That’s the kind of thing that The Holy Spirit would say to us and it’s very much in harmony with Jesus’ story of the prodigal Son, which was actually a creation story. You know, the church took it later and made it out to be some kind of political story, but it was really a creation story.

You had this son who left his father’s house, (notice that he wasn’t kicked out, that’s the garden of Eden myth). We weren’t kicked out of the Father’s House, we left of our own free accord. We thought that we could do better. Just like in Jesus’ story of the prodigal Son. And the son leaves the father’s house, thinks he can do better on his own but all He finds is scarcity. You know, all He finds is lack. Something like that can’t possibly exist in fullness and wholeness.

And after a while he comes to himself and he figures the only real meaningful answer to his problem is to return to his father’s house. So he starts going home again, but he has all these weird ideas about himself. You know, he thinks, “Oh, I’ve sinned and I’m guilty and I’m no longer worthy to be called the son of my father, so maybe I’ll go back home and I’ll start off again as one of his hired servants. I’ll start at the bottom and I’ll work my way back up again.”

So he’s going home with that kind of an attitude, but when he’s almost there, it’s like God sees him and runs to him and throws His arms around him and says: “Oh! This is my Son Who was dead and now He’s alive again. He was lost and now He’s found!”

And He puts a robe around Him and treats Him like a king and throws a party for Him. That’s what God is really like. He’s not interested in all this, you know, wrathful, vengeful crap. All He wants us to do is go home, so He can love us. And Jesus knew that.

But in our condition of seeming separation from God we have all these weird ideas about ourselves. The Holy Spirit is trying to calm us down and says: “Hey, look. Nothing’s really happened. You know, it’s only a dream and all you have to do is go home.”

But now there’s this other voice, because as we said, once you create twoness you have opposites that couldn’t have possibly existed before.

And we’ll call this other way of looking at this idea of separation, the ego.

The ego has a totally different way of looking at this. It might come up to you in this kind of a massive metaphysical situation (which, remember we’re not in touch with anymore, this is occurring on a metaphysical level). The ego might come up to us and say:

“Hey. Do you know what you’ve done? You’ve separated yourself from God! You’ve taken everything that He gave you and He’s given you everything, and you took it and threw it right into His face! And you said, ‘Who the hell needs You?’

He’s pissed! He’s gonna get you! God is angry! And look at you, you’re smaller now. You’re divided. You’re separated from Him. You haven’t got a sucker’s chance in hell against Him. He’s gonna get you! You better get the hell out of here or it’s gonna be worse than death!”

And even ideas like death could not have existed before this. You have to have opposites in order for an idea like scarcity and death to exist. And that’s really why it says in the Book of Genesis, it says, “That you shall not eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, for on the day that you eat of it you shall die.”

Well, good and evil are opposites. And once you have opposites then you have death.

You cannot have death in oneness and wholeness. You can only have the possibility of death when you have a separation and opposites.

Now you have a seeming opposite to life. Instead of the eternal life of Heaven now you seem to have a death as a counterpart. But death cannot exist in Heaven or in eternal life. It can only exist in the seeming state of separation.

So the ego is giving us a totally different story and we feel terrible. The only feeling in this world that could match what that must have felt like, at that original instant of separation from God, is when somebody who is very close to you in your life dies. That’s the only experience in this world that could match that.

And that’s why, in the physiotherapy pamphlet which is an addendum to A Course In Miracles, Jesus is talking about all of the reasons that we cry in this world, and we have tears, and at one point Jesus says,

“And who could weep but for his innocence?”

Because we may think that we’re weeping because somebody we loved has died, but what we’re really weeping about is that original instant of separation from God. And then, the death that we see in this world is simply symbolic of that first and original separation from God. All the problems that we have in this world are really symbolic of that one first original problem in which we thought that we were separate from God.

And that’s why the part in A Course in Miracles that is so beautiful is that under that system, there’s really only one problem and there’s really only one solution. And we’ll see what it is.

But in this condition, you know, this massive metaphysical seeming separation that’s going on, we feel terrible and we’re trying to find a way to cope with it and to perhaps escape from it. And this is where the ego comes up with its plan.

Remember that there are actually two things going on here: The Holy Spirit and the ego, and you’re the one who has to choose between the two. So you can almost say that the mind has three parts.

The mind has the part that is you, or thinks that it’s you, this idea of separation, and it’s up to you to choose between the two different ways of looking at this, the Holy Spirit or the ego. That has never changed.

And we didn’t choose with the Holy Spirit at that time but that doesn’t matter either because that’s just an illusion too. There is absolutely no difference whatsoever between choosing with the Holy Spirit then or choosing with the Holy Spirit right now. Because time itself is an illusion. And if you choose with the Holy Spirit now, you are choosing with the Holy Spirit for all time. And it doesn’t matter what the date appears to be or what lifetime you appear to be living.

And so, now we have two ways of looking at this and we’re kind of like leaning toward the ego and we’re trying to find a way out of this, and the ego says,

“Hey. You know, maybe you should get out of here.”

And we’re thinking,

“Well, you know, how can I do that? There’s no place where I can hide from God Himself,”

And the ego says,

“Well, you know, that’s not exactly true. You know, I have a place where we can go and if you come with me you’ll never see God in this place. I mean, He won’t even be able to get in. It’s like He won’t even exist in this place. You’ll never see Him. You can escape from all this.”

And we’re thinking,

“You know, that sounds pretty good. I would like to get away from this. I feel absolutely terrible, but it sounds kind of final.”

So this is where the ego has to come up with something to entice us. Something to kind of like make us come along for the ride, has to give us a reason to do this. So the ego comes up with a very tempting idea. The ego would say something like,

“Well, you know, if you come with me you can be God. You can make up your own life. You can make up your own world. You can call the shots. You’ll be the boss. You won’t have to listen to God anymore. You can create your own existence, with your own life. You can be special.”

Well, that sounds pretty tempting to us and considering how terrible we feel and considering that we’re all new to this, and we don’t know what the consequences of it are gonna be, we kind of like say “yes” to the ego.

“We’ll go along with you. Let’s get out of here.”

And in that act of joining with the ego what happens is this massive denial and then projection outward. And when you deny something, and you know, psychologists will tell you that when you deny something it has to go somewhere. You may think that you’re getting rid of it but you’re really not. It has to go somewhere.

So you deny it and it’s projected outward and on this massive metaphysical level that causes what we call today, the Big Bang. That is the making of the universe of time and space.

So you have this massive denial, projection outward, and as A Course in Miracles teaches, projection makes perception.

