Hope Johnson's Wisdom Dialogues
Hope Johnson's Wisdom Dialogues
Sane Perception, Real Freedom | A Course in Miracles Deep Dive | Lake Whatcom, WA | December 21, 2025
What if the simplest habit—assigning yourself a daily study period—could collapse years of recurring patterns? We dive into Chapter 3 of A Course in Miracles, “Sane Perception,” and explore how attention, curiosity, and willingness retrain the mind at the level where problems begin. Instead of polishing behavior or trading spiritual jargon, we lean into experience: noticing contraction in the body, asking “What is this for?” and letting guidance reframe the moment. The result is a practical approach to healing that you can use right away, even for the messy, very human situations that most of us would rather avoid.
We get candid about charged encounters and the freeze response, and how clarity—not control—creates authentic communication and clean boundaries. You’ll hear why “good students assign study periods,” how even one minute of practice can outweigh hours of conditioning, and why the Course works best when treated as mind training rather than philosophy. We also examine sensation chasing—doomscrolling and internal arguments—and show how to turn those spirals into live study periods that restore neutrality and choice.
Another key shift: reinterpreting limitation as a call for love. We revisit a dated term from the 1960s text to reveal a timeless principle—any defense can be repurposed for truth. Nothing the ego made is beyond the Holy Spirit’s use. When you stop consulting the same mind that made the confusion and start asking for help, many “unsolved” problems reveal themselves as already answered. Readiness is the real threshold: are you willing to be taught, to schedule your practice, and to let meaning be given rather than manufactured?
If this resonates, subscribe, share with someone who needs a gentle nudge toward sanity, and leave a review to help others find the show. Your reflections keep this community vibrant—what will you schedule for your next study period?
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Aloha and welcome to a course in miracles deep dive with Hope Johnson coming to you from just outside of Bellingham, Washington, on Lake Whatcombe. We're going to be going over chapter three. We're starting chapter three. It's called Sane Perception. Starting with paragraph one, chapter three, a course in miracles, complete and annotated edition, published in 2021. This is in chapter two. Oh no, we're on chapter three. Chapter three, right at the beginning. Orba, there he is. Yay, thank you for joining. It's fun that you're here. All right.
SPEAKER_05:My name is Sam. Sammy? Orbah. Orbah.
SPEAKER_03:That's right. A H.
SPEAKER_02:B-A-H.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, we got that straight. All right, let's go back to our program.
SPEAKER_00:Starting fresh, right at the top.
SPEAKER_02:We're starting right at the top, right at the top, chapter three. Okay, so let's tune in. We have some very uh pointed words. As usual, pointed and gentle and loving at the same time. Uh, and just tuning in to allowing ourselves to see beyond the words that are being presented. Because the first way we see anything is through an ego lens, normally, until our mind is trained to so to see it uh clearly to see the message that's beyond the words. So ha yay. Just offering gratitude for this joining and for these words for those who put together a course in miracles, the channeling, everything else. Gratitude to Jesus for walking this with us every step of the way, for endless patience, for endless love. Yay. Let's go. Yeah, thank you.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, let's go to chapter three. So the whole chapter is called sane perception.
SPEAKER_02:Basically, as opposed to insane perception. Right. So, you know, this is uh showing us how to see clearly. That's what uh sane perception is clear perception, meaning we're looking past these automatic triggers, patterns that are blaming, that are keeping us locked into certain dynamics, playing out certain dynamics. You notice how you see the same dynamics playing out with person after person after person. You know, once you see that you're just playing out dynamics, you can extend love everywhere and gratitude everywhere to everyone reading your script in the dynamic, not to make you wrong or to make you punished or anything like that, just so that you could see clearly. Because when you see clearly, then you are being as Christ in within that dynamic, and that's collapsing that dynamic, collapsing time because it there's no need for the time to play out that dynamic anymore. So that's fun. So the same perception, and part one is called the need to study. Isn't that so fun? The need to study, yeah. So let's get into that. Sentence one. All learning involves attention and study at some level. All learning involves attention and study at some level. So here he's really reframing study itself as part of healing. We've all studied so much stuff, right? We start out studying when we're uh when when we're just like five years old, and before that, even but you know we learned how to study, that's awesome. Yeah, when we apply it toward healing, then it actually has some effect that completes us, satisfies us. It's the only kind of effect that can be fully satisfying for us. So he's encouraging us to study. Basically saying learning cannot occur passively. See that it requires attention. You guys are hanging out with me right now. This is what you're doing. You're you're doing that, you're putting time toward hearing, listening, tuning into something other than the mental chatter that goes on all day. See that that's putting time in toward studying, it's a willingness to look, and this is studying yourself, willingness to look. Notice the thoughts that come around, they just circle around and cycle around, they don't really mean anything, but if you're looking at them from a divine perspective as the divinity that you are, which you you can, you just choose that, you know. Through willingness, you see how you could just choose to look like that, choose to see things like that when you're looking at them in that way, knowing that you're unaffected, that's where you can see your patterns. You want to see them, you don't want to hide them, right? You want them to come out, and mainly they come out through a relationship, it's great. No one's ever to blame for anything. You see that, you keep studying. So, study here doesn't mean academic effort either. It's not like that. Okay, because you're doing something different, even with the lessons in a course in miracles, you're actually applying the these lessons. You're learning through experience. The whole reason for those is to have experience, right? So this is focus with curiosity. This kind of study is focus with curiosity, with willingness to see things differently. You're open to allowing your mind to be taught. I must not be seeing something clearly. That doesn't change the fact that I am divinity, it's temporary. That's temporary. So you can uh well, the study is too. Yes, the study you, yes, the study is too. That's right. Uh, but look it as long as there's any kind of upset feeling, there's this study. It's not saying that you really have to learn anything, it's like you learn to do this studying pretty much. It gets to be that. Where you're learning to just you're taking patterns as information instead of as personal in attachment, right? You're you're looking at them from a a state of truth. I'm I'm watching from above as divinity itself. I'm watching from above it all. You know, it's like you can kind of like watch yourself from outside of yourself and watch yourself from inside of yourself, notice you're not you're not in any of those places, but you can witness yourself from those directions. Notice that. Notice how you can witness the internal sensations and everything going on, and also just witness yourself from outside of yourself. You know, you just uh put your imagination to that. You can see, you know, uh the patterns that you're playing out, the parts where you're fake, the parts where you uh uh you don't say something because you don't want to uh cause discomfort, right? Something that's true, uh something that's that's uh heartfelt. You know, it's like you you listen closely for what's the most authentic, and you can sense that it's shown to you in your body's energy field, and it's okay if something comes out not authentic, you're just noticing nothing wrong, it's the not noticing. Jesus was talking about it in chapter two a bunch, the unwatched mind, not noticing because of trying to protect a self-image from your own awareness was doing. Uh, so every time your perception shifts, it's preceded by a moment of listening, opening, looking like that. Every time there's any shift, so that's why there's the need to study in this way, even uh spiritual insight, it's something you learn to do, you learn to have spiritual insight, you learn to see in that way and open up in that way. So, and it's always asking, learning is always asking for engagement with the truth. So, noticing in your body's energy field, am I contracted? Am I feeling contracted, or am I feeling open? If I'm feeling contracted, then there's curiosity, there's listening, there's hearing from the spirit. It's not resisting the contraction, it's not projecting any blame onto myself or onto another person. So, yes, even miracle-mindedness, which is being taught by a course in miracles, requires this attention. So we're not being forced to do this, we're just being invited to give the attention to. So he's encouraging us because he knows that we want this. So he's encouraging us to put attention toward it. So, not to see study as labor. He talks a lot about that, especially in the early lessons of a course in miracles. You do it through devotion. You know, it's like you you want to do it, you do it because you want to do it. If you're not uh up to it, let's say, and you're just gonna, okay, I'm just gonna do this and make myself do this, not realizing that you want to do it, it's not so productive. There's a there's actually a goal with a course in miracles, and one of them you could say is same perception. One way of saying it, you could say the goal is heaven, so it's wanting first to turn toward the truth, and if you want it, yay, that's why you're here today. Thank you for joining. I love you. Sentence two. This course is a mind training course. Yeah, boy, it's a mind training course. Okay, this isn't for like, oh, that feels good. Oh, I love reading a course in miracles, it just helps me feel so loved and in alignment. That's good. Uh, you know, it's always good to feel loved and in alignment. But what Jesus is saying here so clearly is that this course is a mind training course. So he wants you to look at it like that. Okay, it's not about trying to change your behavior, like, okay, like say you join a course in miracles group, and then you guys start using the same language with each other all the time. And if you if you use the right language, you're invited in the group, right? You're always invited in, you use it use the right language. Uh there's there's like unspoken rules everywhere where you're supposed to act, you're supposed to behave, okay? Uh, so this is a mind training course. It's actually for sovereignty, yeah. True freedom. Not about uh changing the world, although it does have that kind of effect. It's about training the mind. Yay. Training your mind, what? One of them is to see that everything that seems to happen out there is not coming from out there. Okay. Uh, it's actually the result of how the mind has been trained. So this is mind training to counteract mind training that already occurred. It's gonna undo that mind training that you've been given over millions of lifetimes, all based on and extrapolated from the thought of separation. That's the root thought that you actually did separate, and that is not a true thought. It's the root thought, but it's not a true thought. That's the thought that gets undone. The ego has trained the mind over millions of years again toward fear. That's what gets the mind interested. Ooh, let's watch the news and see what the president is doing now, right? Oh, I feel so betrayed. It's like, oh, well, uh, that's not where it's coming from. It's not coming from the president right now. You know, it's coming from the thought of separation. You told yourself that you were separated, and now you feel like this. If you notice, and this is what the mind training is in, that you feel like this because of the thought of separation. That's the only reason why you feel like this. Just that little shift in the way you would see it that changes everything. Look, the ego speaks in fear, separation, lack, defense. Look, conversations will arise in your mind where you're defending yourself. That's funny. Casey told me, make sure no one touches that brass thing right there. I don't know, like brass. It's an awesome thing. It's it's a um, what is it? It's an orchid. It's a huge, I think it's brass orchid. And she's like, make sure no one touches this. So I had the uh vibrating plate set uh set up next to it. And at one point I kind of like fell backwards and I put two fingers on that fucker. I hope it's okay, Casey. And immediately, okay, I moved the vibrating plate away from there so that doesn't happen again. But immediately there's a conversation in my mind. Casey's like, I see two fingerprints right here. I never talked to Casey about this, by the way. I'm just this happened in my mind. I see two fingerprints, and I can tell they're yours. So I'm noticing the the conversation come up and just smile at it, right? And you'll see yourself looping it, you'll see yourself get defensive and like play it out. You don't need to play, you don't need to play out any of these scenarios. The ego frames it as if you need to play out these conversations in your mind. You just look at them with a smile. They're meaningless, noticing that they're coming from the ego. You don't have to fight them. It's not that you fight them. Your mind is trained to see things differently now. This is what's going on here. Your mind is getting trained. So, anything about control, trying to control anything, anything like that. Uh no, Casey, I know you're gonna be listening to this. Your uh thing looks fine. There, you can't see any fingerprints on it.
