Gary Renard

Well, this is something that happened about oh, 23 years ago when I was living in Maine, I used to meditate a lot maybe two hours a day and one time opened my eyes and there were like two people sitting there on my living room couch. It was like this beautiful, amazing, drop-dead gorgeous, incredible, fantastic, awesome, wonderful looking woman was sitting there and uh some guy you know, I didn’t care much about him and I thought well okay, I’ve been meditating too much and it was surreal and very dreamlike and they started to talk to me. This was their shortest visit ever the first one. I think they were just preparing me for what was to come and they started talking to me and started saying how they were going to be appearing to me and I don’t know if I believed him at first. They said, they’d be back in a week but the things that were saying sounded very interesting to me. I’d been on a spiritual path for about 15 years at that point so at least I had a background where I could talk to them for a while and uh then I didn’t see them appear because my eyes were closed but I saw them disappear and it was like instantly. It was like you flipped a remote on a TV screen or something and they just disappeared and about a week later I did have my eyes open and they did come back. There’s no ceremonies or glowing colors or didn’t make a big deal out of it they just appeared instantly and would start speaking to me. At first to me they were people they were just as real as any people I ever met at one point I got to touch them uh you know to me they’re just people, and eventually my friends and it was only years later where I would be sophisticated enough to understand that what they were was something that was appearing to me from outside of time in space being projected by the right part of the mind because we all have a wrong part of the mind and the right part of the mind, the wrong part of the mind we’ll call the ego which is based on separation and conflict and specialness and then we have the right part of the mind which thinks in terms of wholeness and oneness and Spirit so yeah, right away two different things to choose between most people will go through their whole lives choosing the ego because they don’t know any better and nobody educates them as to the difference into what the real power is as the one who chooses between the two and that’s part of what I was taught over a period of the next nine years. After this they came to me about 17 times over a period of nine years which you see chronicled in my first book “The Disappearance of the Universe”, and eventually I found out that what they were images and this is how course miracles describe everybody not just them but everybody has images because what we’re seeing and we think that we’re seeing with the body’s eyes but we’re not really, seeing what the body’s eyes we’re seeing with the mind and what we’re seeing is a false image that is based on separation. It’s been thousands of years that spiritual teachers have been calling the universe of time and space and illusion and what of Course in Miracles does what my teachers do is they further refine that idea into the idea that this is a dream that you will awaken from and it’s that awakening that is enlightenment in fact, that’s what Buddha meant when he said, “I am awake” you know, nowadays people are so Into you know, confusing the self-help movement with real spirituality that when they hear it.

Buddha said, I am awake they think that he meant that he was amazingly alert and ready to manifest like hell or something and that’s not what he was talking about at all. He meant that he had awakened from the dream of time and space and come to realize that he was not a figure in the dream, he was not one of these images, he was not the dream, he was the dreamer, he was the cause instead of the effect. You know, most people go through their whole lives at the effect of the world and if you’re at the effect of the world it will affect you but it’s possible to turn the tables on that. It’s possible to go from a place of being at the effect of the world to being at cause and one thing that great spiritual Masters come to realize is that the world is not being done to them, it’s being done by them. See at first you know, we think the world is coming at us we get to deal with it puts us on the defensive uh we’re reactionaries and we have to reverse that we have to realize no the world’s not being done to you, the world is a projection and it’s coming from you, it’s kind of like in a movie theater. Yeah, you’re in a movie theater your attention is diverted to the screen and after a while, you forget that it’s not real and maybe you’ll get into the story you know, maybe you’ll get emotional, maybe you’ll even talk to the screen, maybe you’ll say, “no no don’t go there you know” and that’s exactly what we’ve done with the world. We’ve been sucked into the screen and we think that it’s real it has no reality really, because it’s a projection, it’s like uh you know, the American Indians used to say, “Behold the great mystery”. Well, of Course in Miracles which is what my teachers are basically teaching it says behold the great projection because that’s all it is, it’s a projection of a universe of time and space, and just like in a movie theater the projector is hidden you know, you’re not supposed to think about the projector. You’re supposed to be sucked into the projection but let’s say that you’re in a movie theater and you want to change what’s on the screen well, it wouldn’t do you too much good to go up and fool around with the screen because it’s an illusion, it’s a trick, it has no reality on its own. If you want to really,, change what’s on the screen and have a permanent and lasting effect then what you need to do is you need to find that projector and you need to change what’s in the projector if you change what’s in the projector the effect will take care of itself, the movie will take care of itself. Now your focus has shifted from dealing with the effect to dealing with the cause which is why of course a miracle says this is of course in cause and not effect. Cause is actually mind and of course, trains you how to change your mind, change the content of what’s in the projector, and if you do that the effect will just change naturally.

Okay, the projector is mind. But I’m not talking about the puny little conscious mind that people are aware of uh most of the mind is hidden, it’s underneath the surface. It’s Kyle Young’s collective unconscious, the part of the mind that you can’t see, that’s what runs the world not the conscious mind. The conscious mind is just a little tip of the iceberg and just like an iceberg most of it is underneath the surface and it’s got all this stuff in it swirling around that you can’t see, all this stuff that the ego has placed there and it’s that stuff that you can’t see that is responsible for all the madness that we see on our TV screens, all the personal problems that people have the addictions, the compulsions are being driven by something that they can’t see and it’s what causes all the murder and the suicide and the terrorism and the personal problem is that people have and people do things they don’t even know why they’re doing them half the time and what people need to do is get in touch with the power of the mind in a way that can actually change not just the conscious mind which is just once again the tip of it but to change that deep part of the mind that you can’t see and there are ways to do that but the way to do it is shifting from that place of being at the effect of the world to being a cause when you do that and you change your mind about what you’re seeing and reinterpreted with the right part of your mind instead of the wrong part of your mind it changes that which is hidden in your unconscious mind but I don’t think that can be done without the mind being trained without it being disciplined you know, so it takes work you know a lot of people I think they just want to skip to the end you know they just want to say, “I’m enlightened” and that’s it and get all of it but it’s not that simple. I mean do we really, believe that we are going to attain uh the same level of spiritual mastery as people like Buddha without practice and it does take practice but it’s worth it because once you start to get in touch with the power of the line it changes everything. It can change how you feel about yourself you know, uh people don’t understand that once you get down deep enough into the mind into Carl Young’s collective unconscious is really,, just one of us as the Hindus would put it there’s just one ego appearing as many you know, that’s the world of multiplicity. It’s the one appearing as many there’s really,, just one of us.

