Mikey's Disappearance of the Universe Blog

There are No Victims in this World!

2011-11-18T23:33:00.000-08:00

You are responsible for the world you see and not a victim of it.
~ The Disappearance of the Universe

A Course in Miracles Workbook Lessons:

Lesson 31 I am not the victim of the world I see.

Lesson 32 I have invented the world I see.

Lesson 33 There is another way of looking at the world.

Lesson 34 I could see peace instead of this.

A Course in Miracles: The secret of salvation is but this: that you are doing this unto yourself. No matter what the form of the attack, this still is true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, still is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is still true. For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that you were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they could have no effect on you unless you failed to recognize it is your dream.

Mikey's Note: So, it doesn't matter if someone cuts you off in traffic, says something unkind to you, or some nut job burns down your house or murders your family, or if you feel like the government and the billion dollar corporations are screwing you - you made it up! As the Course says, "Beware of the temptation to perceive yourself unfairly treated."

Now, I'm not suggesting that it's easy to take full responsibility for our experiences, and I'm certainly not suggesting that this is the way for everyone - it's not everyone's time to be doing this. Even amongst students of the Course very few are ready to rise to that challenge that they invented the world they see, that the world is coming from them and not at them, and that they are fully responsible for their experiences. As Pursah rhetorically asks in Disappearance, "J chooses everyone, all the time. But how many are ready to listen?"

And yes action on the level of form is sometimes appropriate, and doesn’t mean we abandon common sense and common courtesy while we appear to be here. But the Course is about addressing the cause of all this psychosis, which is in the mind, instead of messing around with the effects seen out in the world. Anyway, just reminders for those who are ready to rise to the challenge.

I certainly need the reminders myself as I still got a few buttons left that can be pushed and several "slow burns" to get through, but I recognize that it's my own crap being shown symbolically outside myself, and that the only meaningful way of dealing with it is to own it, then undo it via the true forgiveness process instead of being in denial and projecting it, which is what most of the world does because they don’t know any better, and they just think they're right. Damn, that was a long-ass sentence.

The Disappearance of the Universe: With salvation there is no one out there to blame for your one real problem, of which all the others are symbolic. The cause, which is the decision to believe in the separation from God, and the solution, which is the principle of the Atonement, are both in your mind - where you now have the power to choose the Holy Spirit's Answer.

The Disappearance of the Universe: Remember this: Since it was your decision to side with the ego and make the separation real it means, once again, that this script is an example of self predetermination that was agreed to by you on a different level, not a case of you being a victim. Now you have the Course to teach you how to change your mind about the whole thing.

Mikey's Note: So occupy forgiveness, real forgiveness, because it's the only thing that works in a permanent way, the only way to really be free. As the Course puts it, "The power of decision is your one remaining freedom as a prisoner of this world. You can decide to see it right." And, "Therefore, seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world." So remember when someone “poops in your Fruit Loops” that you have the choice to take responsibility for your dream and remove another layer of your own ego, or make it psychologically real in your mind, be a victim, and remain a captive on “psycho planet.” Giddy up!

Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish? Holiday Sale

2011-11-07T16:43:00.001-08:00

Special Holiday/End of the Year Sale! Purchase 2 copies of Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish? and get a 3rd copy free! Or purchase 4 copies and save over 40% Giddy up!

www.giddyupmikey.com

Explaining the True Forgiveness Process of ACIM to a non-ACIMer

2011-08-29T14:59:00.000-07:00

So what we refer to as life here on earth is really like a dream. And not only is it a dream, but it is ultimately an insignificant dream. The metaphor that Gary uses quite a bit is that when we go to bed at night, we have these dreams; some dreams are pleasant, and others not so pleasant. But neither one is true because it's only a dream. Then when we wake up in the morning, we realize that we never left the bed, and that what we were seeing during the night was not true. And that's what our everyday life is really like. We are all really home with God, dreaming that we are separate from God, but it's not true. Yes, our experience is that we are here, but it's a false experience. (Gary's teachers give a great metaphorical story of how we appeared to arrive here in the dream in the first place, but it's too lengthy to get into here. You can find it in chapter 4 of The Disappearance of the Universe.)

