Cameras are everywhere. Today anyone can film a quality video with their smartphone, tablet, DSLR, and many other devices. However, to make a professional video, it takes more than a good camera. Here are 10 tips and tricks to make your video stand out and look professional while shooting with a tablet or mobile device. You will need a tablet or mobile device, a lavalier microphone with an eighth inch mini-plug, a tripod, and a mount compatible with your chosen camera. Before filming, set your camera's aspect ratio and resolution. First, go to settings and scroll down and select photos and camera. Choose record video and select 1080p at 30 frames per second. Stabilize your camera with a tripod to prevent shakiness. For more information on setting up your tripod, please watch the video, a how-to guide on setting up your tripod. Clean your lens often. Begin by blowing or brushing away larger pieces of dirt and finishing by wiping down with a lens cloth. Good lighting is key to quality video. Tablets and smartphones require a lot of light, so shooting outside is ideal. If shooting inside, avoid having windows behind your subject. Instead, close shades or use large windows to help naturally light your subject from the front. Set your exposure and focus before each shot. To do this, select your camera app and select video. Tap on your screen where you want to set the focus and exposure. If your subject is still too light or dark, you can manually adjust the exposure by holding your finger on the sun to the right of the yellow square and sliding your finger up and down. If you move your camera while filming, the exposure will adjust as the light changes in your frame. To prevent this, hold your finger on your screen until AE AF lock appears at the top. Now your focus and exposure will not change as you move your camera. Tablets and smartphones have a digital zoom and using this will lower your video's resolution. If you want a closer shot of your subject, physically move your tripod forward. Play with depth of field to create an artistic look. When framing your shots, avoid placing your subject directly in front of its background or on the same plane as other objects. Instead, distance your subject from its background for a shallower depth of field resulting in a more dynamic look. When looking in your viewfinder, imagine your frame being divided into thirds both vertically and horizontally. Studies show that the eye naturally goes to one of these four intersecting points opposed to the center of the frame. By placing your point of interest in these intersections or along the lines, you will create a more appealing composition. Always use a lavalier microphone to get the best quality audio for your video. Eliminate unwanted background noise by shutting off fans, music, and phones before recording.  Direct your subject's eye lines so they are looking slightly towards the center of your frame to balance your shot. For the most flattering look, adjust your tripod to be level with your subject's face.  Now go out, have fun, and create.


And, it's great to be here in New Orleans with all of you. This is actually my first trip to New Orleans, you know, and you hear a lot about New Orleans and it's a party city and Bourbon Street and I didn't really know what to expect. And then I got off the plane in the airport and this is the first thing I saw. I don't know, correlation, causation, but so far, you know, it's been a great trip and my liver is still functioning. We'll see how I make it through tonight. So as Jim mentioned, I'm the executive director of the OpenStack Foundation. How many of you have heard of OpenStack? All right, good. That's good because I'm not planning on talking about OpenStack a lot.  It's one of the fastest growing open source projects out there, the largest centered around cloud and it's been something that's been really exciting to be a part of over the last three years since we kind of kicked it off. But what I want to talk about are some of the trends that we've seen in OpenStack and in other open source projects and really what I think it points to in the world at large and kind of a bigger stage. But you know, looking at this from the software perspective specifically, because as probably all of you believe, you know, software really has gotten to the point where the world runs on software. Whether you're talking about finance, healthcare, government, military, business, anything that you want to talk about, there's software behind it. And I really appreciate Candy's talk. Jim was right, you know, we kind of are coming at similar ideas but from different perspectives. And I think that for me, you know, I started doing software development when I was pretty young and have been doing it for about 17 years now. And I'm just constantly reinvigorated by the potential that I see with what we can do with software. And you know, this is not something that's necessarily a super original opinion. There are a lot of people who think this. There was an article in the Wall Street Journal that Mark Andreessen wrote. He called it, Why Software is Eating the World. And this is a quote from it. And you know, if you just think about even today in the last couple of hours, the ways that you've interacted with software and maybe you didn't realize, you know, whether it was a traffic light, the elevators, your room key, credit card, your phones. You know, I'm sure that while you guys have been sitting here, some of you are sending email instead of listening to me. That's okay. But it's just something that we're constantly interacting with software, sometimes directly, sometimes behind the scenes. And the thing that has been interesting to see over the past few decades I think is really how software is becoming a key part of everything, but how power is really shifting to the people who build the software. You know, if you are a software developer, you probably are aware that there are a lot of software jobs out there.   And the thing that's interesting about this is that software developers are not just writing software anymore. They're not just writing code off of a requirements document. They are really driving business decisions. And if you look at new technologies that are rolling out like Linux, the cloud, OpenStack, in many cases organizations are deciding to use these technologies because developers are pushing this. You know, these aren't top level business decisions. These are developers driving the business in this direction because they think that's what is going to be the best technology decision. I know that's how Linux entered the organizations that I was in in the late 90s and early 2000s. And I think that's what we see in a lot of places. And people have observed this phenomenon. Stephen O'Grady wrote a book called The New King Makers. And this was really his point is that the companies who are successful are those who are going to be figuring out how to make that relationship with developers work to their benefit. But at the same time, you've probably also heard this other meme that's going around which is sort of that software development is going to become, you know, the new assembly line job. And there is a lot of outsourcing that happens. How many email administrators are there now per capita versus 15 years ago? Gmail alone has made that something that just a lot of organizations never worry about. And so people like to say that software development is going to become an undifferentiated, almost repetitive, menial task. But I think that it's a really important thing to think about, especially for those of us who are involved in free and open source software and what the role is that we should be playing with organizations and really with the future of all this technology. So I think that what I want to talk about today is why it's happened and the way it's happening. And if we understand that, then we can decide, okay, you know, is this something that's a fad and all of the software developers are going to be out of work and we're going to be like gas lamp lighters and bowling pin setters and these kinds of jobs that have gone away? Or, you know, is this something that opens up a real opportunity for us to have a much bigger impact at the world at large? So I think, you know, if you think back to development and in the history of development, you know, there's a lot of plumbing that developers used to have to do. And you know, there are so many higher level systems that we can work with now that take care of that. But it used to be a very internal job and something that was sort of several layers removed from the edge of an organization from the customers. But you know, now developers really are moving to the edges of organizations. You know, in some cases they are the leaders, although they often don't wear suits and ties now. They still have cool t-shirts. But their work is becoming higher level and more exposed and they're running giant corporations even. And that's something that's changed from the early days of software development. There were a few examples of CEOs and people that were running software organizations in the 70s and 80s, but it's vastly more so that way now. And it's also moved into pop culture. You know, there are plenty of movies and TV shows out there that have cis admins and developers in them. Does anybody know what this is? Jurassic Park. Yes, I heard it over here. There was a scene in Jurassic Park where the dinosaurs are trying to break into this room where the people are hiding and the teenage girl looks over at the master control computer and she looks at this screen here, which has all these boxes flying around and she goes, I know this! It's UNIX! Which I always thought was one of my favorite tech references ever. I'm pretty sure it's not UNIX. But you know, it's something where these jobs and these roles are moving into the mainstream. They're moving out to the edges of the organizations. And one of the big things that's driving all of this is open source. Because what open source has done is it has allowed software developers to organize outside of the standard institutions, governments, big corporations, and really work together across national lines, across corporate lines, and do something that they really care about. And these are some fan art. Our designer decided that our logo should fit in as well. So he put some eyes on it. But this is a movement that started about 30 years ago with free software and open source. And Linux has been doing this for 20 years. And it's created a big change in the way that software has been built. And along with that, it's created this power shift that I see all the time in the businesses that I work with every day in OpenStack. There's a man, Patty Ashton, who has spoken before about the global power shift. And he talks about this from sort of a geopolitical perspective. And he says throughout most of history, power shifted from a government to another government. There were successive empires and power shifted laterally. But now what he is seeing more and more of is that it's shifting outside of those lines. And it's sort of at a different plane. And this was definitely true in the tech industry. Power would shift from one giant corporation to another. And the baton would kind of be passed down the line as new technologies come along. And we see that with operating systems, with databases, with all sorts of technology. But again, what's happening with things like open technologies is that the power is shifting from institution to institution to individuals. And this is really what I think is at the core of why, say, developers are the new superpower. It's not about how giant your company is. It's not about what government you're in. It's about what can you do together as individuals collaboratively. And open source is an early example of this. And I think it's one of the best functioning examples of this. But you can see this in other places in society as well. And Candy gave some great examples where communities are organizing themselves and having that communication directly with each other. And it comes down to the fact that we are just more connected as a global population than ever before. That's fundamentally what is driving this power shift. But when you think about that and you say, OK, we're going to remove some institutions from these processes, then you would think, OK, well, that's just going to lead to chaos. You're going to have a big mess if there's no organization. Since it's outside the rule of government and corporate structure. But what we've seen with projects like Linux that are extremely large scale are that it works. And with OpenStack, we've had seven releases. They've been on time. We've hit them every six months. The base of contributors has grown dramatically with each release. And the interesting thing about it is part of what actually makes it work, the software process, is the software that we have underneath it. And I have a little scenario here. Let's just say that you're a developer and we do code review on every contribution that comes into OpenStack. And let's say that we go back to the 19th century. And how would we do a code review in the 19th century? It's a hypothetical, obviously, because people weren't necessarily writing a lot of code in the 1800s.   