Good morning and you're very welcome to awake in the heart and I have two very special guests with me today. I have mystic David Hofmeister and I have the delightful Nikita Sparks. So thank you both for joining us and they've just returned from an amazing tour of California and so I think they're going to share a little bit right off first thing with us about that trip. Yeah I felt that this year would be very spontaneous because it's like a memory inside of me. I think of my very life and beings being very spontaneous and I was open to world travels but even the world travels I think are going to be spontaneous from now on very quick and so yeah I just was in Mexico I called Nikita up and say you want to go on a trip through California and she said yes and then that everything just flowed from that we didn't even need tour coordinators or anything it was just so easy and simple it just came at full but usually when we come back from those we share about our experiences maybe we could just share with everybody a little bit about how it went from the starting from the starting flight to the closing flight. It was a lot of fun. Yeah it was neat I say that when David called all we like it was like would you like to go with me to California it's like yes nothing was planned and he said well I'll meet you on Wednesday at 8 30 a.m. at LAX and that was it and then from there it's like and then we'll see what's going on and literally within a day everything just got full like we ended up having a retreat and like for evening gatherings within what like 10 days or something and it just got so packed and then I was I kept hearing the word overcapacity like we're gonna be overcapacity like and then I always I'm like I don't really I never look to the form of it because it felt like the excitement was overcapacity so I just left it at that so I wasn't like oh that means we have like there's gonna be a lot of people or something I didn't even go there but I was like it's overcapacity but we did end up actually even inform overcapacity and then one of our friends new friends who invited us Zach he was like maybe we should stop promoting this because I think we're gonna be overcapacity I was like really I would do not touch like just leave it I'd like to I would really like to see that and then I did and so it was yeah I was just like I was saying something like it feels everything feels really new like these days and like I said the tour was like it just felt it was so out of the blue and so out of time and space that and like it felt so full but it felt like everything arranged by itself and even like our tour coordinator was calling me Ricky and she'd be like can I help you like don't you have something for me and I'm like I had the same thought shouldn't I have something for you and I'm like it's doing it by itself nothing like it's like it's just doing it and and so and yeah and so like I was saying everything feels like so so brand new and it's like the whole tour I kept saying through the whole tour this is all brand new this is very very new and and then at some point I said like well it's totally new because I've never traveled with David before and some was like what are you talking about like what about that to or that to where I was like huh I'm like something is new but it felt like because I'm like well then it wasn't like this it's like there's something different this time it's always like I remember like yeah technically I think there were other tours but it was like but not like this and I couldn't even I couldn't even explain why but I'm like this is I'm like this has just never happened before like this is all like so totally new like I've never had that so so that was like the whole experience and then and then I started hearing David actually because I was like like something's different I mean something's new like I can't put it in form and just try to pinpoint why is it new and and then I just started hearing David he was just talking about the purpose that it's like underneath it all there's just a strong sense of coming together just in a very strong purpose for healing only like just like just that kind of a joining and then the two was given like that and and and then when I heard that I was like that's what it is like there's something like brand new and pure and I'm like and I'm like that's the only thing that made sense there's like this purity and like this purity like uncompromising in the I can compromise like purity in purpose and that's the only thing and it's all again like we have a book purpose is the only choice and it's like purpose is the only new like the way I have experienced it and that and the more and I'm like and that just clicked and then I started like I was like saying that they're like although everything got like I knew everything I was telling Ricky I'm like I know everything about the store I know even things I know even things I don't know I know so she was like I feel it and it had to be like that not so that I could like handle anything because it's the kind of like I could rest my mind in it and not try to like you know figure anything out or anything and just allow for this deep healing almost like expect surprises and there were like surprises and some deep deep patterns in the mind were started to come up real fast and in the and again at some point it was like these are same old patterns same old belief but I'm like something is new and again there was just like the purpose and I kept feeling like there's the support and I could just feel it disappear so fast and again that was fascinating to me too and I mean like I got hit at some point to a point where like something came up this pattern to get and I literally got sick and it was like wow like and then in the end I was like I don't like I was saying expect happy surprises they're not going to be bad surprises and then I'm like I don't even know anymore what's a good surprise and what's a bad surprise it's like be ready for everything and just and when I joined with David around it he's like well when there's a clarity of purpose and the goal then it's just this is where everything aligns in the way that no matter what happens it's all just to bring the mind into that peace of mind and that's all if that's the goal and so it nothing can go wrong in that and so if anything goes seemingly wrong or there's a tendency like like what's going on like did something go wrong it's just the matter of like setting up the goal in a very clear way once again like repurpose and um yeah so that was the nature of the tour that's beautiful it was beautiful because um yeah it was like the purpose is where everything's brand new and it seems like that the symbols had come some we've had a lot of interactions with uh like uh Francis Romero who's often on these shows and K right there K she she came up the mountain in fact she came by I guess it was was it New Mexico via southern Utah and then across over to uh California and then up to Penga Canyon it's funny we put the first retreat out is to Penga Canyon but we were actually on up on the top of the mountain so it was kind of funny symbolically the people had to climb up this mountain from to Penga Canyon and come up to the top of the mountain to meet with us and and uh and then our last gathering too was was with a woman Diane who had been on virtual here on digital joinings like this but had never ever hosted I think I did a one-on-one Eric helped set me up a one-on-one there in San Rafael with her and she was going through emotions of her daughter leaving at that time and um so she was like oh this is all brand new for me we stayed with her and then we stayed with our friend Sundari who we've I've stayed with many times but but it was beautiful just in the sense of being embraced and welcomed in and I would wish that experience on everyone to to just get lit up with the joy of of happy laughter with the awareness and the connection to the source and who you truly are and then be inspired to just share and extend that and of course we're doing that digitally we're doing that through writings and audios and and YouTubes and many many ways live streaming and this and this or it could be just at home playing with your cat and your dog and or it could be just rejoicing there seemingly in the solitude of your room just singing the praises and singing a happy tune you know there's no form specific to what it is but it's just an attitude that gets expressed and also it was beautiful that we were so spontaneous where the the word just went out coming through California and then people started contacting Nikita coming through California David and Nikita write to me Nikita and and then there were people writing but then even that was all like part of a pre-arranged plan and script because Nikita would feel the invitations come in and then she would sometimes have call a phone call or a Skype call and then she would have this recognition like that's the one yeah like this extremely like that I couldn't like extremely warm feeling like I was like oh this is like home I can just relax into that and that was always like my cue and I was like if there's anything that I can never doubt it's this and like I said every like it was just so brand new like like the host the people so it was like that was kind of like the only way to know what is it really and it's like oh this is of the spirit like this is like this is it yeah it's almost like too that I just realized when I got to California I think I've mentioned that I've been looping around the country in the world but I started traveling in this kind of purpose or spirit 25 years ago and and I went through California and Southern California and Northern California and I think it's like the Truman Show the body's on a loop I've been in so much glee and joy and now it's looping around but it's you know I can almost you know I hear these songs in my mind and spirit just keeps serenading me with all these songs every day and a lot of them are just from dear friends you know like Shanta Aman and Shanti or Donna Marie Carey or Lisa Moore or all all the ones we've had in our community Eric Helena you know just Ricky and Kirsten and all the songs just go through but I I had that song from Aman and Shanti called the promise once you have accepted his plan as the one function that you will fulfill there will be nothing else the Holy Spirit will not arrange for you without your effort he will go before you making straight your path and leaving in your way no stones to trip on and no obstacles to bar your way no stones to trip on no obstacles to bar your way I get these songs and certainly when I seem to be out on the road I'm like oh here it is it's all involuntary invitations come happiness is shared joy is shared we meet some people that we seem to have met before in some new ones but they're all the same in the purpose it's like it's like a chorus of the sameness like we're just drawing forth witnesses to our mind of happiness and joy and that's how we know we're in the tractor beam of the kingdom of heaven is by the joyful reflections that we draw because while you even believe there's something outside of your mind and you believe in symbols and happy symbols are pretty convincing it's nice to be surrounded by happy symbols and and I think also even though it it just kind of came in spontaneously but but Nikita was with me on that visit to Judy scutch and and wit and the whole group there Debra and the whole gang and and it's been so helpful just what we've shared but maybe you know we went to lunch and it was a four and a half hour lunch and I've mentioned it already but maybe you can share what was going on in your mind during those four and a half hours that was kind of fun my experience like it was like a dream it was uh it was like it was a mystical experience like totally like uh through the whole thing like I don't know consciously when a mystical like intellectually what a mystical experience is it would usually you know spirit explains afterwards by the way this is what it was you know because like in the moment it's just like whoa what's like what's going on and uh as soon as we got there oh I don't know like first of all I kept hearing like days like like a few