Now that’s good news and it’s bad news because it has deep implications if you get down deep enough into your unconscious mind and if that’s where the projection of the universe of time and space is coming from in the first place then that means that your unconscious mind knows everything. It would have to by definition because that’s where it’s all coming from. Now if that’s true and if there’s really, just one of us appearing as many and if your unconscious mind knows everything and if it knows that there’s really, just one of us that means that it will interpret anything that you think about another person or about the world or even about an event that you see on TV whatever you think about it and put out there your unconscious mind will interpret it to really be about you why because there’s really just one of us your mind knows that and people are putting out all this garbage their whole lives their judgments and their opinions and their condemnations about other people and the world and what they didn’t realize was that it was just going to them because it’s not really, anybody else out there for it to go to. People wonder why they’re depressed you know they don’t wonder why they don’t feel good or why they’re miserable. Well, just look at the garbage they’ve been thinking their whole lives about other people, about the world, about themselves not realizing that it was just going directly into their own unconscious mind because that’s all there is because there’s just one of us and that’s what’s causing them to feel so depressed and terrible and suicidal but what if they knew better, what if they understood the power of the mind and the importance of switching from the wrong part of the mind to the right part of the mind and if they did that in a disciplined manner it would change everything. It could even change how they feel about themselves, people have no idea how good they could feel. If they could just grab a hold of the power of the mind and change their mind and change the way they look at the world and other people with the right part of their mind if they could do that they would feel better eventually they could feel wonderful they could feel so good it should be illegal and at the same time when they do that they’re slowly undoing this garbage that I was talking about that’s hidden there in the unconscious mind and as you clear that out you have more access to spirit, you have more access to the right part of your mind and the right part of your mind eventually will come to dominate your mind instead of the ego, instead of the wrong part of the mind.

it’s simpler than you might think but it’s not easy because every day we are confronted by the world. The world gets in your face you know so if I’m, you know driving over here on the 101 and somebody cuts me off in traffic which somebody did and we all know the cars bring out the best in men, and uh you know, you’re not only somebody cuts you off in trouble right there you have a choice to make. I have a choice to make I can respond with the wrong part of mine which a lot of people will and you know before you know I’m giving the guy the finger and I’m like hey you son of a, you know, that’s one possible response and all that will do for you is keep you stuck here forever if you’re lucky, if you’re unlucky then that other guy might have a gun and you might be dead you know so that’s one realm of possibility right there but there’s a better way. There’s another way, what if I have been disciplined to respond with the right part of my life you know, and it’s been called many things, you could call that the right part of your mind. Abraham Lincoln called it “The better angels of our nature” You know of course the Miracles call it “The Holy Spirit” There are all kinds of things that you can call it’s been called up many things but it’s the right part other mind the part of the mind it speaks for love and wholeness and oneness and spirit and forgiveness and if I’m used to thinking with that part of the mind then when something sudden happens like that instead of reacting with the ego I can stop myself and that’s the hardest part of doing this you get used to responding with the right part of your mind instead and you can stop yourself and all of a sudden now you don’t have to give the guy the finger and you don’t have to go through all this in the possible consequences of it. 

Instead, you’re listening to the right part of your mind which says well you know if you forgive you’re going to feel better you know, it’s not really, for that person out there that you think that you’re forgiving. It’s always a gift that’s going to you because it’s really, just one of us so if you forgive you’re going to feel better, you’re going to be less stressful you know, you’re going to be happier, you’re going to be able to think more clearly, you’re going to be able to receive guidance from the right part of your mind instead of the wrong part of your mind and there are all kinds of very practical implications to this because you can be inspired you know, the word inspired comes from the words in spirit. You know, you can be open to these genius-level ideas that you never would have had if you were stuck there on the wrong card of your mind you know just kind of like wallowing in all this negativity uh you can clean that out over years of practice which is what a real spiritual path is about and it can’t help but lead to Inner peace. You know, true forgiveness leads to Inner peace and you can’t put a price tag on inner peace.

Forgiveness is not what people think. There’s an old-fashioned Newtonian, physics, subject, and object making it real kind of forgiveness that doesn’t work and that’s the kind of forgiveness that most of the world uses if they use it at all because most people don’t even use that kind of forgiveness but if you use that kind of forgiveness where you make it real, all it does is keep it stuck in your unconscious mind forever because you’re making it real but there’s another kind of forgiveness. This kind of forgiveness acknowledges that what you’re seeing is not true it’s a projection so it forgives other people and the images that you see and the world not because they’ve really, done something but because they haven’t really, done anything because we’re the ones who made them up in the first place. This is our dream or it’s your dream you know, the dream is not being dreamed by somebody else if there’s just one of us. You know, the dream is being dreamed by you. You want to awaken from it and the fastest way, not the only way but the fastest way to awaken from it is to practice the kind of forgiveness that doesn’t make it real because if your unconscious mind is interpreting everything that you think to be about you. If you’re thinking that they’re real, your unconscious mind will interpret that to mean well, I’m real and I’m this body and I’m separate, and everything that I ever did really, happened, and that I’m really, guilty. You know, it’s like it’s just going to you but if you forgive in such a way that says well you know they haven’t really, done anything this is just a movie you know it’s already been filmed if you look at it that way and you’re forgiving them because they haven’t done anything your unconscious mind will pick up on the fact that you haven’t really, done anything and that’s why you’re innocent. So you know, that’s the fast lane that’s the fastest way out most people don’t go there because they don’t know about it but if you practice it for a while you’ll start to see that it works and when you start to feel better it changes everything you know after a while maybe your body will start to feel lighter you know maybe it will start to feel well like the figure in a dream that it really, is instead of this heavy thing that you have to carry around uh maybe it’ll be more difficult to hurt it you know, maybe you’ll get in an accident and you’ll say wow that should hurt but it doesn’t and you start to get excited as time goes on I mean you get results that’s where the proof is in your own experience you don’t need to prove it scientifically uh you prove it with your own experience.

