It’s pretty much like when you go to a movie theater.
You’re going to watch a movie. It’s already been shot. It’s in the can.
It’s being projected. You can’t change what happens in the movie.
They actually are coming out with some
movies now where you have little things
but for this metaphor
we’re talking about the last decade or so of film.
Black and white and so forth. Those you can’t change.
People do talk to the screen. Like, Don’t go down that hall!"
"Don’t go in there! Get away from him!" You know, they talk...
It's a bunch of images on the screen but they’re talking like they’re real people
because that’s the whole mesmerism of this world.
Forget that you’re dreaming, watching a movie, and become so identified
with the characters now that you really believe that they’re
real characters that can hear you.
Jesus even talks about it in the Course.
"You talk to those who are not there." he says in his Workbook,
"and those who are not there seem to answer you."
Even in the most simple thing, "Hi, how are you doing? Mmm, not bad."
The ego’s sitting back there going, "Ha, I got you again. You think you’re having
a real conversation with somebody there and you’re just asleep
and dreaming watching a movie and forgotten completely that you made
the movie up and that you’re not even a character in that movie."
Just like when you watching a movie in the theater
you don’t expect the characters or movie to change.
Like saying, "Oh yes, I went to see Time Travelers Wife and
instead of just talking about the movie and your reactions and responses
you say "Oh, I decided to play the movie out differently. In my version of
the movie, Time Travelers Wife they get married, they go to
the planet Zorbo and they live forever."
"That’s not my version of the movie. I decided to do it a lot differently.
I had him disappear at the end." and tatata....
We are talking about it as if it’s a movie. It’s been shot
and the movie is the movie. You can’t change the movie.
But, again how different this is from everyday experience
when you‘re trying to fix or change the movie.
Under the guise of making a happy or a better dream
you work very hard to try to change the dream, to have a better life.
Like the Horatio Alger story, pull yourself up from your
disadvantaged past and make something of it.
That was even a slogan as I was growing up, of the army
"Be all that you can be."
Oh great, I think I have better aspirations than
going around gunning down people in other countries.
But still the whole thing was no different than trying
to improve your life and improve your circumstances and
all the work and energy that comes into striving to have a better life.
All of it is for naught because still you're dreaming a dream
and if you actually begin to grasp this
you will soon get over self improvement.
You will soon get over trying to make the world a better place.
Just think about it, the social services, end world hunger.
What do you mean? Who invented world hunger. That’s part of a dream?
Nuclear proliferation. Fight to save the whales and the dolphins.
All the things that people try to do. Eat better, go organic.
What does it matter? It’s a dream! It’s a DREAM!
It’s not going to help. The only thing you can do
with a nightmare is forgive it. See it without judgment.
See it simultaneous instead of linear and wake up from it
and go back to your eternal nature which is pure bliss.
People say that sounds boring. That’s too boring.
It’s not boring! I’m telling you. It is not boring.
It is joyful! It’s not boring at all.
Participant: I don’t get what you say "Enlightenment is not in the script."
This for me is a very slow process here so
if I’m living in the illusion then it’s a slow process where I’m learning.
But it is changing isn’t it? I mean the more I react differently
to this person then that day I’m going to have a happier day.
Then the script is changing isn’t it or not?
David: It’s not. It seems to be interpreted.
We get words like I’m more peaceful than I was before.
Nothing is a matter of more or less. Everything is absolute.
The old thing that used to come from Christianity, "It’s all or nothing."
I used to hate that. I’d say oh come on, all or nothing, black and white.
Guess what?! Guess who gets to eat crow?
It IS all or nothing and truth is not a matter of degrees,
little increments and moments.
The truth is true and only the truth is true.
We start to see that when you finally make it back
to the" beyond all idols" section
in the Course, way in the back of the text.
Jesus asks, "What is an idol? Do you think you know?"
He asks a question. "An idol is for more of something
it does not matter more of what."
It does not matter more of what! Even peace of mind.
So, the awakening is not in the script. The awakening is a change
in the perspective on the script from linear to simultaneous.
So that’s what we’re talking about
A lot of times people will talk about,
Well, what about enlightened beings? What about Jesus.?
That seemed to be in the script. That seemed to be a point
where he started talking like he wasn’t a human being anymore.
"Before Abraham was I am."
But remember the man wasn’t enlightened
because the man is just a mask.
Enlightenment isn’t male or female.
Enlightenment isn’t masculine or feminine.
Those are still dualistic concepts
that are projected onto the screen
and enlightenment itself has nothing to do
with masculine or feminine/ male or female.
Even people like Mary Baker Eddy who
came and taught these glorious truths.
They would try to bring in rituals into the church that she founded
and one of those rituals was they had a man and a woman
speaking in the front as a symbol of equality.