days before that I kept hearing the same song like ever since I found out that we're gonna go and we're gonna go visit Judy scutch I don't know why it's funny but I started hearing the song over and over and over it's okay this is just the end over and over and over it's just every time that's the end of me and then yeah like um it's been great yeah and then is that great she's on her way to meet you discussions she's hearing the end of me song playing in her mind the end of me yeah and then again it would just happen and then again somebody would like oh so how's how's uh like mention would mention like the lunch and then he'd be like it's okay this is just the end and I'm like what is going on here and then so there is like uh some kind I'm like what what's going on and like uh and I and then I could at some point that I could just hear that it's like this is good like something's gonna happen like it's it's just a miracle like it's uh uh somehow that whole thing is given to release the past and I'm the cook I'm already it left her speechless yeah because they took us out to the sunshine first and we just were sitting out by the water just basking in the sunshine and it was just so surreal and then when we finally went inside to eat we were at this big round table and oh the spear was just pouring through in here and there and everywhere and this and this and then I don't know how many hours over here an hour or two or whatever into the lunch it was just all time just disappeared I Judy was sitting right next to me she dropped her her little napkin three times so I was like that was the handmaiden picking up the napkin oh to bring give it to her and then suddenly Judy starts squinting and looking over right at Nikita who's directly across from Judy and just going Nikita you are so bright and Nikita just was there you probably were just listening to that song in your mind just watching the end of the of the world the world disappearing before your eyes and she she picked up on it she she's certainly tuned into that it was like at that point like everything was just there's a lot of like there's a lot of exchange seemingly verbal exchange like deep very like very deep conversation like we didn't it didn't stop but my experience was that it was just like complete silence like complete stillness and and I could just like I could feel myself disappear in it and there's nothing I could add to it and this is where I kept hearing like I couldn't like I didn't understand obviously and I could just hear just behold behold behold it's like I found myself just sitting like kind of like really like wow like what like what is this and and then I came here like just behold behold just stay with it and behold and it was like you just all of a sudden I just I had this feeling like oh this is super dreamy just everything is just super dreamy and then again that song it's I'm like it's okay this is just the end and then I'm like and this is where I was like oh my god is some something just started like in my mind putting like two and two together because I'm like this is super dreamy first of all my whim has always been to me one of the original four and I and I've always felt like it was going to be Judy for some reason like that was going to be the one and so and I'm like what is going on that these major whims are coming in like that and and it's all like for purpose like and and everything just again like everything's okay just behold and then I just I just started to like I was just witnessing like I'm just a miracle there's again this feeling of like this is so fresh this is so new and fresh and everything was just reflecting that and and then there was wit and Judy that 84 and 87 and yet like everything they looked so almost like you can't find that kind of youngness in form it's like this feeling of being so young it's like it's like it's not in form it's like it's like it's like there's something like like eternal there's like eternities calling and again I was like this like there's such newness it's like there's something that I just like again it's like something about the symbols of it that how it's just how deep it is and it's like and there's like this connection and playfulness like I could it's like at some point I didn't even know who is one of them like who is who there's just this playfulness of the spirit and and like at a time I didn't even know it was like after I was like kind of like it was after we left I was kind like okay what just happened and so um so and then as I was beholding like as I was there like that and then at some point Judy went like oh Nikita so so she asked me a few questions and I was like oh yeah yeah and and then she was like I I'd like to talk because she's like talking spirit is just pouring through her like I I mean like force and then she's like I'd like to talk about Nikita right now so Nikita how did you meet David so how like um so I I told her the whole thing the whole story how I came how I came around and then she was like well it worked out for you I was like I was like he can't like it's almost like isn't it like obvious like the best part of it always is is that that miracles are natural when they do not occur something's gone wrong it's ordinary miracles you can you can look around the room or the place you are right now and if you just pause and are still and let your eyes just kind of move around the room you can hear that same voice in you going behold behold behold my child like it's so reverent like we are all the child of God and and this beautiful voice that's speaking for God within us it's like behold my child behold behold look around you at what seems to be the ordinary or what seems to be the veil or the familiar and I am there with you I am with you always even until the end of time you know this this beautiful sacred reverent voice and you know that we're sharing the experience it's just we're trying to let the words come through to share the experience of the heart but it's it's truly not about special people or special places or there's nothing special in this world there's there really are no sacred spots on earth there are no points in all of the cosmos that are more special than any other point because in the quantum field everything is collapsed everything is unified and the same reverence the same force that Nikita was just talking about is it just so wants to move through us and in us and as us and and merge completely with us so that we feel we're lifted up on high and that we are this sacred experience I like the part in the course where Jesus was saying you are the goal the world is searching for isn't that lovely you can try it on I am the goal the world is searching for maybe we never heard that from our parents but maybe we had a divine parent that really wants us to hear that now I am the goal the world is searching for you can look at all the images of the world and everybody seeming scurrying around to try to make money or make love or make products and expand expand something and it's go go go go go and then this beautiful presence is like you are the world you are the goal the world is searching for but not a personal you it's not it's not a David or Nikita or Sarah you it's it's a Christ it's a Christ being that's what the world is searching for the it's trying to remember its true identity the literally the I am presence before the world was formed and it's so strong it's like it's calling all of us it's like it's playing all of us like like a symphony like we're all instruments and it's playing us in this beautiful symphony so it's you know I think that's the thing that we carry with us was that as surreal as that was as dreamy as that was as expansive as that was it's it's ordinary that's that's what our ordinary natural state of being is and when we're not feeling that way then we should pause to go what is it that I'm thinking about myself because I must be thinking about the whole universe of the way I'm thinking about myself if I have a doubt thought about any brother or sister I mean the slightest doubt thought then I hold that same doubt thought about my true self my true identity and I'm holding a doubt thought about the Christ and meanwhile the Christ is saying oh behold behold how glorious we are behold what a beautiful creator we have behold all the love you know it doesn't even recognize the doubt it just acknowledges the truth of us it's very powerful you almost can't stay on the ground you almost feel like you're going to start levitating and some of us have we actually have one person in our community that actually levitated and and observe herself the body going up off of the earth and and they used to think that that saints were crazy when they would levitate but some of us are reluctant saints that don't don't get too shocked if you if you find yourself levitating because because that's just a symbol to your mind it's nothing special about levitating even you know it should it shouldn't be shocking you know you should be open in your mind to all outcomes any outcome at least was telling me that you guys were on a trip and was it down in the southwest and then all of a sudden they were driving along in the car and there was this blazing light that came and it was so bright the cars had this all the cars had to stop it wasn't like a ufo kind of in the distance or whatever it was we couldn't see anything they couldn't see anything they literally you know they had put did you guys have sunglasses on didn't help didn't help they tried putting sunglasses on that didn't help it was like they just rolled right into a whole a holy instant the great rays and they and they were just like what is happening it was so brilliant maybe you could share about what yeah it just like the sun came over and everything just disappeared we couldn't see the cars up front we couldn't see anything there's and it wasn't like a flash you just wouldn't go I think it lasted for half an hour at least and then we just didn't we're like we don't know where we're going like we tried putting on sunglasses and it didn't work at all and so we kind of intuitively felt like we could drive at a certain speed like five miles an hour something at someone would stop and then we're like we don't know what's going to happen from now on we just don't know it's like like there's like all kinds of cars and stuff and but we're like this could be our last moment we just don't know and there's nothing we can do like we like there's nothing we can do but we're like like behold we were like well it felt like everything was just disappearing and and we're like we don't know if we're going to come out alive or anything but we're like well maybe may this be the last moment it's like that's like the song yeah it's okay yeah this is just the end yes and there's also in that song the the end of me is not the enemy yeah the end of me is not the end of me you know when we think of the cessation of a personality self for most human beings that brings up fear because it's the fear of death but these miracles are showing us are leading us into the atonement which is this experience that there is no death that as you experience yourself as who you are there is no death it was judgment was death it was pain suffering hurt anything any experience that was not supremely joyful was death boredom was death everything that you experience in the world is not supreme happiness is death so when you free your mind of that kind of thinking when you say I don't have to think like that anymore when you make way for all those happy thoughts then you go into the resurrection but the resurrection doesn't have anything to do with the body you can accept the resurrection before the body and the world disappear in fact that's how it works you have to have a happy dream first you're not going to wake up without a happy dream but as you accept that resurrection in your mind you just it's like surreal like you're just watching the world in a happy state of mind and there is no enemy there is no death and so there is no change it's not like like you're there going okay what's going to happen to me now in that state of mind everything becomes the same and then as the Course says God will take the final step some people always