So you have a couple of things going on there. First there’s the denial itself, which seems to get rid of the problem. But remember, it doesn’t really get rid of the problem, it only seems to get rid of the problem. Then, as I it is projected outward, it seems that the problem itself has been projected outside of us. In fact even we have been projected outside of us.

Because when we hold our hand up in front of our face and look at it, what is that? We think that that’s us. But that’s just a part of the same projection that everything else is. So we think that we’re seeing this very special body in the mirror, when it’s really no different than all these other bodies that we’re seeing.

But we think it’s us, so we think that it’s important, and we think that it’s very special. And that’s why the ego made its crowning achievement, the body.

Because the body allows into its awareness only that which conforms to the reality of the ego’s cherished illusions. So now, everything that we experience testifies to us of the reality of this illusion.

And that’s no different, really, than asking the illusion to explain the illusion. So now, the illusion is telling us what to think and even the body is telling us what to feel. So it’s actually an illusion telling us everything about itself and we buy it because it’s really all that we experience.

So it’s really a rather brilliant solution on the part of the ego. The only problem is it doesn’t work. Because all it does is hold it in place. Because now the cause of our problem of separation and this lack of peace that we feel and all of these terrible feelings that we have are not us. The problem is now seen as being outside of us.

That was the ego’s way of escaping from it. This denial and projection. And remember, projection always follows denial and A Course in Miracles actually teaches that projection makes perception.

So now what’s going on is that we’re actually making that which we are seeing, but it’s out of our awareness and we think that it’s reality, when all it really is, is a projection that is coming from our own unconscious mind. And the reason that we made it up in the first place was so that the cause of our problem could be seen as being something else.

So now it’s not my fault, it’s your fault. It’s not my fault that I’ve lost the peace of God. It’s not my fault that I’m angry. It’s not my fault that I lack peace. It’s your fault! And then to top it all off, and make it as real as possible, we are born into this illusion as the perfect little victim. We’re totally innocent. Totally at the effect of the world. Completely lost.

The whole idea of being at cause of anything, we’ve forgotten everything and we’re born as the perfect little victim and how could I be responsible for anything?

I didn’t ask to be born! It’s not my fault. It’s my parents’ fault. They did it. And not only that but do you know what? They didn’t love me enough.

Then you get this whole story going on about why things are the way that they are. And it’s all made up. But we forget that we’re the ones that made it up. And the reason that we made it up was so that somebody else could be to blame.

And so, we go through life with our whole story and we think that it’s real and we think that the cause of our problems are outside us and we proceed to try to solve those problems with solutions that are seen as being outside of us. And it doesn’t work. And the only thing that does work would be to go back to the cause, which is in the mind, and undo this whole idea of separation and undo this whole ego can of worms.

Because now, in the ego’s world, all these ideas that were in the mind, in that metaphysical place, the ideas that never existed before, ideas like sin, you know, I’ve done something wrong. Well if you’ve done something wrong what does that mean? It means you’re guilty. If you’re guilty what does that mean? It means you’re gonna be punished. If you’re gonna be punished then you have fear, you know, and fear is time based. You know, you have to have a future to be afraid of.

All these ideas could not have existed in perfect oneness. They can only exist in an idea of separation. The ideas we talked about, scarcity, death, they all show up in this world and they all show up as being caused by somebody else instead of us. Because now, the universe of time and space has become the ultimate scapegoat. It’s now, no matter what problem I have, it’s not my fault. I can see it as being somebody else’s fault and they are outside of me and they are to blame.

And as I said, we see it at work in the world all the time. People play off of those fears and play off of those emotions. And the way out is not through judgment and condemnation, which holds it in place, because as we said earlier, if you judge another you’re really just judging yourself and keeping this whole ego system in place.

The way out of it is through the Holy Spirit’s kind of forgiveness. But this kind of forgiveness forgives people not because they’ve really done something, but because they really haven’t done anything. It’s because we’re the ones, I should say, you’re the one who made up this whole thing in the first place.

Once you understand that then you can realize that the way out is through forgiveness of that person, not because they’ve done something, but because you realize that you made them up for a reason and that they haven’t really done anything. You just wanted it to look that way.

So, we have to remember that deep in the unconscious mind there is this guilt that we have over the original separation from God. And in order to escape from it, we denied it and projected it outward. As long as that unconscious guilt remains there, in the mind, then we cannot escape the cycle of birth and death.

People have near death experiences and they report it in very similar ways. They usually leave the body and the mind seems to die. And when they leave the body it is a very good experience because you don’t have that physical pain and that heaviness associated with the body. So it seems like a very blissful and wonderful experience.

And a lot of these experiences are similar. Some people may see relatives that have gone on before them and eventually in most of these experiences people are approaching the Light of God. And then what happens is they get zapped back into their body again. So they can’t tell you the whole experience, so they report it as being a really great experience. But they can’t tell you the whole experience. If they could tell you the whole experience then they’d be dead.

You know, so they can’t tell you the whole experience. So I’ll tell you the rest of the experience. What happens is, as you’re going toward the light and a funny thing happens on the way to the light. What happens is, is this unconscious guilt that is still there in the mind starts to catch up with you. And it’s not a physical pain. It’s a psychological pain. And there are people in mental institutions who will tell you that, you know, psychological pain can be even worse than physical pain.

And this pain starts to catch up with you and as long as it’s there you will start to feel it and you will want to get away from it. And the hiding place that we have from this unconscious guilt is just another body. And any body will do. And so, instead of being zapped back into this body, the way we are in the near death experience, we simply go into another body. And the purpose of that body is a hiding place. It’s like a security blanket from this unconscious guilt.

Just as the universe of time and space was made as the ultimate scapegoat, in order to escape from this terrible unconscious guilt that we felt at a massive metaphysical level, the body and the continuing adventures of the body, act as the next hiding place from this unconscious guilt as long as it stays there in the mind.

As long as it has not been healed by the Holy Spirit, and the only way that it can be healed by the Holy Spirit is for you to do your part which is by forgiving these images that seem to be outside of you and seem to be real people, even though they’re not. The only way out of that whole can of worms is through this kind of forgiveness.

But once again, this is a whole new kind of thing.

A Course in Miracles says,

“Forgiveness does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees that there was no sin. And in that view are all your sins forgiven.”

I might add, that only in that view are all your sins forgiven. Because as long as you think that the other person has really done anything then that will translate into your unconscious mind that you have really done something. If you think that they’re really a body then that will translate into your unconscious mind that you are a body.

As A Course in Miracles says,

“As you see him, you will see yourself.”

There’s no getting away from that. And that’s why forgiveness is totally justified. It’s because it’s good for you and it’s because it’s the way out of pain and suffering.

And at the end of Jesus’ life, despite what most people think, Jesus could not suffer and He could not feel any pain because as A Course in Miracles puts it,

“The guiltless mind cannot suffer.”