Well, actually I already gave you the first step. The first step is you got to stop yourself, it’s like Jim Carrey in the movie “There somebody stopped me” you know, you got to stop yourself from thinking with the ego. Now the ego wants this whole thing to be real because there’s something that most people don’t know about the ego. The ego likes this idea of separation. The ego wants to keep it going, it’s a game that the ego wants to maintain because for one thing, it feels special. You know, it feels important to have an individual identity and a personal existence and all these special relationships and goals and dreams and desires and accomplishments and possessions that all feel really, cool to the ego and the ego wants to keep it going but all it does is. It keeps you stuck here and you know, you live what seems to be a lifetime which is really, a dream. These are kind of like serial dreams that we have over and over again so uh you have this in-between time and actually all your time is spent in dreaming, the whole thing is a dream until you wake up, and when you wake up that’s enlightenment and you’re no longer asleep you’re no longer in the dream uh yeah you may appear to be here for a while but you realize that’s all it is. It’s false appearance and illusion and what you’re doing is you’re going home and uh that’s a whole different discussion but when it comes to the forgiveness that gets you to that point of enlightenment. The first step is you’ve got to stop reacting with the ego and if you can do that and you can get very good at doing that all it takes is practice. You know, if you want to be good at forgiveness you practice every day, you want to be a good piano player you practice every day. Well, spirituality is no different and if you can practice every day you can get into the habit of thinking with the right part of your mind instead of the wrong part of your mind and you can stop yourself so when that guy cuts you off in traffic or that politician comes on the TV screen you can’t stand and you want to go you know instead of doing that you go to do that and you stop yourself that’s the first step and if you can do that then you can take the second step. And the second step is you switch you know from looking at the world and looking at that politician or the guy that just cut you off looking at it with the right part of your mind instead of the wrong part of your mind and the right part of the mind will say look if you forget you’ll see this differently, you’ll feel better, you’ll be happier, you can take stress out of your life. You know, I’ve been doing this particular kind of forgiveness for 23 years and I don’t feel one day older today than I did 23 years ago when I first started doing this. I’m 65 years old I don’t feel it. You know, I don’t feel like anything’s changed and it’s really, stress that gets people. You know, it leads to all kinds of illnesses and problems and uh you know bad thought processes that even lead some people God forbid to suicide that can all be undone through a discipline and that second step is switching to that right part of the mind and the right part of the mind has a totally different story about what’s going on in the world and instead of being a victim, you can be at cause. And there’s no power in being a victim. You know, there’s no power in being at the effect of the world but there’s probably a power if it’s coming from you instead of at you. So the second step is you switch to the right part of your mind and the third step is knowing that because there’s only one of us your mind is going to interpret whatever you think to be about you. You’re going to change what you think about the world and about those people. The wrong part of your mind thinks in terms of separation and division. The ego loves conflict, the ego loves judgment why how can you keep the game going without judgment? You know, how and what causes judgmentally you got to make it real in order for uh you know judgment to prevail but if you switch to the right part of your mind and you’re forgiving and you’re becoming more calm then you can take a step which is the third step and I think it takes a while to get into the habit of doing it. You want to think of that person as not the false Image that you’re seeing yeah, you’re still going to live a normal life if you’re smart. I hope that you don’t become so spiritual that you can’t carry on a normal conversation with people because I meet spiritual people all the time and I swear sometimes they don’t know how to carry on a normal conversation and have a normal life and be happy which is why I tell people “Look uh don’t forget how to be normal you know, it’s okay to have your life, you don’t have to give up anything uh this is not a sacrificial form of spirituality it’s not talking about giving up anything in your life it’s just talking about uh looking at it differently It’s like a Course in Miracles would say now you’re above the battleground you know, now you’re looking at it from a place where you’re not stuck in it and you’re not at the effect of it and instead you can think of people as well you know okay they think that they’re individuals bodies separate uh and that all this is real but you know what I know better and I know that this is just a projection you know, just like the Hindus said thousands of years ago in the vedanta this is not real at all” and I’m going to think of them not as being that separate individual that they think they are. I’m gonna look at them and think about them as being what they really, are which is the wholeness of oneness, perfect oneness the source. You know, where you came from you are exactly the same as your source. This is something that is immortal, it’s invulnerable. It’s something that can’t be threatened by anything in this world. It’s something I can’t even be touched by anything in this world. It’s possible to get in touch with that and live like that instead of this temporary thing that by definition is going to be dead eventually anyway that’s not real you know, whatever is temporary and transitory is not real but what is real is permanent you know something that will never fade away, never die. You know, God never dies, Spirit never dies, and needed to you because you’re exactly the same as your source and that’s what’s possible for you to get in touch with and live that way. You can go through life fearlessly in the attitude that there’s nothing here that can hurt me, not really, because what I am is nothing less than God and I know that’ll sound arrogant to some people oh um I might as well say, I am going to say that uh um the same as God but that’s not really, arrogance what is arrogance is to think that you can be separate from your source and to think that you can be separate from God that is the arrogance of the ego that believes in separation and wants to keep it going.