Part of the introduction to A Course in Miracles it says, "The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence, which is your natural inheritance." So, we all have these blocks (aka unconscious guilt) otherwise we wouldn't appear to be here, and experiencing separation from God. But these blocks to the awareness of Love's presence, or God, are unconscious, so we are not consciously aware of them. However, these blocks show up to us symbolically in the form of anything that triggers fear or some sort of negative emotion within us. Doesn’t matter what it is, all negative emotions are rooted in fear which is the effect of the unconscious guilt buried in the mind over the seeming separation from God: anger, hatred, annoyance, depression, jealousy, feelings of inferiority or superiority, arrogance, guilt, anxiety, feeling scared, needing to be right, lack of self-confidence, or even just feeling bored or unfulfilled, and what have you are all symbols of these blocks to the awareness of Love’s presence. And the acting out of these blocks is what’s responsible for the all craziness that takes place here on “psycho planet!”

So, as a student of the Course, your job is to become more observant of, and identify these negative emotions instead of continuing to gloss them over and be in denial of them which is what most of the people of the world do; I know, I used to be one of them. As the Course teaches, "No one can escape from illusions unless he looks at them, for not looking is the way they are protected." And I should also note that it doesn’t matter if the negative emotion is the result of being right about something on the level of form and being accurate about the details of your grievances; being right does not bring anybody any lasting peace, only instant gratification at best, while keeping the conflict in the mind unresolved. As the Course says, “Do you prefer you be right or happy?”

The Course also teaches that there are no victims in this world! So once you really understand that the world is coming from you and not at you and that you made up what you are perceiving - albeit on an unconscious level - and that God has nothing to do with this world whatsoever, then you realize that anger is never justified. Doesn’t matter what it is, whether it’s someone cutting you off in traffic or you feel that the government is screwing you in some way, or even if we are talking about the murder of a loved one - you made them up! Now I’m certainly not suggesting that this is always easy to accept, and that appropriate action isn’t sometimes necessary, but it is definitely the truth!

So, when you experience a negative emotion, the first step is to remember that you are dreaming, and that you are really home safe with God. What you are seeing is not true! So for example, say someone is saying something unkind to you and it triggers a negative feeling within you, instead of reacting, your job is to remember that the person being unkind to you is just representing a symbolic aspect of your own unconscious mind that needs healing. At that point, your next step is to change your mind about it. Instead of seeing the other person as an insensitive jerk, we see them as they really are: innocent. They're innocent because they haven't really done anything; it's just a dream. As the Course teaches, "Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin. And in that view are all your sins forgiven." So that's the attitude you want to have when presented with a forgiveness opportunity. If you see the other as innocent, then that's how it will register in your unconscious mind about yourself. As the Course teaches, "As you see him, you will see yourself."

Once you take responsibility for your dream instead of being a victim of it, then you have to trust J or the Holy Spirit (whatever you think of it as) to do His job of removing more unconscious guilt (blocks) from the mind as you continue to practice this form of forgiveness. I say you have to trust because the inner peace that is a result of practicing this form of forgiveness doesn't always show up right away. From my experience, sometimes it shows up right away, but sometimes it doesn’t, particular with "slow burn" forgiveness lessons (people or situations that you have to forgive over and over again.) Sometimes this inner peace will just show up from out of nowhere it seems, where I feel totally peaceful for no apparent reason. Another sign that one is making progress with this forgiveness process is that you'll find yourself being able to shrug or laugh at things that in the past would have pissed you off or upset you in some way.

As a fringe benefit of practicing this form of forgiveness, we may sometimes receive inspired guidance as to what to say or do about a particular situation. For me personally, most of the time there is nothing to say or do on the level of the world in association with my forgiveness opportunities, but there have been other times when I felt guided to speak up about something or even make a major life change. The great thing about the Course is that it isn’t about how you behave or what you do in the world (that’s for religions;) it’s about how you look at the world and the people in the world. So you still live a relatively normal, earthly life. Although as Gary points out, some people get into all this and forget how to carry on a normal conversation. Gary says, “Don’t be weird!”