ask me that's that sounds amazing but what what does that even mean God will take the final step well God doesn't really take steps but what is waking up except coming back into a state of eternity eternal creation into a state where you are truly creative as a as an eternal being that's the so-called final step it just seems like going from perception back to abstraction is a step but it's it's not really a step at all because why perception never really was there at all you're not going to go back to heaven and go oh let me tell you my war stories whoa I was killed and I killed and I did all this stuff down there and then I made it through you know know this it's like that was all amnesia of heaven and when you have reverse amnesia you forget the world and only light and love remain so so we're all in the process of reverse amnesia now okay we had amnesia we forgot God now let's turn it on the ego and do a little amnesia on the ego forget the ego and remember God we can we could play that game you want to play a little amnesia we'll play it with the Holy Spirit's help we'll turn the tables we're going to remember God and forget the world and when we talk about forgetting the world no trace no trace no memory of a past no memory of stories no memory of of struggles no memory of of pains and no memory of pleasures all of them gone because they never were at all so that's really what this is all about that's some people call it the rapture that sounds like a pretty much of a rapturous experiment experience where the light just takes over and you can't do anything the doer is is done in that moment that's great well this is a very practical and interactive show so what we did yesterday was we opened it up we have a glorious studio audience here and we have a glorious periscope audience there we have a glorious zoom it sounds kind of interesting live zoom and periscope yeah they're all good words supportive yeah we actually we have um Charles had had something come up into awareness after that video you had seen um and it what it actually feels very um point for what you're sharing about now about the seeming energetic universe that we're all talking about and like moving through and and stages and and it's symbolic but also then like that the quantum field isn't heaven so he just had a question about that and I don't know if you feel to ask it specifically feels good because it it really lines up with where you were taking us experientially yeah okay Charles all the way he's coming walking in here from South Africa great yeah well David um brief context I started a spiritual discussion group in South Africa about six and a half years ago and um I had a lot of different speakers come in a lot of them would talk about um you know energy healing and this kind of thing and we would watch videos like what the bleep and the secret and all that kind of stuff and um I've often got the sense that people when you talk about the quantum field or when when we talked about things like the quantum realm people kind of saw this as the equivalent of the spiritual domain that it was just this domain of pure energy and somehow that was the spiritual realm and in fact when I named that group it felt very it was one of the things that for me felt very guided even though at that stage I didn't really understand guidance very well but was to call it affinity spiritual discussion forum and that came from before and beyond infinity because I had a sense that somehow where we were going was beyond all concepts of things like energy and so on but whenever I tried to kind of explain those that ideal discuss it with anyone I kind of got this feeling well it's almost like we stop at that level of it's all about energy and um as I understand the course you know you you've said in fact in your quantum forgiveness stuff that it's the quantum field is the equivalent as I understand it of the forgiven world or the real world but in fact we're going beyond that so it's I just feel it's kind of important not to get stuck there yeah if that makes sense yeah yeah so I'd just like to hear what you it's good you know the the I am presence some of you might remember in the bible Jesus said before Abraham was I am and we could just substitute the word cosmos for Abraham before cosmos was I am so the entire cosmos is just the past and yet when we say the past we we talk about images and so and so forth but the scientists are saying well it's beyond the images you know it's like you it seems to be images and then the smaller you go there seems to be trillions and trillions and atoms and then subatomic particles and then into energy just this connective energy and so that is a very good symbol of forgiveness and we could say also though that that people have said what is your proof of God and quantum physicists will say well we do have a proof of God now and it's it's quantum physics it's the quantum field or Christians would say it's it's the salvation through Jesus Christ or Buddhist may say aligning and and finding the Buddhahood within yourself and it goes by different traditions but we could say that all of those seeming roadways all will be forgotten at some point because there are no roadways in what is what is is just a state of pure light but this light isn't even energy that's just a unified energy field is a beautiful symbol of the gateway to that light but we could say that that that in heaven there is no science in heaven there is no religion or in heaven there is no theology in heaven there is no philosophy in heaven there is no humans you know when people talk about being fully human that doesn't mean anything either it it's a construct that's a learning device and that's what the early humanistic psychologists were talking about about realize your full potential or transpersonal psychology recognize your true self but all of those things are are we might say means to come into the present moment which is the gateway to eternity in eternity is what it's all about now having said that I love it in the course where Jesus says this course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love so what does that mean this course does not aim at teaching the meaning of heaven this course does not aim at teaching the meaning of nirvana it does aim at removing the obstacles to the awareness of love's presence god's presence heaven's presence nirvana's presence and therefore that is the goal of the course so we may use words like abstraction god eternity oneness nirvana heaven but but again those aren't the state itself because the word isn't the state the word is just a pointer it's like the zen master pointing at the moon sometimes people try to analyze the posture of the zen master and oh look at the finger of the zen master and the other position of the finger look at that arm is spectacular no no the zen master inside is going no no no no I'm pointing to the light take your gaze off of the zen master and turn your gaze to the light which is really like spirit saying take your gaze away from the form of everything and turn to the silence within that in the end forget this world forget this course and come with holy empty hands unto your god it's calling us into an actual remembrance of a real state of mind so having said what I just spoke about I would say also that we need to rejoice in whatever symbols everyone wants to use and and when Charles sent me that less than 15 minute video of a young man uh maybe 32 33 yeah he was just expressing this wonderful simple expression of letting go of the idea that there is such a thing as an external and it was a beautiful expression and what I say I love to see all the beautiful expressions whether it's a concerto that someone's playing and you get transported through merging your mind with the concerto or you're watching an athlete or something in the olympics you know why is it that you know a lot of us when we would turn into the olympics you know we'd be watching all the different things and then the ice dancing is on the ice dancing pairs there's something mesmerizing about ice dancing pairs that we go and then got the music come on and they oh they're going like this and sometimes you can just let your mind go and merge with the one when you're watching ice dancing because it's just everything's just flowing flowing and if you have a thought to forgive then they crash and then you oh and then you have to forgive that forgive that you know because that's part of the dance too you know the crash is part of the dance that we move we watched the movie all of me and at the end of the movie it's it's the struggle going on in the mind between these two voices lily tom london steed martin in steed martin's body seemingly and at the end it's those two dancing dancing dancing and then how it ends as they crash at the end and we all left you know because we could tell that was all part of it too that wasn't a bad thing so so really it's beautiful that you're bringing that up and you might say that that was just your expression of making that group so that people who have come we'll say more from a scientific background had some symbols to start to use and express as a way of opening up to something that's much greater and even if they seem to cap off at the energy like all this energy that's a pretty strong symbol of of power and I always say all power is of God so power would really not be of time and space so that's where when we stop it in time and space then we we've still missed we're still going one step closer we're going as close as we can go to go oh my gosh I was wrong about time and space too I was wrong about energy isn't that fun because energy seems to have a magnitude with it energies can seem to be measured and it still has the definition and therefore just by it being definable within a context of science might say the far reaches farthest reaches of science it still comes down to humbly accepting oh I am a creation of of God I choose the second place to gain the first I choose to be a creation of God to recognize my true identity instead of thinking I am a creator in time and space a manifestor or even pure energy imagine that I am pure energy well that's that's a good symbol too because that certainly doesn't seem to be have a body but ultimately it comes down to that I am as God created me I like that song forever that Kenny Loggins did what did I love about the song was the very end of the song always thought I'd be I'd be yours and then the music goes up and it just ends with a huge crescendo always thought I'd be yours it's really just saying to God always thought I'd be yours I I hear these songs in my mind all the time some of you might remember Cher and Peter Cetera did that song I am the one that exists for your honor I am the being you've been thinking of your will is forever knowing together that we are it all in the glory of love the Holy Spirit gives me Peter if you're watching on YouTube or whatever pardon but this is the Holy Spirit sings songs of gratitude just to to the one to the source and even Jesus Christ you might remember from the Bible why do you call me good he says the father is good you see how he's like the Zen minister he's pointing at beyond everything of time and space as he's speaking to a crowd why do you call me good like don't even tag the body of Jesus as good he's he's that impersonal he's that I am the father are one why do you call me good he's he's give all the glory to the creator all the glory and let go of everything else in in that awakening and that's that's actually the key well thank you thank you that was wonderful okay beautiful we can we can just open it up and see if we've got any more questions here or in our virtual audience just candy candy yeah well we're getting candy online I just felt to share like I was noticing that I call you mystic David Hoffmeister every time you've been here but for that exact reason because I'm I'm witnessing to not teaching something but pointing to something that's an experience and that feels like a very gift happily pointing happily pointing watch the happily and we have with us today the pointer sisters I'm so excited and I just can't hide it I'm about to lose control and I think I like it good morning candy good morning can