The ego is simply the idea of separation and everything that goes with it. The idea that somehow we’ve separated ourselves from our source divided ourselves from God and come here, that’s the ego it never happened. The truth is we’ve never really, left God you know, I said that this is a dream. Well, if it’s a dream it’s not true and the best analogy I can think of is when you’re in bed at night in your dreaming when you’re in a dream for all intents and purposes that dream is your reality. It seems real. you respond to it as if it’s real you’ll have, you know all kinds of responses to it until you wake up, and then when you wake up you’re surprised to find out that you never left the bed you were there the whole time. it’s not that the bed wasn’t there, it was just out of your awareness which is the way that my teachers taught me so we’re in a dream right now seems very real but I’ve had dreams in bed at night that were so real when I woke up I was actually surprised to what was going on wasn’t true and that’s what this is. All your time is spent in dreaming. You know, so you dream that you’re born, you dream that you have this uh strange life, you dream that you die, you dream that you have this in-between time period, you dream that you come back again to another strange life and all your time is spent in dreaming and it keeps going until you wake up. But when you uh attain enlightenment you realize it’s just a dream and that you never really, left the bed and in the bigger sense of the word the bed is heaven you never really, left heaven uh this famous quotation says, “You’re at home dreaming of exile but perfectly capable of awakening to reality” and reality is this permanent state you know it’s a constant state, it doesn’t shift or change. The truth is God, God is love and love is what’s real, and even in this life, this dream life when you think about it what is the most real thing that we have in our lives? The most real thing that we have that never goes away is love. You know, if somebody who you love passes away they die and I know this because I’ve lost most of the people in my lifetime who have been very close to me, and what happens is after a couple of years hopefully after three years the hurt will start to go away you know the pain will start to go away but you know it doesn’t go away is the love. it’s the most real thing we have and isn’t it interesting that the most real thing that we have is something that you can’t see. You know, something that you can’t prove, you can’t prove love, you can’t see it. You can see love in action but you can’t see the cause yet it’s the most real thing that we have and the most real thing that there is, is something else that you can’t see you can’t be seen with the body’s eyes but it can be experienced you know, even while you appear to be here it’s possible to have that great mystical experience that the masters of history have talked about of actual union with your source where you actually experience that perfect oneness with your source and that experience is the most real experience that you’ll ever have because it is real. Instead of a phony illusory experience and a temporary one, this is something where you get the experience of something that is real and permanent and invincible and it simply blows away anything that this world you know has to offer and when the masters have had that experience they’ve all said the same thing that has to be a reality because it’s so much more real than this is.

Yes, and once you do, you’ll say give me more of that. You know, because it’s so much better than this, this is almost silly, this is like a parody of life, this isn’t even real life compared to that. I flip in and out of it you know, I think that uh if you stay there in a constant state that’s the end, you’re not going to be here long after that because uh you know my teachers now the teachings teach that the body won’t be maintained for long after that because you have no use for it, uh people have a use for the body which is to project this garbage that’s in their own conscious mind onto other bodies but once you no longer have a need for that then you don’t have to project that unconscious stuff onto other people which means you don’t need a body, you don’t need a universe of time and space to project it onto, you don’t need to keep coming back here over and over again you can go home and when someone is truly enlightened they go home.

Well, I’ll say, fine you know, if you want to believe that. It’s not my job or my task to try to get anybody to change their mind or to change what they believe. I would say whatever works for you, good but if you want to believe that your body is real then you’re going to keep coming back here over and over again as a body and there’s a better way because you don’t have to give up your body uh. physically. You don’t have to give up anything physically. This is about the way that you look at it and it’s possible to undo the ego and still have your life you can kind of like have your cake and eat it too you know you can still have your money in your possessions and your life and you know the things that you enjoy uh your relationships all that stuff the only difference is now you’re looking at it with the right part of your mind instead of the wrong part of your mind so you don’t believe in it. Now at first, that will sound to you like you’re giving something up if you don’t believe in it and think of it, in terms of being an illusion it feels like you’re giving something up why? because that’s how the ego wants you to feel, because the ego doesn’t want you to give it up because this is death to the ego and on some level, the ego senses that and knows it and will resist it. There is, you know, tremendous unconscious resistance to practicing true forgiveness, and I call true forgiveness – the kind of forgiveness that doesn’t make it real and there’s real resistance on the part of the ego to doing that.

Well, when you wake up from a dream what happens to the dream it disappears, it goes away, and that’s why the first book is called “The Disparency Universe” because you know the time is going to come when there isn’t any universe of time and space appearing because all it is, is a dream but it will appear to exist until everybody wakes up when the last person wakes up there won’t be any universe of time and space after that because it really, is something that we will all awaken from and it’s not really, a question of if it’s a question of when and that’s a personal decision on the part of every seemingly separated person, I say seemingly separated because the idea that we are separate from each other is just an illusion even in the universe of time and space separation is an illusion and today a quantum of physicist will tell you that there’s not really any separation. You can’t really, separate one thing from another thing it’s all connected it’s all one even in the illusion, and then on top of that there’s a reality that you can awaken from when the time comes but that time can only be determined because of the free will that we have because of the mind itself so I can’t decide for somebody else that it’s time for them to wake up. I can’t say, oh! you got to practice forgiveness you know, do this now because that’s a personal decision that everybody comes to at one point or another and I think part of that decision uh rest on you know, how long do we want to prolong our suffering. You know, how long do we want to be here because this illusion always leads to pain eventually. Yes, there are good things too because this is a world of duality and in a world of duality and seeming opposites you always have opposites good and bad, up and down, life and death, abundance and scarcity but because you have that duality eventually is going to lead to scarcity and death. Where in the world that you awaken to which some people call heaven uh the world that you awaken to doesn’t have any such thing as scarcity or any such thing as uh you know, death because it’s perfect oeness and you can only have those negative things in a world of duality where you have some kind of a split, some kind of an opposite so it’s going from a world of opposites back to a world where there are no opposites where there’s no such thing as death there’s only life, there’s no such thing as scarcity. There’s only abundance and it’s possible to experience that even while you appear to be here. It’s possible to experience complete abundance.

I say that, you know, the uh, self-help movement and what is real spirituality have become totally confused with each other. The self-help movement is about getting what you want, making things happen, achieving your goals and that’s fine and I’m not here to put that down because I’ve used it myself successfully so I’m not going to be a hypocrite and put it down. At the same time, I’ve come to learn the difference between the self-help movement and real spirituality. Real spirituality isn’t about just getting what you want. It’s about being happy and peaceful and strong regardless of what happens whether you get what you want or not, whether you achieve your goal or not, whether you have a healthy body or a sick body no matter what happens real spirituality is there for you to make you totally peaceful and totally happy regardless of what happens and that’s real strength, that’s real power because now it’s not dependent on circumstances which are all temporary by definition so do you want to have your life in your happiness dependent on something that is totally temporary and is only going to change because that’s what this world does this is a world of shift and change or would you rather you know put your faith in something that cannot shift or change. They change this reality that is a constant you know, the truth is a constant. The truth was the truth two thousand years ago, the truth is the truth today, and it’s going to be the truth two thousand years from now, whether you understand and agree with it or not. You know the truth is not subject to our interpretation. The truth doesn’t care what we think about it. The truth is a constant and it will always be there and the question is how long do we want to go through this you know, kind of like illusion of being separate from the truth when we can have the whole thing.