The ironic thing about this spiritual path is that even though it is geared toward returning our awareness to Oneness and the end of separation, on the level of the world, however, we may be guided to separate from certain people or circumstances because the particular forgiveness lessons associated with them have been learned, and then it's time to move on to our next opportunities and adventures. So, sometimes the guidance we receive can show up in the form of life changing events such as feeling inspired to leave your job, move to another town, separate from your spouse, etc. Forgiveness doesn’t mean you have to hang out with those you are forgiving.

Another thing I should add too is that we can still enjoy the things of this world that we enjoy even though it's just a dream. It's just a matter of not making a false idol out of these things; not looking for our peace and happiness outside ourselves from material things and other people. Otherwise, we are psychological attached to it, and losing it will eventually play itself out. So, this forgiveness work is geared toward being able to be happy and at peace regardless of what happens in the world and in our own personal life's circumstances. A simple path yes, but certainly not an easy one. Most of the time J says in the Course that it takes a little willingness, but in the Manual for Teachers section of the Course he says that it takes abundant willingness. So, it's got to be something that you really want, which is why it’s not for everyone, or at least not for everyone all at once. It's not something we can do haphazardly and expect to achieve the goal of the Course.

So, at this point I would refer people to The Disappearance of the Universe and Your Immortal Reality by Gary Renard, and from there they can decide if they want to do the Workbook of the Course to further reinforce the way we need to look at this world in order to attain the lofty goal the Course has to offer. The short term goal is inner peace, but the ultimate goal of the Course is to have the permanent experience of what we really are and where really are; the equivalent of being free and going Home, which has been described as a perfect, indescribable ecstasy that never ceases. Until then, one will remain stuck in the cycle of birth and death. Giddy up!

Healing the Sick: It's not about the Patient

2011-08-09T07:10:00.000-07:00

Excerpt from The Disappearance of the Universe, Healing the Sick chapter

- Sickness is of the mind and has nothing to do with the body.

- Sickness has nothing to do with God.

- Only true forgiveness can remove unconscious guilt from the mind.

Pursah: ...Your life is self-determined. Sickness isn't personal. You may find that hard to believe, but sickness is not made by you at this level. That's just another reason why no one should feel bad about it if they get sick. You don't choose cancer on this level any more than a baby chose to be deformed on this level. Illness was made by your mind at a larger level, and is being acted out here in a predetermined way. You can get in touch with your power to choose and thus have an enormous influence on whether or not you feel pain, and sometimes lessen or eliminate your physical symptoms.

I say sometimes because unless you're a master then you won't always be successful, and if you are successful it doesn't necessarily make you a master. Besides, it's the changing of your mind and its result on the way you feel that's the most important thing.

Arten: Remember, we're talking about levels here. We're not saying you're not responsible for your experience or that you didn't choose the script on another level. We're saying you've got to get in touch with your power to choose from where you presently think you are. That's also true when you're healing "others." You never join with their bodies, and you never ask the Holy Spirit to heal the body. The body, sick or well, is just a dream. As the Course teaches you in regards to all aspects of joining with the dreamer of that dream:

...Choose once again what you would have him be, remembering that every choice you make establishes your own identity as you will see it and believe it is.

Now I'm going to give you the number one rule of all time when it comes to spiritual healing:

It's not about the patient.

All healing is a result of some kind of forgiveness, and all forgiveness leads to self-healing.

Gary: ****So even when it comes to healing the sick it's really about forgiving my own dream, and forgiving myself for dreaming it.*****

Arten: Yes. As the Psychotherapy pamphlet puts it while talking about how the Course looks at healing in psychotherapy:

...The process that takes place in this relationship is actually one in which the therapist in his heart tells the patient that all his sins have been forgiven him, along with his own. What could be the difference between healing and forgiveness?