you hear me loud and clear wonderful thank you I actually have a couple of questions as always and one of them is related to what you were talking about the lesson that I'm doing today in the course is give me your blessing holy son of god I would behold you with the eyes of christ and see my perfect sinlessness in you and and David you said you mentioned a line from the course that says you are the goal the world is searching for well I was studying this lesson this morning I noticed that I have an incredible problem asking for something for myself in this case admitting that I am perfectly sinless I am perfectly innocent that I am the son of god a child the child of god the one everything that you are mentioning intellectually I get it but there's something deep inside that says how dare you think that you're so great how dare you think you're so full of value worth whatever so it's an I realize intellectually it's an incredible attack upon myself and obviously um that projects into the world and so my question again is on the practical side what can I anybody do to to deal with that to let go of that feeling because now that I became really aware of this I've noticed that past lessons haven't gone that far deep probably because of this because there's a resistance inside and obviously I would like to let go of that so if you could share your insight that would be wonderful yeah that what you're describing and everyone in this world has encountered that as they do the course so it's very common to have this intense reaction or resistance come up even to the text or the workbook lessons even if you just pop it open and go right to the teacher's manual you'll notice that the this ego will react and rear its head immediately with this course and it's because the shadow what Carl Jung called the shadow which is the unconscious mind is just a pool of unworthiness it that's why it's called dark that's why it's called the shadow and nobody talks about the light unconscious mind because when the mind is totally integrated it it springs into this awareness that it is light I am the light of the world I am perfectly light I am pure light so there's this unconscious pool almost like if you were sitting on a keg of dynamite this unconscious pool of unworthiness and the ego speaks first so typically when people wake up in the morning as they're going through their mind training the ego will try to get in with some ranting right away before you can even get your eyes open and get get your course book wash your face brush your teeth and get your course book the ego is going to try to zip in some rants because it it is trying to protect its position of guilt and guilt and unworthiness go hand in hand so what you have to say to yourself is oh okay hey I'm going to undo all these unconscious beliefs through the guidance of the Holy Spirit through miracles that's why it's called a course in miracles not a course in revelation because it's if you had revelation you wouldn't need a course in miracles you know light knows itself and knows everything as itself and then you're going to go through a lot of experiences and I can tell you that experiences undo beliefs because an assumption is just a conclusion based on everything that you believe and the human being has a lot of assumptions but as you go and just practice every day practice with what's given you your prayer there from the beginning of the show dish yesterday's you've got your prayer there in hand yes that's good you've got your tools here for the for the ego like here is my prayer you it could be workbook lessons it could be your holy encounters your mighty companions everything that's going to be during your day is going to be washing and rinsing that unconscious unworthiness you know and then you start to see the symbols come all around you I remember when I was a child I think they had a coffee commercial I don't know if it's maybe Maxwell house or something but they have all these little jingles and I remember watching I would watch tv i dream of genie and Beverly hillbillies and the monsters and all my adam's family all my shows you know lucille ball and I love lucy but they had commercials remember it was like a coffee commercial the jingle comes on in the background and be good to yourself it's important to do so be good to yourself there's only one you now I'm like whoa that's that's the holy spirit my god it was in the coffee commercials in between my favorite shows it was flooding me you know it was uh patula clark my love is warmer than the warmest sunshine softer than a sigh my love is deeper than the deepest ocean wider than the sky my love is brighter than the brightest star that shines every night above and there is nothing in this world that can ever change my love oh my god you mean I've been serenaded all these years even while I believed I was a human being the spirit was singing singing singing the support as you start to feel the worthiness like oh I I am worthy of healing I am worthy of love I'm worthy of freedom I'm worthy of happiness peace of mind then these miracles convince you of who you are and you can just go as fast as you're ready to go I mean the willingness and readiness when they combine together is a force so powerful that the ego doesn't shake when willingness and readiness come together the ego dissolves it doesn't even have time to shake and tremble uh at at being undone it it actually dissolves in the light when the willingness and the readiness are there so you can say I'm gonna acknowledge that I still have some resistance there so maybe I'm not completely ready and Jesus isn't going to hurl me back into the light because that would be very frightening and it's going to be a transformation it's going to be a retranslation of all the symbols and it's just going to come at its own pace and it's the Holy Spirit's pace really human beings don't have control over that they just basically pray and open up and the Holy Spirit does it perfectly at that pace so you can just remember that that whenever you feel that reaction and resistance come up you just kind of have to let it come and then say thank you for sharing uh I'm moving on with my miraculous day now uh it's almost like uh you know it coming up at the foot foot of your bed like a little gremlin and trying to go and you're like thank you for sharing uh now we move on and and you have that steadiness to just go on with what's given you for the day knowing that the strength of God goes with you and you have all the angels and everything supporting you at accepting your own worthiness and there will come a day when when you'll be able to to behold that those words actually reflects what you feel I am the holy child of God that's extremely helpful first of all thank you so much um I had an experience yesterday I had a small accident at work I was rearranging Michelle well this huge thing with lots of boards and I removed something from one of the shells a box and and this board just slipped down and fell on my foot and so so my foot is bruised and uh I'm thinking that that that could also be seen as a miracle because um in a way it has made me a little less mobile and it it it brought to my mind my first reaction was oh god okay it's okay it happened and I must be thinking something that is off or I'm supposed to learn something from this so I don't know what it is um so I just said okay holy spirit I'd leave it to you to make it obvious to me what it is that I need to learn what I need to let go of so that was my first reaction and then I went to health services well you know bureaucratic protocol you have to report accidents and things like that um and and I'm thinking and I was thinking this morning when I realized this thing about the resistance in terms of accepting who I really am um that that was one of the reasons probably why I had this accident because it made me think more deeply about what's going on in my head not that I was sitting down and thinking about it but things just started to dawn into my awareness and um and at the same time asking because I've also had the question in my mind all this time so how do I deal with immediate physical ailments like when you're just having an issue with an emotion I find it okay then I can I can go through the you know the the um the emotions and and and look at the thoughts look at the beliefs and and try to reaffirm my desire for awakening to be one with God to basically just see from the perspective of the holy spirit but when it comes to physical ailments which I still have because of the health issues that I've had up until now um it's difficult to remove the focus from it when when actually something is physically hurting intellectually I can say yep I'm not my body and so on and so forth but it's very difficult to remove that focus um so I think I'm mixing up two things here um but um so one of the other questions I have is also a very practical question how do you deal with that immediacy of that pain so that you don't get stuck in the symbol and and um how do you like yesterday I was trying to to just put it on the altar I think it was that that that you said yesterday and I think Andrea mentioned it in unwind your mind in the study group we put it on the altar and bring it to the light and then it dissolves so how do you do that when the pain is so immediate because you're actually suffered something you understand it intellectually okay this is a projection this is an attack that is basically manifesting in your own body but how do you deal with it in the moment that that's that's a question I have so okay very good well I'll look at that for a second first of all it was wonderful when you were able when you seemed to have the accident although there obviously the script is written so there aren't any accidents but when you seem to experience the thing coming down on your foot and the shelf on your foot and then you were tempted to the ego came rushing in it's really good at that it rushed right in with what did you do wrong what were you thinking uh to make this happen and and you quickly moved over towards the miracle by saying hmm I think maybe this is a miracle and something good can come of this uh and even like oh I'm even if I'm less mobile well that's not going to hold me back maybe there's something good that's coming of this that's moving shifting towards the miracle of all things work together for good every event encounter circumstance is working together for good because in a unified perception nothing is good or bad there there aren't good things that happen or bad things that's very deep learning and Jesus says at one point in the in the course I believe it's back in the manual for teachers that when you start to to see that all events encounters situations circumstances are helpful that you're it's a huge advance in the mind you know you're just trying to discern what's helpful and what's not helpful in your mind so that's a that's a great advance when you can just stop trying to question what went wrong you can drop that question nothing's ever going wrong now you're asking a more important question the second part is when I'm feeling pain then what do I do because everybody's so caught up on the form of things I I think we got these emails uh I miss if it was like 15 emails all the same question I've done lesson number 10 and why did Ramana Maharshi die of cancer I must have got that question 10 times until I finally answered it uh but but basically what does that have to do with anything uh what Jesus had spikes in his arms and legs and uh you know we aren't called to interpret the form in fact in the movie we saw um risen Mary Magdaluff basically delivered the line to our our questioning Roman you know as you're looking in the wrong place when you're looking for answers he was looking for all the questions around where's the body of Jesus and where can I find you know the body and all this and this she said you're looking in the wrong place so you started to realize I'm not going to go there with what went wrong because there's no answer to that because nothing's gone wrong but psychologically when you feel pain the sickness and the pain will call it wrong-mindedness you know you're you're just not in your right mind when