SPEAKER_06:We wiped it clean.
SPEAKER_02:I never touched it. No, she she told me don't wipe it. Yeah, don't wipe that thing, don't touch it at all. Okay, so a course in miracles is retraining the mind in trust. One of them joining. We want to join with one another. We don't want to be putting walls up between each other. We want to join. We learn how to and we learn how to join. The first we don't know how to join. We're all full of false empathy. Oh, oh, that's so sad. Right? Oh my gosh, that's the ego. That's not joining, that's false joining. You know, when you're really joining, it's like you're listening with a compassionate heart. Maybe someone's story, it's an ego story always if they're feeling upset. You could sense the turbulence, right? It's always, of course, an ego story. And it's like, oh, how does that feel? You know, it's more like that. It's not like resisting. It's not like fixing. Like, oh, how does that feel?
unknown:Right?
SPEAKER_02:And you start a conversation like that in a in a gentle way. Uh, it's not like you think of a story of yourself going through the same kind of thing and start commiserating with a person. That's the ego's way of joining. Bonding in misery. It's also abundance, training the mind in abundance. Right? It's so used to seeing lack. Perfect safety, right? Nothing real can be threatened, threatened, nothing unreal exists. Innocence, perfect innocence. No one ever does anything. What a blessing. And love, of course. Seeing that all love is the love of God, it's God's love. There's no separate, special love anywhere. So the mind, it's in it's great. It remains as God created it. Your mind cannot be uh stained in any way. One of my friends told me she has ADHD now. I go, good, that's good. Let everyone know you don't fit into this world. You have proof right here in this piece of paper. I'm gonna go take I I'm like, I'm gonna go take that test. I'll probably get the same thing. Or maybe, maybe more. Who knows? Right here. I don't fit into this programming you have here. But even if you seem to have a brain injury, anything like that, your mind is beyond your brain. It's all powerful. Don't use that as any kind of uh excuse, any kind of apparent decline or anything like that. So the workbook is not about philosophy, the workbook is about experience. That through this experience, your mind is reconditioned at the level of perception. So where you're perceiving things, your mind is being re reconditioned. Because you're you're joining with truth within a perception. You're not being disciplined by a course in miracles, you're being re-educated in reality. So this isn't so that Jesus can control your mind. Although, man, it does seem like brainwashing a lot of times in there. Say this 50 times a day. Holy shit, I'm brainwashing myself. Okay, that's all right. I'm brainwashing myself in something awesome.
unknown:True.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I've already been brainwashed, so so Jesus isn't trying to control our mind, he's bringing us to freedom, he's leading us to freedom because our that's where our freedom is in sane perception, all of us being one. So when the mind is trained in truth, automatically perception becomes sane. Fear loses all credibility. This is why the mind training and love in every situation just becomes obvious. Who you are, who you are. That's a thing. No perception touches it, but you can believe that you're touched by perception and make your beliefs very powerful to make it seem like you are. Now that is still only a choice to see that you are not affected at all by your perception. Take responsibility for the way you feel. Hooray. All right. Everyone ready for sentence three. Good students, that's you. The next uh few sentences, it's pretty fun. Good students assign study periods for themselves. Are you a good student who would assign study periods for yourself? You know, with in a course in miracles, it's asking you to do that for a year. You're putting, you're you're taking this time to study, right? And of course, you could do it longer, you know. Uh it gets to the point, like I could say, from my perspective, I first did a course in miracles in 2014, and I've done it three and a half times. Plus, I've done the reading and contemplation for a whole year. That was the fourth time. Uh but what I notice is spontaneously, I enjoy the material. Uh, I also like to read a course of love, um, different different materials on how the mind works, so I can notice my own cues and also cues in other people. So naturally, there's uh, as long as there's a a sense of being here, there's a desire for study. It's like to see as the Holy Spirit sees is something that we have to focus on with curiosity and allow ourselves to witness ourselves. Some of these patterns uh are behind major defensiveness, and the defense, the defensiveness makes us blind to them. So that's why good students assign study periods for themselves. So this is about your own volition. Do you want to be a good student? That's what a good student does. They assign study periods for themselves so they can have some time with the material. Good students are not obedient students, it's not like you're being obedient to Jesus. A good student recognize that they want the goal that's being promised, that's available to them. So they want to be a good student, they're willing students. So when you assign study periods to yourself, that might look like you're going, okay, I'm gonna put it right here each morning, eight o'clock, this much time. He's not even saying how much time, he's just saying assign study periods. Uh, when you're doing a course in miracles, it tells you when to do those assignments. So that's really simple. It's a simple way. It tells you when to do things. In the morning, do this, in the evening, do this. And you're basically what you're doing is you're uh looking at things differently, you're practicing experientially to look at things differently. So when you assign a study period for yourself, you're signaling to your own mind that you value this training. See? It's like, hey, I value this. This is something I want in my day. You're making space in your mind for correction through your interactions. Perhaps you're going, you know, at some places in a Course in Miracles, uh, you're you're looking at the interactions, you're kind of looking from beyond the interaction that you're having and you're studying yourself. You're studying the patterns. See, it might look like that too. Assigning study periods. Okay, when I go over here, every day I go over here and I have an interaction with this person. Okay, I'm gonna look at that and notice what the tendencies are. Maybe the conversation is the same every time. Notice where you're being pulled by patterns and into patterns just to behave and react uh in the way that you've been conditioned to, right? And you'll start to see yourself having more fun because you'll be able to be more authentic and not play into all these niceties that people play out that are pretty boring. So you're making space for correction and you're choosing to listen more consistently. These are the signals you're giving to your mind when you put aside time for study. You're saying yes to a change, and this doesn't have to be about any rigid schedule, it's more about priority. Are you prioritizing it? Right for me, when I did a course in miracles, it was my number one priority, and if I didn't feel like I fulfilled the day's study that day, I would just do the lesson again the next day. No big deal, just do it again. Make sure I got that. I practiced it fully as instructed, right? And then I did it three and a half times just to make sure. Whatever your mind values, that's what it's making time for. People tell me they're they're busy. Okay, they value busyness. That's what they're making time for. You make you do that, you make time to be a caretaker, whatever you're doing, whatever you put priority on.