That’s a topic for another discussion but it really is true. It’s like my teachers said in The Disappearance of the Universe, in the chapter called Healing the Sick, they said,

“Pain is not a physical process. It’s a mental process.”

And the way out of it is to get back to the cause, which is in the mind, and undo the cause of it. And once you do that, then the body must follow. So you can actually get to the point where it would be impossible, once you’re like Jesus and Buddha, it would be impossible for you to feel any pain.

And that’s why this whole idea of Jesus suffering and sacrificing Himself for sins is made up. It’s totally out to lunch when it comes to what Jesus was really all about and what He was really teaching. What He was teaching was unconditional love and forgiveness, which would have to be all-inclusive, because if it’s not all-inclusive then it’s not real. Real love includes everybody and nobody can possibly be left out.

So you start to realize that when you practice the kind of forgiveness that forgives people, you know, for what they haven’t really done, the way that A Course in Miracles does, then your experience, it starts to change.

Maybe you’ll start to feel a little bit lighter. Maybe you’ll start to feel not so much like you’re in a body. Maybe the body will start to feel like a dream figure in a dream, which it really is anyway. Any maybe your experience will start to change.

Maybe you’ll start to feel more peaceful. That may not sound like such a big deal. “Well, I feel peaceful. Wow. What’s that gonna get me?” But the truth is, if peace is the condition of the Kingdom of Heaven then how are you gonna fit back into the Kingdom if you’re not in the condition of peace? It’s like you wouldn’t fit in. It would be like trying to fit a square block into a round hole.

So, in order to return to the Kingdom of Heaven and perfect oneness with God you literally have to return the mind to that condition where it is at peace. And you attain what the Bible and A Course in Miracles call,

“The peace of God which passeth understanding.”

And once you get to that level then you’re ready to return home. And It’s this kind of forgiveness that brings about that experience. And what do you forgive? Well it’s simple. Whatever comes up in front of your face on any given day. That’s what you’re supposed to forgive. It’s not a mystery. It’s always right there in front of you.

You may think “Well gee, I can’t see what’s in my unconscious mind.” Well you don’t have to. All you have to see is the symbolic representation of it that’s being presented to you right now, in front of your face, which is simply symbolic of that which already exists in your own unconscious mind.

So as you forgive that, you’re really forgiving yourself. You’re really forgiving that which exists in your own unconscious mind. And it’s what A Course in Miracles calls,

“The secret sins and hidden hates that we really have about ourselves.”

So whatever causes an upset in you, and it doesn’t matter how big or small it is, that’s what you’re supposed to forgive. You know, I used to get really upset when this certain politician came on the TV screen. (I’ll let you guess which one.) And he would come on the TV screen and I would go “ugh”, you know, I’d start to react. I’d get angry that he came on the TV screen and you know, every time he came on I couldn’t stop myself. I’d just want to react to him.

And one day I was trying to practice forgiveness and he came on the TV screen and I started to react and I stopped myself. And I remembered the truth, That I made him up because I wanted him to be there so that he could be the one who was at fault, so he could be the one who was to blame for my lack of peace, instead of myself.

And when I remembered the truth then I was able to forgive him and I could look at it differently. And then I thought,

“Do you know something? He doesn’t even know that I’m watching. So who’s the one who’s suffering here? Is it me or is it him? Well, it’s me! I’m the one who’s suffering. I mean, he doesn’t even know that I’m watching.”

So it’s really kind of silly, most of our judgments, because we’re the ones who are suffering as a result. You know, like this guy that I was watching on the TV screen there, he probably is having a good time. So who’s the one who is suffering there?

You know, I had a father in law who, God bless him, and he hated Bill Clinton. I mean for eight years, I mean he just got so upset every time Bill Clinton came on the TV screen. He would almost turn red. He actually had to leave the room sometimes. He just hated Bill Clinton and he suffered for like eight years. And then he died. And I can almost guarantee you that Bill Clinton was having a good time.

So who is forgiveness really for? It’s not for the other person. It never is. You know, forgiveness is for you. So now, I can do this because I know that it’s good for me. It’s not that I give a damn about you. I know that forgiveness is good for me and that the ego is being undone and that if I do it I will feel better.

And that’s the short-term benefit. There are like immediate and practical short-term benefits for doing this kind of forgiveness. What if you became more peaceful? Well, how would that affect your health? How would your blood pressure be affected? Can you put a price tag on something like that?

My blood pressure used to be very bad. Now It’s perfect. You can’t buy that kind of thing. But you can create it with the kind of thoughts and the kind of right-minded thinking that forgiveness is all about.

And if you were more peaceful, well what would happen if you could think more clearly? What if you could open yourself up more to inspiration? Because as you remove that crap that’s in the unconscious mind you remove what the Course calls,

“The blocks to the awareness of love’s presence.”

The mind becomes more receptive and more opened to the messages of the Holy Spirit. And you can be inspired as to what you should do in this world. Not that that’s what it’s about. It’s not about fixing up the world.

A Course in Miracles says,

“Seek not to change the world. Seek rather to change your mind about the world.”

Why? Because that’s where real power is. That’s where the cause is. If you change your mind about the world then the world must follow. You know, the world is just an effect. If you really wanna have an impact in the world then forget about the world and go back to where the real power in changing the world is, which is in the mind. And if you change the mind, the cause, then the effect literally has to follow. And that’s why my teacher, Pursah pointed out that ,

“The people of the world will never live in peace until the people of the world have inner peace.”

And that’s because if you wanna change the outside picture you have to go back and achieve inner peace first. That’s the only way that you’ll ever have peace on the outer screen there. You have to go back to the cause.

And so yeah, we can try to do all kinds of things on the outside effect. Like, you know, we try The League of Nations, and we created a United Nations. People wanna create a Department of Peace, (and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that) just as long as you understand that it won’t work. And it can’t work. As long as you have this condition of conflict in the mind you literally cannot have peace out there in the world.

So if you really wanna achieve world peace the place to start is to share these kinds of ideas and empower people to go back to the cause in the mind instead of always just working on the effect. After that, whatever you do in the effect and in the world can simply be representative of who you are and what you are. So now you can be coming from a condition of love. And if you wanna create a Department of Peace it’s simply because you’re coming from a condition of love, not because you think that you’re gonna change the world by doing this. It’s simply symbolic of who you are and what you really are.

If you’re coming from a place of love you can do no wrong. It’s like the old saying, ‘Love and do as you will.’

If you’re coming from that place of love then everything that follows will be right. And if you’re not coming from a place of love then everything that will follow will simply lead to more conflict and more division.