you experience pain and that can be corrected by the Holy Spirit not by human beings not by medicine not by doctors that nothing of this world will correct wrong-mindedness you know it's to think a sharpened needle pushed through your veins will ward off disease Jesus says in lesson 76 is not going to work you know he he makes fun of pills money protected clothing being liked knowing the right people in lesson 50 he's he's putting out all these things that will never bring you healing and happiness so don't even bother going after them he's basically saying those are magic and they may get used by the Holy Spirit if you're too frightened so nothing wrong with magic even you know it's just a mixture of magic and miracles just meeting the mind in a very frightened state with a little bit of combo between magic things of this world and the miracle but ultimately what I spoke about yesterday when we talked was was the impossibility of attack has to dawn on the mind because as long as the mind believes that it has attacked attacked God that's usually pushed out of awareness attacked brothers and sisters mother father sister brother neighbors you know anything like that like even yesterday you were saying nagged you were a little nagged by what happened the there's attack the belief in attack that's that's in there and that is the thing that has to be forgiven because just to say I am not a body that's a very helpful step but there's actually a point in the course where Jesus he gives the formula for healing and here's the full formula because it's got that little piece that you had in it but I'm going to give you the full formula that you just had the first piece of it but I'll give you the whole strand and you can find it in the course this whole strand is I am not a body and my mind cannot attack so I cannot be sick it's like in philosophy A and B therefore C oh Jesus Christ is throwing out a little bit of divine philosophy divine logic on the ego I am not a body and my mind cannot attack so equals I cannot be sick so let me go into those three things if you start with the first one you're affirming that you're something else besides the body what are you doing when you're affirming that you're not a body but you're affirming pointing a direction towards the mind you're taking it off the screen you're saying that my identity is not a body I may have use of the body for a while maybe the Holy Spirit is still using the symbol of the body but I am not a body and if I'm not a body then I must be something else then he's addressing where it's pointing to the mind he comes in with the mind and my mind cannot attack so he's saying oh you safely can come back to your mind by believing you're a human being in this world you're out of your mind he's basically saying you're psychotic you basically have had a break with reality you've lost your divine mind sense and and you're out of your mind and you're playing brain you're playing human brain you see if you say I have a brain who has a brain I am a mind oh there we go he's Jesus good you're back because once you get back to mind then you get back to thoughts and beliefs and the belief in attack is not in the body people say oh I have cancer no you don't no one has ever had cancer because the one the mind doesn't have cancer cancer's just a concept in the wrong mind but the divine mind has never had cancer I am this doesn't have cancer it doesn't have heart heart attacks it doesn't have blood pressure problems nothing so that's the second part and my mind cannot attack now that's where you're getting in touch with all that unconscious resistance and unworthiness because the egoist says oh yes you did attack you attack God you pulled yourself away from your creator that's and the ego said you don't think God's just going to let you get away with it God will punish you for pulling yourself pulling your mind away from God's mind the Course says I am an idea in the mind of God Christ and the ego says oh no no you blew you threw that one away you blew it during the fall for grace and you can't even go back now because God's going to punish you God will strike you blind God will destroy you obliterate you if you go back but here you notice what the second part of the equation is is my mind cannot attack so it's just the belief that our mind can attack namely God but but I mean attack anything people say you know we shouldn't kill animals well what's underneath that the belief that you could attack God some people say you know we should be harmonious with nature we shouldn't rape and pillage with the strip mining and all this and this what's underneath that thought the belief that there was an attack upon God you see that's what's been pushed out of awareness is this belief that there's been an attack on God and the second part of the equation I'm not a body is the first part in my mind cannot attack is absolutely essential because we have to come back into our divinity divine mind and and that cures the wrong mind and people have asked me for years who study the course they will say they say who in their right mind would choose to be sick and I say you've got it right there who in their right mind no one in their right mind would choose to be sick sickness is a wrong minded decision based on attack and and innocence like I shared yesterday I talked for 10 minutes how innocence divine innocence and attack can't go together so once you realize that you're innocent and therefore everyone is innocent and there's not innocence and guilt it's only pure innocence then you're back to that and then the final part is so I cannot be sick so you're having experiences now that seem to be painful experiences and you may have symptoms even the body but that doesn't matter it could look you could have creamy beautiful skin look like Jennifer Lawrence and everything and still if you were feeling pain what's the difference you know what what does the appearance matter what do symptoms really matter but psychologically as long as you're experiencing pain that's part of your curriculum now that's pretty intense and you want a contrast experience you want an experience of joy of no pain and that's what's taking you the Holy Spirit is just using that to help you lift up into that alignment with with divine mind so now you've got the full equation so and again even if you say that to yourself when you start to experience it you know it's just you might say it's like an affirmation that that inspires you to let whatever needs to come up come up for healing release don't shudder when the pain comes just go okay I allow I allow ollie ollie and come free come on up everyone's free now I'm gonna let you thoughts come up and I'm gonna let you go back to the light and then you'll disappear that's it I'm noticing that same resistance with the second part of the equation that's where the unworthiness is coming from so that it's all connected I I'm noticing it now yeah but now I understand it's just a matter of oh okay thank you for sharing it's okay that you are there I'm just gonna continue with my miraculous day following the guidance of the Holy Spirit that's basically the attitude right yeah just like if you if let's say you had a cut on your arm and instead of just wrapping and binding that arm and putting that flesh under layers and layers of bandages you just washed it cleaned it and let it have lots of sunshine and lots of air think of doing the same thing with your mind you know wash it cleanse it you allow it if it's going to bleed it's going to bleed you know people try to just put it stop the bleeding sometimes if it's big they have to have stitches you know stop the bleeding but it has to be cleansed and it has to have a lot of of air sunshine you know it has to be not hidden the wound can't be hidden the wound needs to be out in the open and and as you join in with these programs if you need to cry if you need to meet with mighty companions Jason and Emily are nearby you right now however you need to do it even if you're not used to having people around you let the spirit guide you to the ones you're supposed to meet and they'll let you cry they'll let you ask your questions they'll they'll have that they'll be like angels that will allow you to go through all those emotions and let go of the embarrassment and let go of the shame even around the emotions because a lot of us have had that wired in our mind that you we're not supposed to cry we're not supposed to scream at Lisa today I was having a meeting with her one-on-one today and she said did you hear me last night I let out this huge scream in the middle of the night she woke herself up with this huge scream and I said no I'm a heavy sleeper I I I heard nothing I mean people tell me there's thunderstorms earthquakes or whatever I'm just I'm just waking up you know but but she had to allow it she just went oh okay I'm time to go back to sleep you know she didn't make anything of it but it just was it's almost like a purge I just had to kind of come up and out and then no no consequences you know it's like yeah okay that that just is what it is you know it's interesting that you mentioned her experience with the screen because I I've been having similar experiences not with screens but it's like it sounds almost like someone slamming the door and I feel a pounding while I'm sleeping and I wake up and at first I thought well what are my neighbors doing and this morning I thought that can't be my neighbors something's happening inside of me I have no clue what but okay I won't blame the neighbors anymore there's nothing to blame and so is very interesting that you actually mentioned that because it's a very similar experience and now I understand something is being released who knows what but thank god for the release right yeah that's it I mentioned you'd wake up sometimes and the ego will rant that's what the that pounding is the ego ranting it's pounding you into the morning and you can just say thank you for pounding thank you for sharing and I've got to get on with my miracles today yeah well thank you thank you candy thank you oh boy your name candy is even symbolic Suzanne just came in and she loves candy so we got candy and candy thank you so much I am I know I'm taking up a lot of the time here oh no it's all for everyone this is all for everyone and I'm so grateful thanks again and it's so nice to meet Nikita by the way thank you so that feels unless it was something urgent else it feels really is there anyone else did you Nicholas want to yeah it's just so much confusion in my mind it's like everything I've learned I just feel clueless but I feel like I still need to get something right and I don't know how to let go I just feel like this this like this longing for something to happen specifically like you to it back and it feels irrational and yet I like for this for this longing and I just feel like actually terrible but I just feel so confused I don't even know how to like let go there's so much moving through like embarrassment shame of how unclear yeah I think it's to me on the surface of things you know it's like you're you seem to be 22 years old you're newlywed and your bride your wife has gone away for a week or so or whatever and these are the same things that very very common experience for human beings where there's a sense of longing or missing you know it's almost like you have to again allow all these emotions to come through and not try to like rationalize them or try to judge yourself as wrong for doing that it's not like you came here as Santa Claus as Saint Nicholas where you walked in and you were expected to be a saint when you've walked into this building at 22 you're experiencing the same experiences that all of us have gone through especially when it's like a marriage partnership and and there's an unexpected sudden kind of shift where these emotions are just down there and there's they just come rushing up almost without any kind of a sense of how they got there or it that they were even there and then the temptation of the mind is to just is to like judge it and think there's something wrong with it but you know you are you have brought yourself into a context of mighty companions where you can feel whatever the feelings are and at