The separation is just that uh you’re over there, it looks like you’re sitting over there and I’m sitting over here, time and space are in fact, separation ideas you’re over there over here we’re separate uh time there are different times you know in a holographic time which is more accurate you don’t have all these divisions of time but we’re having a linear experience. You know, so we think we’re making this up as we go along and you take one step at a time you know that’s linear time but even though that’s our experience it’s a false experience it’s not true. Time is holographic you know, just like Einstein said, “past present in the future, all occurred uh simultaneously” which means the future is already there and only that, it already happened and what you want to do is get away from all these temporary experiences even though we do appear to walk you know one step at a time we can be experiencing something that is beyond that but separation is everything that appears to be here. Every object you see has a beginning and an ending you know, it’s taking place in time and space you know it has a border, it has a limit. Everything that you behold is separate from something else and it’s all false none of it is true. Where wholeness and oneness that is true and it’s something that will never change it just has to be awakened to but God didn’t have anything to do with it uh you know most spiritual thought systems are dualistic and they have God creating something that is not Himself outside of Himself supposedly so that He could experience Himself which you know, if you really, examine that closely it’s kind of like insane because it’s saying, “Oh that in order to enjoy being God you have to have something else” or it that would be like saying, “oh in order to enjoy uh the experience of sex I have to shoot myself in the stomach so I can have something else to compare it to” Well, you don’t have to have something else to compare it to because it’s so good to begin with that you don’t need anything else to compare it to. So God doesn’t have anything to do with this world He didn’t create it, He doesn’t interact with it and we should be glad about that because if He did He’d be just as crazy as we are and what we want to do is we want to wake up to God because God is still perfect love that has never changed the Bible says that God is perfect love uh. that’s always been the truth but we don’t understand the implications of that because if God is really, perfect love then all that it would know how to do would be to love. You know, if you knew how to do something else it wouldn’t be perfect love it would be something else but God is still perfect love which is good news for us because it gives us a perfect home to go home to and the reason that we are experiencing being here has nothing to do with God it has to do with the ego. It was the ego to have this tiny mad idea as my teachers taught me from Course in Miracles, and the time idea was an idea of separation, an idea of separation from God, which leads to a domain of duality, which leads to all this madness and Mayhem. So there are two things to choose from you have reality and then you have anything else and anything else that is separate or seemingly individualistic is not real but it can be forgiven it can be undone and it’s possible to go home to oneness.

Judgment, first of all, is making it real because if you’re not making it real, you wouldn’t have anything to judge and it’s a condemnation that’s really, what you have to overcome. You’ll notice in my books when my teachers talk about forgiveness they’re not talking about forgiving the good stuff you know, they’re not talking about forgiving the romantic walks on the beach and the beautiful sunsets and you know all the good experiences that you have that’s not where your unconscious guilt and all that garbage I was talking about that’s in the mind is that’s really, where the negative emotions are so what you want to forgive is the things that kind of like push your buttons. You know, people that rub you the wrong way, something doesn’t go your way that’s an ego special, you don’t get what you want you know that’s a classic. The ego has set you up in a life where you can’t get

everything that you want you know it’s not physically possible to get everything you want or to have everything you want or to do everything that you can do. You’ve already been set up to feel and then, in the end, you’re gonna die you know, that’s the ego’s brilliant approach to making you happy but there is something better than that that can be awakened to, through undoing the ego and to undo the judgment you have to undo your reaction to it and you’re knowing that your judgment is making it real, you have to kind of like give up making it real and instead look for something better which is there in the right part of your mind.

Right, what you’re seeing in that other person is actually something in your own unconscious mind that you have chosen to see out there on the screen in that other person. It’s something that you secretly believe about yourself that you hate about yourself that you have chosen to see out there on the screen that’s a psychological uh thing that is called projection also and what happens is you project it outward to get rid of it so that you don’t feel it in yourself but it doesn’t really, get rid of it because it’s still there the cause of it is still there in your unconscious mind and all that you’re seeing is a symbolic representation of what exists in your own unconscious mind so it’s kind of like a symbol. You know, so you see something out there you hate it’s a symbol of something that is within that you actually hate about yourself which sounds kind of bad but actually is good news because if you forgive it by not making it real and think of that person as being what they really, are then you are the one who is forgiven and that thing that you hated about yourself that’s in your unconscious mind is released, it’s healed and you can be free of it.

Well, that’s another ego special because the ego loves sin and guilt and fear and punishment and all those negative things why? because he keeps it alive, keeps it going, keeps that whole thought system of separation going even the idea that you’re a body. If you’re a body the entire ego thought system of separation is true but with the right part of your mind would say is like of Course in Miracles we put it, “I am not a body I am free” It’s possible for you to be free of the body uh you know it’s like you start to get to the point where you realize that the body is outside of you and not your concern because this body is just part of the same projection as this piano stool. You know, it’s no more real and there’s no more need for me to take it personally than this piano stool here because it’s not me, it doesn’t have anything to do with me, I’m not seeing all this with the body size. I’m seeing this uh with the mind you know of course Merical says you are reviewing mentally that which has already gone by. It’s very much like watching a movie and because it’s being seen with the mind you can change your mind about it and you can get to the point where the world and the body no longer have a hold over you and where you can kind of like transform to something that you know can’t be killed even if your body is killed so what your mind is going to keep right on going uh.. the mind never stops. It always keeps going and you exit this world at some point as everybody is going to and so what you know you have a little in-between time and you come back again different time and place, different body until you learn the same lessons so why not learn them now why keep coming back here uh you know, so I tell people and since uh my first book came out about 13 years ago I’ve talked to a lot of people who are considering uh

committing suicide and they read “The Disappearance of the Universe” and they realized after a while you know, if I kill myself I’m just gonna have to come back and go through all the same old stuff all over again, why not make the most of this life, why not learn what I can now and forgive what I can now and go through as much healing as I can right now so that I don’t have to come back and start all over again and go through all this crap all over again.