So this kind of forgiveness is good for us. And how do we do it? Well, there’s a forgiveness thought process in The Disappearance of the Universe that I’d like to share with you.

And I’d like o go over it a little bit and explain it a little bit after that. But in order to do that I would like for you to think of somebody in your mind who you would like to forgive. In fact, it may be better if you think of somebody you don’t want to forgive. And it doesn’t have to be “the big one.” It doesn’t have to be the worse thing that ever happened to you in your life.

I think that many times we start off by forgiving the little things. Because that’s a good way to practice. And it’s only through practice that we become perfect. You know, look at it this way. I’ll use an analogy of a musician because I’m a musician.

Let’s say that you want to be a great piano player, right? And that was your goal. Just like some people in spirituality decide, well,you know,

“I’m gonna be like Jesus and I’m gonna be like Buddha and I’m gonna not have to come back here anymore.”

Which is a very noble goal. I don’t know if people realize what a big goal it is because if you really say that you don’t wanna come back here anymore and you wanna escape the cycle of birth and death, then that includes the complete relinquishment of individual identity now and forever.

So maybe that’s a little bit bigger decision than some people realize. You know, I hear people say all the time, “I’m not coming back anymore.” Well, they should know what it is they’re asking for. Because that in the unconsciousness mind is very fearful. Because you’re telling the ego that the ego’s gonna be dead and that there’s gonna be no more individual identity now and forever.

So it’s a little bit bigger decision than people realize, which is just another reason why this unconscious guilt and this fear in the mind has to be undone by the Holy Spirit before we can achieve that.

So let’s say you decided that you want to do that, and let’s say that the analogy is being a great piano player. Well, let’s say that you decided that you wanna become a great piano player. So you learn some theory. (And the text in A Course in Miracles is the theory of A Course in Miracles.)

So, a musician may learn some music theory. Maybe you’ll take a music appreciation class. Maybe you’ll learn to read music. Maybe you’ll learn all about it. Then you go and you sit down at the piano and you go to play the piano and you suck. Right? And the reason that you suck is because the only thing in the world that will ever make you a really good piano player is if you sit down there and if you practice. And you have to practice every day, for a long time.

And if you do that kind of practice, then maybe after five years then, you know, you could be pretty good. Other people would say, “Wow. He’s good.” You know, you’re actually pretty good at it. And maybe after ten years of practice you could be really good. Maybe after twenty years you could be great. Maybe after twenty-five years you could be like one of the greatest who ever lived.

If you have that kind of determination and you’re willing to practice that much then you can be great. Well, think about it. Do we really believe that attaining the same level of spiritual mastery of somebody like Jesus or Buddha is less of an accomplishment than being a great piano player? I don’t think so. If you really want it then you have to be willing to practice. You know, it’s very tempting to want to skip to the end.

A Course in Miracles says that,

“The full awareness of the Atonement is that the separation from God never occurred.” But it also says that,

“The means of the Atonement is forgiveness.”

Well if the means of the Atonement is forgiveness how can we get to the end without utilizing the means? You have to do that forgiveness work. You can’t skip it. I think it’s very tempting for people to want to skip to the end and say, “Yes, I’m enlightened and I’m, you know, a perfect child of God.” (Which metaphysically is a true statement, but that is not their experience.) Our experience is that we are here and that we are in bodies. And to deny that experience, as A Course in Miracles puts it, is a particularly unworthy form of denial. Because this is where we think we are. And if we really wanna get home in our experience then we have to forgive the world from where we think we are, which is from the prospective of a body. And it’s in that forgiveness that we get to the experience that we’re not bodies.

And the statements that we find in A Course in Miracles cannot just be read but actually experienced. Statements like:

“I am not a body. I am free, for I am still as God created me.”

That kind of experience is brought about by forgiveness. But once again, it’s this kind of forgiveness that we’re gonna practice right now. So I’m gonna read the instructions for this exercise in forgiveness, then we’re gonna actually do it, and then after that I’m gonna talk just a little bit more about it and what’s being accomplished for us when we do it. The instructions for this forgiveness thought process can be found near the end of the chapter called The Law of Forgiveness in The Disappearance of the Universe.

And that was my favorite visit of all because that’s the one where Pursah came alone. Actually she let me touch her once during that visit also, so that was definitely my favorite.

But the way she puts it for the instructions for this, and keeping in mind that the person that you’re going to forgive here in most cases, it’s gonna be another person. But in some cases, you know, the person that you wanna forgive could be you.

You know, most people project their unconscious guilt out there onto other people, but there are some people in this world who project the unconscious guilt onto themselves. Now, technically there’s no difference between doing that, you know, projecting it onto yourself or onto somebody else because, as we said, what is that when you hold your hand up in front of your face? It looks like you but it’s really just another body.

What is that when you go in the mirror in the bathroom and look in the mirror? What is that? Is that reflection really there? Well, of course not. It’s an optical illusion. What you’re looking at in the mirror is not really there And, ironically, what is causing the reflection isn’t there either. But it’s the same kind of trick.

What we’re seeing outside of ourselves when we look at that reflection in the mirror are other bodies and when we hold our hand up in front of our face and see our body, it’s simply a reflection or a symbolic representation of what’s in our unconscious mind. And by forgiving it, that is the way to freedom.

Now, some people blame themselves for things. Some people project the unconscious guilt onto themselves and it’s a very serious problem. And it’s probably the most denied problem in the world.

Suicide is probably the biggest problem that nobody in the world wants to talk about. And that’s because they’re afraid of it, because people run away from this unconscious guilt that’s in the mind and they don’t even want to look at it. And that’s why I think it’s so wonderful that A Course in Miracles has exposed it and explained it and made people understand that they don’t have to judge themselves any more than they’re judging anybody else.

So you have a condition in the world where more people die from suicide than are killed by all the wars and all the crime in the world combined. More police officers die from suicide than are ever killed in the line of duty. More firemen die from suicide than are ever killed by fires and it’s something that the world is in total denial about.

In Japan today there are groups of teenagers who meet on the internet and then go out in vans and they kill each other in the vans. And if that kind of thing ever spreads to North America, the people are gonna freak out.

And the cause of it is the very kind of unconscious guilt that we’ve been talking about. People don’t know what’s running them. They don’t know about the stuff churning in the deep canyons of the unconscious mind which are causing their behavior.

But this kind of forgiveness is actually a way out of that whole ego can of worms and a way to peace and salvation and eventually breaking the cycle of birth and death.

The first effects of it are very immediate and practical and take place seemingly in the world. But the ultimate goal and what actually happens is that as the ego is gradually undone and when the time comes when you lay your body aside for the last time, there is no reason to come back again. You don’t need a body to hide in. You don’t need a universe of time and space to hide in. So there is no reason for you to come back and the cycle of birth and death is broken.