SPEAKER_01:Make time to be a mom, maybe.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you so it's priority, prioritizing your learning. So you're you're being invited to self-direction, not being managed. Jesus isn't saying do it this way, he's saying attention is required. And good students set a time time set aside time to study. Jesus always preserves dignity and learning. He's not trying to boss you around. He's not trying to coerce you into awakening. You choose it. If you choose it, this is the means, let's say. Study periods are a symbol for readiness. It shows that I'm okay, I'm ready to learn. I got study periods, I'm ready to do this.
SPEAKER_00:So if we get to the point where um, just in the moment, if you notice an upset feeling, all of a sudden you're like, oh, this is a study period. Like I now have an assignment.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you could do that. Yeah, that's a good point. I love it. Yeah, yeah. So what Natalie's talking about, you know, this is pretty advanced. She's been through a course in miracles. Her study period is whenever she notices an upset feeling. That's the study period. That's where it kicks in.
SPEAKER_00:Just relax at the end of the day. And yeah, just relax with the book, but yeah, also.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Do you study the material? You know, you could study just for one year, study a course in your miracle just for one year. You could study it for a couple months and get it. If you just get one sentence, you got it. And you know, basically, none of these illusions touch you. So you don't have to fret over them. You what you want is to be alert and focused and curious so you can see what needs to be undone. That's the reason you're having the perception. Don't let it be evidence of what you are, right? You you need to know what you are beyond what the evidence of the world shows you. Because it is full of shit. This is about choosing truth deliberately. It's a desire for sanity. When you're desiring sanity, of course, you want to be a good student, right? I'm done with insanity. I'm done with insane relating, insane dynamics, sense of neediness, sense of lack. You know, it's like when you'll take those senses that you don't like, that's good, definitely good. Recognize I don't like this feeling. Take those sense, those senses that you don't like and recognize, okay, there's something to see here. This is a pattern. See, learning gets you to that point, doesn't it? See that learning gets you to that point. But if you go back to learning because you just don't believe you're at that point, then you're in learning again, the phase of learning how to see like that, right? But you can just choose to see right now from above all of the patterns, detached from all of the patterns, feeling attached, you're feeling attached. That's also not something that's touching you, you'd being aware of that. It's okay if I feel attached because I'm still witnessing a pattern.
SPEAKER_00:Um, that you really helped me with was um and then meeting that pattern with gratitude.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, meeting it with gratitude, right? That's exactly right. Meeting it with gratitude, you can see it so clearly like that. That's how you see it. I want to mention I've been hearing stories about back in Pune, or I was just over there on the big island of Hawaii, and there's been stories about uh pervy guys putting their hands on women, especially massage therapists, uh doing sense sensual things with them, right?
SPEAKER_00:No, and acupuncture is just busted last month in Bellingham.
SPEAKER_02:Really? Same kind of stuff, front page news, yeah, curving out on people. Yeah, well, the thing is, there's a sense like uh the women get like frozen, almost frozen in the moment. And uh, and you know, here's what I can tell you about that because I just experienced the same kind of energy just a few days ago. It was it was great. Here, let me massage you. Next thing I know, uh my toes are at his lips. What the fuck? So, you know, if you notice like freezing, it's like holy shit, this took a turn where I didn't want it to go. Notice that in that moment you're listening, noticing your breath, noticing the body's energy, noticing the sirens going off. Holy shit, what's going on? Right? Uh, and and watching that, and just watching that, you start to see patterns more and more. I mean, of course, if someone's like sticking their finger in you and you don't want that, you're gonna be like, get your finger out of my cooch, or whatever the situation may be. Your face is fine. Right. But you can witness, witness the freeze, notice what's going on because there's a play going on here. There's a, you know, you're gonna see how you're playing into the patterns and recognize more and more about yourself and see how to be more free too. Be more free and open, right? Uh, it's like I'm super open and loving, okay? Like in my way that I interact with people. And a lot of the times people get the sense that I want to have sex with them. That's a that's like seems to be a common occurrence. Uh Natalie's Natalie knows the same kind of energy. And I've had the perception, any guy who wants to hang out with me just wants to have sex with me. I had that perception for a long time, you know, ingrained, you could say, through childhood, but of course I protect the childhood, even right now, you know. But this is what you could see the patterns, the ingrained patterns. I just see that reflection over and over and over and over again. And uh, and and each time I become more aware of myself and how I'm playing into the patterns. Being with my husband 30 years, having this not happen at all, and then and then going into uh single, apparently being single, and then now I'm seeing this stuff come up, and I'm like, wow. I'm like, wow, this is no wonder I need to be single right now. I could help see through these patterns, you know, is it's like, and there's this unspoken thing, like the woman is supposed to be quiet about it. That's also that's why it's like shocking. That's why, like that acupuncturist, there was a whole bunch of them. That's why people come out and say, Me too, me too, me too, me too. Because it's like it's it's like for uh so many lifetimes our mind has been trained to cover this shit up.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Yeah, one of the gals in the news story, she was she was a regular client for many years. Uh-huh. So she just she was putting up with it. She was putting up with it. Yeah, just kind of playing into uh-huh. But here my question is um this whole idea of like a lot of times, well, I don't have a choice in uh my actual behavior. You know, people sing out these dynamics, and sometimes I sense this with my boyfriend where I'm like, I have no idea why I'm saying this to him right now. It seems really mean, right? Other than I yeah, I just must need to come out so he has an opportunity.
SPEAKER_02:Well, you're not saying anything to him.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:See that? It's all self-talk. You're not saying anything at all when you're when you're talking mean. When you know you're talking mean, you're not saying anything. Right? It's just self-talk. That's all. So yeah, I know what you mean. I know what you mean. You're like the shit coming out of my mouth does not mean anything right now, but it's still coming out of my mouth. Yeah. Right? So what I'll do is I'll let the person know once I once I can. Because we're not, we don't actually don't have a choice in what comes out of our mouth. But what happens is we become conscious within it.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Right? Become aware within it. So in that, I'll find myself going, That that didn't have anything to do with you, that was about me. Right? Anything that comes that's mean, rec just in your recognizing that, it eases it up. And when they know that anything mean, anything that came across as mean, that was your self-talk. It's not their projection or anything like that. If they're if they something came across as mean to them, they must have picked up on some of your negative self-talk. That's all. Thank you for pointing that out to me. I see I could be gentler with myself. So, okay, so back to the sense of freezing up. Like for me, I don't want anything to come out of my mouth that's not loving and kind and truthful, right? So uh I'm looking and noticing the contraction in my body's energy field, and it's like, ooh, that pervy energy again, really, right? It's like that kind of sense, and it's like a closing down, so it's like allowing yourself to relax, to open back up. What is being called for here? It's always a call for love, right? Recognizing that it's always a call for love. Um, it's not a call to bury these patterns, it's not a call for that. You know, is that that's what that's what we're doing. We're seeing these, we're able to see these patterns because of recognizing that we are not our patterns, and that's what requires study. So thank you for being a good student and being here with me. I love you. What do we have here? Okay, I'm a part of a long-winded court case about this shit. Ha ha. Apparently, this guy, Mike Jolly, had eight people come forward to say he did weird stuff. I know it's only for my healing. Yes, exactly. And that's not to say that you don't find yourself in a massage therapist. Yep, yep, yep, I know. It's it's like they got a license to just touch you or something. It's hilarious. Oh, I know this'll feel good. Here you go. Meanwhile, they're getting their jollies off. I love his last name, it's Jolly. This dude even told me he had a foot fetish, so he's like massaging my feet for his pleasure.
SPEAKER_00:And then my toe is on his lip. Somebody with his last name, though, because in a sense, if we didn't all have the willingness to use this as a study, it would be jolly. Right.
SPEAKER_02:Like it would lighten and it's true, it lightens it all up, it lightens it all up, you know, because it's not like you reject the person, it's not like, oh, now they're a bad person. In fact, with this dude, he's a fun brother, he's a cool brother to hang out with. I like him. There's also all these different patterns playing up, playing with them. One is perv. And I'm not the one that's gonna pretend that's not happening, that's happening, or whatever it is. I'm not the one to pretend about it. And I'm sure my personality and the things that I say, you know, people are gonna think, oh yeah, she's uh she's horny for it. In fact, I think I'll make a playlist just in case she wants it. I love how everything's so everything's like everything's orchestrated so fun and funny. Yeah, it's hilarious.
SPEAKER_00:But even that too that it's somehow your behavior when really it's the underlying pattern, like we're sense, we're more sensing these unspoken patterns. That's right. To play into it because gosh darn it, that actually is where the salvation is, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's why that's why I don't get get into any uh mind mind talk that says I need to change my behavior and come off less fuckable.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's not what it's at.