You write out your change. You package it up, put it on a ship. It heads across the ocean.  And finally, gets delivered to the core developer who reviews it and rejects it. Total time, months. And so the infrastructure to collaborate really was controlled by institutions throughout most of history. The barriers to entry to collaboration were just too high for individuals to have direct access to it. The way that we do code reviews now in OpenStack is it's all a very automated process. And if you want, you can pull up this URL, review.openstack.org. And in real time, you can see OpenStack changing and growing and getting better right before your eyes. It's really exciting to see. This is a screenshot of the web page there. Each of these is a code submission. And they are from all over the world. They're from all kinds of developers on all sorts of different projects. You click through there. You can see the history, the change sets. You can see comments that people have made, automated test results. And this process happens hundreds of times a day. And so we are at a stage now where individuals have access to the tools to collaborate effectively, no matter where they are and what they're working on. And that is one of the things that really makes this power shift possible. Institutions are also still useful because there are things like paving thousands of miles of road that I'm glad the government does. I like to have nice roads to drive on. But again, back to software. Software is no longer geography dependent. It's not capital dependent to get it started. It's something that really, for many projects, the tools are available for all of us to organize ourselves and accomplish large scale work. And what we can do with that is we can really have an impact on the world. You can look at any problem set out there that we need to deal with, whether it's energy conservation. There's Nest, that's a software problem. Traffic safety, it's a software problem. You can go on and on and list all of the things that you can think of. I saw a job post out here where there's a company that is looking for developers to help them build software to do flight control so that they can go mine asteroids. I mean, that's pretty awesome. And what other trade, what other profession, what other job out there right now gives you such a broad range of opportunity to go out and really impact the world in so many different ways? I can't really think of too many other ones. And so, what does it all mean? I think that there are so many things that are possible and we're at the early stages of this. I think this is gonna continue on for years and decades more. But what does it mean? Well, I think that there are two perspectives here and we can talk a little bit about it from both perspectives, from a business perspective as well as from an individual perspective. Businesses more and more are realizing that their software strategy is what's going to drive their success. And the users that we talk to who are running OpenStack, the reason that they are deploying OpenStack is because they want to make their developers faster and able to work in a more fluid way, push releases out and basically get value to the customer more quickly. But the thing that I think probably a lot of you are familiar with in the open source world is businesses sometimes don't have the right attitude towards open source. I think a really key thing from a business perspective is you have to realize that open source, it's not a marketing initiative, it's not a business model on its own, it's really an innovation philosophy. It's the way that you think about how you're going to produce new technology, new features, how you're gonna innovate. And these companies out there all see that they need to innovate, they need developers to do it and so they have to find ways to attract them now. And I think some of the things that companies need to be thinking about are collaborative business models. In OpenStack we have hundreds of companies that participate in the ecosystem and many times they're competitors. Linux has the same scenario. But these companies come together and collaborate on a core piece of technology that underlies it all. And that's again a little bit of a mind shift from decades and centuries past. Companies also need to understand the motivation for these developers that they want to attract. The developers want to have a bigger impact on the world through software in many cases. And especially with Open Source it's an opportunity to sort of break those chains that lock up technology inside of an institution.  You look at Linux and how many industries it has just shaken up in so many different ways. And another thing that businesses need to understand is that these kinds of environments they create a lot of job mobility and developers have options. We have many developers in the OpenStack ecosystem who have shifted between companies and they're doing the same job the next day. That's power for those developers because they can find a place where they're able to work on what they want to work on, be well compensated, live where they want to live and have a better life for themselves. From an individual perspective I think the thing that we as software developers should keep in mind is just the bigger picture and the bigger opportunity. And that's that we literally have the power to change the world because we have created all of these tools that the world runs on. And so one of the things that I think we should do and I know that this is at an event like this is often preaching to the choir but we should make sure that the valuable innovation that's happening now and that's going to happen over the next few years is never locked up again. If you look through human history it's just full of stories where there have been centuries of technology locked up in monopolies, in governments, in big corporations. And that's been great for the few but as developers we have the power to break that cycle and really make sure that the great innovation that's happening from here on is available for everyone to benefit from and really to have access to it. So that's something that I try to think about, try to make sure that OpenStack is structured in a way and that our community is able to have that kind of an impact. And I think that if we all do that in our little piece of the software world we can really have an impact over the next few years. So that's what I wanted to talk about today and I hope that as we go from this event go back to our projects, what we can really do is take advantage of the tools, the opportunity, the time that we're in to go out and have an impact on the world and through open software and open technology and really go out and use this power that we have for the betterment of humanity. Thank you. Thank you.


We're now going to work an example problem involving the acceleration term that we just looked at from the velocity field. And in this problem what we'll do is compute acceleration in two different ways. One using the Eulerian and then the other using the Lagrangian formulation. So this problem will illustrate a couple of things. So the problem is going to highlight the differences between the Eulerian and Lagrangian description, and it will also show the convective acceleration. So let's begin with the schematic. And essentially what we're looking at is a nozzle in which a fluid is being accelerated as it moves along the length of that nozzle. And so we have the solid walls of the nozzle. Our coordinate system, we will denote x to be going in this direction and y to be in that direction. And the fluid is moving through this nozzle with some velocity v. And we will denote this plane here as x1, which is equal to 0. And the plane at the end of the nozzle as x2 equals to capital L. So what we are given in this problem is we're given the velocity in the nozzle. So we're given the velocity in the nozzle. And we can note a couple of things that this is a steady flow. And the reason we know that is none of the terms are time. So the velocity is not changing as a function of time. And the other thing that we can conclude by looking at this formulation for the velocity is that as the particles move from x1 from this plane, and as they move through to x2, what happens is they speed up or they accelerate. So the flow speeds up or accelerates towards x2. So that is the problem. Now what we want to find in this problem is the following. So we're told to find two things. The first one is the acceleration in the x direction. And the second thing is in a particle formulation. So considering a particle of fluid at x equals 0 and t equals 0, find the following. The first is the position of the particle. And we'll call that x little p as a function of time. So this is the Lagrangian formulation because it's following the particle. The first one is the Eulerian at the ax. And the second thing that they want us to find here is the x component of acceleration of the particle. And that will be denoted by ax. And we'll denote it as being a particle with a little p as a function of time. So what this problem will do is it will illustrate both the Eulerian and the Lagrangian, or the particle-based formulation. So let's begin with the solution. So the solution we will begin with the first part, which was the Eulerian description of the acceleration of the particle. And for that we're going to use our substantial or our material derivative, which we saw in the previous segment. And so if you recall, that was expressed in this format. And we used the large d to denote the substantial or material derivative. And you have a local acceleration term. And then you have a convective acceleration term that we said you could express in terms of the gradient. So I'm just going to expand that out now. So that's what we have. Now examining this, there are a couple of things that we can do right off the bat. First of all, if you look back at the formulation we had for the velocity, there was no time in this. And that means that it was steady, which is what we said here. So going back to our expression, that means that this term goes away. That is a zero. The other thing that we can say, if we look back at our schematic, the velocity is only moving in the x direction. There is no velocity in the y or in the z direction. And consequently what that means is that v is equal to zero and w is equal to zero. And consequently that term and that term disappear. What we're left with for the acceleration then is the following. It's that expression there. And if you recall our expression for velocity, so I will sub that in. And what we then obtain, this would be u. And then we multiply it by du dx. So du dx would be v one over l. And with that we can then write out the acceleration in the x direction. And so this would be the answer to the first part of the problem. And there are a couple of things that we can note. We have ax even though steady flow, fluid convex to region of higher velocity. And this is the Eulerian expression. So if you want to find the acceleration, all you do is you plug in the value of x into that expression. And that would give you the acceleration at x. So that is the acceleration using the Eulerian approach. What we will do in the next segment is we'll take a look at the same example problem. But we will compute the second part of the problem. And the second part asks us to do this, which would be the Lagrangian approach. So that's what we will do in the next segment.