Right, that’s because most of the mind once again is unconscious so it’s hidden but as you start to undo the ego the mind becomes more conscious to you because uh the ego kind of like acts as interference to the power of the mind so as you undo the ego you, yourself are gaining more access and power to the mind instead of the ego having it you get that power you know, instead and the mind under the influence of the ego is very much like a survival machine. It’s very mechanical uh people’s behavior is very predictable. It’s like built-in animals, built into Instinct, built into everything you see everything is designed to want to survive and to do what it can do to survive and hopefully be comfortable and hopefully not have too much pain. You know, that’s what the ego is kind of like programmed us to do and we can do better than that yeah, we can survive sure. We can even thrive and be abundant but by definition that’s temporary and what we want to awaken to is something that’s permanent so it’s always going to come back to the power of choice, the power of decision. You are the one who chooses you know, you’re not the ego uh you may think you are if you’re under the domination of the ego you may think that this body is you and that it’s all true but once you start to get a hold of your power to choose you can choose the right part of your mind and the power to choose is your real power. It’s the power of decision that can free you from the bondage of the ego by choosing the right mind instead.

Just one at a time you know, it’s uh not a mystery. You know, this isn’t really, rocket science. You just have stuff come up and it pushes your buttons and after a while, you get to recognize that as an opportunity instead of a pain in the ass, it’s an opportunity to forgive and you will take advantage of those opportunities because you know after a while from your own experience that you will feel better and that you’ll be happier right because you have two voices in your mind. You have the ego but you also have that voice that is coming from the right part of your mind and what you do is you kind of like get trained and into the habit of listening to the right part of your mind instead of the wrong part of your mind that’s what a spiritual discipline will do for you uh and no matter what spiritual discipline you choose at least have one because most people don’t have a discipline uh you know, course of Miracle says, “An untrained mind can accomplish nothing” Well, that’s a pretty provocative statement because it’s saying that 99% of all people are accomplishing basically nothing with their spirituality because if you don’t train the line it will run wild. The ego is like an animal it’ll make your mind run wild unless you get a hold of the power yourself and take it for yourself, have a discipline, and get into the point where you get into the habit of choosing against the ego instead of for it.

The ego may seem like 12 different voices but it’s one thought system. There’s only one ego thought system and there’s only one right-minded thought system so after a while it’s pretty easy to distinguish between the two of them and uh you get into the habit of choosing the right one. The ego has been called many things yeah the 12-headed monster uh the dragon, you could call Young Shadow, you’ve got all kinds of descriptions of the ego but it’s all basically the same except I think Course of Miracles ego is an all-encompassing term because it recognizes that there’s just one ego appearing as many. So that’s what we’re up to undoing and uh it’s always going to come back to that three steps of forgiveness that I was describing you’ll notice that uh no matter what my teachers and I talk about in the books and we talk about a lot of different things and it can be very entertaining it’d be a lot of fun but sooner or later, it’s going to come back to making a decision and to be able to make that decision you have to be equipped to do it and the only place that’s going to get you there is if you practice it. It’s like you know, I go to China sometimes they have a saying you know, “To know and not do is to not yet know” You know, because if you know something but if you don’t practice it if you don’t apply it to the situations that you find it in your everyday life you know, those relationships that you’re in whether you love them or whether you feel stuck in them, whether they’re at work you know you have to apply it and you have to persevere, you have to be determined. You know, you go there to work on monday you forgive the people at work, you go back on Tuesday and they’re still there you know it looks sometimes like you’re forgiving the same thing over and over again that’s when you have to remember that you’re the one who is getting the benefit of uh you know that forgiveness like I can forgive you because I know that it’s good for me, I know that I’m the one that’s going to be happier and feel better that’s not that I give a damn about you. You know, so I know that it’s good for me and yeah, it’s going to help you too because every mind is joined because it’s really, just one of us, and even though you can’t get somebody to do something and you can’t tell anybody to decide to go home and you can’t do somebody else’s forgiveness work for them you can still point them in the right direction. You can act as an example, you can be a peaceful presence, and you can in that way kind of like be pointing them in the right direction so you don’t even have to teach anything, you don’t have to say anything, you can just be peaceful, you can just be love. You know, what if everything that you did in your life was an extension of love, you’re just doing it out of love, you know so simple yeah, and it’s so easy and it makes your life less complicated uh you know my teacher said that you need nothing, not really, you just want to join with people out of a mutual awareness of abundance, what if you didn’t have to get anything from people, what if you didn’t need them, what if you were already abundant, what if you already felt like you were undoing that sense of separation and no matter what happened you felt like you were being taken care of and provided for well then you wouldn’t have to always be scheming to get something or to use somebody or to do something you could just be natural and that’s what this kind of thing leads to.

Well, to me a miracle is a change of mind. You know, most people think miracle as being something that happens out there on the screen but that’s just the effect, the cause which is the miracle always takes place first in the mind, and yes it could show up out there in some kind of an effect but uh the effect could be invisible it could be something that happens at the subatomic level uh it could be some kind of a healing. You know, when you perform a miracle which is actually a change of mind then it could be some kind of a healing in somebody else’s body that you can’t see or in your own body but once again that’s just the effect. The real miracle is that shift in perception that change of mind that takes place within. You know, what we’re seeing out there on the screen is just an outer picture of an inward condition. People are always trying to do things out there on the screen “World Peace” is a great example there is never going to be World Peace as long as there is conflict in the mind. You know, the only way the world peace will ever be attained is if you attain peace within. That’s why the Buddhists have the right idea uh some of the Hindus too that’s why Gandhi said, “You must be the change that you want to see in the world” if what we’re seeing is an outer picture of the memory condition you have to change the inward condition and when enough people in the world shift to forgiveness and to the right mind and enough people attain that inner peace and outer peace would literally have to follow, it couldn’t Not-follow because that’s the way that it works because this is a projection so the day will come I don’t know if it’ll happen in our lifetime but the day will come when enough people in the world have Inner peace so that outer piece will literally show up but that’s the only way you’re ever going to have peace on earth. It’s the only way that you’re ever going to really, feel abundant is by changing that inner condition so that the outer condition can follow.