SPEAKER_02:I'm a I'm a pleasure-filled organic or organic and orgasmic being. Yeah, that does not mean you have permission to touch me, too. Isn't that fun?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, because thinking you have to change at the level of behavior, and that's what's gonna like right now. Extend time, another time extension.
SPEAKER_02:That's right, yeah, and it's a matter of being clear, and I know I see for myself, I could be more clear too, and that comes from experience. I haven't had these kinds of patterns in my experience until more recently. I had them earlier, but not for 30 years, and learned a lot in those 30 years, but still it's like I'm noticing it's like deer in the headlights kind of feeling. It's like, oh shit, how did it get to that?
SPEAKER_00:Do you think if if we are if like if we all could actually be more clear in communication, definitely. Do you think about actually end up doing anything? Well, it's more important to just read it.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, well, Natalie, look, look where the communication comes from in the first place.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_02:So it's not about changing the form of our communication. If you're seeing clearly, the communication comes out clearly. That's just how it is. I could see it like after the fact, I could see it. I could see how it could be so much more fun.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:That yeah, it's like I could notice. I was like, I'm like, oh, if I wasn't frozen like that, it would feel more like this, right? So I could see more and more as I'm gonna play it, it's gonna get played out again. It has to until it plays out perfectly. That's what goes on, right? So that's fun. To me, I'm eager for it. Go ahead, Orba. He's smiling at me. I've hung around with Orba for years and years. He's got no pervy vibe toward me whatsoever. Thank you, Orbah. He's like such a sweet sweetheart. At one point, he was asking me if I would have sex with other people other than my husband. And it seemed to be that he was asking for himself because he'd like to have sex with me, but there was just no creepy vibes. It was just like that's awesome. I'm just saying it's like no, no kind of pervy, creepy vibes. It was just totally matter of fact. Like there was no kind of underlying trying to touch me or weird shit like that going on. It seemed to be too set up to be true. Yeah. So uh yeah, my friend here on here is talking about this massage therapist and how, yeah, it's a it's a projection, yes, always a projection of our own mind. And in our own mind, we've scripted these brothers to act this way. They also agree to the script, right? They also agree to play out that script, and uh and and they don't have to either, right? There's a there, it's like it just takes one of us to see, and then the script goes, right? So at one point he asked me, or he told me that he just wants to be a brother to me and not be one of those, because he knows my pattern to perceive having perceived everyone, every guy who hangs out with me wants to have sex with me. That's the pattern again. Say that again. Uh, and and uh, and he goes, he wants to be different. And I'm like, Well, that is not no, no, not you. Okay, this is jolly, let's call him Jolly. That's fun. Uh uh, and and I go, Well, that is definitely not the vibes I was getting last night. And I just started lift listing off like four different things, you know. And that is a way right there of breaking the pattern because just him saying that I want to be like this, it's not like this, but the whole time he's showing me something else, I'm not gonna let that slide. That's not going under the carpet. No, actually, this is the kind of energy you're showing me the whole time.
SPEAKER_00:See, even with the trying to control your behavior, it's like it doesn't even actually do anything.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you don't want to try to be uh control your behavior at all, you know. It's like I'm I'm witnessing that. Oh, okay, here's the opportunity right here. Am I gonna be quiet for his comfort? That's the conditioning we've been given to be quiet for his comfort. See, we don't have to get pissed either, though. What everyone's doing is getting pissed, and that's fine. That's a step in the direction. It's fine, it's a it's good. Uh, because at least they're talking about it, right? It's a step in the direction, and then we go past that and we go to joining with our brothers, right?
SPEAKER_01:So we're not pissed at them at all. We're just reflecting what's true. This is what this is what it looks like to me.
SPEAKER_02:It's fun how they can't help it too, and they just play it out. It's like, aw, oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00:I'm starting to see that more. Yeah. It's so lighting, lightning, lightening up.
SPEAKER_02:This guy knows, and this guy knows. I talk about everything on wisdom dialogues. I talk about all my interpretations, all my perceptions, all these things. Still, it's like it's like it just can't be helped. And and it's true that it's these things are orchestrated just so we could see through patterns.
SPEAKER_00:That is the only way, like that's the only way is through relating that we're seeing what we're holding against through relationship and especially through relationship with humans.
SPEAKER_02:It's all relationship, but especially through our human relationships. And don't worry if you feel hermity and you don't get out much and see a bunch of humans. Don't worry, it's your lessons are coming. You'll interact with the right amount of humans at the right time, right? It's not like you have to try to go out. You're probably gonna find yourself interacting with people though at some point. So, good students assign study periods for themselves. That was sentence three, and we loved it. We loved it. We're on to sentence four. However, okay, they assign study periods for themselves. Then, however, since this obvious step may not have occurred to you, and since we are cooperating in this, I urge you to make the obvious assignment now. So the assignment is making time to study. That's the assignment, and he's saying if you haven't done it, do it now. Write it down, decide whatever you gotta do, because this is what you want. Okay, there's a footnote here. It says, for the content of what to study, see the first sentence of paragraph four. We'll probably be there next week. So stay tuned for that. So in this sentence, however, since this obvious step may not have occurred to you, that's making a study period. And since we are cooperating in this, I urge you to make the obvious assignment now. So Jesus is pointing out here that many students forget to schedule their learning, their day gets in the way, things are more important. See how it's about it's about priority, it's not out of laziness. So if the ego is telling you I'm lazy, that's an ego defense. You can't be lazy, that's not who you are. The ego's just diverting attention. You're listening to a thought that's saying you're lazy. It's always the same thing. It's a thought that's against you. The obvious step, he calls it an obvious step, is simply decide when you're gonna give your mind to this training. Make a space for it. Commit to showing up for it. In a course in miracles, once you open lesson one, it has it get has you do one minute of practice in the morning and one minute at night. That's how you start. You know why? Because it might be irritating to you to do that kind of practice because it's completely different from the way you're probably used to seeing things.
SPEAKER_00:That also points to just God, how powerful one minute of truth can counteract just a gazillion minutes, how many minutes are in a day, of the other.
SPEAKER_02:And another minute could irritate you, right? When you're just starting out, isn't that wild? You want to have a gentleness in your practice.
SPEAKER_00:But it's how effective.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, just gosh, just I know just one, just one minute. Yeah, just scheduling one minute, and then maybe it's five minutes, maybe it's ten minutes, but it doesn't have to be. The time doesn't matter, it's the seeing. You're allowing yourself and being being there in a state of willingness. If it's one minute, that's all you got the willingness for, great. Stay at one minute, it'll work. All right. He's saying it may not have occurred to you, and that's because the ego resists any structure that supports your awakening. That's why. So it gets covered up. The mind is used to drifting rather than choosing for itself. That's another reason you would forget to study. So instead of waiting for inspiration, it's like you create the conditions for it. Basically, the condition is a commitment to okay, this at this time, for me, I just go right when I open my eyes. I'm listening to the Holy Spirit for however amount of time. I'm not calculating an amount of time until I feel complete with it. Right? And then I just keep that with me. Just keep it going, keep it with me. But you know, I'm not just starting out. When I was just starting out, I had timers going to make sure I was doing things as they were instructed.
SPEAKER_00:That sense of when it is when there's like a inspiration hits and it feels really juicy. Where does that arise from? Inspiration? Yeah, like the opposite of like, oh, I set a schedule, or it's like, oh, I feel really inspired right now.
SPEAKER_02:I just really want to do this thing. It's a it's it's a stream of mind, and you can say anything that moves you toward truth, you can say it's coming from the Christ mind, right? That's not the ego mind. The ego mind doesn't move toward truth. So inspiration, uh, if the inspiration it feels like you're moving toward truth, maybe it's an inspiration to study. Oh, I want to go look at that right now. Great, ride that wave, right? The ego is not gonna direct something like that. Now, look at it though. Let's say you're looking to study something so you can prove someone else wrong. Notice the in, notice the difference in how that inspiration feels. That's and you know, that's just something to study. It's not bad, it's not wrong, it's just something.