Are we ready to rumble? We're ready. We're ready to go. Steve said are we ready to rumble? We're ready to practically apply what we just experienced. Because the Warriors is playing on 5 o'clock right when we're done. That's the most important thing. That's important. The Warriors Golden State is playing today at 5 o'clock so we've got some business to accomplish. He says let's get busy. The only LGBT sports bar in this whole Bay Area happens to be four guards down. Thank you Jesus. Jesus has given you everything. It just keeps happening these miracles. Just keep rolling before you can say Jack Robinson the next miracles here. The Warriors are playing and Steve's bar he's going to is nearby 5 o'clock they're starting and we've got between now and 5 before we get on to those important Golden State Warriors. Joe. I have a question about what you were saying right at the end about how everything that happens to you you choose to happen. I know that's in the course. It just seems like I don't believe that. There's things in the course that I believe in fact not only believe but it's discoverable in the moment like how you respond to what happens determines your state of mind if you something happens and you forgive you're in peace. If you're responding grievance you're miserable. That's provable right in this moment. It's not even belief it's no but that to me is just like some theoretical notion that just seems like I don't see how that could be because like you get like car accidents like I don't want this you know I'll be if I'm in grievance I'll be miserable but it doesn't bring I wanted that. What do I do with that? Very good. Well Joe's asked a really good question because the point of mind that sees that all things work together for good and there are no exceptions except in the ego's judgment the point of mind that understands that everything is working perfectly is the atonement. So Joe is basically stating I'm identified as being a human being I write my screenplays I do my psychotherapy work, I go along I'm just trying to follow the course in the best way that I can and I don't get this part that everything works together for good of course not you know that's the point you're opening to let those concepts come up and be given over to the Holy Spirit so that the Holy Spirit can lead you concept by concept including psychotherapy, including writing amazing screenplays the things that you are inspired to do that you feel that connection working in you and through you and to help answer Joe's question it's like it's interesting we we had dinner with Judy Skutch as Lisa was saying and basically at the very end before we left Judy said here I want you to hear this message because when the four of us came together all those years ago we didn't know what we were doing we're just like saying ok what next because they had you know Helen had received all these notes that Bill had typed out and they had them in black binders but they didn't know what to do with them they were all hidden they were kind of frightened to think these two research psychologists if people see what's in these black binders we could lose our jobs or even worse our colleagues could be told that there's this lady that's hearing this inner dictation, inner voice from Jesus and she calls herself a research psychologist what do psychologists and psychiatrists do often times they diagnose them you know is not a really good thing to do so anyway this is what Judy received like you're asking the question what do you do in a practical way maybe we could hear about that this is what she received and actually Lisa she gave it to Lisa to read out loud for us but this is the beginning days of the course and this is still applicable I would say just speaking to Joe and saying here you go you don't have to figure out that stuff about it's all perfect because you don't believe that yet but this is what we could say this is for Joe now the course has very long range goals which could not possibly be recognized now none of you has found his true function yet this is because the central factor in the plan has not yet emerged and the parts cannot fall into place at this time it will begin to be clear this summer Joe's like yeah it will begin to be clear this summer but will not be fully understood for some time it's good enough for me nor is it necessary to be clearer than is needed to show you the ways you are to go to be of most help in your appointed roles each has been very carefully chosen and there have been no accidents nor accidental meetings God watches over his word and over his messengers trust only that it would be impossible to explain the details which depend on things that have not yet happened people not yet met and events that have not yet occurred you will still be told what to do in any particular instance any time you ask as time goes on some of the answers will seem quite surprising rejoice that when that happens it means the next phase has begun everything that you are doing now will disappear and you will not remember it in the light of what will happen afterward little children be not afraid just think of this God is the real foundation of the course it needs you only in his name would he then not tell you what to do and help you do it isn't that practical so that's how practical this is we ask we listen we receive we go forward taking what's given for us our function is dictated moment by moment we follow those deep intuitive feelings when the ego tries to scare us and tries to tell us we are not making progress we are never going to get this it's too difficult we don't heed that voice we don't be here having these talks and conversations if there wasn't a tremendous willingness inside of us to open up to be miracle workers how many of us when we were children were sitting at the dinner table at 8 having our parents say you're going to grow up to be an amazing miracle worker you know not me I don't know the rest of you not the conversation at the dinner table and yet that's exactly what's happening we are being trained to be miracle workers now we told the parable like with my parable Lisa's parable we work with I mean the outreach goes all over the world and reaches seemingly many hundreds and hundreds of people and same with the internet but basically as far as living together we just have a community of what is there 20 to 30 20 to 30 people that we work very closely with and we're really devoted to living and demonstrating in attitude of course the miracles I happen to speak about the book but even among the original four you know bill wasn't really given like what we would call a major teaching function in terms of words at the end of his life he would show up in course groups smiling peaceful, happy and he still wasn't speaking he was mostly quiet in those groups here in California in Southern California Helen had a very particular role as a scribe which was a highly developed scribal ability from seemingly many lifetimes and she still had so much terror gift because she had misused it in the past as a priestess and she still had guilt and shame about the misuse of the scribal ability so what could have taken perhaps maybe a year and a half took seven years because there was a huge amount of resistance and mostly what was going on in those seven years was she would take some things down shorthand very quickly and very often very frequently Jesus would say what I said was this what you wrote was that and so it took seven years of going let's go back again and all of that so we're all doing the best that we can do but there's fear there's resistance there there's a fear of the light there's a fear that we really did something terribly wrong we screwed up that's the separation and then even now when we accept our function there's still going to be some shaking some fear trepidation about that because the ego part is very afraid of being undone it's afraid of loss it believes it's going to be annihilated and it's going to lose its entire self and world and cosmos and that's kind of the direction we could say it is moving that way it's a re-translation it's not through a killing or a destruction we're not going to kill the ego you're not going to wipe it away in some kind of way like the sentinels and the matrix where they're out there trying to search and destroy the Holy Spirit is not doing search and destroy it's doing bring it to me and I'll shine it away I'll reinterpret it for you so we're doing that we're going to wait to get this copied yeah we can give it to however you have a theme at the time of the four of them and she happened to just have it for us and pull it out and zero our copies for all of us at lunch so we won't fail this summer well now Joe's ready for this summer ready thank you Joe says it's right here and now so what we want to do is we want to open it up because the only reason we share these parables is to start to shed some light into how it can be helpful as you're going through the mind training as you're going from this loosening of this self-concept that's the practical nature of it and there is a part of the course where Jesus says you can learn from my experiences and from the experiences of your brothers so that's why we have these meetings that's why we come together to witness and share because it helps strengthen our belief that we can actually do this you know it helps us to be around those that are sharing these kind of experiences and what I've shared and with Lisa's life of extreme examples those are extreme teaching and learning opportunities because it kind of gives you a bigger context for the awakening like don't be so disappointed when so and so dies or you get fired from a job or even if you go into a spiral where it seems like you're depressed and suicidal or you're extremely fearful don't think that's all she wrote that's the reason we're sharing these things because you have to keep rising up I kept calling Lisa it was beautiful I was just sharing with them it was like the minute that we actually met in that time of I want joy it's like that was our connection forever it was like it was a commitment to that joy authentically and to forgive and just David will call me when I was in the darkness and he would just say Lisa I love you everything's okay I love you you guys nuts he won't leave me alone doesn't he take a hint I don't want to really be bothered with him and he just it was unending complete forgiveness that's what I have to say that was what the powerful thing is that's what it really is it's a demonstration of forgiveness I would have a lot of guilt and a lot of shame when I would rejoin with him and he would just say to me every time come on let's go we have worked to do you know we've never looked back was never ever looking back at what happened or what didn't happen it was like let's keep going just keep moving forward just that unconditional love which is really imperative and the non-judgment and so I feel like that's what I love joining with everybody we're all in this together that commitment really for the non-judgment and don't be concerned too about whatever the form is whatever the concepts are the Holy Spirit can and does use absolutely everything there's nothing that you could say or do or believe in that the Holy Spirit would go mmm that's bad you've gone too far that's actually too far we've had so many we've actually had so many experiences this is like the tip of the iceberg maybe some of the highlights but there was actually one time where I was traveling overseas and I think I came up to Wisconsin and I needed to get back to my little peace house in Cincinnati at least was up there in Wisconsin and so I said well I don't really want to fly back but I would like to I've got all these bags and bags of luggage and everything and she said okay I'm with you so this is the way Spirit works with me anything goes so instead of flying back I was guided to go to eBay in the vehicle section and to go and I think for like $300 $300 so instead of buying the ticket you know and everything I thought well there's two of us then I'll go to eBay so I found this little red car for a few hundred dollars I didn't have a muffler I didn't have a muffler and anyway we go there together and it's just like a hippie house and we have this great holy encounter