times all of us have gone through such intense emotions that we feel disabled absolutely dysfunctional we just are it's like a tsunami hits us unexpectedly and we can't function we can't do the basic thing sometimes we can't even speak we can't come up with words our bodies can't function and so forth so to me it's just beautiful that in a mind sense you're allowing this is like you feel safe enough in this context to allow all these emotions up because the mind has to feel safe enough even to let them come into awareness otherwise it's just denial and repression and so you know if if all of us had had given ourselves the permission all of us can look and think my god if I was 22 and I allowed myself to let all these emotions come up and pass through I would be even more free and more clear in my mind because that's part of the cleansing that I was just talking about with candy the the cleansing that has to the cleaning of the mind like Hugh Dr. Huland talks about oh the cleaning the clearing the cleansing it has to happen so it's like candy was saying it's more of a time to be welcoming of those emotions instead of judging against them just like let them up allow them up and let them pass and it's very very common you know it's like it was it was very courageous of you to come follow your heart and even say I feel I'm to be married and you did to feel the same way so we had that beautiful marriage ceremony at the monastery and we still have all the pictures on facebook and the memories that will just keep going on and on and you have all that love and gratitude for that and there's a part in in the mind that believes it can lose what it loves and that part is is very dark it's very frightened of loss but you're just tapping into this big root of loss that all human beings face and and you're just facing them seemingly at 22 years old instead of at 40 or 50 or 60 or 70 or 80 and in that sense it's just clearing you out so that you can be St. Nicholas eventually that's what this is part so at last we'll have a real true St. Nicholas St. Nicholas not a bunch of candy and and just a big fat guy who runs around on reindeer with reindeer you know and comes only once a year or maybe you know to get the the note some people believe he gets to know Ben Snickle Day comes out a couple times a year and basically he grows a long beard and goes ho ho ho we want saintliness we want we want authentic awakening we want those who are radiating light and love and forgiveness those are our saints that we want we want saints you know more like the Gondis and the Mandela's and the Mother Teresa's and you know and you know all the great traditions that had saints but but they've had to go through a clearing Dalai Lama why is Dalai Lama so happy all the time why is he laughing and ha ha ha he's a better St. Nicholas than Santa Claus I think we should have the Dalai Lama come into our tradition and and come around and just pray and meditate with us instead of bringing these bags and boxes full of meaningless drinkets that we throw away after we play with them for a little while you know it's ridiculous we we could use that laughter that peace that happiness you're around so so we're watching the the healing of Nicholas and the emergence of Saint Nicholas but however many tears have to come out however intense the emotions have to be that's just part of the the process and it's like it's the same thing candy was talking about it's unconscious you know you it could be surprising and shocking when it happens I've had that in the parable of David where I feel all this love and connection and then suddenly the image where I was pouring all this love and affection to is suddenly gone I would say inexplicably you know without warning and and that's kind of how this went it was very quick that that you know went to the monastery and so it came without warning there wasn't like a appropriation but that even was used to trigger all this this hurt that's in there you know and and like candy was saying when she dropped the the shelf on her foot you know she chose to turn it and say this is working together you know for the miracle you have to see it that way and that's then it starts to feel even a little lighter when you feel oh there's there's something loving at work beneath this and I can just relax more and more and let those emotions you know move through yeah I could I can feel how gentle it really is and I could even tell it was coming because I was feeling like like I was feeling this prompt even before I never mentioned it but I feel like you know she needs me like this I didn't know it was gonna happen like that I think the part that's um making me the most is this sense of um yeah feeling like just ashamed at how much control I've been seeing in my mind even like now and just the resistance like feels like I'm like I think I've lost all this mind training or all my mind training's gone to waste because like having such a hard time choosing again choosing to be happy yeah but not to put pressure on yourself I mean if you really look at it from the perspective that you it took a lot of faith and courage to go through with the marriage because the ego's afraid of of intimacy the ego is afraid of transparency it's afraid of joining it's afraid of all that so that was a huge step and now still as the experience of being a newlywed you know I know everyone here and everyone out there can relate to you know the the the control that's involved in the husband role and the wife role has anybody experienced that Eric's laughing you know there's a lot of control in there now if the Holy Spirit is just using it as a light symbol almost like a light garment that you wear uh like Judy and Whit are using at 84 and 87 they they're so respectful when one starts to speak and the other one wants to speak or one wants to tell this story and the other one then you have this just moment of great love and charity and they gaze into each other and then the spirit comes out of one or the other but they don't they don't talk over each other you know they're they're respectful you know you can tell when there's an anger there there's the ego wants to talk over and you know I grew up watching Green Acres you know is it Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor you know you are my wife goodbye city life you know he was basically saying you have to live on the farm and she was like I I'm a city girl and so I we watched that show over and over we hit this song Green Acres but that was the same thing played out and that's really what the whole show was it was a comedy but it was like that movie we just watched um with Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin all of me it was Lily Tomlin her voice and Steve Martin's mind and Steve Martin had his own voice and so it was hilarious but it was a battle going on they were battling they couldn't he couldn't even walk he was gyrating all over the place until they finally agreed to she had the control of the right side of his body he had the control of the left and he couldn't even walk until they could get an agreement there isn't this way marriages a lot of marriages go am I speaking to this relationships if you're not married anybody Eric is laughing so hard he's like whoa this is surreal it's all happening but here you are seemingly at 22 and and going through this and facing to giving over the husband concept to the Holy Spirit is saying you use the special relationship for your purposes you use the husband role for your purposes let me see it as a symbol that is being used by you for the glory of God for the great awakening for everyone then you can start to see the control starts to fade away so yeah you've just hit that root of control and it's very common you know that's I would say that's the reason ultimately why people get into marriages they think they're getting married for love but they're really getting married for the removal of the obstacles to the awareness of love's presence so it's a whole different the spirit's got a different angle for the whole thing so you're doing this for everyone for all the married couples out of all of you seven billion whoever's identified in this Nicholas Saint Nicholas is is giving you a great lesson you won't have you won't have to repeat this yeah you don't have to repeat this like a broken record and Eric's laugh is so hard we could just we need a camera on Eric's face to see to see what what he's got one to see what a face looks like that's come through this storm and come out the other end that's good thank you thank you for coming forward today Sarah could feel it she could feel it she was like the air traffic control wave it in for healing here wave it in she's got some more there we go I see the craze say Nicholas is smiling again beautiful thank you thank you okay I think Sarah's probably gonna wrap it up yeah I just want to say thank you to everyone who's joined with us today thank you David thank you Nikita thank you Nicholas Charles candy everybody just really this is what our lives are devoted to and it's it's very authentic and it's very natural and so no one is trying to pretend to be in an experience they're not and yet we have the grace of having those who can point to the experience so that we can relax into what's truly on offer so thank you very much for joining with us today and I'll be back at 10 in the morning and who knows who will join me it's spectacularly a surprise every day and much love to you all we'll have music at 7 p.m. tonight so if you feel to just sit back and bask in the spirit singing through Eric and whoever might join him well that feels like wonderful idea 7 p.m. mst tonight thank you all to on periscope and all our zoomers


Daily Tech News show is made possible by its listeners, thanks to all of you, including Mike McLaughlin, Miss Music Teacher, and James C. Smith. Coming up on DTNS, Sony promises more PS5s and a plan beyond game consoles. Will we all take air taxis in 2024? And Proton Mail takes on Google. Will you help them win? This is the Daily Tech News for Thursday, May 26th, 2022 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt. And from Studio Redwood, I'm Sarah Lane. From Austin, Texas. I'm Justin Robert Young. And I'm the show's producer, Roger Chang. Oh, my friends, we've got nothing but good news for you today. Let's start with a few tech things you should know. Well, the rumors were true. Broadcom announced it had tends to acquire VMware in a $61 billion deal. While Broadcom has made acquisitions to expand into the software market in the last four years, this deal would triple its software sales to about 45% of total revenue. You're not special, Broadcom. Pretty much everyone's own VMware at this point. Twitter agreed to a $150 million settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission over allegations that it misrepresented the security and privacy of user data between May 2013 and September 2019. During that time, it did not disclose that email addresses and phone numbers collected in order to secure accounts also happened to be used to aid advertisers. I'm not doing that in 2019, but they paid for it now. Also in Twitter news, SEC filings show that Elon Musk put up another $6.25 billion of equity in backing his acquisition of Twitter, his proposed acquisition, increasing his total equity in the purchase to $33.5 billion. And the Wall Street Journal says Musk is no longer going to rely on margin loans that are backed by Tesla shares. Remember, there was a whole deal about how this could tank Tesla stock? Tesla's not part of it anymore. Remember when we told you about Amazon Style? That's where you can order clothing on the phone or scan clothes in a store and then have them automatically ready for you in a dressing room or for purchase? Well, Amazon Style has finally opened in Glendale, California in the Los Angeles area. Oh, go get them. Three tech companies in China beat expectations, but the expectations were low. First the bad news, then the good news for each. Alibaba's revenue was the slowest growth since 2014, and that's the second quarter that it has set a record for its slow growth. However, it still rose 9% and that beat expectations. Baidu Net Income fell 22%, but sales rose 1%, mostly