And then, as we said, when you awake from the dream where is the dream? It’s gone. And so, you don’t have to wait for everybody else to be enlightened. Everybody else is already there. And it turns out that there really was only one ego and that you were it.

You know, this isn’t about helping other people to forgive or pointing out ego-like behavior in other people. You know, I know many Course in Miracles students who are experts in pointing out ego-like behavior in other people. But that’s not forgiveness. Forgiveness is not about pointing out the ego in others. Ultimately forgiveness is about realizing that there isn’t anybody else. There are no others and that the ego is really you and then forgiving it. That would be forgiveness under the system of A Course in Miracles. That would be real forgiveness.

It’s not about having somebody else clean up their act. It’s about the way that you look at it. And then you can get to the experience of what A Course in Miracles is teaching, which is that there is no world.

In fact the Course says,

“There is no world.”

In fact the Course says,

“There is no world. This is the central lesson the Course attempts to teach.”

And it’s brutally uncompromising in that regard. The Course does not say… There is no world, yeah but maybe… It says,

“There is no world. This is the central lesson the Course attempts to teach.”

Why? Because it’s just a dream. And that’s why the Course also says,

“The secret of salvation is but this: You are doing this to yourself.”

So yeah, it may look like we were done wrong. It may look like we’re victims and that we’re not at cause, that somebody else is. That’s the way we set ourselves up. But the truth is, everything that happens here is something that we wanted to happen because we wanted the other person to be responsible. You didn’t want that terrible feeling of guilt that we had to be in us, so we chose to put it seemingly some place else.

Except, it’s just an illusion. And so when we judge others, what goes around comes around but that’s because it never really left in the first place. It was just an illusion. And the way to undo it is to apply this kind of right-minded thought process that Pursah gave me in the Disappearance of the Universe.

The way she explained it was, in this thought process the words you and your can apply to any person, situation or event. So it can be any person. It can be yourself. It could be a situation that you feel stuck in. Maybe you’re going through a divorce. Maybe you’re in a bankruptcy. Maybe you’re in a situation where you just feel stuck, that it doesn’t seem to have any end to it. Or maybe it’s just uncomfortable. Maybe it’s an event that you see on TV like the tsunami or the hurricanes or all these terrible things that go on in the world. Anything can be forgiven.

You know, I have a part in the book where I talk about the day of the World Trade Center attack and my thought process is on that day. There’s nothing in this world that this cannot be applied to, no matter how big or small.

And then, eventually we get to the point where we become so good at this, it becomes so much a part of us, that we’re able to finally realize that just as A Course in Miracles says,

“There is no order of difficulty in miracles. One is not ‘harder’ or ‘bigger’ than another.”

By practicing we eventually get to the point where we realize that it’s all the same. Because if it’s all an illusion then there can be no distinction between one thing that is untrue and something else that is untrue. Because they’re both untrue. So t really doesn’t matter how big one appears to be and how small another appears to be. They’re really all the same.

Pursah also said that it’s all right to improvise while you’re maintaining the basic ideas. So this is not a religion. It’s not a ritual. You don’t have to get the ideas just right. You know, I even asked them, you know, I asked them,

“Do I have to get the words just right?”

They said no. It’s your attitude that counts. Your way of being. And it’s not the same as other things. You know, some people give equal weight to mind, body and spirit. But what this is doing, it’s actually empowering us to use the mind to choose between the body and the spirit. And how you see the other person will actually determine what you believe that you are on the level of your own unconscious mind.

Pursah also said,

“Please note that the Holy Spirit will remember to remove the unconscious guilt from your mind and perform His healing of the universe when you forgive.”

That’s His job and He’s pretty good at it. You have to remember to do your job, if not immediately then later on. If you completely forget then you can be confident that the ego’s script will eventually provide you with a similar opportunity that will do just as well. So if you don’t learn your lessons this time around, you’ll get another chance.

But I think the real question here is not whether or not it works. The real question here is how long do we want to prolong our suffering? Now, I think that that’s where you see another similarity between Buddhism and A Course in Miracles because they’re about the end of suffering and the undoing of the ego.

In fact, except for the Christian terminology I really think at times that A Course in Miracles has more in common with Buddhism than it does with anything else. Yet this is the original Jesus. This is where you get the spirituality without the religion. Because now, it’s up to you to forgive. It’s up to you to learn how to pray. It’s up to you to do it without relying on some religion and without relying on some priest or minister to tell you what to do. Ultimately you become your own minister or your own priest or your own rabbi.

And you can look at things in a very advanced way because you’ve learned through Jesus and the Holy Spirit the way to look at everything.

So this is called true forgiveness, a thought process example. And thinking of the person in your mind who you have chosen to forgive, I would like you to visualize that person and say these words in your mind to that person:

“You’re not really there. If I think you are guilty or the cause of the problem and if I made you up, then the imagined guilt and fear must be in me. Since the separation from God never occurred, I forgive both of us for what we haven’t really done. Now, there is only innocence, and I join with the Holy Spirit in peace.”

And then if you will, I’d like you to imagine yourself releasing that person to the Holy Spirit. And as you release that person, you are released.

A Course in Miracles says,

“Can you to whom God says,’ release My Son’, be tempted not to listen, when you learn it is your own release for whom He asks?”

And then Pursah said,

“Please feel free to use this example of a forgiveness thought process as much as you want in order to help get in the habit of forgiveness.”

And that’s very important. Because we want to get into the habit of forgiveness. Because that’s what will make it almost automatic in our mind and even when the going gets tough.

You know, in those early fifty miracles principles in the Course it says,

“Miracles are habits and should be involuntary.”

What happens is, you practice it so much that it becomes a part of you. That it becomes so much a part of you that you will do it almost automatically.

Sometimes I play a little game with Jesus. I get up in the morning and I say,

“Hey Jesus, you know…I’m taking the day off. I’m not gonna forgive anybody today.”

And then what happens, is about half way through the day I miss it.

You know, and I wanna do it because I know that it’s good for me. So when you get to the point where you would actually miss it if you don’t do it, then you know that it’s becoming a part of you. And then what happens is, these right-minded ideas we’re talking about, we see all kinds of them in the workbook of A Course in Miracles. The text is the theory but the workbook is the actual application of the Course. And the workbook itself says,

“It is doing the work with lessons that will make the goal of the Course possible.”

And the goal of the Course is experience. An experience of what you really are and where you really are. And the workbook is full of these right-minded ideas. And what will happen is, as you do the workbook in A Course in Miracles, is that certain ideas will leap off the page at you and it won’t necessarily be the same for everybody.