that's what it's all about Spirit uses me in all kinds of unconventional we have a great holy encounter and we're there and we're just having a great time with them they sell us the car so we get in the car we're driving from Wisconsin we're into Indiana somewhere and we drive and drive and we have lunch and we stop and we finally she said okay come on let's get a motel for the night she said I'm springing for the motel as the car is going along we're in a red car with no muffler it had a bit of a hole in the muffler it wasn't falling off it was good for a mystic it moved we were getting from A to D so my luggage was in it so we go so we get in the motel we're there, we sleep she's over in her bed, I'm in my bed we wake up the next morning and Lisa's up she always gets up early and she's sitting over there smiling and looking at me and I'm like okay and she says David yes it's time it's time no it's time to get married this is early in the morning and I said okay good I said who are you getting married to it's early in the morning I'm still in bed getting a sleep out of my eyes she goes you it's time to get married to you now I'm always fascinated like the talk I'm giving today I don't know what's going to come out of my mouth all my job is is to stay tuned in to the Holy Spirit and as I stay tuned in the Holy Spirit I'm observing like the rest of everybody else I don't know what's going to come out of my mouth but I know it's early in the morning and I've got this little red car with a bad muffler and Lisa's over there proposing marriage right in the morning before I'm even out of bed and everything so it was like a quick kind of proposal we had these things before but this was this is one particular case and then so I'm waiting to see what's going to come out and she's waiting for an answer so I'm listening what's the Holy Spirit going to say and the Holy Spirit says but you're already married she had conveniently forgotten that she was already legally married and she was proposing to me but you see I don't know all these details but the Holy Spirit doesn't miss a thing I'm telling you the Holy Spirit said but you're already married and she's like oh my god that's right I am that's how that went but then that was good because the man that she was married to she married a millionaire and this millionaire kind of went insane and was committed so she was married to a man who was in an institution legally insane in the mental institution and at that time he's been there for 12 years for 12 years and she didn't have a whole lot of contact with him so she had conveniently forgot a little detail but the Holy Spirit doesn't miss anything that was so good because she's like wow am I in some kind of denial or what now for most human beings yes they are in some kind of denial that's right they're denying that they're the Christ and they're playing this game of time and space it's like a major sense of denial in fact one time Helen woke up with this blazing letter that was like blazing she'd always get these visions but Helen Schuchman got this vision to estimate the power of denial was in visuals flaming visuals and that's for everyone that's not just for Helen Schuchman we're dealing with a major sense of denial where lots of things have been pushed out of awareness that need to come back into awareness so we can give them over to the Holy Spirit and heal from them but what was practical about that too was then when we finally we made it to Cincinnati we arrived at the peace house we parked our car out on the street with the for sale sign and within a day it had sold for the exact amount that I paid for it that was cute and I think Lisa paid the gas this is how you wonder how do you live as a mystic this is the kind of examples you know you gotta be open minded here you're not close to fly you okay what do you want me to do and then we talked and she actually went on to begin to look at the possibilities and open to the possibilities of divorcing a husband that was in an institution that she didn't have much interaction with and that turned into it just goes on and on another huge healing experience one of many it was interesting because he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia so he didn't even think I was his wife anymore you know he was married to some other lady named Amy and so you know I actually had told the doctors that he was still legally my husband because I thought I would have to be responsible for the bills so you know I was coming clean with everything you know with David and so it was so bizarre because I thought okay spirit you make this happen like after this joining I thought it would happen but now it's up in my awareness and I think it divorced and it was so bizarre because like three days later the hospital called called me because I was on the list and they said you know we're trying to get a hold of Paul's sister do you know who's legally responsible for him and there was right in front of me your first opportunity yeah and I said you know I just have to tell you I'm married to him I said he's my husband and we're still legally married and the lady on the other end was like oh my god this is terrible she said you mean you're still married to this guy and I said yeah I'm still married to him and she said well do you want to be married to him and I said no I don't she said well we have to have a meeting about this and we're gonna support you in getting divorced you know because my attorney had told me I couldn't divorce him because he wasn't legally competent you know that there was no way that I was ever gonna be able to get into divorce well they set up a whole meeting with with him and talk to him and with these doctors and it was this most beautiful thing that they all supported because he actually was saying he was Colonel Sterling he actually believed that he was this Colonel Sterling and they said even his documents he's signing Colonel Sterling you know that he was you know that out of it that they didn't think that he would even be able to sign these papers you know legally and it was so powerful because they set it all up and his doctor was there and so it was almost like everybody was already to see what was gonna happen and he was in the locked union I went in with the doctors there and it was so beautiful because I was sharing I said you know I want to get divorced you know I want to thank you and all of a sudden he looked down and he looked at me and I'm like waiting my heart's pounding you know just wanting this to be clear you know I'm finished and all of a sudden he signs it and everybody's looking what he signed and he signed his name we couldn't believe it and I grabbed the paper he grabbed it too and we started we were running around and I'm like no it's a miracle and it was really really beautiful and then he said well if we had such a wonderful marriage why are we getting divorced he told him how grateful I was for the marriage and everything and you know he doesn't even can't even see my son I mean the last time he saw my son he didn't see me anymore and so it was a miracle I ran out of the hospital with these documents like just thank you spirit you know for freeing me from that and I just recall the first time that there was a call was saying do you know anybody any next of kin or anybody related to him and Lisa said no and then she had so much guilt that that's when the next call and see it was good and so you can see where the spirit is so patient and just waiting for the willingness waiting for the opening the little cracks of opening to undo this period the sense of denial the sense of guilt that's there it's just really undoing all this but it's so buried and we have another friend Ernest is going through that now who just started to come clean with different debts and he's been aware of all the debts that he had all the money he had borrowed from people from friends and whatever but the spirit just systematically started to when he said I want to be healed and made the prayer for that then the spirit would bring into awareness even ones that he had forgotten that he had borrowed money from the spirit was like let's go through this very thoroughly with great integrity and he's done an amazing job with that I think he told me like within a couple months clearing out everything that came up into awareness but that's what we're doing we're like saying all the income free all of you dark beliefs whatever we've hidden in guilt and shame please bring them up so that I can be free of them forever and I can come back to my state of pristine innocence so let's open it up isn't that great it's great you're saying that because I was I did a six week retreat I've done a four week retreat and two six week retreats I call them devotionals in Spain and Mallorca on the island of Mallorca where I show these metaphysical movies we have these expression sessions and all this and this and the last one that I did people had been with it for like I think maybe close to five weeks and there was a little pause where some people were moving or whatever but I looked at the group and I said do you really want to be healed I said if you you have to be careful what you say but if you really say it to the Holy Spirit and mean it you can actually say to the Holy Spirit bring it on and I said you must be prepared for what that happened it was interesting I think probably 15 people in the room through their arms in the air one at a time saying bring it on one lady was healed of cancer I mean the things that happened during those six weeks were life changing that just put them into like a whole new direction from what they had appeared to be in a self-concept at the beginning of the six weeks but every day through the opening their hearts and trusting and expressing and then at the end after like five weeks bring it on and they I think have gone on from that six week retreat in amazing ways a lot of them over in Europe but that just thank you for sharing that that's what this is about bring it on great great just say that we have choices and everything that happens is what we choose like what you were saying and then there's a lot of part in the course it says the script is written we don't really have any choices it's just happening because all things are working they're good all things are nice and good it's no matter what happens the way it should be happening so I don't know I don't know that although I feel like sometimes I have I can choose to say a word or not to say a word and then I'm thinking maybe it's the thing that you know so she thinks she has to decide something but maybe not so I don't know if my question makes sense but are you understanding the distinction between making decisions and script is written I guess that's why I think this relates very much to Joe's question like Joe was saying I read things in the course and I go I don't believe that at this point I don't believe it it's not an experience of mine and so even though that's in the workbook the script is written it's great that you're sitting next to Roxy because Roxy says I think that's things I've got beliefs I've got beliefs down there and I could give you the dynamic is when a decision is pushed out of consciousness and pushed down into the unconscious it turns into a belief it actually goes from being a decision to a belief so if you read like the rules for decision section in the course he says decisions are continuous but you're not always aware that you're making them doesn't that give great insight into this whole idea of when decisions are pushed down out of awareness then there's these operating beliefs they're like it's almost like having a computer and you've got these programs running on the hard drive and you work for Intel for years you know that when those programs running or let's say you have a virus running in the background and it's downloaded onto your computer and it's running on the hard drive you know doing its destruction and wreaking havoc but you aren't even aware you're just going my computer is getting slower and slower I don't know why it's so slow well then you go to an expert and they go well you've actually got a virus running you're just not aware of it you weren't aware of it very similar with the mind when beliefs are when decisions are pushed out