First of all, it does begin with baby steps. You know, when you sit down at the piano and you start off by playing Chopsticks. You know, you don’t start off by playing Mozart you know, and you get better and better as you go along and it is the same with forgiveness you do get better and better at it as you go along you get faster at it you get to the point where you can do it instantly but at first you’re going to be practicing those three steps that I was talking about and as you go along eventually those three steps for you are going to kind of like blend into one. It, you’ll just know it becomes kind of like the Zen uh concept of just knowing as an unarticulated truth you don’t have to speak about it, you don’t have to think about it you just know it and something happens you forgive it, it’s over in a second but that’s a very advanced state but it comes, it comes with tracks. I think the real question is how bad do you want? You know, uh these words I want the peace of God and there’s a teaching that says to say these words is nothing but to me in these words is everything how do you show that you mean it with your practice? You show how bad you want it by actually practicing and starting to change your experience of life and the only thing that’s going to do that is practice but if you want it bad enough and if you want the results then you will practice just like if you want to be a really, great piano player bad enough then you will practice why? Because you want it and so you know you keep at it. I don’t think that there’s a quality that is more important to spiritual progress than the quality of perseverance. You know, you’ve got to want it you got to stick with it and you gotta say, “I don’t care what the world throws at me whatever it is I’m going to forgive it”

Well, it’s not easy uh [Laughing] It’s hard because we’ve been conditioned forever to react to the world and to make it real and say hey look this is a real problem in a real world and I really, got to take care of it are also going to really, be in trouble and you know, the whole thing is kind of like built-in you know, kind of like automatic and what we’re doing is we’re unlearning you know millions of years of programming false programming and the fact that it’s possible to do that in just one lifetime is itself a miracle and yet it is possible, uh you know just to have a lifetime ago I hated God and I hated people and I was severely depressed uh the only reason I didn’t kill myself was because I didn’t have any ambition at all uh I had nothing to look forward to, I, in school I was voted most likely to die. You know, it’s like I had nothing going on and there’s no way that you would suspect that I had any future. And if I can go from that place you know of hating God to today where I can honestly say to you that I love God and I love people and I love my life if I can go there in just half a lifetime then so can anybody else because I’m not a genius, I never went to college. You know, it’s nothing special about me but you do have to want to do it you have to have that willingness. It starts out as a little willingness and it ends up being a lot of willingness and you have to be willing to listen to the right part of your own mind that higher self that better angel of your nature. You have to be willing to listen to that, it’s like Mary Baker Eddie said uh you know about 150 years ago you know she said, “All are called but if you choose to listen” You know, you have to be willing to listen uh people think of uh you know Jesus for example as being the ultimate leader uh.. that’s not true He was the ultimate follower because eventually he just listened to one voice, he just listened to that higher self the right part of his mind. Instead of listening to the ego and anybody can do that.

Yeah, that’s all uh religious symbolism uh… He didn’t actually come back. When a master becomes enlightened he’s out of here, she’s out of here. There’s no need to come back they don’t keep coming back to save the world uh they’re not that whole bodhisattva thing like you know, people keep saying when I’m enlightened, I’m going to come back until everybody is saved well that’s kind of stupid when you think about it because if everybody kept coming back to save everybody then nobody would ever leave and uh what that right part of your mind wants is for you to wake up and go home because that’s where you’re going to be happy and that’s what that right part of the mind wants for you is for you to awaken and go home and there’s no need for you to come back. And Jesus isn’t coming back I hate to break it to people but you know he’s out of here I like the analogy that my teachers use in the book they said, you know, Jesus is outside of this whole thing outside the doors of the Asylum and you keep trying to drag them back in and there’s no need for anybody who is enlightened to do anything except go home and that’s what you want to do and everybody’s going to do it eventually and once everybody has awakened then you won’t have all this nonsense and madness to contend with.

To me, enlightenment is awakening. Awakening from the dream and eventually the dream becomes like a lucid dream where you know that you’re dreaming and when you know that you’re dreaming then you’re no longer at the effect of it and it can’t hurt you. You can experience that when you’re having a dream in bed at night you know, that you’re dreaming no matter what happens you can’t be hurt you could fall off of a 100-story building and not be hurt in a dream, you can fly, anything is possible in a dream, and in this dream anything is possible. There are Masters who have been able to just manifest objects out of thin air and to not be hurt no matter what is done to their bodies it’s totally possible. It’s not necessary but it is possible. The main thing is the awakening itself and realizing that this is a dream and that it can’t hurt you.

Uh no, and the reason that I’m not afraid of death is because I’m not afraid of God and that’s where the fear of death really, comes from but people don’t realize it because it’s unconscious uh you’ll notice in a Course in Miracles that the last two obstacles to that inner peace are the fear of death and the fear of God because they go hand in hand and the truth is if you didn’t have that unconscious fear of God you wouldn’t have any fear of death either so when you undo the ego completely you will not fear death because you’ll know that there’s no such thing as death not really,

Believing leads to knowing. Knowledge is something that can’t really, be put into words. It’s like uh the gnostics used the word gnosis and what gnosis means is knowledge but not the kind of knowledge that most people think of not intellectual knowledge is talking about experience. It’s talking about a direct experience of your source that great mystical experience that I was talking about earlier and knowledge to someone who is enlightened is experienced. It’s actual experience of perfect oneness with your source and it’s forgiveness and changing your belief that leads to that because right now most people believe in the ego but that gives the EGO power over them and what a good spiritual discipline will do for you is it will have you take that belief back and put it where it belongs. You know, instead of putting that belief in the world and the universe and the ego and separation you want to take that back because it has power over you. If you give belief to the world, the world has power over you but if you take it back and put it where it belongs which is reality which is perfect oneness then that is what you will start to experience instead of being at the effect of the world.