In fact, that’s one of the reasons that the Course is thirteen hundred pages long. It’s because the truth may be simple but the ego is not. The ego is very, very complicated and it has to be undone gradually. And that’s why the Course says that the curriculum is highly individualized.

An analogy that I like to use of undoing the ego is like peeling away the layers of an onion. Let’s say you have an onion and you peel away a layer of the onion. Well, it still looks like an onion. You know, it looks like nothing has happened. But let’s say that you persevere because you know that it makes you feel better and once in a while you have experiences that tell you that it is working, and you forgive and the what happens is you peel away another layer of the onion.

Well, it still looks like an onion. You know, it may look like nothing’s happening. And so people ask,

“Do I have to feel like I’ve forgiven somebody in order for it to work? Have I done something wrong if I don’t feel like I’ve forgiven somebody?”

The answer is no. You don’t have to ‘feel’ like you’ve forgiven somebody because the effects of your thoughts are not always immediately apparent. You know, the same is true when you judge somebody. I mean, you could possibly feel good after you judge somebody. That’s because you’ve temporarily found a way to project your unconscious guilt onto the other person. And so, temporarily, you might feel better but you haven’t really gotten away from it. All you’ve done is reinforce it in your own unconscious mind.

So yeah, you feel good because you got to be right and this other person gets to be wrong. And the only problem is that three or four days later you go out and you get in a car accident. Or you get sick. And it’s because you still feel guilty and you still find a way to punish yourself.

Well the same is true with forgiveness in the sense that if you forgive somebody you may not feel the effects of it right away. You may feel like,

‘Oh, I forgave him and nothing happened.”

And it may look like you’re forgiving the same thing over and over again. You know, you forgive the people at work, then you go back there the next day, and they’re still there.

You know, it may look like nothing’s happening but that’s where we will eventually have to have faith that the Holy Spirit is doing His part. Because, as we said, the Holy Spirit can see everything.

And when we perform from this simple act of forgiveness where we forgive somebody for what they haven’t really done, then the Holy Spirit is taking that forgiveness and it is going everywhere. It’s going through all of our past lives. It’s going through all of our future lives. It’s going through every dimension of time.

A Course in Miracles says in those fifty miracles principles that the miracle works in all the dimensions of time, and the miracle is forgiveness.

And it’s cutting through every parallel universe that may or may not exist. Our forgiveness is going everywhere, doing amazing things. Those first fifty principles also says,

“A miracle is never lost. It can have undreamed of effects in situations of which you are not even aware.”

So these things are happening while we’re performing our forgiveness and we’re sitting there and we’re thinking, “Oh, nothing’s happening and this is boring.”

So at some point you have to have faith that your forgiveness is being taken by the Holy Spirit and cutting through everything and actually collapsing time, just as in A Course in Miracles says,

“The universe literally is disappearing.”

Because these other dimensions of time where we’ve already learned this lesson or that lesson that we’re forgiving, so we don’t have to learn it again. The Holy Spirit is actually, you know, causing that dimension of time to disappear. And there are parts of the universe that will never be seen again because of the kind of forgiveness that you’re practicing. So there really are incredible and remarkable effects that are taking place. And the Course teaches that all thought produces form on some level.

So that’s why a miracle is never lost. It’s like you couldn’t think anything without it having some kind of effect, somewhere. And what this does is, it’s a very powerful way of going from being at the effect to being at the cause. And then, what that does, is that it starts to change your experience of your life. And it can be a wonderful experience because if you do this and you start to get in touch with your innocence, there is no better experience than that.

And it’s not about giving up the world. It’s not about giving everything up. If you think that you have to give up anything in this world then that’s putting you just as much at the effect of it as if you want it. So don’t think that you have to give up possessions. You don’t have to give up money. You don’t have to give up sex. You don’t have to give up things in this world. Just be normal. Don’t be weird.

You don’t go into a funeral where people are having a funeral and say,

“Hey! What’s your problem? Don’t you know that all this is an illusion?

What’s going on?”

There’s no compassion in that. There’s no love in that. Because all you’re gong to do is make people more angry. And there are people who have done that, believe it or not.

And when somebody is sick, you don’t go up to them with that Course in Miracles lesson and say, “Hey! What’s the matter with you? You’re a Course in Miracles student. Don’t you know that this workbook lesson, it says, ‘sickness is a defense against the truth?’ What’s the matter with you? Don’t you get it?”

Well, you know, there’s no love and compassion in that. Everybody’s gonna get sick. That’s what bodies do. Because bodies were based on the thought of separation and so bodies themselves will separate. Which is all that cancer is, you know, cells dividing and sub-dividing.

Everybody’s gonna get sick. The thing isn’t whether or not you get sick, because you’re just dealing with the level of form in the body if you think that you’re going to prevent all illness, now and forever. The place to go is to the cause, which is in the mind which will change your experience of sickness and eventually, as we said, it’s possible to get to the point where the body cannot feel any pain. And that’s an incredible place to get to.

I’m not saying that it happens all at once. You know, I’m not saying that everything’s going to be perfect. I’m not saying that everything in your life is gonna go good. Look at Jesus at the end of His life. Things weren’t exactly going good. But that didn’t matter to Him because His experience was that He was not a body, and He was not stuck in this dream, so it didn’t really matter what people did to Him.

There’s a way to experience what it’s like to be with God even in this lifetime. But before I tell you that, I wanna tell you a joke, because I’ve gone too long here without telling you a joke and if I don’t tell you a joke then I don’t feel it’s a good enough talk.

So I’ll tell you a joke about Jesus 2,000 years ago. All right, Jesus is walking down the road, 2,000 years ago and He’s just minding His own business, you know. He’s not doing anything special and all of a sudden He comes up to this group of people and they’re about to stone a prostitute to death.

Right? Because that’s what we did back in those days. If you caught a prostitute, that was the law. You stoned her to death. Like, you know, even if you were with her like an hour ago. And so, they’re about ready to stone this prostitute to death but they see Jesus coming. Now, they don’t like Jesus, right? Because, you know, Jesus is kind of like this renegade rabbi and He doesn’t bow down to all of their rules and all of their precious beliefs and everything. And He’s into like forgiveness and stuff, which they’re not too keen on, and so they figure they’re gonna trick Jesus. They’re gonna get Him, right?

Because back in those days you couldn’t speak out against the Bible. You couldn’t speak out against the law because if you spoke out against the law then that too was against the law. So, if you were speaking out against the law that would be the same as speaking out against God. Because it was considered to be God’s word.

So if you spoke out against the law then you yourself were in violation of the law. So they figured, OK, here’s Jesus, you know, we’re gonna trick Him. We’re gonna get Him this time. So they yelled to Jesus, they say,

“Hey Jesus! We got this prostitute here and we’re gonna stone her to death. That’s what we’re supposed to do right?