SPEAKER_00:Oh it comes with a certain sensation that yeah, that that's I guess that's just the the ego selling point. It's just like ooh, it just because it's a sensation that feels yeah, it's kind of like a hit of cocaine.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's not joy, yeah, but it's something well the hit of being alive, it's ego being alive. The only way the ego knows how to feel alive is through separation, conflict, judgment, anger. So it's like we get a little hit. See, you get you know it's addictive, it's addictive, right? Yeah, it's like people watch the news. I think people know now that the news is fake, right? Uh, kind of it's kind of like uh like uh wrestling, pro wrestling was, yeah, right. Like everyone was so entertained by it for a while, then they realized all those dudes were just gay fakers. So then they stopped watching it so much. I think the thing went bankrupt and everything like that. The same kind of thing is happening with news, too. Lots of them are going bankrupt and stuff like that because people are seeing, oh, this is just a device we set up to get a little hit, a little hit of this, and and and then just like pro wrestling, none of this shit is meaning anything. It's just all spun. Right? And and it's like it's like, look, uh, just notice like for me, I found myself reading the news. I kept reading the news because I saw this and I go, I just want to check that out. So uh so I kept on reading the news and noticing what feeling the story is trying to elicit. Why? It has to do with corporate, it's corporations, they've studied this and they know how to make money. Off of you, and they know how to harvest these emotions and use it for profit. It's hilarious. So I'm watching and I'm just seeing more as I'm reading the news, and I'm watching what feeling, and I'm just becoming more and more neutral until it wasn't interesting to me anymore. I just noticed myself becoming more and more new neutral about it. One story sticks out to me. I just am so glad I was reading the news that day because it was just so funny. It was about a monkey that was so stressed out, it was chain smoking. I don't know why. I just love that story. I'm like, it's even hitting the monkeys. It's just such a good symbol, you know, because that's what's going on with these thoughts that we want. Look at the look at the feeling sense that it triggers. That's the addiction, right? It's like the monkey chain smoking. That's the image I get in my mind. Honey mon all stressed out. Yeah, it's a stressed out honumon. That's good.
SPEAKER_00:One thing I know you're talking about these news stories. Um, sometimes when I'm like working out at the gym, they have 10 screens up. Right. But you can't hear anything. Um, so it's not about the words, but I'll glance up there, and it's just you you can just tell by what the actors are doing on the screen, the subtle movements, you know the feeling that they're trying to elicit from you. And it's it's just so boring to me now. Just like it's like, oh God, who wants to watch all this stuff? You're just uh giving your mind over to like say you're watching a half an hour sitcom. You're literally giving yourself over to a it's so conditioning, yeah. Yeah, it's conditioning. Yeah, if you're on this heart stream, something's gonna happen, there's gonna be resolved. It's like uh yeah.
SPEAKER_02:If you're not if you're not looking at it with curiosity, focus, attention, yeah, like that. If you're not looking, you're gonna get brainwashed. That's what's gonna, that's what's going to occur. It could start forming your your uh your positions, it's gonna start forming uh the way you interact, it's gonna uh it's gonna uh show up in the way you perceive disease. Okay, there's a lot of selling going on right there that you're susceptible, you're victim, that kind of stuff. So where are you putting your attention? This is about the need to study. That's one way to look at it, noticing where you're putting your attention, that study. But Jesus is saying specifically to make time for it. So when you're just starting out, make time for it, you're gonna see uh after you're uh after you're studied, you're gonna see where it fits. And eventually it's just there, just constant reminding you of what's true. All right. Uh let's see. And he also says, since we are cooperating in this, isn't that so sweet? He says, since we are cooperating in this, I urge you to make the obvious assignment now. So he's saying you're not doing this alone. He's totally engaged with you. He's never gonna stop until every single mind knows the truth. There's a shared purpose and shared intention with Jesus H Christ. H is for holy. Yes, that's fun. And he's saying we're cooperating in this. And he he's always he's always doing his part. It's just a matter when you're ready to do your part. So, and that's it, and that's just a matter of time because you're definitely gonna be ready at some point in time. So, cooperation basically it implies mutual willingness, a shared goal of a healed perception. When you share that goal with Jesus, whoo, you're on the move. He's urging you, he's not commanding you, he's urging you, he's still respecting your freedom, but he's strongly inviting your willingness. You know why he's doing that? He talked about it in chapter two about this being a celestial speed up, and he needs us to get released from fear quicker than we would be expected to under normal conditions. So it's like step up to the plate. That's because that's because we were uh, let's say the people, the consciousness of the earth was losing in his terms, losing more than we were gaining in terms of making it take longer for us to undo what we made than it took to make what we made. He's saying this took millions of years, and currently you're set up to take longer than that to undo it. And we want to drastically collapse time. Yes, yes. So there's a celestial speed up in place for probably a couple hundred years, and it just started, I think he said around the 60s or something like that. So that's just started in terms of time, but that's not that many years in. Uh whatever.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:So he says, make the obvious assignment now. He's saying, Don't delay your learning. He wants you to do it. He's he's like, he's like, This is this is it. If he has your ear right now, if you're listening to this, he's saying, don't delay, give it a place in your day. If you haven't done that already, give it a place in your day. This is about alignment. You're making an assignment, he's making an assignment to you now. So you can align with the truth. This is how we strengthen our commitment and weaken the ego's resistance. It's like I'm spending time on this no matter what happens. If I miss it one day, I'll just repeat the next day. This is like declaring your willingness to awaken. It's a simple step, but it's a really powerful step. It sets the entire mind training process into motion. And there's a footnote here. Oh, yeah, we read this already. Uh, we're gonna get back to that when we get to paragraph four, which will probably be next week or the week after that. Actually, this week, because I'm gonna be doing uh another ACIM deep dive on Wednesday. And then on Sunday, I'll go back to wisdom dialogues next week. Yay. All right, sentence five. Let me just check on you guys, see if you have anything. Aw, I love you too. Thank you. Okay, you may understand the need to study this course, yet still not realize that many of the problems you keep being faced with may already have been solved here. See? So you understand you may understand a need to study if you want to get this, but even beyond that, this course solves your problems, or it reveals to you that your problems are solved, let's say. So understanding the need to study is one level, the other one, the other one is realizing the effect. When you realize the effect, you get some you become super motivated. What all my problems have been solved? This course is gonna reveal that they're all solved. Wow. And Jesus is saying, you know, even up to this point, you're at the beginning of chapter three now, you may already have the answers.
SPEAKER_01:You may already have the solutions.
SPEAKER_00:You're right. Sometimes I I really I'll sense into that uh with certainty, and it's like, oh yeah, yeah, this is legit. Like, yeah, but then you sort of drift, yeah. Like you drift back, but yeah. Oh man. When he did a glimpse of just how you can have certainty in that, whoop, yes, and and and you know, that's the thing, you do already know.
SPEAKER_02:For most of you, you already know. If you don't already know, that's okay, it's coming. But he's saying in this sentence, you may already have the answers, you may know this already, you may already have the clarity. You just don't realize that you can apply it to your specific problems and be released from these apparent problems. You may not recognize that yet, is what he's saying. Okay, here's many of the problems that seem to recur: relationship conflicts, pervy vibes, one of them I just talked about. Feelings of lack. Notice, notice each time your mind drifts into money. Notice what you're doing at that time. You might see a pattern, or the same time you go wash your hands at the sink every time, or the same time you're at a particular red light, and and and that just lightens the whole thing up for you. It shows it reveals that this is a pattern, you know. Notice start to notice more. Hmm, oh, interesting how I would make myself feel lack right now. Where am I? What am I doing? You know, just like I like look around and go, oh, all right, noted. It lifts it, it really does. Any kind of confusion, right? Self-attack, worrying, these have already been addressed by this point in A Course in Miracles. This has already all been addressed. The ego just keeps on recycling the same problems. And like we went over in chapter two, we're afraid to look because we're identifying with that voice. When you don't identify with that voice and recognize it doesn't even touch you, that lifts the fear to look. It's fearful in there. Jesus said it's the source of fright. Those are his words in chapter two. The source of fright. See? But when you recognize it's not you, it never touches you. You can look with this uh courage that comes from source, knowing that you're still the son of God. You're still as God created you. So Jesus here is highlighting a gap between knowing you need mind training and recognizing that the training you've already been given might already be what you need to solve all your problems. So a Course in Miracles provides answers to every form of fear, doesn't matter what it is. There's answers in here. It re-inter reinterpret it uh reinterprets every situation. It doesn't matter what the situation is, especially now it's reinterpreted the sex for us. We didn't have that before. In the expanded version, now we had we have it. We went over it mostly in chapter one. That's where it was mostly coming up. Let's see. Uh hmm. So your mind may be asking questions still uh to seemingly outside of itself, and the answers are already there. So look within for the answers because you've already learned. It's just that there's these defensiveness, and it's okay to look without for the answers, too. He's just saying, you probably already have these answers, you're just learning how to see them. All right. So this is uh study helps you with experiential recognition. That's important. Right? It's setting up these two times during the day, how it starts out, it's setting you up so that this uh comes across through all of your experiences. It's kind of like the truth infuses more of your experiences throughout the day. So the sentence is reassure reassuring us that we're not lacking guidance, we're not facing any unsolvable problems. It's what it's saying. Okay, uh, the course has already solved whatever seems to be troubling you. Your only role now is to learn to see this, see that clearly, uh, that that has occurred, that this is the situation, your problems are actually solved. And that's why he's saying you need to study. So here's that sentence again. Sentence five. You may understand the need to study this course, yet still not realize that many of the problems you keep being faced with may already have been solved here. So, yay, everyone. Sentence five. That was the end of sentence five. We're on to sentence six of paragraph one. Perhaps you do not think of the course in this way at all. Perhaps you don't even think of it as something that can solve your practical problems. He's encouraging you to see that differently. He's acknowledging this in the learner, he's acknowledging that you may not think of it like that at all. You may just think of it as something to, you know, relax with. It's comforting. All right, the words are comforting, they're poetic, very nice. So he's noticing this, he's noticing that you probably don't think of it in this way, right?