No, uh, in fact, this is when you want to experience heaven in that experience because this is when you will awaken. If you wait until you die it’s too late. If you wait until then that means that you’re going to go through this in-between period and you’re going to come back again so where you want to do your work is right here. The direction of the mind is automatic depending on which thought system you listen to. If you listen to the ego thought system well, then it’s all can determine what happens to you next uh what kind of a death you experience I’m not talking about how it happens I’m talking about how you experience it. What kind of an in-between life you’re going to have, what kind of a lifetime you’re gonna have the next time all of that is being determined by you right now as to the kinds of decisions that you make whether or not you choose the ego or the right part of your mind. So you can experience heaven even while you appear to be here usually it’s very brief it might just be a second or two hey that’s all you need because it’s so great, it tells you wow that’s the way it’s going to be all the time eventually and then there’s no time but heaven is not what people think. It’s not a place because it doesn’t exist in space so it’s not a place. It’s not something that exists in time uh the word eternal actually means without time you know it doesn’t mean like a long time, It means no time. You know, so it’s a totally different kind of an experience but man yeah it’s so free and so much better and it’s it extends forever there’s no borders or limits uh there’s nothing negative.

Uh, a lot of people are worried about the idea of going to hell, uh, they don’t realize they’re already there because anything that is not Heaven Is Hell. You know, you think of all those uh things that people put in books all those drawings of what how it looks like you know, people burning to death and being decapitated and all their limbs all over the place and all these ugly faces. Well, if you really, think about it that can happen to you here. You know, you don’t have to go to hell to have that happen that can happen here because this is hell because anything that is not perfect oneness with God it’s not heaven so there’s the two things right there now sometimes uh it can seem like fun being here but that’s duality and eventually it’s all going to turn to crap. I’m not saying that because I’m a pessimist I’m just saying that because it’s a fact that’s what happens and what we want to do is we want to go back to a world where there are no opposites where there’s no such thing as death and all these terrible things that can happen and that is heaven and ultimately that’s the choice that needs to be made. You can keep choosing with the ego and stick in hell and stay here or you can go home which is the opposite really, of hell.

That’s true, you have to make a choice but I think at first, you do go back and forth until the time comes eventually where you’ll stay in one place and I’m very grateful to Ken Wapnick, he was always very good to me and he was a good friend and uh you know, he would be the first one to tell you that you have to choose and whichever one you choose and believe in will ultimately be what you experience as real that’s why it’s so important to make the choice because it determines uh how you feel about yourself and ultimately even what you believe you are.

Well, there are two kinds of special relationships. Most people don’t worry about the special love relationships but there are also special hate relationships and they’re set up to suck you in it’s really, easy to hate some people. You know and they’re there to suck you and get you judging them and thinking negative things about them and that’s a trap because as soon as you do that you’re just keeping yourself stuck in the same old cycle. Uh, special love relationships, a little bit more difficult because uh we love these people and we have all kinds of reasons including sexual reasons uh for loving them and, but that’s specialness and real love, loves everybody. You know, love that, it’s not special love. Real love the love of God or whatever you want to call it has to apply to everybody and it has to apply equally to everybody with absolutely no exceptions or else it’s not really love. So that’s pretty tall order but you have to love everybody equally and if you leave somebody out it’s not whole and it’s not full and it’s not complete and it will not lead you to oneness so your love has to apply to everybody equally. Uh, special love relationships are an ego setup because now we need something and if that’s something that we expect to get from that person in that special love relationship isn’t provided for us it drives us crazy. You could think as being kind of like a special love bargain so uh you’re in love with somebody and you’re with somebody and maybe there’s some sexual thing that they do to you that you’ve come to expect and you need it and then what if all of a sudden they stop doing it? Well, that’s an ego setup because now you’re going to be upset, you’re going to miss it, you’re going to feel deprived, you can have all kinds of feelings. Real love doesn’t need anything you know it’s just love and it’s not dependent on circumstances and that’s a totally different kind of look. Now I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have special love partners in relationships you should because that’s where your forgiveness opportunities are going to be in the first place, the question is do you know what it’s for? Are you going to use it for the purposes of the ego or are you going to use it for forgiveness? My teachers and my books will always ask, what is it for? you know, what do you want the outcome to be from this? and if you learn how to use it for forgiveness you’ll advance because of that.

Right, that’s because the ego believes in separation and believes that it can fill a hole, which doesn’t really, exist but there’s a hole there and the ego doesn’t know what’s causing it. What’s causing it is that sense of separation from your source that I was talking about earlier that’s the one real lack. You know if you could take care of that one real lack all the rest would take care of themselves and you’d never feel lack but as long as you haven’t done that the ego is going to seek out there on the screen for something that it thinks might be out there. In fact, the ego’s motto is seek and did not find because the ego doesn’t want you to look where the answer really, is which is within, which is in the mind, and in that choosing the right part of the mind instead of the wrong part.

Actually, it’s the same principle because what we’re doing with all these addictions and compulsions that people have is we’re trying to fill that lack and we think that we’re going to get it in any number of things that appear to be outside of ourselves and the only place where that lie can be fulfilled is within. You know, people go through their whole lives they feel like something is missing and actually they’re right, there is something missing but it’s not going to be found out there on the screen that something is your source and the only place to find it is within and that’s the only way to get rid of that lack and to get rid of the, you know, desire that you have for so much. I mean I’ve met billionaires who are coming from a place of lack because they don’t know where the real lack is and so they don’t know how to fulfill it but uh, once you can fulfill that then it won’t matter how much money you have whether it’s a billion or you know five bucks in your pocket it doesn’t make any difference because you feel like you’re being taken care of and that you’re always going to be okay.

Yeah, the one problem you could say is separation which is what the course would say and there’s only one solution. It’s like Jesus, Prodigal Son he only made one mistake according to that story he left and realized he wasn’t kicked out of heaven he made a decision to leave just like everybody but there’s a correction for that and the correction for that one problem is to go home and that’s a personal decision that everybody will make for themselves you can’t make it for anybody else but you can make that decision for yourself. You can decide to go home and if you decide to go home then the mind will be led to the way home.