Gary: Okay. So when J told that paralyzed man in the Book of Mark, "Your sins are forgiven you," and the guy got up and walked, J was demonstrating that healing and forgiveness are the same. Of course people freaked out and took it to be J doing something that only God was supposed to be able to do, namely forgiving someone his sins. They missed the point.

Arten: Very good.

Gary: So I should see another person's illness as my own call for help?

Arten: Yes. You have a chance to be healed in your mind by forgiving that person.

Gary: It seems a little selfish to use another person's difficulties as my way to get home.

Arten: It may seem selfish, but it's actually selfless.

Gary: How do you mean that?

Arten: Ultimately, forgiveness is saying that neither you nor the person who appears to be sick really exists separately from God. Thus are you both free. Furthermore, it's the only way for you to be free! It's all right to want freedom, and the way out is to see both of you as guiltless.

Gary: You could say that a great spiritual healer, like Joel Goldsmith for example, must have gotten in touch with the idea that people think they're guilty or unworthy in some way, and that the way to healing is through forgiveness.

Arten: Yes. All spiritual healers may not articulate it the same way, but the holiness that comes from unconditional love and forgiveness is essential. In some cases it triggers something in the unconscious mind of the patient - a recognition that they're really innocent and forgiven by God. Of course the mind of the healer is being healed simultaneously because there is really only one mind. There is no patient. Not really. The dream is not being dreamed by someone else, remember?

Gary: Oh, yeah.

Arten: By the way, J really did heal that man as described in Mark. After he said, "Your sins are forgiven," he also said, "that you may know the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins." He didn't just mean that he had that authority, he meant that you also have that authority. Do you not appear to be a Son of man on this level? Yet you are really Christ.

Of course there really isn't any such thing as sin, and J did not pardon sins to make them real. His attitude was that everyone in the dream is equally innocent because it's just a dream.

Sooner or later, it always comes down to some kind of forgiveness and how willing you are to do it. How willing are you to accept that it's all your dream? How willing are you to release your dream and choose God? You know J plays a little trick on you in the Course. Most of the time he says it takes a little willingness. But that's not for advanced students. In the Manual for Teachers, he says it takes abundant willingness.

Gary: The old bait and switch, huh?

Arten: Whatever it takes to get a lazy guy like you moving. Just kidding.

- You are Christ. Pure and Innocent. We are forgiven now.

What is True Forgiveness? (Article Version)

What is True Forgiveness? (You Tube version)

Mikey's website: www.giddyupmikey.com

Gary's website: www.garyrenard.com

Gary Renard podcast with Gene Bogart: www.forgiveness.tv

God does not forgive because He has never condemned.

2011-07-26T22:10:00.000-07:00

God does not forgive because He has never condemned. And there must be condemnation before forgiveness is necessary. Forgiveness is the great need of this world, but that is because it is a world of illusions. Those who forgive are thus releasing themselves from illusions, while those who withhold forgiveness are binding themselves to them. As you condemn only yourself, so do you forgive only yourself.

Yet although God does not forgive, His Love is nevertheless the basis of forgiveness. Fear condemns and love forgives. Forgiveness thus undoes what fear has produced, returning the mind to the awareness of God. For this reason, forgiveness can truly be called salvation. It is the means by which illusions disappear.

~ A Course in Miracles

What is True Forgiveness?

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What is True Forgiveness?

2011-06-28T10:58:00.000-07:00

So, I was recently asked to contribute an article to the local newspaper here in Southern Oregon - The Ashland Daily Tidings - for a weekly column on the topic of Inner Peace. I actually contributed an article about 2.5 years ago to this same column. Anyway, here's what I wrote, and also here's the link in case you'd like to read it from the paper's website instead: What is True Forgiveness by Mike Lemieux: Link to Article

What is True Forgiveness? by Mike Lemieux

A Course in Miracles, a spiritual teaching that stresses the importance of forgiveness, defines forgiveness in this way: Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin. And in that view are all your sins forgiven.