SPEAKER_00:Maybe in the same way sometimes how people um use novels, just like, oh, I just need an escape. Yes, like, oh, just a temporary escape, right?
SPEAKER_02:That's right, yeah, or you know, something that feels religious or something like that. Uh you may not see it as a direct solution to your problems. You may think of it as a philosophy. I get that a lot. Well, how does that fit into your philosophy? Right? As if I'm like, that sounds like a lot of work. A philosophy is like all these concepts. Let me see how does this fit into my philosophy, you know? It's like yeah, this is not about philosophy at all. This is about about experience. That's very, very different. Philosophy is working with something that you know, you you you got these ideas and they seem to be true. No, I'm talking about experience. That's not philosophy. When I first started talking uh in 2014, you know, I'd be sharing with people, and uh people would go, uh, well, where's this from? Like, where do you get where do you get this from? And I go, my own experience. And it's like, oh, okay. If you get it from your own experience, you get it from your own experience. You don't have to try to, there's no argument about it. That's not what that person says, that's not what that philosophy says, you know. I get it from experience. Sometimes people tell me when I talk, I sound like a course in miracles, and I tell them I am a course in miracles. You hang around with me, you don't need the book. Spiritual comfort, yeah. Uh, and that's fine if it's used for spiritual comfort, but that's not really what it's about. It's really to bring you all the way to perfect peace. Train your mind differently and be a practical problem solver. So, this is an invitation to reconsider what a course in miracles is actually about. A problem solver. How about that? It's also something beautiful to read. It's also something meaningful to reflect on. It's also something that feels true, but it's a problem solver, practically. You know, it hasn't necessarily been seen as something that already contains the solution to all of our struggles. We don't need to have any of them. So Jesus is saying, you don't recognize, you probably don't recognize, how immediately applicable this is to your life right now. You might not trust it. You might not trust that your conflicts are addressed here in this course. And he's also saying, that's okay. He's not rebuking people, he's including you, he's not pressuring you, he's not shaming you, he's freeing you.
SPEAKER_00:The only way you would be able to see that is if you relinquish the identity you currently hold on yourself. It's sort of like a step first of like my identity isn't what I think it is. Yes. So that would be the only way you would be able to accept this.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Well, it's also teaching you how to shift your identity, it's a teaching you how to how to see, well, not shift your identity. Your identity is the same. It's a it's where where where you see your identity. Do you see yourself as an ego or do you see yourself as divine presence, right? So this is a course for shifting the way that you're seeing. So when you know how to shift the way that you're seeing, which really happens pretty early on, it's just that people don't follow through with it. They don't actually use it, they believe the conditioning of the world. I've heard many times, especially from men, that all men are like this. There are a bunch of pervs who don't have hard penises past 60 years old. Who don't have hard penises past 60 years old. I love it. Oh man. Yeah. It's uh it's like opening up to what's really true instead of like narrowing our mind. We're basically putting ourselves in a prison when we narrow our mind down to what we perceive in the world is actually the truth. It's not, it's changeable. The way we see our consciousness is changeable. So the way the world manifests, also changeable, right? That this that this the way this is just the way it is, BS, that keeps you from applying this. It's like wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. Okay, whatever you think you made of the world, all that stuff, it's meaningless. We're meant to be like happy children holding hands, even when we got pervy energy. It's like woo, pervy energy. We're holding hands, we're skipping through the forest and we're undoing patterns.
SPEAKER_00:I'm hopeless. What?
SPEAKER_06:Right. Hope is hopeless.
SPEAKER_02:Hope is hopeless. I was saying hopeful.
SPEAKER_05:From leaders' point of view, you're hopeless. From the truth, you're hopeful.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, that's right.
SPEAKER_05:Wow.
SPEAKER_02:And Facebook. Put that on Facebook. Yes.
unknown:That's it.
SPEAKER_02:All right. So this is where a course in miracles moves from being admired by you to being trusted as the key to all your problems, the answer to everything. All right. That's what that's what's being encouraged here. Thank you for looking at it like that. Yay. All right. Now we're getting into mental retardation. This is fun. One of the most fun questions. I've our uh sentences in A Course in Miracles. I've had uh so many insights off of just this sentence, you know, seeing how it can be applied so many different ways. So we're up to paragraph two, sentence one. Again, we're in the complete and annotated edition.
SPEAKER_04:Finish sentences seven, eight, and nine.
SPEAKER_02:Um, we were just on sentence six. Are you having sent sentences seven, eight, and nine? Yeah. Okay, let me see what's happening here.
SPEAKER_04:That's interesting.
SPEAKER_02:In the purple, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:It's a purple.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, okay, okay. Hold on a second. It might be, I might have mislabeled it. Paragraph one, sentence six. There's six. I didn't do yes, I did do sentence six. Perhaps you're not thinking of it this way at all.
SPEAKER_04:And then I have a sentence seven after that.
SPEAKER_02:You're right. It is it is sentence seven. You're right. I just have it labeled wrong here.
SPEAKER_06:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:So that's what I have. Or perhaps you wait. No, I don't have that. Okay, so actually, okay, so let's let's look at it. I do have it here. I just didn't have it in my notes.
SPEAKER_06:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you for that. No problem. Sentence seven. Or perhaps you do from time to time. So the sentence before, perhaps you do not think of the course this way as a solution to your problems. Okay. Or perhaps you do from time to time, but then think the answer is probably in here and do not look it up. It's easy, way easier to look it up now than when Jesus spoke this in the late 60s. By the way, if you got Kindle, you could just look up words. If you have AI, you can upload the whole book and ask AI to find it in there for you. So now you can really, you know, you can look at it. So he's saying perhaps you do think of it as a problem solver from time to time, but then you think the answer is probably in there and you don't look it up. So again, these are the ego defenses causing you to not look it up. The ego is saying, uh, no big deal, you've got this. You know, and Jesus is saying, Hey, if yeah, if you hate, yeah, if you're Jesus is saying, hey, if you have a question, you could look it up. The answer is in there, you could just look it up, ask, ask the question. I'm saying now with AI, it is just way easier. You can just type your specific question in there, ask it to ask answer as Jesus from a course in miracles. You can even upload the book to it if you want.
SPEAKER_04:You have to, does it not know about the book?
SPEAKER_02:It does know about it pretty well.
SPEAKER_04:Okay. Um, but I all of it, so it has it right the I give it the PDF.
SPEAKER_02:Uh yeah, I give it a PDF like right in the chat. Yeah. So you can you can look things up, um, but the ego would say, No, it's okay. You already got it good enough. You don't need to look it up. It's like when you look things up, you get these aha insights.
SPEAKER_00:I've been doing this for years, where I would just be like, Oh yeah, something's going on. And I'd be like, randomly open up. That's what shit.
SPEAKER_02:It it was as if it was speaking directly to that situation. That's another thing you can do. Yeah, you can just randomly open the book when you have a question, and it'll answer you. Okay, so that's a it's a very specific mental habit that he's pointing to here. He's saying, You think the answer is probably in here, but don't look it up. So in here, he's talking about uh he's not he's talking about it's personal to your thinking mind, memory, logic, self-reference, past learning, egoic reasoning, egoic reasoning. It's like in here, uh in Jesus is saying you sometimes realize you don't understand. But instead of actually asking Jesus or looking to the source, it doesn't necessarily have to be in the book, it could be Jesus or the source. Um, but instead of asking, you assume the answer is already somewhere inside of your existing thought system. So this goes along with study, right? When you have a question, look it up. So you don't look it up, meaning you're not you're not genuinely asking, you're not pausing, you're not open for the correction. So just noticing that the habit keeps the mind closed while it's appearing like it's open, it feels like I already know this, or I'll figure it out later.