of awareness we can think of it as like let's say there's a child that's maybe three years old and the parents his parents get divorced and somehow he takes it on fault he was the reason that his parents got divorced you've heard those stories where somebody just a child goes on with this real heaviness and shame and maybe 40 years later in therapy when they're 43 they're working with the therapist and they go they uncover this belief that they made some kind of decision like mommy and daddy are getting divorced and it's my fault and then they push it down out of awareness and it's an operating belief and it wreaks havoc on their relationships and it plays out over and over for years where you've heard of people that are alcoholic and maybe had married an alcoholic and then they get divorced and they marry another alcoholic and they get divorced and they marry another alcoholic this is the dynamics of the mind where it just keeps playing out I mean the Bible had this thing there about something like the sins of the father are revisited to the third and fourth generations not that the sins are of the father but the belief in sin just keeps playing out in time and space until we go this is crazy I am not guilty I am not going to keep invested into the belief of sin that there's got to be more than sin like how did this sin start in the first place and why does the devil have power and how did this come about and is there a healing or correction for this sin for this belief in lack and belief in separation so when you read the script is written there's something in your mind that goes I would like to grasp that that's what the workbook is designed to do if you look at the first seven lessons of the workbook you know as you go through one, two, three, four, five, six number seven is I see only the past so when he says later on the script is written basically he's saying the same thing is lesson number seven I see only the past my mind is preoccupied with past thoughts I've forgotten that I'm a dreamer of the dream now I think I'm a dream figure living in a dream I think my life is in the dream it's biological life now and I'm afraid I'm going to have to die someday and I bought the whole story hook, line and sinker that I was born and I would die never forget though that Jesus is saying before Abraham was I am that who we truly are is the Christ an eternal being that is neither born or dies that never was born and never dies but there's been a huge amnesia that's gone on we're in the dream land of sleep you know we bought into this whole idea of sin and error call it whatever you want to call it and Jesus is just saying it's been corrected already now also in addressing your question be you know Jesus will say things like there are decisions to be made even if they are illusions okay he's like you in the Alderman sense you just have to accept the atonement there's just one decision to be made and that's an acceptance of the correction however as you move through it that's what Joe is saying there's certain things that are just I don't believe them at this point but we can talk about guidance we can talk about as you go through your daily decisions with your daughter landlord with your house or your roommates or whatever those be they illusions they still have to go through the unwinding and that's why my book is titled unwind your mind back to God it's not snap your fingers back to God it's not twinkle your nose or click your heels get your ruby slippers out and click your heels and say there's no place like home no place like home I haven't written that book click your heels back to God it's actually if you read that book you'll start to see that there's a tracing back because you're reclaiming causation you're starting to see oh it's not the world that's doing things to me as a person it's actually thoughts in my mind that need to be released they're just attack thoughts that need to be released to the Holy Spirit however you do experience yourself as a person and when you do no one can be given instructions this is from the matrix no one can be given more than they can comprehend you can't even make a decision that you're you don't believe you're capable of making everybody who's watched the matrix knows that finally in the matrix Neo meets the architect remember that scene when Neo meets the architect and the architect says to him there are two doors one door the door on your right leads to the source and the door on the left leads back to Trinity and the matrix going back to save the girl the source is on the right hand and Trinity and the matrix is on the left it doesn't even take him very long he's like all upset at the architect Trinity he's going back to save the girl even though the source is on the right hand side you see these are embedded even in our movies it's coming to us from all these angles and it's only the beliefs that are out of awareness that are dictating the decisions so let's say you believe you're V and you're making these decisions here's another line from of course the miracles a decision is a conclusion based on everything that you believe ooh that's a good one a decision is a conclusion based on everything you believe so even your decision to come here to CMC today and to sit in these chairs this afternoon is a conclusion based on everything you believe about personhood, about time about your spiritual journey it's just an acting out it's like a motion picture of what you believe and isn't that good news because if you start clearing your mind of all these false beliefs you're going to be smiling you're going to be reaching the point where you go I see you ego and I'm not going to choose you anymore I would rather go to the source instead of trying to save the hero the dream and go through all these dramas and act this stuff out over and over in time and space I'm coming back for the atonement I'm going to go back to my creator I'm going to go back to my perfect innocence to my perfect love so that's what's going on every day you really need to feel it out these decisions how does it feel, what is it for what is the purpose so instead of necessarily thinking should I go to this or do this or do that you start to ask more the purpose question what is it for is this decision going to take me in the direction of freedom and awakening or is this one of those old past patterns that I'm still looking for a solution in the guilt in the and we get better and better we get more intuitive that just doesn't feel right anymore I'm just not going to remember Groundhog Day with Bill Murray he steps, remember how many times he steps into that puddle he keeps stepping into the puddle every day until one day he comes and he looks and he sees the puddle and he puts his foot over and he goes like this and then he hops over the puddle and that's the last time that his foot goes in the puddle he's aware as soon as he's aware of it, he does not go into that puddle anymore that's what we're doing Roxy? so yeah, I'm going through something a big relationship drama of the world you know, it's a script I wrote and the script is written um yet I watched the script and I watched my ego act out and I watched myself doing it and it's acting out and it's not doing nice stuff it's doing not nice stuff and I'm watching that I'm going and I can see my ego because I'm not I'm not blind to it anymore I can see even I can watch God it wants to be right so bad and it wants to, it wanted to be a victim and it wanted to make the others wrong so bad so I'm like okay Poppy because that's what I call God Poppy, what what's the fear behind this compulsive need to be right what's the fear behind that because my, the ego the script that my ego keeps playing out is look how I've suffered at the hands of the world even the birth order in my family the geography of where I chose to be born the family I chose to incarnate into all of it was to play out look how I've been unfairly treated that's my story see how I've been unfairly treated and this is just the continuation of the script and I know the I know the story, I wrote it I've been unfairly treated, I know this one I've been writing this for a long time but I just it's like okay I want to know what, what is that right, what is driving that need to be right what am I so afraid of so would you speak on that it's that line in the course would you rather be right or happy and basically it's like what that means is would you rather be right about the the way the ego set this world up or would you rather be wrong about the way that the ego set this world up and happy and so this obsession with being right about the way the ego set it up is really like it's an addiction and it's an obsession with this subject-object thing in other words in heaven there aren't subjects and objects there's not some kind of a being that's got some other being above it or outside of it that's watching over it you know like some of those songs God is watching us God is watching us from a distance that sounds a little creepy to me is that supposed to be sentimentally good is that I'm being watched from a distance oh great God's like some kind of lurker or peeping Tom I don't know I'm not I can't relate to peeping Tom God so I was like that doesn't sound good but what this is is this is like the undoing of this whole subject-object thing and when you even look at science nowadays that's what quantum physics is doing it's saying this whole subject-object split is crazy it's all connected it's all unified it's all this unified energy and connectivity they call it entanglement but it's actually unified there's no subject-in-object the ego perceives oneness as annihilation because it's so identified with the subject-object it has to be right about the subject-object it has to be right about two-ness it's terrified of oneness so it's really going to do everything in its power to convince the mind that O2 is real I was think that Three Dog Nights song if you remember from decades ago one is the loneliest number that you'll ever know two can be as bad as one it's the only loneliest number since the number one oh I'm like isn't that great I mean you start to see these old songs and you go boy that is fascinating now it's making one is bad and two is almost as bad as one you know it's got a real pessimistic view of everything it's a death wish what would you expect out of a death wish you know it's dark so what we're seeing is that it's afraid of annihilation so the ego interprets love as the great destroyer and it's afraid of intimacy it's afraid of love it's definitely afraid of even exposure it wants to keep the whole trick going by keeping this unconscious unconscious and hidden and then as you start to expose we all know that even in relationships when there seems to be a vulnerability around just sharing emotions here's what's going on for me please don't take it personally but I'm going through a rough time and this these are the thoughts I'm having and these are the experiences that I'm having so and that just gets acted out in relationships with our community we so much emphasize no people pleasing no private thoughts those are our guidelines that we are continually having expression sessions where people are revealing and exposing what's going on in consciousness it could be anything it could be porn it could be food addictions drug addictions all kinds of judgments everything's been pushed down and pushed out of awareness and that's all just a symbol of the willingness to not hide you know the relationships we call forth are really just reflections of where our mind is so you're just coming more to that point where you're saying I'm worth it I'm worth the healing I'm worth the innocence I'm not going to just give way and keep playing out these relationships where I seem to be victimized or mistreated because there's still that subject to object thing that's going on in there that's what it is Sundari this is sort of a corollary I was really asking spirit about trust and I was going through a whole unwinding where the impermanence deaths happened in my house everything like that and I had a thing last week where I went really back back back you know I was crying in this trust thing and and went back to like when I was a kid the feeling that the world wasn't safe from various experiences