led by its cloud AI business. And that helped counteract slow sales in mainland China. Oh, and Baidu's streaming unit iChi posted its first profit. Finally, Lenovo's predicted shipments would fall because of chip shortages in the coming year, but for now, the good news is Q4 profit was up 58%, and it led the global PC market with a 23% share. Bloomberg sources say that Apple will not raise its production target of iPhones from the 220 million it produced last year. Analysts had expected Apple to order around 240 million units. iPhone sales have been flat to start the year, so it may be Apple adjusting for a down market for phones overall, as well as dealing with supply constraints. All right, let's talk a little more about this, the Sony news. Sony, Sony giving us hope. What do they get? One does hope. Sony gave a wide-ranging briefing to investors on its game and network services segment touching on the future of the PS5 and moving beyond the console. Starting with gamer's biggest question that relates to the PS5. Why can't I buy one? Where are they? We have money. We want to give you money. Give us a PS5, Sony. What's the deal? The PS5 is actually lagged behind sales of the PS4 in 2021, which shouldn't happen because Sony itself says that when you have enough consoles to sell, it takes 82 minutes to sell 80,000 PS5s and nine days to sell the same number of PS4s, but Sony isn't getting enough chips for the PS5, so there aren't always PS5s to sell. That is supposed to change, though. Sony promised investors it expects to sell 56% more PS5 units in fiscal 2022, up to 18 million units, and that the PS5 will pass the PS4 in sales next year. It's going to happen. They're going to have to mitigate the supply chain effects from lockdowns in China and the war in Ukraine. Sony says it's going to source from multiple suppliers and that it is negotiating optimized delivery routes, and it thinks that it can get around both those problems. Okay, so there. Making more consoles. That's great. But another big critique has been that Sony focuses too much on consoles, so what do they say about that? Well, how's this? Sony plans to launch 12 live service franchises for games that doesn't count Destiny, which will become part of Sony when its acquisition of Bungie closes, so other franchises, which is still a lot of new live franchises. It's only announced one so far, and that's MLB The Show 2022. Sony also called out an investment in Seattle's Excelbyte, which provides back-end live game services. And as for the PC side of things, Sony projects that PC game sales will more than triple this year from $80 million to $300 million. It expects that by 2025, PC and mobile games combined will make up more than half its annual first-party releases. Right now, they make up about 25%, but wait, there's more. Indeed. Virtual reality, which is actually tied to the PS5, but Sony promised more than 20 major titles will be available for the new PSVR2 at launch, and they showed a picture of Horizon Call of the Mountain in their slide about that. Now, if you're saying, great, when is it launched? They didn't tell us that, or how much it's going to cost. There was talk of expanding their intellectual property beyond game platforms. They pointed to the Last of Us series on HBO, the Uncharted movie, as sort of examples of where they want to go more often. And to wrap things up by saying this, it would transform, quote, PlayStation's current console-centric approach to a future where large elements of our community extend beyond the console. So Microsoft's already doing this. They're like Xbox everywhere.  That's their promise. And people have said Sony needs to catch up. PlayStation Direct is a small step that way, but Sony's saying we got more steps to come. But I think they're being conservative, Justin. They're protecting their lead with consoles while taking tippy-toe steps toward the future. Yeah, because they make money with consoles. That's how they make money. This is their chief revenue stream. So yes, they are going to protect and they are going to prioritize consoles. You can critique them for not investing enough in the future. You can critique them for maybe that they will rue the day five years down the road when they do not have as robust a streaming platform as Xbox. But as of right now, both of those companies, primarily in this space, make their money by selling a box to you every few years. That's it. And for Sony, they can say, hey, look, if we had the raw materials, we could have made more money. They don't. Until that corrects itself, they will continue to have this problem. It is interesting to me that last year, 2021, the PS4 outsold the PS5 so much. Now, I know it's because the PS5 is hard to get, but it was hard to get two years ago now, right? I mean, when did the PS5 first officially launch? It was about a year, right? It was more than a year ago.  But, you know, I was sort of like, okay, that's an extreme case of somebody going the extra mile to get this PS5. Most people either can't do that or, you know, can't pay the premium in order to do that. It is, it is, it's, it's maybe the biggest supply chain constraint story that accurately identifies the fact that these things just can't get made and shipped fast enough. Sony would love nothing more than to sell as many PS5 as possible. The whole kind of like, oh, they're hard to get. That means they're like worth more. That only goes so far. That doesn't help Sony. That helps the guy reselling it on eBay, meeting your friend at the library. Yeah. I will say anecdotally, I have not heard of a friend who has a PS5 or bought one for their family that did it in a normal way. Everybody's got a crazy drumpeel story. I bought mine on Walmart. Okay, well, except Tom. Combo breaker. But yeah, I'm the exception that proves the rule because I was, I could not, I've not talked about it because I feel bad that I was like, I was able to get one. Like that's without having to. I mean, but like in all seriousness, do you think it was just good timing? They got, you know, yeah. When everybody else was distracted and not reshopping yet, and I was able to just swoop in and get one. But, but yeah, it's, to sum this up, Sony is trying to tell the investors, don't worry, the thing that makes us money now is going to get back on track and keep making us money. And don't worry, we know that consoles aren't the future. We have a plan for the future. Well, speaking of the future, as we see the slow but steady spread of commercial autonomous taxi services in various places across the US and China, even Europe. The next trend will be air taxis. We're taking it to the sky, everybody. Someday these may be autonomous, but for now, not really. We're talking electronic vertical takeoff and landing or EVTOL aircraft with human pilots. Human pilots are still running the game here. Basically the closest thing to flying cars that's still practical for our lives. It looks like Joby Aviation, which bought Uber Elevate back in 2020, seems to be taking the lead.  Joby just got a part 135 air carrier certificate from the US FAA that lets it offer on-demand commercial air taxi service. Now before you run down to book your flight, Joby only has two prototype aircrafts that still need to get FAA type and production certifications in order to actually, you know, operate the business. Although the company is confident it will get those, so that's good. Back in May, well in May, which is we're still in May, believe it or not. It acquired a company called Avionics. Avion with a YX at the end, which specializes in helping aviation companies secure certificates. Kind of trying to get that all pushed through. It's also working with CAE. That's a flight training company on pilot training. It also thinks it can launch commercial service by 2024. Now that might be optimistic, but if it's true, that's not far away. In the meantime, it can develop its consumer facing app and test its software with its employees currently flying a test route between San Jose and Marina, California. Marina, California is sort of near Santa Barbara for anybody who's familiar with the area. Didn't disclose what additional test routes it might add though. We do have some clues. Joby has partnerships with the parking garage operator Reef and real estate company, neighborhood property group to build out a network of verta ports on top of parking garages and helipads in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami and New York. And it already has partnerships with SK Telecom in South Korea and ANA Airlines in Japan to launch commercial air taxi services in those countries. Tom, are you ready to vert your way? Yes. Get me to the verta port. I am ready to make my connection. It's like tired heliports, wired verta port. Get me to the verta port. Exactly. My perfectly written futurism. We have air taxis now, but they're old and clunky and really expensive. I can't wait for this EV tall modern way of using an app to call an only somewhat expensive air taxi to take me from the airport to my luxury hotel. I wonder what these are going to be used for at first. I remember that Uber was first used for black cars. It was used for the most expensive form of hired transportation to make it easier. I think Justin, you and I were talking about this before that you're right. This is going to be expensive to begin with this. Even if this does happen in 2024, it's not going to be available to every pocketbook. This is not going to be ride share, right? This is going to be a luxury item for people that can afford to pay it because there's no way that you could do this at the kind of ride share requires everybody in the populace to basically have a car. Everybody in the populace is not going to have an EV tall. In fact, Joby only has two.  But I do think that there is a market for it. Anybody who's tried to commute from San Francisco down to the South Bay where all these tech headquarters are understand that it is hell. There is a tremendous market for a lot of people who have more money than they know it to do with to take an EV tall from some parking garage in downtown San Francisco to Palo Alto or one of these surrounding environs where all these tech companies are. So, in places where you would otherwise be avoiding traffic and now you have alternative to a helicopter. If you were like, you know, I like taking the helicopter, but boy is it pricey. Then congratulations. The EV tall revolution is for you. Yeah, I can't believe how much I save over my private helicopter to take this EV tall from Joby. Well, I mean, but that's you make a good point, Justin. That's sure LA, San Francisco, Miami, New York would be great, you know, places for particularly people who have money, but also people who don't want to sit in traffic to take advantage of this.  Well, I was about to say you can't drill holes under the earth, but there are companies doing that as well. You don't tell you on that. But let's just figure out how to get out of, you know, the freeway system and and if you if if enough people want it, then the infrastructure gets built out and then the price comes down. But the thing is, is that if you're looking at these prototypes, they're not bosses, right? Like they are their limited amount of seating that you're going to be able to do it. So I do think for the foreseeable future, and I would say probably the next 10 to 15 years, this is going to be a luxury. This is going to be a cheaper helicopter as opposed to what we would think of as a, you know, a taxi on a road somewhere between black car and helicopter will be the price point. And I would say closer to helicopter. Probably. Yeah. Roger. And I was going to say, you know, back in the 60s, there was late 60s. There was kind of a boom and heliports for people, for example, in Manhattan, who wanted to fly out to the LaGuardia or Newark so they get to the airport. And it was it went pretty well until there were a couple of accidents with New York Air. And like these, whatever service work comes up, it needs to be like better than and better than than spotless when it comes to safety. Because even one incident can shake customer customer faith. It's one thing to have a car that maybe doesn't run well. All right, you get to a fender bender. It's another thing if you have an air taxi and you have an incident that psychologically will be very impactful to the people you're trying to sell to. Yeah.  