So, true forgiveness is about taking full responsibility for your experiences. The people that push our buttons or disturb our peace of mind in any way, whether it be a slight annoyance or downright hatred and anger, are really just symbolic aspects of what needs to be forgiven and healed within. Most will not likely recognize this because what needs forgiveness within is usually unconscious, so it has been denied and projected outward. But the only way to be free of it is to forgive your own dark side as seen in others instead of continuing to project it. You do this by changing your mind about your projected images, recognizing that anyone that triggers upset within you is just a figure in a dream, an illusion, then seeing them as innocent because it’s only a dream. Thus, it will register in your unconscious mind as you being innocent. As the Course teaches, “As you see him, you will see yourself.”

This forgiveness process translates to the fact that no one can take your inner peace away from you except by your own decision. Simple? Yes. Easy? No way José, because the ego part of us loves to be right, and would much rather have us be right than be at peace. However, the ego part of us can be undone through this forgiveness process, thus making true forgiveness eventually easier to apply as we go along. In the meantime, this is a practice that takes time, discipline, and willingness to develop.

Now, some folks may think this true forgiveness stuff is a form of denial. Well, it is, but not in the conventional sense. As it was put in the best selling book The Disappearance of the Universe by Gary Renard, “The thought system of love and the thought system of fear are both forms of denial. One of them, the Holy Spirit's teaching, leads to Heaven by uncovering and reversing the ego's denial of the truth.” And as the Course puts it about the inner peace that is a result of this forgiveness process, “It denies the ability of anything not of God to affect you. This is the proper use of denial.”

So, what is the motivation for doing this forgiveness work? Well, from my experience, one has to come to a place in his or her life where they realize that nothing outside themselves is going to satisfy them in a permanent way. No matter what we accomplish here, no matter how many special relationships we maintain, no matter how much money, sex, or any other stimulants that provide instant gratification that we acquire, it will always feel like that something is missing. That’s because in this world of illusions, something is missing. What’s missing is our experience of what we really are, the experience of our true Identity as immortal spirit; some may call it Oneness, God, or Heaven, which is described in Disappearance as being “a perfect indescribable ecstasy that never ceases.” But all un-forgiveness must be removed from the mind in order to experience this “ecstasy” in a permanent way.

As it was put in the Disappearance book, “When you are ready to accept that the only thing that really matters in your illusory lifetime is the successful completion of your lessons of true forgiveness, then you will be truly wise indeed.” For me, personally, I have nothing else better to do so my number one goal is to forgive the hell out of everyone (for what they haven’t really done) while remembering to laugh in the process. Giddy up!

Mike Lemieux is the author of Dude, Where’s My Jesus Fish?, a book based on the books of best selling author Gary Renard, who also wrote the Foreword for Mike’s book. For more information, you can visit Mike’s website: www.giddyupmikey.com

If you so desire, please feel free to join my Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish? fan page - where I post daily quotes from Gary Renard's two books - The Disappearance of the Universe and Your Immortal Reality, as well as from A Course in Miracles. www.facebook.com/DWMJF

Sunset, Northern California coast, Marin County

Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish? on Kindle

2011-06-13T22:12:00.001-07:00

Exciting news! Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish? is now available on Kindle. To order Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish? for you Kindle, click on the Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish? icon below. Giddy up!

Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish? Now on Amazon!

2011-05-20T23:08:00.000-07:00

Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish? is now available on Amazon.com. Here's the link: Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish? on Amazon Unfortunately, the "Click to Look Inside" feature won't be available for another four to six weeks. The book will be available on Kindle in the near future!

Of course, an autographed copy of Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish? is still available directly from me via my website: www.giddyupmikey.com

If, after reading, you feel inspired to write a testimonial, send it to me and I'll post it on my website. You can e-mail me at: mikey@giddyupmikey.com

Or you can write a review of it on Amazon, even if you think that my book totally sucks and that I did a wretched job of putting it together - no such thing as bad publicity! ; )

Also, if you're on Facebook, please feel free to join my Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish? fan page where I post a Quote of the Day from The Disappearance of the Universe, Your Immortal Reality, and A Course in Miracles. Here's the link: www.facebook.com/DWMJF

Thanks a bunch! Giddy up!