Well, you gotta get up pretty early in the morning to pull one over on old Jesus, right? So Jesus says,

“OK. He among you who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.”

And what they do is, one by one, they all just drop their stones to the ground because they couldn’t picture themselves as being without sin. And so, that’s how Jesus got to save the prostitute and He got to teach what He wanted to, and He saved the prostitute’s life because he said:

“He among you who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.”

And Jesus wasn’t disobeying the law because He didn’t speak out against the law, and so it was perfect. But then, all of a sudden this woman comes walking along and she’s got this big rock in her hand. She walks up to the prostitute, drops the rock right on the prostitute’s head. Knocks her out. Jesus looks at the woman that just did this and says:

“Come on mom! Will you give me a little space?”

So, we said that there is a way to experience what it’s like to be with God and in Heaven, even while we appear to be here in this world. And that’s ultimately the experience that the Course is directed toward. And some people experience this, not everybody does. It’s the profound inner peace that really matters.

And then, the way that other mystical experiences show up vary from person to person. That’s because we have different gifts from lifetime to lifetime.

A Course in Miracles says, in the Manual for Teachers, that nobody has any gifts that are not available to everyone. But that doesn’t mean that they’re gonna happen all at once. We vary from lifetime to lifetime.

You know, I’ve had people come up to me and say,

“Well, you know, how come the ascended masters appeared to you? Why you?”

And it’s like well, you know, how do they know that they weren’t one of those children who saw the Virgin Mary at Lourdes in one of their previous lifetimes? How do they know that they haven’t seen ascended masters in other lifetimes. How do they know they haven’t seen angels? How do they know they won’t in this lifetime? They shouldn’t limit themselves.

And so I tell them that my biggest experience has not been seeing Arten and Pursah. It has not been seeing the ascended masters, even though a lot of people would think that it would be pretty cool to do that. That hasn’t been the ultimate experience for me. The ultimate experience for me has been something else, which I’m going to describe for you in just a minute.

But before I do I just wanted to give you a little introduction to that because there’s this one question that everybody asks about this kind of stuff. Sooner or later, everybody asks this question. And the basic question is:

“Well, you know, how the hell could any of this have happened? If God was perfect and Heaven was perfect and all you had was this perfect oneness and everything was so perfect, then why would there even be a thought of separation? How can there even be a thought that seems to be separate from God? How could that possibly happen if everything as so perfect?”

And everybody asks that question at one time or another. And this is how I asked the question in The Disappearance of the Universe. The way I put it, was, you know, because they had just told me this mis-creation story about how the universe of time and space was made, and I said,

“Yeah, but don’t you have the same problem with this story as the one in Genesis and God supposedly doing some of the things He did? I mean, why the hell would a part of Christ ever want to separate from God if everything was complete and perfect?”

Well Arten, who was more than my equal in the domain of smart ass enlightenment, Arten said,

“Let’s take a look at your question. Is it really a question or is it a statement? Aren’t you saying that a separation from God really occurred? You can’t ask how the separation could have happened unless you believe it did. Yet we have already said the principal of the Atonement is that it didn’t. Then you ask how Christ could have possibly chosen with the ego when we’ve already said that it wasn’t Christ but an illusory consciousness that appeared to do so. Then, on top of that you question how this stupid choice could’ve been made by you when here you are making it again right now.”

And I said,

“You’re a smart ass, do you know that?”

And Arten said,

“Only for teaching purposes.” He said, “Gary we love you. I’ll tell you, you’ll never get an answer within the ego’s framework to that kind o a question that will ever satisfy you intellectually.”

As the Course says, and this is Jesus talking now, the Course says,

“The ego’s voice is a hallucination. You cannot expect it to say, ‘I am not real.’ Yet you are not asked to dispel your hallucinations alone.”

And it’s interesting that the Course would use that word, “dispel”, because that’s what this is. It’s like one big giant mother- freakin’ spell that we’ve put ourselves under, and through the kind of forgiveness that we just learned, what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna dis-spell it along with the Holy Spirit and wake up from it.

So then Arten said,

“The time will come when the answer to your question will be found outside the intellect, completely outside the ego’s system and instead within the experience that you are still at home in God, which corrects the mistaken experience that you are not.”

As ‘J’ puts it, and once again, this is from A Course in Miracles, the Course says,

“Against this sense of temporary existence spirit offers you the knowledge of permanence and unshakable being. No one who has experienced the revelation of this can ever fully believe in the ego again. How can it’s meager offering to you prevail against the glorious gift of God?”

I remember once sitting at home in that same living room where Arten and Pursah appeared to me so many times. And they were very good to me. They appeared to me seventeen times over a period of nine years. They gave me time to integrate these ideas into my life and then after a few years, I was just sitting there, minding my own business when all of a sudden I was overwhelmed by this feeling of total and complete love.

You know, it was not like anything else that I’ve ever experienced. A Course in Miracles says that the experience of revelation, which is really another word for just your experience of where you really are, which is at home with God, and what it’s like to be with God, it’s almost like a sneak preview of the end. That experience that cannot really be put into words. So I’ll tell you what it was like.

I was sitting there minding my own business and all of a sudden I felt completely overwhelmed with this feeling of total and complete love. And it, first of all, the best way to describe it is that it’s not like anything in this world. It’s not like anything else that you’ve ever experienced. That alone sets it apart from everything else.

But then there’s this underlying feeling of constancy. Constancy does not exist in this world that the Buddhists call impermanence. Constancy, literally, is not something that is experienced in this world. And in this feeling I felt completely loved and everything just kind of like disappeared for an instant. It’s like, you know, it didn’t last long and it doesn’t have to last long, but the after effects of it lasted for hours. I just sat there for the longest time in a stupor of awe.

Because, you know, it’s like the Course says, awe is correctly reserved for God. Awe is not a proper reaction to Jesus for example, because He’s one of us, you know, He’s just one of us. But awe is a proper reaction to God. And I just sat there in a complete stupor of awe for hours because in this experience I felt totally taken care of and there was no body. There was no world. I felt totally provided for.

And there were no problems. There was nothing to worry about. I was totally innocent. Everybody who I ever loved, everybody I ever cared about, every animal that I ever loved was there. Because nothing could be left out. You can’t have anything left out in oneness. And I was totally provided for. You can’t have anything lacking in fullness. There can’t be anything missing in wholeness.