SPEAKER_00:That whole arrogance thing, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Or let me think about it more. But notice if you have an upset feeling and it's about a situation or anything, you need help. You could just ask, ask Jesus. That's another way. He's talking specifically about looking it up in a course in miracles when he's talking to Helen and Bill at that time. So Jesus is pointing out here that you don't understand your own mind, but you still try to act like you do. See the belief that your insight can be self-generated. You know, you're already attuned to stink thinking like the ego before you get this mind training. Once you get this mind training, it's different. He's saying when you notice, you don't know, you retreat into yourself. He's saying that ask, look, and receive, not retreat into ego thoughts. So your guidance, uh your guidance comes through relationship, not introspective in the ego sense. The ego would have you thinking rather than listening, self-referencing rather than reevaluating, uh seeing where your uh where your uh trust is, opening for revelation, mental effort versus willingness. That's another way to look at it. The answer isn't in the problem, and the mind that made the confusion isn't going to be able to resolve it.
SPEAKER_01:That's a really important part. The mind that made the confusion will not necessarily be able to love it because it loves this confusion, right?
SPEAKER_05:Be on it like a like a pariah.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, that's right. The mind, uh the ego mind loves confusion. So when you notice confusion, you don't need to run away from it. Notice you're contracting in the body's energy field, you're projecting a contraction. Notice that. Be present for it, be in a listening state. All right, so that sentence again, or perhaps you do know from time to time, but then think the answer is probably in here and do not look it up. All right, sentence eight. You vaguely know that the course is intended for some sort of preparation. Vaguely. You vaguely know that this course is intended for some sort of preparation. So you sense it's going somewhere, you feel it's not the course. Doing the course isn't the destination itself, right? That's not the destination itself, it's a means. But you don't let the fact reorganize how you relate to a course in miracles. So let that fact, right? You vaguely know that the course is intended for some sort of preparation. So you let that fact that it's intended for some sort of preparation reorganize how you relate to it. Information, uh, you know, it's treated as information, philosophy, it's philosophy, spiritual improvement, something to understand rather than training of your mind. And that's how to see it as training for your mind. Preparation for what? Jesus deliberately looks deliberate, doesn't say yet. At this point, the mind isn't ready to hear what it's being prepared for, apparently. It's too early, the ego might fantasize about it. Turn it into a goal. Try to achieve it. He's simply saying some sort of preparation. So it's keeping still the keeping this emphasis on process. So seventh sentence seven expose the habit of thinking the answer is in here and not asking. Sentence eight, you very you vaguely know this is preparation, yet you're still relating to it as if it was a self-contained self-contained system. That's a mismatch. See, if something's for preparation, it requires practice, it requires guidance, it requires not knowing, willingness rather than claiming mastery, right? Willingness. The ego prefers let me understand the course. I'm gonna study it a lot. Let me interpret it correctly, let me see how advanced I am. But Jesus is saying, you already know this isn't the end point, so stop treating it like the end point. So let a course in miracles function like this a loosening of your certainty about the world, and even about a course in miracles. Let it loosen up so you can know and express the Holy Spirit's certainty, the voice for God. Let it function as a training in your listening, you're training your listening, let it dismantle your reliance upon ego self. So this is showing, you know, studying is basically letting yourself be trained. Understanding is letting yourself be prepared. Self-reliance is depending on your guidance, depending on this inner guidance that a Course in Miracles is teaching you, and maybe you already know how to tune in to the guidance, the answer to all of your problems, and then Jesus says in sentence nine, but are you prepared?
SPEAKER_01:But are you prepared?
SPEAKER_02:You vaguely know that the Course is intended for some sort of preparation, but are you prepared? So these words are basically turning the whole thing inward. Are you prepared? Jesus has established three things here. You don't understand your own mind, you often assume the answer is in here and you don't ask. You vaguely know the course is for preparation. Now comes this follow-up. Prepared in what way? Prepared for what? Prepared for relinquishing something. What is it? What does what prepared doesn't mean? It doesn't mean knowing enough, it doesn't mean having studied enough, it doesn't mean feeling spiritually mature. That's another thing. You see that one? I've had a friend tell me over and over again I behave this way because I'm spiritually or I'm uh my ego is immature. That was one. My ego is immature. You don't need to feel spiritually mature for this. Uh it's not sorting out your behavior. What preparation actually means in ACIM is readiness. Readiness is a condition of your mind. It's not, it's it's not the mind's content. Readiness. Okay, to be prepared means willing to admit I don't know. Are you prepared? Is the question. Are you willing to admit you don't know? Are you willing to stop consulting the ego for answers? How about letting the meaning be given to you instead of being made by you?
SPEAKER_05:The big question always is saying, what is this for?
SPEAKER_02:What is this for? Yes, that that's willingness.
SPEAKER_05:Question mirror, what is this for?
SPEAKER_02:Yes, that's definitely a demonstration of willingness when you go, what is this for? You know, I found myself in a tumultuous point in a relationship, and that's exactly what I kept on going to. What is this for? It's like, oh my goodness, energy's getting so intense. And it's just like that becomes kind of like the laser beam. What is this for? And I kept on repeating to myself, let it all be used for the Holy Spirit's purpose, right? I always want to see through. Sometimes things get intense and I feel pulled. And that's what I use. Uh, something like that. What is this for? I want every, I want all this to be used only to only for the Holy Spirit's purpose, especially when I feel like myself getting attached to something. Even the attachment. I'm not trying to get out of attachment. I'm going, even the attachment that I'm witnessing, even all these emotional fluctuations that I'm going through, I want them all to be used for the Holy Spirit's perfect purpose. Okay. The Holy Spirit's perfect purpose. So why this question might feel uncomfortable, you know. Jesus asking, are you prepared? Because the the ego wants your pre your preparation to be gradual. Inmeasurable steps, right?
SPEAKER_06:Self-improved.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, self-improvement. That's it. You got it. So Jesus' question, are you prepared? Exposes that this kind of preparation has never been happening at all. It's like, are you prepared? Are you aware of this? This is what it takes. This is the readiness, right? He doesn't say you are not prepared. He's not saying you should be prepared by now. He just asks and waits. That's actually the end of that paragraph. That's the last sentence in the paragraph. But are you prepared? Preparation can't be force. This preparation is willingness, it's readiness. Are you ready to stop using the course to reinforce the mind that needs correction? See, that's what's going on. And that's what I saw, like in groups. You know, I look at the groups and it looks like, oh, people are just using this to reinforce misbelief again and again and again. Right?
SPEAKER_05:I love the line of the course where it says, some of your greatest advancements, you have judges your greatest retreats. And some of your greatest retreats, you have judges your greatest advancements. And you know the difference.
SPEAKER_02:And you don't know the difference. That's right.
SPEAKER_05:That's a really important thing.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So if you if you notice if you use everything, your willingness, your readiness to use everything as a means for awakening the mind, you don't even have a question like that. Everything is awesome. Whether it seems like you retreated, whether it seems like you went ahead, it's all awesome because you're all using it all as a means. So are you willing to be taught? That's what this readiness is, rather than trying to understand a course in miracles. Are you willing to listen? Rather than think about it. Right? Let, you know, getting in, getting in uh uh debates about what it means or something like that. That's thinking, that's getting into thinking about it. Are you willing to let go of self-reliance and you know, rather than uh the than uh try to perfect the self? So this is the moment Jesus is saying, let's uh let this course stop being something you read and be something that you let use you, right? That's the readiness. Let it use you. It wants to solve all of your problems. All right, as promised, there will be the sentence on mental retardation. All right, I'm glad you were here, Orbot, let me know. There were three more sentences in that paragraph. Yeah, those are good. Yeah, those are good, and that was a long paragraph. So, mental retardation is a defense which, like the others, with the exception of the atonement, can be used on behalf of error or truth as elected. And there's a footnote here. Footnote two, mental retardation, though it sounds pejorative now, was the standard term when this material was dictated in 1965. It has since been largely replaced by the similar but not identical term, intellectual disability.
SPEAKER_03:Yay! What fun. They were doing like psychology research, these two that channeled this.
SPEAKER_02:That's right. Well, yes, it was Helen Shushman who did the channeling, and then Bill was helping her put it all together. Yes.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, they were they were working with children, yeah, doing psychological.
SPEAKER_02:They were doing, yeah, they're doing psychological CIA actually. Yeah. I didn't know that much.
SPEAKER_04:It was they were doing they were they were uh academic researchers doing psychological research on children when Helen Schuckman channeled this course, and they were funded by the CIA, amongst many others. I mean, many, many, many, many psychological researchers and and various scientists were funded by the CIA, but they were they were one of them.
SPEAKER_05:I went to the City College of New York and studied in the Columbia School of Psychology. Is that where it was? Yes. And I was on the meeting while they were writing this course. Really? Correct.
SPEAKER_04:Yay! Fascinating. And my parents were working for the CIA. Yes, I think.