and I said wow maybe you know I let that sink in as a belief and then projected it everywhere the rest of my life and all of a sudden I saw this whole pattern of being attacked and things happening to me and even the disappointments with people even on that level as just being a manifestation of I'm not safe and so I said there seemed to be an antidote to that that appeared which was it like popped me up for a minute where I was saying what's the opposite of that I trust the world I trust my brothers and sisters as Christ and you know it felt really good to say it and so the place I am today right now this minute is hearing that the affirmations aren't useful and wondering kind of about that being it's a little bit the same kind of question that you might be asking it's like is there it came to me I don't know if I'm doing an affirmation or you know the whole pattern was just there of I've created this my entire life the same thing all the time replay and replay and replay and so I wonder about that whether that place of I trust the world I trust my brothers and sisters as Christ before me is like an antidote to the to the not feeling safeness that I think might be a source of my catalyzing all that this is a dangerous place this place has hurt me it's always good yeah I think it's a question when I look at the workbook of A Course in Miracles I can see those early lessons in that first part of the workbook is clearly designed to undo expose and undo what is believed in including linear time but starting with lesson number one nothing I see means anything he's not going to start off with affirmations when it's like in the movie what the bleep do we know Michael Ledworth talked about when we use just affirmations it's like a smear over the darkness he is a beautiful a theologian with a beautiful way of describing affirmations it's just like a smear over what's believed to be very dark so Jesus does what we might call shadow work his whole text is shadow work talking about sepulchres and blood that shines like rubies and tears that are like diamonds I mean he's graphic with his words saying you've got a lot of shadow work to do don't think that you're just going to go affirm your way back to God like you remember some of the old Catholic practices of saying different prayers and things well or the days of affirmations and the power of positive thinking he's basically saying you know we're going to go and we're going to start to dismantle and expose what you do believe so the early part of the workbook is that and then as you move your way into the workbook he'll come zooming in with affirmations I am as God created me my holiness envelops the world my holiness envelops everything I see you see Jesus is going to use them both but he's not just going to jump into the affirmations because he's saying you have to undo what's underneath you have to raise to awareness and expose what you actually do believe to be real before you can accept what is real and true so for example he'll talk about private thoughts in the workbook he'll say you have no private thoughts and yet that's all that you believe in so he's like saying you really don't have any private thoughts and yet your mind is filled with private thoughts you've got an hallucination going on here where you've got all these attack thoughts that he talks about in the course of lesson 23 I think it's like I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts he's not only saying there are attack thoughts there but you need to let them go and that'll be the key to everything but he's not he's doing like a master spiritual psychologist he's starting off with undoing what you do currently believe and make way for the affirmations so instead of like using the power of your mind to try to bring things into awareness to manifest them it's more clear your mind and open to your real thoughts which are beneath your attack thoughts the false thoughts I was just watching the lessons that Tony's posting on his conference site he's going through this group of lessons now where it starts off with my mind holds only what I think with God that's like the core repeated idea my mind holds only what I think with God that's an affirmation but specifically you have to come towards that lesson by clearing away everything that you perceive and think that's involved with the ego otherwise how are you going to know my mind holds only what I think with God those previous lessons are all important they all lead to it so when people say do you do TM how do you meditate what posture do you use do you use breath work and everything I said no of course the miracles was my path do you have training and meditation I said sure I did Jesus it's a workbook you don't think he's going to give you a pathway awakening that's your whole pathway you study the text which helps you get clear about the direction and the ideas the metaphysics and then you do the workbook I actually got to that point where I had to say whatever I've learned before my techniques I'm not going to try to play mix and match match with Jesus I'm going to do what he says he's giving me a workbook and he's giving me simple instructions and he's saying there's only two every day as best you can try not to make exceptions which is there are title again love makes no exceptions and don't do more than one less than a day that's pretty simple two instructions how willing am I to practice those how willing am I to say okay you are the master you are the way shower you've been through this and you've come out outside beyond this entire time space cosmos you're back in eternity so that's why you're the way shower how willing am I to practice what you've given me instead of throwing up distractions and throwing up rebellions and throwing up rejection and throwing up resistance that's the core and I did say that I've said it many times that I feel like the course is 1% principle and 99% practice not that the 1% needs to be dismissed that's why we have these clear discussions about metaphysics and that's why we study it's a very important 1% because if you don't get the 1% right then you've got 99% practice of something that's erroneous so the 1% is extremely important but still unless you put it into practice then you're still going to have defenses against the actual experience of love's presence so I think to me it just became something in my life where I thought wow you'll believe this course entirely or not at all I just said to Jesus okay I accept not at all is not an option for me I'm not going to this isn't like jarts or horseshoes clink it's pretty close Jesus is like no I told you entirely or not at all it did remind me of the old Christian things like all or nothing but it wasn't in terms of whether you were ahead in church or all these little specific rituals it was in terms of purity, blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God so to me the practice is the most important thing and Lisa will tell you over the years that's what we focus on that's how you get good at true empathy and overlooking in fact it got to the point with our community where there was one time when Lisa and I were at the monastery and we had offices right next to each other and there was this big scream that went out it was just screaming and screaming and screaming and Lisa said the little cubicle next to me and she's like who died because it sounded like somebody had just been murdered it was like a shrieks and screaming and she says who died and I just smiled so we waited and then just to see what's next and then we hear this big banging on the door and it's so just there like oh my God it's the worst thing in the whole wide world she was screaming and crying she walked in on her husband watching poor child porn I don't know something porn right in the act of it or something they had come and they had brought a computer from Australia and you know how the browsers have searched history and everything they were up and she was searching for something with their computer and she started typing something in I think she misspelled something and right up comes this pornographic site and it was on her and her husband's computer and then then she just lost it it just had a reaction to the whole thing and so for us it was like we always know there's healing happening it's like let's see where this is going and then after all this screaming found that somebody had not been murdered it was just screaming as if somebody had been murdered so then lunchtime is expression session then it was a discussion expression session about porn everybody's eating their lunch and the whole porn discussion comes up we're kind of like oh well because a lot of the guys there had so much shame and it being exposed was for everyone sitting there in the room it was just this huge gift like us being able to talk about it just the shame in the hiding that so it was just so powerful it was a huge gift for the monastery it was actually the theme for like about two weeks so healing when you really have the faith that the Holy Spirit can handle anything and you're not afraid of certain thoughts coming up then you're really on a track for some really quick healing there was one time too when I was down and a few were with me that time when I was down in Nusa Australia and I was doing a whole week retreat where we were using having big sessions like this and expression sessions and this and this and in the middle of the week this guy shows up and he's like oh my god I need to be here I need to be part of this even though we were already halfway through the whole thing it's midweek and everything and so he's like please can I come can I join in the group and so I kind of opened it up to the whole group it was a group bigger than this there and I said here he is and he came in and he's like going around and please can I be part of your healing circle healing group and everyone's like yes yes we love you come here bro hug you come in in the middle doesn't matter you missed the first half of the week but you're here and it's all there's no accidents and this and this and so the he's only there for the last three and a half days of the retreat so as we go into the big sessions everybody's sharing all their private thoughts and he's got all these pedophile thoughts he's going to open up about all of his pedophile thoughts well everyone most of the people there are like oh you know and so he goes on for the first day and then the second day and third day I'm having all these women mothers coming in for one-on-one counseling like oh I can't stand to hear them oh my gosh pedophile thought you know it doesn't matter they're all thoughts we have to come to the point of seeing these highly judged thoughts are there for healing and I've had people do one-on-ones ones with me I got this guilt and I tried to have sex with an animal and that you know I just hear all kinds of things but even as I'm doing the one-on-ones people will kind of look me in the eye and it's just that look of like will you still love me if I expose my deepest and my darkest thoughts and I'm just kind of they're smiling and looking at them telepathically yes that's why we're here or even going to China where there's been all this systematic repression and they don't even know what an expression session is it was almost like an explosion of giving them permission to let their their darkest thoughts come up their darkest secrets and you can see instantaneously how they were they were healing they were feeling like wow if I can express my darkest thoughts and not be judged then that shows me that I can be free of them if I keep drawing forth witnesses of judgment then that just reinforces that they're real you see how that works it's the that's the presence of the Holy Spirit freeing the mind of whatever those thoughts are so it's been almost like an honor even that woman who came in whose husband she was a course student and I was he even see a course student too or in Mexico the one who threw himself right they both were they were both course students and the husband and throwed himself off of this floor and plummeted his death but but again was Lisa's opportunity for healing to stay in the truth and then that love just could be felt and then right away the woman was like that's what she was looking