They were the readers and when they would read
they would say, "Father, Mother God…"
God isn’t a father or a mother. Those are dualistic terminologies.
Those were just symbols that they were
using to try to give a sense that it’s equal.
It’s not one better than another. It’s just purely equal.
I go all over the world in 28 countries.
As I go over the spinning world I meet ten's of thousands of people,
and it’s very, very rare when I talk about this world as a dream.
In fact, in the gospel of Thomas Jesus had told Thomas,
"Don’t mention that this is a desert or
a dream or it will bring fire down on our heads."
So, I meet ten’s of thousands of people and I meet them on subways,
airplanes, basements, and bookstores. I meet them
in countries and all different languages.
It’s very rare the percentage of my time
talking about what I’m talking about now.
However, this is an A Course in Miracles gathering
and we are correcting error from the bottom up. Not
from the top down. I would say, if you know my teachings
and the Messengers that I work with, we have actually come up
with terminology for the kind of denial that you are talking about.
We call it metaphysical ghosting. "It’s all an illusion. It’s all an illusion."
You have to actually see that for yourself.
You have to have an experience.
It takes an enormous amount of mind training.
We actually have developed an online program
called Mystical Mind Training Program where we use movies like this.
We use meditation. We use all kind of exercises.
Our whole approach all these years has been correcting error
from the bottom up. We are talking about the metaphysics today
in the context of this and we are starting off this gathering
unlike a lot of gatherings that I’ve done over these many years.
We just do Q & A. We always approach things from where
people are coming from and with what they believe.
I’m always getting questions too about
the inappropriate use of denial. In other words,
to deny the body is the inappropriate use of denial.
What is the appropriate or helpful use of denial?
Jesus says, "Deny the belief that error can hurt you."
That’s what Jesus says is the appropriate use of denial.
So, we are always taking it back to the perception in mind.
To the idea that there is something outside that can actually harm
whether it’s a particular kind of food, radiation, or weather conditions.
But it’s a really deep mind training
process and we are always telling people,
Don’t think you can just skip over anything and
click your heels together and instead of saying,
"There’s no place like home. It’s just all an illusion."
I would say that’s a number one misuse
of A Course in Miracles. Jesus didn’t go around
during this three years of public ministry
just telling everyone it’s all a dream and it was an illusion.
But for those who have stayed with me and worked with me
over these decades we are getting down to the nitty-gritty.
People are always saying to me,
What’s the most essential thing that I need to recognize?
If I tune into the Holy Spirit, which is really all the Course is doing
doing is helping you tune in to your own internal teacher.
That’s all it’s really doing. But when I do tune in
to that internal teacher what is that internal teacher going to do with me?
What am I going to be guided to do?
The Holy Spirit works, as Ken Wapnick has said, in the mind.
Not in the world. You can interpret that the Holy Spirit is
bringing you parking spaces and checks in the mail and so on.
But those are wonderful signs and symbols along the way
that are very encouraging when you pray
for help with something practical
you seem to get a check in the mail or an unexpected
kind of thing that comes out of nowhere.
That can be very encouraging but still shouldn’t be a reason
to believe that the Holy Spirit is tinkering around in the dream.
So there have been a lot of wonderful teachings and teachers
that have really pointed that out.
So what we are really looking at is when you get all the way
to the back of the text of A Course in Miracles Jesus says,
"Salvation is nothing more than the escape from concepts."
and he also talks about exchanging self-concepts.
That’s the Holy Spirit’s job. So nothing is ripped away.
The tablecloth is not pulled out. We seem to go through an experience
while we believe in the reality of the world to more expansive
self-concepts and they still involve time and space components.
Those are very practical. So, I would say that even
to be a miracle worker that I talked about last night or a teacher of God,
those are still concepts but the more you just give yourself
over to those concepts you find that they are very expansive self-concepts.
Much more expansive than father, mother, sister, brother, or construction worker.
It’s approaching the I am-ness. But before your reach the I am-ness
you reach forgiveness which is really the forgiven world or
the happy dream and that’s the goal of the Course.
It’s not the abstract I am-ness but it’s to have the happy dream.
On the surface when we come zooming in here with all of you
with something like this it can be like "Whoa, are we going for Z?"
In a way we are, because we are trying to save time
or we want the mind to experience the fullness of the glory
that it is as soon as possible but it has to be a careful undoing
you have to allow the darkness to come up into the mind
and have the mind shift. We are not here teaching Diksha.
We are not teaching Darśana. What we are really into is
is bringing the illusions to the truth.
We are not trying a top-down approach.
We don’t have any magic wands hidden anywhere and
at the end we are going to bonk you on the head and go,
"OK, enough of this stuff. Wake up."
We don’t have any kind of magical things here.
We are really talking about doing the inner work of bringing
the darkness to the light and bringing illusions to the truth.