SPEAKER_05:Yes. My parents were not at the CIA. You know, there's an amazing movie about how they created the course, and it shows the story of Helen Shookman in her vision in a dream where she's going down uh a river, and she's in a gondola, and she gets out in an ancient cave, and there she sees the Torah, and the voice says to her, I love this movie, I have it. Um do you want us read the past? Do you want to read the present? Or do you want to read the future? Or do you want to know? And she answers the right answer, which makes her on the channel of the course. I want to know the present. Nice. Yes, I remember that. She would not have been given the voice. That was the key.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we went over that in chapter one or two. There's actually a cameo on it. Yeah, there's a cameo in the back of the book with that story. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Must be able to access it then.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Because I haven't read in front of me here.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you'll you'll be able to, yeah. Yeah, totally. All right, back to what we're doing here. Sentence two, or sentence one of paragraph two. So Jesus is using this language of the 60s, but the principle is the principle. Basically, any kind of mental distortion, whatever it's being called, right? Uh, he's uh he's saying that uh this identification, mental retardation, it's not a condition of the body or the brain, it's a defense, it's a maneuver of the ego to limit understanding. In a course in miracles terminology, defense means a strategy to protect the ego, it's a way of obscuring the truth, or you could say a veil placed over awareness, it's a resistance to correction. So this sentence is reframing what the world calls limitations now, right? As choices, not conditions of form. It places all seeming incapacity in the domain of decision. When you look at it like that, it's different. Right? It's a every every ego defense can serve either fear or love. That's what he's talking about about the election here.
SPEAKER_05:See, the election has a choice, right?
SPEAKER_02:Saying mental retardation is a defense which, like the others, with the exception of the atonement, the atonement isn't like this, can be used on behalf of error or truth as elected. So we elect whether to see that ego defense on behalf of error or truth. See, it's our election.
SPEAKER_04:Can I ask a question? Sure. Um, so it's talking about a defense, um, and that this defense mental retardation is like the others, all the other defenses, all the other defensers, defenses in parentheses. It says, with the exception of the atonement, is that a defense?
SPEAKER_02:The atonement, yes, the atonement is a defense. Yes, Jesus Jesus says it's a defense. That's right. And it can only be used for for love, you could say. Only be used for love. Yeah. So so the atonement is revealing your innocence.
SPEAKER_06:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:That's why it's a de it is a defense to the world that's set up to prove that you've lost your innocence. So you need a defense. And this is the defense, the atonement. It never fails.
SPEAKER_06:Wow.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, isn't that beautiful? I knew you'd like ACIM deep dive. So it can be be used on behalf of error or truth. That's the key. So an error, using it for error would be using limitation to justify separation. Like, oh, uh you know, the porcela.
SPEAKER_05:The evidence that they have done this or that.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Or the parents did something. Maybe they were drinking wine while they were pressed. It was the vaccine. The vaccines did it. Good one.
SPEAKER_04:I wonder if if autism was would have been considered mental retardation back then.
SPEAKER_02:It it is. That Jesus is including it. Jesus is definitely including it. He's talking about any kind of mental incapacity, right? So he's saying that this is he's putting it back into the realm of choice. Okay. So he's saying, you know, you guys, you, you know, beforehand, the next sentence I think goes into beforehand, you chose this. And it's a it it is it is an ego defense. That's what it is. And it could be used on behalf of error or truth. You elect it each time. So another error is believing the mind is damaged. The mind is never damaged, it can't be damaged. That's an error. Recognizing limitation as a call for love is truth. Seeing it in truth. See that? It's always a call for love. Using the appearance to invite healing, that's truth. Seeing innocence where the ego sees deficiency, that's truth. There's no deficiency here. Just play with what's been given. It's a play to play with what's been given. If there's a mentally retarded, uh, whatever you want to call it, person in your family, that's uh a gift to all the family. Uh, you know, it's perfect for everyone. Yeah, everyone see everyone can see things differently. One friend was just sharing with me, she came down with ADHD. She got up apparently. She got she got whatever the situation is. It's contagious. It's contagious. These thoughts are contagious, apparently. So her her her dad paid for it, and uh, and then you know, the the test says she has this now, and she's going, Yeah, I can totally see how it's for my parents. They're saying don't let anyone know about it, they're getting embarrassed and all kinds of stuff like that. It's perfect for them, right? It's just like, wow, and it's perfect for my for my friend, too. And it's like it's you know, people have been telling her you, you know, you gotta get with it, you gotta get with the worldly things. You can't just have all this fun all the time. You gotta start doing worldly things. It's like, here's my piece of paper that says I don't. ADHD.
SPEAKER_04:One of the many forms of muscle retardation.
SPEAKER_02:Well, well, that's not you know, a lot of the people that we we consider not retarded, right? Act very retarded too. Right. He gets into it.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I believe it. Right.
SPEAKER_03:He's gonna tell us we're on the early unless we realize the truth.
SPEAKER_02:But when it like when you say something, when you say something like my ego is immature and use that as an excuse for not seeing, that's mental retardation. When you use laziness as a reason that you're not studying, that's mental retardation. Look at it as a call for love. See, it's not to condemn. It's like, oh, there's a call for love. What does a call for love say? That thought that says I'm lazy can't possibly be true. That's hilarious. That's just a defense to avoid studying, but fun.
SPEAKER_04:Recovering retard.
SPEAKER_02:That's fun. Is that a course button? Bring retard back. We had fun with that word. We like that word. Okay, back to let me see. Substack guys. Okay, you guys are doing awesome. You're nice and quiet over there. All right, uh, let's see.
SPEAKER_00:To be tardy, retard, to be tardy that means to be late, right? Yeah, it's like just continually, oh, I'm late.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, you're slow, you're slow to process things. Yeah, or you're processing things wrong, so to speak. So so the mind's interpretation is really what's what matters. That's what's being said here. The mind's interpretation. People ask me, why does this thing keep on happening over and over and over and over? How are you interpreting it? That's why. That's the habit. Well, once you see, oh, it's my interpretation that's habitual, the actual illusion as as far as form, it's neutral. The thought about it, that's not neutral. It's either fear or love. That's the interpretation. So a seeming incapacity can shield the ego when used to avoid responsibility for thought. That's the example I just gave. My ego is immature, and I identify with that fucker too. That's why I'm saying that. We see you having a maturity. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When's that gonna happen, right? Or you open the mind to gentleness. So you're either avoiding responsibility for your thought, or you're opening your mind to gentleness, humility, awakening, willingness. It's so much better than being in this prison of thought that says, I'm this and I'm this and I'm this. Here's why I'm not studying. Fuck that excuse. It doesn't mean anything. You're just using that excuse as a defense. When you see it doesn't mean anything, you're gonna you're gonna watch your devotion come up and go, oh, I love studying. I love I I love hearing the truth, I love applying the truth.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:All right, where are we? Yes.
SPEAKER_02:So every decent, every defense can be turned toward awakening, Jesus is saying. With the exception of the atonement, it's up to your election whether you would use it for awakening. But every ego defense, every limitation, everything, there's a there's a part, I think it's in A Course in Miracles or the Bible, something like that, where it says that your weakness is his strength. When you'll see that limitation is being meaningless, that's where the strength comes in. So strong. So every limitation can be reinterpreted. Nothing the ego made is ever beyond the Holy Spirit's use. This is placing healing within your reach because even what appears to be totally fixed, it's still open to reinterpretation, it's still subject to your choice at the level of mind. So it's teaching that defenses are not sins, they're not nothing's wrong. Ego defenses, it says I'm lazy, for instance. It's not a sin, it just doesn't mean anything. That's all. They're misdirected energies, and they get repurposed when you elect to repurpose it. You just notice that's a call for love. That's not a truth about me. So hooray, everyone. Thank you for joining. Next time we'll get back to sentence two, paragraph two, sentence two, uh, in chapter three. Yay, part one, chapter three. Whoo that's a lot. All right, yay. Well, I'm excited. Um, thank you. I'll be back on uh yeah, I'll be back just two days from now to do the the next.
SPEAKER_05:You say Tuesday yet?
SPEAKER_02:Or when I say oh no, it's three days, Wednesday.
SPEAKER_05:And that is Christmas Eve.
SPEAKER_02:Is it Christmas Eve? Okay, I'll be back on Christmas Eve.
SPEAKER_05:From three to five.
SPEAKER_02:From three to five. That's right. I'll be back on three to five with the next part of this. So join me Christmas Eve, and we'll have a merry, merry Christmas together. Yay! And visit hopejohnson.org if you want to check out all things hope johnson. I got lots of free resources on there. These videos and audios get uploaded through there. You can have access to my Substack, my writings, and you can donate there. Yes. Uh, I'm basically living off donations, apparently. So if you'd like to donate, please go to my website. If you want to do it a different way, just reach out to me on my website. It should be pretty easy to make monthly donations. You can donate as little as 10 bucks and of course as much as you want. Yay, I love you. Thank you for joining. Mahalo, aloha, and a hooey ho.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