for I need a witness for truth I need to join in what's real and true and then with the children right there like the couple of them on the floor lying right there you know that everything reflected out that love it's important thank you so it's been on the journey for a while and obviously you've been really authentic with the course I know you've probably bumped up against your own deep fears along the way maybe every day maybe every moment who knows but I was wondering if you could maybe take one of your scariest moments on the course what you thought you were being asked to do but your own existence came up in spades and and maybe how you could tell us maybe what you heard from the Holy Spirit maybe a little quip or maybe it was a one-liner or just a feeling but maybe you could tell us what you received that helped you go over one or two of your bigger barriers if there was something because I know in my own life years ago when I was in a deep place with the course I was hitting up against some deep walls I couldn't seem to get over them but I kept praying through it and all that and something came to me that was really helpful which was like the Holy Spirit was saying God only gives he never takes away like that line from the course God is only a giver never a taker and that really helped me I thought oh this thing that I think might be taken away from me if I were to really go full forth with the course that's just my ego God's not interested in taking anything away it's his nature to give in fact he has to give according to the course to be God he has to give in a way I guess it is because he's free but still God's whole nature is giving according to the course but when the Holy Spirit brought that to my attention it helped me get over that hurdle so I was wondering if you had one or two gyms along your own path that helped you I think that's good I would say there was a time where I was working in a voc rehab kind of setting a job coach setting and there was an 18 year old student that I was working with as an assignment and it was early with the course my work with the course reading the course, praying, meditating doing lessons and going working as a job coach and I remember working with this young man helping train him to be a bus boy at a hotel and so it was back at the restaurant working with him on a daily basis and actually at one point his behaviors seemed to get what the world would say is a bit more erratic and he seemed to be kind of deteriorating in some way what the world would say in terms of his his attentiveness, his behavior and so on and so forth and then finally it was Friday the 13th and I would say I don't even believe in all this Friday the 13th stuff and it was a full moon and and I suddenly found myself I felt like I was in the Exorcist movie or in one of the Jack Nicholson shining I think suddenly it was an evening, it was Friday the 13th full moon and everything and I remember sitting down with him and talking with him about Jesus at that point because I felt like that was important but as the night went on his behavior like he's had this kind of energy or funny thing going on seemingly in his eyes as I would look at him and talk to him and then his voice would would drop like three or four octaves to this deep dark voice and and be speaking and the people around him, this was like a hotel and a restaurant, they were getting seemingly spooked it was like one of these Hitchcock movies or something and here I'm doing my course lessons and I'm just an honest course student doing everything and it continues on the night and then as part of the coaching I'm training him so I've got I'm busing along with him I'm taking these heavy trays and have silverware and all this stuff in and helping him do this as part of my job to train him and everything and he's coming one direction and I'm going the other and I start to see he's trying to stick his foot out when I'm carrying this big heavy tray of water and silverware and I feel like he's trying to like like trip me and then at one point as this continues on and people are getting more and more spooked and then so finally this task that he had where it was a long narrow set of dark steps that go from the kitchen down to the area which is the parking lot where they have the dumpster and everything and you've got to take like a big tall plastic garbage can when it's full of all this slop and everything weighs hundreds of pounds and so he's supposed to take it down and out so I had to assist him so I'm supposed to side by side take it so we go over to the exit and I'm just looking at him and his eyebrows go up like like Jack Nicholson his eyebrows raise up and he goes you first and I'm like thinking this is pretty steep not the stairs so anyway at the end of the night somebody called the police and they brought an ambulance and they took him out and they strapped him down in an ambulance and took him away his name was Richard and so I went home and I had my course book and I'm talking to Jesus I said this is a little steep I know you would never give anybody anything that they can't handle but I said this is just a little freaky a little steep and I said could you tell me what is going on because I don't believe in demons and exorcism and possessions and all these kind of things consciously but could you explain what's going on and Jesus said I'm showing you the map of your heart I'm showing you where there's still you still have fear that he again acknowledged there was no external demons or external world or nothing about full moons and Friday the 13th or anything I'm just showing you the map of your heart and to me again when you say bring it on or you say I want to be healed or you know you offer the prayer up sometimes it can seem it can be interpreted as being quite intense we've had that with relationships where it gets extremely intense or like Sundari was talking about the death of your mother where there's a whole lot of people in your story these are all just opportunities for forgiveness to really work and practice with prayer and opening up and using whatever particular lesson you can stay with and that's what came to me it was very very helpful and I think that was a major one and if there was one other one that comes to mind just a parable was I how the lessons are so synchronized with what's happening in your life I remember I was on lesson 136 sickness is the defense against the truth and that particular day I was reheating a lot of food in the microwave started to feel obnoxious started to feel a queasy and I was just still watching my thoughts oh maybe I'm catching the flu it's at the 24 hour or the 48 hour typical kind of thoughts you're watching your thoughts and then the diarrhea feeling and then racing in and going on the toilet that my lesson of the day came in you know it's like it's 136 sickness is the defense against the truth and in a lot of lessons Jesus will say here's the lesson let related thoughts that's a pretty long lesson I think the next lesson before at 135 I think is the longest lesson in the book so 136 is pretty long and so I was there on the toilet with these nauseous feelings and diarrhea and watching my thoughts and then I let related thoughts come in sickness is a decision that you make when you're too afraid of love and healing and so I started letting more thoughts come in from recalling the lesson and the more I sat there on the toilet I was really like taking it in like wow this is a decision that I'm making and I thought what is this decision I'm making and I started to realize that either everything that Jesus had told me in A Course in Miracles was true or what's the alternative that Jesus was the biggest liar of all time true liar and somehow that was good because that was an important distinction I was making because when I went okay is this true do I accept what Jesus is teaching me or is Jesus the biggest liar of all time well I think a lot of us get into spirituality because of our love for God and Spirit and Jesus even and so I started to let my love for Jesus come in strong which way am I going to go here help he's true he's helping me or he's the biggest liar of all time and when the love grew stronger and I started feeling the love of Christ in me sitting on the toilet feeling it feeling it stronger and stronger and stronger I went deeper into my mind to that point of decision and I got so into the love and so into the miracle that I went this is impossible and boom in that very instant all the symptoms everything vanished the diarrhea feeling it was a very powerful experience of practical application of not just pushing it off but actually going down deeper and deeper and deeper which is really what the Course is asking us to do so that one really stood in my awareness too because I at that point I mean I hopped up off that toilet and I went back to some of my thoughts were now I'm not going to have dinner when you've got the diarrhea and the queasy feeling I got up and right there I reheated the meal I had a beautiful meal because I was back in my right mind and so that was very convincing so I think that's why we share our experiences too not just the metaphysics but you need to share oh this is what I was confronted with this is what I did and this is what happened just like in 12 steps programs you know it's the same power of the miracle that's great thank you may I ask you so I've been hearing anger he does not justify anger at all so I have a little anger problem so now I've been and it was all justified so I'm really working on that when I get jolted up with unexpected just unexpected and then I've been hearing we want to bring it up to the light we don't want to bring the light so I guess my question is I don't want to sit down and tell them why am I angry why I don't want to do that is it sound okay I feel that I'm angry it's old crap that I need to go back into I'm giving it to you is that sound yeah I think you have to be welcoming of all the emotions that are coming up in other words you're pressing you're basically saying I'm not going to deny it anymore and so that's actually giving yourself permission to let these thoughts and these emotions come up into awareness there's actually I have this thing called movie watchers guide to enlightenment and I through music and through movies I felt like I allowed the Holy Spirit to speed up the healing process especially through the movies but I have a friend who I showed this movie to there was like four of us that watched it maybe a couple weeks ago called perfect sense and if anybody it's a very rare movie but if you get a chance to watch perfect sense I think it would be very very helpful if you can watch it with the spirits direction it can be hugely insightful and it can be an enormous speed up because any of you who've seen that movie perfect sense know that it takes place mainly in Europe but involves other parts of the world where mysteriously people start feeling their emotions in much more of an intense way they will feel the anger or different emotions in almost like an overwhelming way which almost like takes over their functioning in the world and the whole world is experiencing this particular emotion so the whole world is going through like a tsunami of this emotion coming up almost like the repression and denial have been turned and whatever was blocking is unblocked so this huge emotion comes up and then after the emotion comes up it's almost impossible to handle then there's a loss of one of the five senses and then as it goes on humanity adapts and adjusts as it always tries to do and then another huge emotion comes a different version of emotion comes up in a huge way and then a second sense of the five senses is lost and then the third one comes up and hits all of humanity and a third I'm not going to tell you where this goes but it's taking the whole world as we know it and whoever made this movie is turning the tables on the ego because I will say that for my friend I showed her this movie she's been in spirituality and metaphysics for a long time at the end of the movie with a little bit of my commentary she just had this look on her eye and she just said that is the best movie I have ever seen bar none because of the purpose of healing some people could see that as a horror movie