That will help your business model. And you can have that piece of advice for free. Which is why they have to go through these certifications. Right. You don't have to go through this many hoops to launch an autonomous taxi service even as you do to launch this EVTOL. This has a human pilot. We're not even talking about autonomous. That's also being developed. But man, they talk about partnering with companies in Korea and Japan. You know, the idea of even from Haneda, which is the closer airport in Tokyo, definitely from Incheon to get to Seoul. Those are long hauls. And it would be so nice to just fly up above it all, certainly true in LA as well. So yeah, I hope that this actually launches. I hope as Roger rightly reminds us it stays safe. And I hope that it gets scaled to where the cost comes down and it can be affordable for most of us. I hope that while Tom is verting from the airport into downtown Seoul. He is checking the DTNS subreddit and there he will see conversations like we've seen over the past day. Reacting to RW Nash posting the news yesterday that proton mail is rebranding as proton and going head to head with Google as a privacy focused alternative. Their personal productivity tools like email, calendar and more. The newly dubbed proton offers four services under one unified login, mail, calendar VPN and the all new beta of proton drive. Proton also introduces three plans which you can review and an all new domain name proton dot me. Hey Tom, why don't you tell us about these plans they got. Yeah, I feel like I'm on QVC for proton suddenly. But the free plan expands storage from 500 megabytes to a gigabyte. You can send up to 150 messages per day. There is a cap though on the free plan. You can only have three labels and folders and you can set up one calendar and everybody gets access to basic proton VPN for free. So that's part of that too. Basic access gives you slower speeds than the paid access of the VPN limited servers and devices. Keep in mind proton does not serve ads. So this free tier just cost them money to offer at all. It's just a way to ease you into a paying subscription. It's subsidized by the people who pay the first paid subscription is called mail plus. It's five euros a month. You get 15 gigabytes of storage 10 email addresses unlimited folders and labels and unlimited messages. There's no more limits on that stuff. Also supports one custom email domain and you get priority support calendars and of course the basic VPN. Finally for 12 euros a month you get proton unlimited. That one offers 500 gigabytes of storage 15 email addresses up to three custom domains full calendar make as many calendars as you want. You get the faster more devices VPN and you get beta access to proton drive one of their newer products. If you're wondering where you can access all of this stuff proton has iOS apps for mail and VPN Android apps for those plus the calendar and of course everything's available on the web. But here's the question Tom in a world that says it values privacy. Will it value it enough to leave the free convenient and long lasting in many cases Google accounts for free proton accounts even paid ones. I mean even even though all things proton sound very good to me. Just the the migration over and letting folks know that I have a new email address or even setting up some forwarding thing is just enough of an inconvenience that I think a lot of people would be like sounds good but I don't know what I have right now is working for me already. Well I mean. Obviously privacy has become more of a kitchen table issue than it was in the past were previously just nerds like us would say things like if it's free then you're the product advertising is something that has obviously shifted around a lot over the last even three years. But we have become more aware of it it has become more of something that people understand when ads are chasing you around the Internet because of trackers. That being said while people like to complain about it and an act like Facebook is using their microphone to target them with things. I don't think that it is enough by itself to get people to pay for a platform or like you said Sarah go through the pain of migrating but for people who are into it for proton fans for privacy. Yeah I think this is great. Now will that be enough to get a seat at the table for stuff like this. I think possibly but I don't know I think if anything it may or may not be a good model for other people to build products around. I don't know proton whatever be an acquisition target but I do think that this is leaning into a current trend.  Yeah I don't even know if this makes a dent in Google but you make a good point. This is enough to build a business like I don't think proton expands because they've had a paid program before that a free program the paid program free program was even more limited. So they're loosening that up a little and they're providing a more compelling service that should make it more appealing to more people but it's still people who are enthusiastic about privacy protection. It's not necessarily going to pull in the masses for that I think Sarah is right you'd have to make a big deal about how easy it is to switch provide some tools for switching because it is a great product. I use proton myself but I don't use it as my daily driver and maybe I should but every time I think about doing that I'm like. OK but then there's some work I have to do to move it over and that's me and I know what I need to do. Somebody is like I don't even know how to do that. You got to make that easy if you want to have large numbers of people coming over and maybe protons like we don't need large numbers right now. We just we have enough of a business. Get some cash flow and then we're gonna know from those. Yeah. Yeah exactly. Well folks if you're feeling social if you're like hey I'm a proton male user I don't want to let you know how great it is. Get in touch with us on the socials at DTNS show is our Twitter account and at DTNS pics with an X DTNS P I X is our Instagram account. Come by and say hi Northwestern University created a little robot crab. You might say how small is it. It's so small in fact it's half a millimeter wide.  The researchers who created it have found an easy way to control it remotely as well. So when heat is applied to the robot system using a laser it's thin coating of glass deforms the system shape and it creates locomotion. When that laser is turned off cools down quickly. If you do both in quick in quick succession, the robot starts to walk. If you want to make it go left the laser scans right to left vice versa to make it go right. The team says it fabricated precursors to the walking crab structures and flat planar geometries and then bonded those precursors onto a slightly stretch rubber substrate. Once the stretch substrate is relaxed a controlled buck clean process happens that causes the crab to pop up into precisely defined three dimensional forms. Yeah, we've seen similar things to this where you like do something to make it bend and contract and that's how you can move it around. But this is a new take on that and popside.com was speculating this could be used in surgery to help guide medicines or guide lasers for surgery or even maybe even do small incisions and stuff like that. But these things are incredibly small so I'm thinking they're going to be used for spying on me. Yeah. Yeah, the next time you see a colony of ants, you know, like kind of, you know, going around those grapes that you left on the counter laser light play around by them remote control. You have your own little laser pointer and see if you can make them turn left and right.  You're going to need it. Everyone's like, okay, I'll do it. It's like, you're going to need the little robots to go in there and help out. Yeah, or you're going to need leeches to get the little robots out of your body. Yeah. Or the robots to get the, yeah, or, yeah. Come on, leeches. You're done. Enough with the leeches. What is this? The middle ages? All right. Let's check out the mailbag. What do we got? James C. Smith from Irvine, California wrote in and said the discussion of blackberry in the 2012 rewind bonus episode, which is special for patrons patrons. Hopefully you've heard it. If not, it's available to you and non patrons. It's very fun if you'd like to become a patron. James C. Smith said it made me think of this building in Irvine, and I don't know what they do inside, but to this day, it's still called the blackberry building. Every time I drive by it, it makes me wonder what goes on in there. Well, I found an article in the Irvine standard that says they're protecting privacy, but yeah, it's still blackberry. Blackberry is still a company. Blackberry is a security company. They're a vendor of privacy software to banks and insurance companies and even governments. You don't hear about them because their stuff is for banks and governments. It's not consumer stuff anymore, but they're doing all right.  James is responding to us talking about those days back in 2012 when blackberry was still a player, and it is a player just in an entirely different arena. It reminds me of in Oakland, one of the biggest coolest buildings is the Ask.com building, which there was a great article about several years ago talking about how much of a skeleton staff actually still works at Ask.com. It effectively makes money just being a premium domain. The board of directors meets once a year. They decide we're going to just keep kind of being a website that makes X amount of money. They all shake hands and then leave. Wow. But their name's still on the building, right? Still on the building. That's kind of crazy. And the whole building is Ask.com? Oh, I don't think the whole building. I mean, if you think another company within the building would be like, you know... We have a lot more floors in this building, but yeah, maybe that's a sweetheart lease. You know, it got one of those long lease deals back in the dot-com days. Someone should ask.com how they got it. Yeah, jeez would know. Thank you, James, for writing in. Thank you to everybody who writes us in. We love getting your emails. We love feedback. If you have questions, you have comments, you have ideas for, you know, future things we might talk about. Feedback at DailyTechNewShow.com is where to send those e-mails. Thank you to Justin Robert Young for being with us today. Justin, what's been going on with you? I got a new podcast because I'm not doing enough of them and it's called We're Not Wrong. It is a round table featuring myself of the Politics, Politics, Politics podcast, Andrew Heaton of the Political Orphanage, and Jen Briney of Congressional Dish. You can go find it wherever you find your podcast, a new episode going up today, dealing with the very, very grim and unfortunate news happening in Texas, as well as the Young Thug Rico Trial. Ah, Young Thug and Ghana. And Ghana. They got a new code. Yeah. For Lyric. It is one of the most insane. One of the weirdest things I read on TMZ. Yeah. There's a trial that involves several rappers that is, if you're not familiar with Rico, that is how you take down mobsters. And they are heavily using lyrics from their songs as evidence, which is fascinating to me. Fascinating indeed. Well, congrats on the new podcast. Yeah. If you haven't subscribed, do it now. Also, I want to extend a special thanks to Kelly Murphy, who is a top lifetime supporter for DTNS. Thank you, Kelly, for all the years of support. Thank you, Kelly. Yay! How about that, Kelly? Kelly, Kelly, Kelly for press. There's a longer version of the show called Good Day Internet rolls right in after we're done with DTNS, and it's available at patreon.com slash DTNS. If you haven't gotten it and you want to hear us talk about all sorts of things, you can. We're live Monday through Friday on this here show. 4 p.m. Eastern, 200 UTC is when we start. Find out more at dailytechnewshow.com slash live. And we're back tomorrow with Allison Sheridan and Len Peralta. Join us if you can. Talk to you then.