God Does Not Hate

2011-04-11T15:16:00.000-07:00

There is this heavy metal band that's been around since the 1980s called Slayer. They have an album titled God Hates Us All, which, ' coincidentally'' happened to be released on September 11, 2001. I find the title rather amusing. God Hates Us All also shows up as the chorus for their song off the same album called Disciple. Here's what the band had to say about it: God Hates Us All isn't an anti-Christian line as much as it's an idea I think a lot of people can relate to on a daily basis. One day you're living your life, and then you're hit by a car or your dog dies, so you feel like, "God really hates me today." Another one of the members of the band went on to say, "God doesn't hate... [but] it's a great f--king title."

So, another reason not to take music lyrics too seriously. You can always put your own interpretation into the lyrics if you choose, instead of being pessimistic about what the artist is writing about. For me personally, there are many songs out there with the most beautiful lyrics that don't do anything for me, while there are other songs with the most obnoxious lyrics that I really dig; it's all about the way the music sounds for me regardless of the lyrical content.

Oh, and the other good news. God did not create the world/universe, and has nothing to do with what goes down in it. Yes, God is sane. Thank God! God Loves us all!

From The Disappearance of the Universe

God did not create duality and He did not create the world. If He did, He would be the author of ‘a tale told by an idiot.’ But God is not an idiot. He can only be one of two things. He is either perfect Love, as the Bible says when it momentarily stumbles upon the truth, or He's an idiot. You can't have it both ways.

God could not have created this world. It would not be in His nature. He is not cruel, and as J points out to you, ‘If this were the real world, God would be cruel. For no Father could subject His children to this as the price of salvation and be loving.

In order to really accept God's helper, the Holy Spirit, you must begin to trust God. You cannot trust Him until you recognize that it is not Him, but you, who is responsible for your experiences.

From A Course in Miracles

The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever. Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. But the time will come when all things visible will have an end.

The world as you perceive it cannot have been created by the Father; for the world is not as you see it. God created only the eternal, and everything you see is perishable. Therefore, there must be another world that you do not see. The Bible speaks of a new Heaven and a new earth, yet this cannot be literally true, for the eternal are not re-created.

Mikey's Note: And always remember God is not a He. He is just Biblical metaphor for It. So don't take He too seriously or you'll just end up thinking God is some old white guy with a long gray beard looking down on the world while judging the hell out of us!

Rock on, forgive, and giddy up!

2011-03-24T10:53:00.001-07:00

Wicked Awesome!!! Gary Reanrd added Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish? to his Recommend Reading section on his website! Giddy up!
www.garyrenard.com/GaryRecommends

Gary Recommends

Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish?: A Compilation Highlighting the Blunt and Uncompromising Teachings of Arten and Pursah on A Course in Miracles by Mike Lemieux. What Mikey's done in this book is create a valuable tool for directly accessing Course concepts (as taught by Arten and Pursah) in a topic-based fashion.

As Mikey would say, "Giddy-up!"

To order Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish? visit my website: www.giddyupmikey.com

True Empathy

2011-03-20T23:25:00.000-07:00

True Empathy as described in A Course in Miracles, The Forgiveness of Illusions

To empathize does not mean to join in suffering, for that is what you must refuse to understand. That is the ego’s interpretation of empathy, and is always used to form a special relationship in which the suffering is shared. The capacity to empathize is very useful to the Holy Spirit, provided you let Him use it in His way. His way is very different. He does not understand suffering, and would have you teach it is not understandable. When He relates through you, He does not relate through your ego to another ego. He does not join in pain, understanding that healing pain is not accomplished by delusional attempts to enter into it, and lighten it by sharing the delusion.