but when you start to know the dynamics of how those emotions are kept by being hidden and that they need to be exposed and also the idea that we perceive something valuable through the five senses that's a predominant belief like if somebody says to you I've lost my eyesight it's like oh god that's a terrible handicap if you're deaf you have multiple things like that people would say they're tremendously handicapped compared to the rest but what if it's all flipped around what if it's as if Jesus says in the Course the body's eyes he says not to see and the body's ears were made not to hear you see how backwards and upside down this world is that the healing has to occur in the mind and that the five senses are actually not receptors we're not really getting audio sound waves going in and hitting the eardrum and then those little neurotransmitters going in the brain to tell us the ears are instead of being like receptors they're like speakers they're broadcasting and these eyes that we've you know we were trained in our education that the light waves come in and the image is reversed and all that and the transmitters take it in and the brain interprets the eyes are projectors not receptors the ears are speakers they aren't receptors and the brain that we've learned and believed is all from the ego and that's how radical we have to do with what quantum physics does for us it takes us way beyond Newtonian it just shows us everything we were raised in our history books and our science books was false all of it it was seemingly true through empiricism and through the five senses and through all the experiments that were made but all of that so to keep us blind to our Christ self when you get deeper into these kind of teachings and you see these guided movies you can have expansive states of awareness that come that I would say are even more sometimes intense than drug experiences so I'm working with people without the drugs I'm using the movie watchers for enlightenment and people are having mystical experiences they're having huge consciousness opening experiences from the spirit's use of movies and it seems like every day or two somebody's sending me another movie that I have not heard about I'm getting tips I got one from the Netherlands some of you might have seen it Danny Darko or something like that so I go to YouTube and I'm like what is this he gives me a clip and then I start to read the commentary and all this commentary on this movie apparently has been this huge kind of awakening movie and I was like hmm how fascinating or I started a movie I had watched called Gone Girl anybody see Gone Girl with Ben Affleck well here I am watching Gone Girl and I'm watching it with all the commentary on perception and it's all the teachings of the course but whoever is doing this commentary is showing it's so extreme it's so extreme of having an identity that's based on a concept of being a wife and being a husband and you know some of the people in our community even watched Gone Girl they had been watching movies for years and they had reactions coming up with Gone Girl and the reactions were how can they make a movie that shows that much manipulation they had never seen a movie that had that much manipulation devious insidious manipulation and it had triggered a lot of things one person even wrote out of all the feminine women throughout history this is the most devious feminine female villain of all time you know because it was more like Hitchcock he was extremely psychological she faking a death and faking abuse and like I mean faking it in an extreme way using a hammer when she wanted to be perceived as abused like using a hammer and murdering you know to fit what was wanted but covering it in so many ways, devious ways it's like the stuff that people try to do in these mystery movies except this was like such precision to put it together and so then I watched the commentary on that which was all about perception about external perceptions and reality and these are very deeply embedded beliefs Tony, that was part of our last conference in Las Vegas Tony used what some people considered extreme teaching devices for the Sunday service and there were reactions and it did flush out of the hiding places people's beliefs around certain things maybe around conferences and ministers and stuff like that it was nothing so extreme in Vegas it probably but in the context it's the beliefs that get flushed up and that's what the healing is about we must come to a point where we follow Jesus's teachings to learn this course requires willingness to question every value that you hold not one can be kept hidden or it will obscure your learning so when we look at that title love makes no exceptions we're not really looking at exceptions in the world of form we're looking at exceptions in your thoughts we're looking at exceptions in your beliefs do not hold back on the miracle let the miracle be like a lighthouse the light of the Holy Spirit sweep around to all the dark corners of the mind let it make a full 360 degree sweep and be able to forgive what you still believe is unforgivable and what does he mean by that you know what does that really mean there's one part of the course where Jesus says you're one problem is that you believe that you must forgive the truth forgive the truth what does he mean by that forgive what you believe your five senses are showing you you believe that what your five senses are showing you is the truth and somehow now you've got to just paint white lilies and take your white brush out and paint over this devious dark thing and this is wrong it's horribly wrong and it's also why in a lot of course groups people will frequently bring up Hitler you know it's not uncommon for people to say what about Adolf Hitler and again or maybe Saddam Hussein or maybe Osama bin Laden George Bush did anybody ever see that was that zero dark 30 one I watched that movie and the one really the scene that really got me the most was when the woman who persisted Jessica Chastain played the woman when she finally had to get to the body bag and be the one that identifies Osama bin Laden's face after this almost like a witch hunt to find it and zips open the bag and then she looks at it and just the look on her face was more like I did all that to look at a body's face to me that showed the contradiction of the world you've been looking in the wrong place for your villains you've been projecting it out onto terrorists you've been projecting it out onto all these politicians and all these spouses most homicides take place within families and projecting it onto your loved ones and that's what we have like Cape Fear remember Counselor if any of you have seen Cape Fear with Nick Nolte and you project it out because you don't want to forgive it in your mind you would rather see the villain the terrorist the evil as being in the world and Jesus is basically turning it around saying no you have to face your own self-hatred you have to face he says the full until you face the full extent of your own self-hatred you will not be free of it you have to face the rage you have to face the extreme darkness with the Holy Spirit's help and see the nothingness of that belief and that thought and then you're free you're back in eternity so we are mighty companions to one another we are here to support facing that you might say just belief tiny mad idea inside and we are here to do that with our whole life we have also reached the end when people start to leave I always go it must be it must be time here he goes one more one more one very long one I didn't want to I haven't regretted Jesus for a long time born again in 1976 but where it came from the anger and rage but I believe in Jesus I believe that the man walked and he did right and here I am pondering for 20 years alive in James be still another I am guy it's been a force a good force for me for my entire life then I'm instead be still another I am guy because I'm out of bits I'm physical be still another I am guy he's a snake but this is an outside force other than me to one to tell you I love you possibly life changing I'm three years old surrender was in 1986 when I rolled off the bed because I had heard references nearly I rolled off the bed my knees hit the ground thinking I'm going to the club so I share that because I make a commitment it's a beautiful meeting thank you thank you yeah that's very powerful be still know that I'm in God and I think that that is the the Spirit's presence offering us all the love of God and and with the Course of Miracles the more that I just gave myself fully over to it it was at one point Jesus says even the statement the Father and I are one he says has two parts and I thought that's interesting tell me more because sometimes as Christians I was raised as Christian and I thought well Jesus was God you know I would make that association he says no he says things like in the Bible why do you call me good God is good he's always pointing at the Creator the Source and there's even a workbook lesson in the Course of Miracles where he says Jesus says I choose the second place to gain the first how humble to come to this experience that God is the Creator and that the only one that in which awesome is appropriate with is the Creator Jesus says don't use ah with me there's one and there was a beautiful thing in this book Absence from Felicity where Helen Shuckman the scribe of the Course went into a Catholic church and they went down you know to the front towards the altar her and her collaborator Bill and she knelt down at the altar and then Jesus appeared to them and he came over and he knelt down at the altar with them and that to me is just a symbol but it gives that feeling you know that of just love for God you know that we're doing this all for the glory of God there is no sense of personal gain or personal recognition there is nothing that puts any person or place or thing higher there's so much humbleness in that and to me that's what I think of and that's how I feel in terms of my relationship with Jesus and with God is that humbleness so when he says I and the Father are one basically saying we are one spirit and even with the trinity you know God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit you know the Holy Spirit is like our bridge, our way of remembering heaven and God and Jesus was an example for us the manifestation of the Holy Spirit so we would have a way shower that we could learn from his actions and his behaviors and a lot of Christians will say to me WJD what would Jesus do WWJD and I think what Jesus is saying in the course is WWJT what would Jesus think he's saying we have to think alike in order to know God don't be so concerned about the behaviors getting it right and acting right what you do comes from what you think let's work on the thoughts because that's where the purification occurs so for that I say thank you for everything he has a golden steak game to go to now a couple of quick announcements if you are new here and you did not sign in our book please sign in our book email address if you would so we can keep notifying you about special events the next special speaker that we're going to have is Reverend Maria Philipp and she is going to be here on Wednesday July 27 to give an evening lecture also we have these little introductory information things about the center and what we do here so please take one of these and I know some of you have been to our conferences and some of you have not been to our conferences we put out a recent issue of miracles roughly just got mailed on Friday so it's a special issue it's longer than most of our issues it has eight different articles one written by each of the staff members about what the conference experience was like with them it has 17 full-colored pictures of the conference in here and you'll get a real broad view of what conferences are like and I'll keep the dates in mind I sure hope you come let's give a nice round of applause for this oh and that thing that I read earlier that people wanted what I could probably do is take a picture of it and put it on my my Facebook public page not the profile but so that anyone can go for it and they could just click on it and print it out or whatever okay have a beautiful day thank you thank you for coming