And this experience was so wonderful. And it also had a sexual aspect to it, you know. I remember early in the book I asked Pursah, she was saying how there were no changes in Heaven because everything is changeless and eternal, you know, which certainly narrows things down. And she pointed out how if something changes, then it would be evolving and if it was evolving then it wouldn’t be perfect. And so, God and spirit would already be perfect. So you didn’t have to become perfect, you already are perfect.

What you need to do is simply remove the blocks that you have placed in between yourself and your experience and awareness of your perfection. But you’re already there, it’s just that it’s not in your experience.

And so, this was the experience of what it’s like to be in that perfection. And that experience contained an underlying feeling of constancy. This was literally something that cannot be taken away from you. You experience that it’s something that you literally cannot lose.

So, we cannot lose when we are one with our Source. We cannot lose in the condition of Heaven. And if you stick around in this world long enough you have to lose. Because it’s a world of time and change.

So even if you’re one of those people who’s living “the great life” and everything’s going perfect for you, and you’re making all kinds of money and you’re getting all kinds of sex and you’re getting all the possessions and everything’s going really great for you, you’re still gonna die.

And not only that but everybody that you know is gonna die. And not only that but most of the time it’s gonna be very horrific and unpleasant. You know, you look at the Kennedys and all of the abundance that they had in their life and you look at all of the tragedy. Now that’s duality.

In this world of duality things have gotta go down the tubes eventually. In Heaven things never go down the tubes because it’s not a time based experience. It’s an experience of what A Course in Miracles describes as: “The Eternal Always.” There is no time. So that experience that you’re having is just the experience itself and nothing precedes it and nothing comes after it, it’s just there. And it’s a constant experience that will go on forever. And it’s so amazing that it completely blows away anything that this world has to offer.

And as I said, very early in this talk, once you experience that, then that is the answer. That is the answer to all the questions that we have because it’s the only answer that will ever really satisfy us. But in order to get to that experience we need to undo the ego so that experience is all that’s left.

So what my teachers, Arten and Pursah did for me was they made something which I had never read before and never studied before, called A Course in Miracles. Something that would be understandable to me and that’s no small trick.

I’ve talked to people since the book came out, The Disappearance of the Universe, who had been studying A Course in Miracles for twenty, twenty-five years. And they read The Disappearance of the Universe and then went back and read A Course in Miracles again, and they were amazed by how much more clear it was to them. They said it was like somebody turned the lights on.

I get in contact with people all the time who tell me that and I feel very lucky to be able to participate in this. And I know at the same time that if I read A Course in Miracles on my own, that I would not have understood it. I probably would have seen it as just a continuation of the New testament or something and not realized the radical and incredible nature of this teaching.

And I think for the Course to work and for it to be real for us, what we need to do is not compromise on it. We cannot change it. We cannot get away from these ideas. Real love and forgiveness is total and all-encompassing. And if we’re going to be true to this message and have it work then we can’t change it or compromise on it one inch. If you give the ego an inch it will take a mile. And then, A Course in Miracles will just become like everything else- it won’t have any real impact in the world.

And the only way anything is gonna have a real impact in the world is if you go back to the mind and fix the real problem, the one real problem there in the mind.

In summing up, what I’d like to do is read a paragraph from A Course in Miracles that I think puts it all together in terms of these ideas because it shows that salvation is really the undoing of the ego. And it’s this:

“Salvation is undoing. If you choose to see the body, you behold a world of separation, unrelated things and happenings that make no sense at all. This one appears and disappears in death. That one is doomed to suffering and loss. And no one is exactly as he was an instant previous, nor will he be the same as he is now, an instant hence. Who could have trust where so much change is seen? For who is worthy if he be but dust?

Salvation is undoing of all this. For constancy arises in the sight of those who’s eyes salvation has released from looking at the cost of keeping guilt because they chose to let it go instead.”

You can see from that passage in A Course in Miracles that it’s a very beautiful course to read, and at the same time it can be new to some. It can be very disturbing. It can kind of like rattle your cage and shake your foundation. That’s because we’re undoing the ego. And it’s something that we’re so used to that it may seem a little fearful at times.

This kind of spirituality isn’t for everybody and I don’t try to present it like it’s easy. In fact it’s not easy. Because it really does ask something of the people who practice it. It asks that you be pro-active and actually forgive things. And it’s a demanding spiritual practice. But at the same time it’s something that’s well worth doing. What if you could accelerate your spiritual progress so greatly that you would never have to come back again? This is a fast way to do that.

It’s not the only way to do it. A Course in Miracles does not present itself as being the only way to get back to God. But it certainly does imply at times that perhaps it’s the fastest way. It makes statements like:

“The miracle can substitute for learning that may have taken thousands of years.”

So every time we do this kind of forgiveness, all that karma and all those different lifetimes, it’s like snow being shoveled into an oven. You know, it just disappears. Miraculous things are happening. After thousands and thousands of lifetimes that we’ve lived, to actually complete all of our work in just one or two lifetimes.

That may seem like a lot of work. But compared to all the times that we’ve lived and all the times we’re going to have to keep coming back if we don’t do it, and all the suffering that we’ll have to go through if we don’t do it, then it is truly a gift from the Holy Spirit.

So, I would say that if this path is for you then it’s well worth doing. And you don’t have to wait until the end to enjoy the benefits of doing this.

A Course in Miracles talks about the happy dream. My teachers told me in The Disappearance of the Universe, they said,

“The time comes when you’re so happy it doesn’t even matter that you’re not enlightened yet because you can be having so much fun.”

People, at first, think that things are being taken away. But they’re not. You know, their lack of value, like the Course says, is merely being recognized for the first time. And what’s happened with me in my experience is that I find I don’t enjoy life less because of this, I enjoy life more because of this. I would say that if you have less unconscious guilt in your mind then you can enjoy things more. I like listening to music more than I ever did. This isn’t about giving up beauty. It’s not about giving up a beautiful sunset or being with your special woman or your special man. It’s about enjoying them more and having less guilt in your mind.

You know, if you had less guilt in your mind do you think that it might affect your sex life? Well maybe it would. And maybe you could enjoy it even more instead of less. There are all kinds of wonderful things that can come about as a result of getting in touch with your innocence and getting in touch with the fact that you’re really a wonderful child of God and that you deserve only good and only the best of everything.

And then, when we get to the end where all that unconscious guilt in the mind has been undone and the ego has been undone and we don’t need a body any more, then it’s a condition of absolute love and bliss and it’s permanent.

It’s not something that will ever be lost. And that is worth having. And that is worth working for. And it’s worth having the experiences that come along the way that tell us that this is working.

It’s a beautiful life, and I feel very privileged to be on this spiritual path. And I’m very grateful to you for taking the time to listen to these words and, perhaps, share the time with me when we will be together and one with God.

Gary R. Renard

The End of Reincarnation