The clearest proof that empathy as the ego uses it is destructive lies in the fact that it is applied only to certain types of problems and in certain people. These it selects out, and joins with. And it never joins except to strengthen itself. Having identified with what it thinks it understands, the ego sees itself and would increase itself by sharing what is like itself. Make no mistake about this maneuver; the ego always empathizes to weaken, and to weaken is always to attack. You don not know what empathizing means. Yet of this you may be sure; if you will merely sit quietly by and let the Holy Spirit relate through you, you will empathize with strength, and will gain in strength and not in weakness.

Mikey's Note: So, true empathy is about seeing others for what they really are, regardless of what's going on - immortal spirit. And that's how you'll see yourself. As the Course teaches, 'As you see him, you will see yourself. ' It's not about joining in suffering and making it psychologically real. If you see someone as a suffering body and helpless victim, then that's how it will register in your unconscious mind about yourself. And as Arten and Pursah put it in The Disappearance of the Universe, 'An important component of your forgiveness is that you want to teach people, silently, that they are not bodies. That's how your mind learns for certain that you are not a body. As the Course puts it, ‘I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.’ And, ‘As you teach so shall you learn.’

But don't forget the Course isn't about behavior, it's about being a right thinker. Seeing others as they really are doesn't mean you have to hang around with them. The Course is not about giving up the use of discernment and common sense in your everyday life. Like Pursah puts it in Your Immortal Reality, 'Remember, the Course is done at the level of the mind. If you’re a woman and a man is trying to rape you, kick him in the balls.' So, you can forgive and see them as immortal spirit after the fact. In fact, you'll eventually have to in order to be free. As the Course teaches, 'To forgive is to heal,' and, 'To heal is to make happy.' And one more, 'Forgiveness, truly given, is the way in which your only hope of freedom lies.'

If you so desire, you can join the fan page for my book, Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish?: A Compilation Highlighting the Blunt and Uncompromising Teachings of Arten and Pursah on A Course in Miracles. I post daily quotes on there from The Disappearance of the Universe, Your Immortal Reality, and A Course in Miracles. Here's the link: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dude-Wheres-My-Jesus-Fish/168442433183009?sk=info

Giddy up!

Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish?

2011-01-16T17:08:00.000-08:00

Here are excerpts from the Introduction piece of my soon to be released book, called, Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish? You can place a pre-order for one at my website: www.giddyupmikey.com

You can also check out the chapter titles and testimonials on my website or by scrolling down to my post on this blog from October 25th.

Excerpts from The Introduction to Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish?

Gary’s first two books are written in a dialogue format. Gary is the student, while his teachers, who are two ascended masters that go by the names of Arten and Pursah, were two of Jesus’ disciples two thousand years ago, Thaddaeus and Thomas, respectively. They refer to Jesus as J, as they did not know him as Jesus, but rather as Y’shua, and they say that a proper translation into Greek then into English would have been Jeshua, so they simply refer to him as J in order to cover both Jesus and Jeshua.1

Arten and Pursah promise in the first chapter of the spiritual masterpiece, The Disappearance of the Universe, that they will supply all the answers to life’s biggest questions: ‘You will find out what you really are; how you got here; exactly why you and all other people behave and feel the way that you do; why the universe keeps repeating the same patterns over and over again; why people get sick; the reason behind all failure, accidents, addictions, poverty, and natural disasters; the real cause of all of the violence, crime, war, and terrorism in the world; the only meaningful solution to all of these things; and how to apply it.’2

For those of you who are new to all this, well, to be perfectly blunt, I’m not here to blow sunshine up your ass as I’m not exactly a ‘people pleaser’ or a ‘yes man.’ There are plenty of candy-coated spiritual teachings out there for you to choose from if that’s what you want. I have no investment in people feeling warm and fuzzy about me, and have no political agenda, so, like Gary and his teachers, I’m free to just tell it straight up for those who are ready to hear it. As Pursah tells Gary in Disappearance, ‘People need to be educated, but if you really tell them the truth, then you’re bound to give up some popularity. But it’s better to tell them the truth and have some people walk out on you than to tell them only what they want to hear and have them stay.’3 So, that’s what I’m all about and where I’m coming from.

