private thoughts into awareness from the unconscious mind,
bring them up, and learn to expose them.
Really you can practice with your brothers and sisters but really you are exposing them to the Holy Spirit.
You're like saying "here, take this from me, take this from my holy mind,
this thought does not belong in my holy mind."
The judgments, the grievances, all the thoughts in the end even are preferences.
Those are part of the human condition but as we open up to the purity, the purity of heart
We are really learning to give away everything that is not of God back to the Holy Spirit,
so that it is purged, it's purified, and our mind become pristine and whole.
And you know how it is in relationships, there's things that you feel you can share, things that you can't share.
Sometimes when you have negative emotions, the ego is really swirling in there
and you kind of stuff it in, you stuff it down, you try to put on a happy face.
You try to pretend to be spiritual, pretend to be nice, you bite your tongue
You try the best that you can not to lash out at anybody and keep a very peaceful facade.
But those emotions and those thoughts have to be dealt with in some way.
And what we've been practicing, is having a safe container,
having a safe, accepting, loving community,
where those thoughts can be brought up, those emotions can be brought up.
And they're not just immediately stuffed down and denied and repressed.
So part of this idea of no people pleasing/no private thoughts is
it's really designed to welcome thoughts from the unconscious mind up into awareness
where you can get in touch with them and then you can release them.
You can't really release something that you're not even aware of, you're not in touch with.
So for us, we find it very important to do that.
And there's also ways of doing it where, we like to have it very much an experience where
there's not a lot of interruptions, cross talking, correcting, advice giving,
psychotherapy, all kinds of things that come in
when the thoughts and emotions are coming up because that just cuts off the whole process.
You want them to come up because you want to get in touch with them.
And somebody is like listen this is what you need to do
as if you've just used your first ten seconds of letting the emotions up,
you've got tears starting to come, it's like this is what you should do
Don't worry honey I'll tell you what you should do.
We have developed a process called the clarion process which actually helps facilitate
the allowance of these emotions and these thoughts coming up
in a helpful way, and we have people who practice just holding the presence of love,
of the presence of non-judgment when these things are coming up
so there is not an attempt to short circuit the process.
And it takes a lot of practice but actually it works very, very well
and it's been very, very successful.
We find people go through the healing process very quickly.
Actually the most authentic, which is the state of most authenticity,
most authentic, is we are the Christ.
We're not everything else, but before we realize that,
before that becomes our experience
we actually believe we are anything but.
We are selfish, we have our ego motives,
we have our self interest,
this is all the things that we believe.
And as long as we hide them, they are so real to us
because we give them power, we give them power by hiding them.
And by hiding them we choose not to look at them
we actually unconsciously choose to believe them
and let them scare us, really.
So the whole thing about sharing private thoughts is the actual experience
that we will speak of everything we believe about ourselves
and especially those things that you notice
you feel embarrassed or don't want to share with other people
but still believe about yourself.
And those are the things that in our community
by sharing with a brother in a safe container
that it's a symbol that we want to open our mind up, allow this to come up
and really to give permission to be brought up to the Holy Spirit in our mind.
And as long as they're brought up in a way that is not,
that we don't judge them or suppress them,
they will vanish actually in the presence of light.
So it is very important to do this as a safe container
at the beginning because we are so frightened,
originally we are ready to believe we are those thoughts,
we are what the thoughts are telling us
so it is very scary for us to expose that to other people.
We're afraid of judgment, we're afraid of being believed that it's true.
So any kind of environment that is safe for us to want to open up initially
is extremely, extremely helpful.
So in our community we encourage people to share
but also as David mentioned in the clarity process
is just so that for the people who are sharing
you can be sure that nobody will interrupt
and nobody will hold you to your stories.
Nobody will the next day come back to you, you remember what you said,
it's actually pretty bad
Nobody will come back to hold you onto it
or remind you about that, and nobody will join you
at the level of the story, try to fix you there, or try to give you opinions
or even relate to you, at that level.
And so all the listeners actually are practicing in their mind
about seeing someone as the Christ.
Practising true empathy in their mind while they are listening to a story.
Because we are never upset for the reason we think,
so we never really join with a brother when they are upset,
and they believe they're upset because of the story.
We want to join them in our mind,
we want to join the truth so we hold high note for them.
They can join us at the level of truth.
And over the years I felt that that's what healing is,
it's just this non-judgmental presence, and as I went deeper
and I really exposed the self-concept, that idol image I believed I was
and I was able to release that to the Holy Spirit and Jesus
then I experience myself as this presence.
And then people start to feel it with me,
it was a feeling thing where people I've got on a global mailing list
and people would write in their questions
and they would pour their hearts out, I would get these long e-mails.
Would be just pages and pages long where people are pouring out in great detail
their issues, their struggles, their secrets
because they felt they could do that with me
that I would be a non-judgmental presence.
They could expose it all, and knew they wouldn't get
a nasty letter, a nasty e-mail back or sharp, harsh correction
that they would just be allowed to expose what they had to expose.
And often times I found when people would write these long e-mails
that they would write, write , write , write , write
and then they would start writing
I think I'm answering my own question.
Isn't' that great, we all have the answers already inside of us!
We all have the spirit in there already,
but if we judge ourselves, if we are self-critical
if we feel unworthy, even to expose
our darkness to a dear friend, a dear brother, a dear sister
then we block ourselves away from the light
that is already inside of us.
So I would just be reading the whole thing,
and then I would see I think I''m answering my own question
and then I would read all this beautiful spiritual stuff at the end of the e-mail.
This is what I'm realizing, and oh and this, I realize this, this,, this,
and I'm so happy! Oh thank you so much!
Ah, I don't know if you've read all this but
it's sure was good for me!
And so on and so forth, and I thought how beautiful
that people can feel such a sense of safety to do that.
Then when the world travel started, that's a lot of what happened.
There would be teachings coming from the Holy Spirit, but it was more my lightness,
my happiness, my levity, the humour of the Holy Spirit,
the joy, all of that stuff was coming through,
I would break out singing songs
and do more and more experiential exercises
and all kinds of fun stuff, I was just having fun
Going where I was invited, sharing whatever I was sharing.
And really it was a non-judgmental presence that's what the healing is.
And so we really have encouraged that in our communities
because we know that the spiritual journey is very deep
and there is a lot of darkness to come up and we want to help facilitate
what the Course says going through the darkness to the light.
Not just to kind of affirm your way back to heaven
or some of you might have seen that movie What the Bleep Do We Know
Miceal Ledwith,, the Irish Theolgian at the end
said affirmations are like putting a little smear over something that is very dark.
You have to get in touch with the darkness in order to be consistently happy.
And I seemed to go through twenty some years of it, but
actually Frances and a lot of the people I'm working with now,
they go through it much faster, in a much more condensed time.
And that's beautiful too! That's a miracle, it's a time saver!
Why should it take two decades, or three, or four, or five decades of inner work
when we can learn from the miracles that are happening,
and things can be quickened.
We can have a celestial speed-up,
and get through this darkness even faster and faster and faster.
So the spirit is only here and we all have the truth inside of us.
We really don't need anything,
we just need to let this darkness that's not the truth to come up
to be shined by the light....