Anyway, it’s not my intention to be such a hard ass, but I wouldn’t be doing anybody any favors by compromising on Arten and Pursah’s, as well as J’s teachings, and I see the Course the same exact way as they and Gary all do. And Jesus wouldn’t be Jesus if He had compromised on these teachings. I have no interest, or desire, in making up my own thing,4 or incorporating dualistic teachings into the Course and telling people that those teachings are saying the same thing as the Course. I’m a straight shooter so you’re not going to get any bullshit from me, only a sincere desire to be truly helpful.

So, if you’re one who is seeking an intellectual truth, that, when applied, will eventually lead you to an experiential truth, then you’ve come to the right place. The message in Gary’s books is designed to help you save time, so I’m just passing along the message while reinforcing it for myself.

For all the newbies, now may be a good time for you to burn this book or run it through a shredder, or better yet, donate it to your local library or resell it on Amazon, because you don’t know what the hell you’re going to be getting yourself into here. This isn’t ‘fast food spirituality’5 as this particular spiritual path separates the men from the boys – metaphorically speaking, of course. For those of you who have already set foot on this spiritual path, well, there’s no turning back now!

Now, without further ado, here is a revised version of an article I wrote for my local newspaper, the Ashland Daily Tidings. It was printed in the March 7, 2009 edition. It explains what The Disappearance of the Universe is all about:

Of all the books I’ve read during my many years of feasting in the ‘spiritual buffet line,’6 nothing has explained the truth about God and our existence, and why we are seemingly here, any clearer to me than Gary Renard’s The Disappearance of the Universe.

Disappearance addresses heavy subject matter, while cutting to the chase in no uncertain terms, and doing so in a very entertaining and humorous fashion. I highly recommend it, though it is not intended for the squeamish7 nor the faint of heart, as the material is not sugarcoated.

Forgiveness is the theme of the spiritual path presented in Disappearance. Gary’s teachers tell us, ‘Forgiveness is where the rubber meets the road. Without forgiveness, metaphysics are useless.’8 Of course, they are talking about forgiveness in the quantum sense, rather than what traditionally passes as forgiveness in this world. As Gary’s teachers say, ‘The kind of forgiveness J used, and that his Course is teaching, is not the same kind of forgiveness that Christianity and the world sometimes participate in. If it were, then it would be a waste of time.’9

Disappearance is the unofficial ‘cliff notes’ to A Course in Miracles – or as Gary would call it, ‘street language’10 for the Course. A Course in Miracles is a spiritual, purely non-dualistic, self-study course, which is often referred to in Disappearance. The Course is over thirteen hundred pages long, and consists of the Text, Workbook for Students, Manual for Teachers, and the most recent edition includes two pamphlets called Psychotherapy: Purpose, Process and Practice and The Song of Prayer.

Written in Shakespearean blank verse and loaded with subtly humorous rhetorical questions, while being holographic in nature,11 the Course is Jesus’ teachings the way, I believe, they were intended to be – consistent and uncompromising, all about love and forgiveness, and absolutely nothing to do with sin, fear, guilt, sacrifice, and showing up to church on Sunday. As Gary’s teachers put it, ‘The Course is Jesus speaking as an artist correcting the Bible.’12 And as J states in his Course, ‘Those who seek controversy will find it. Yet those who seek clarification will find it as well.’13

The Course is all about the healing of the subconscious mind, which entails looking at your illusions, examining them, and eventually releasing them through the process of true forgiveness. As it states in the Course, ‘No one can escape from illusions unless he looks at them, for not looking is the way they are protected.’14

The Course gives you the practical tools necessary in order to attain the objective of lasting inner peace and happiness, and ultimately enlightenment, regardless of what is going on in the world and with your own personal life’s circumstances. Through the application of true, or quantum forgiveness, you’re taking full responsibility for your life’s experiences, including the experiences that are not seemingly your fault, because on the level of the unconscious mind, you made it all up.

With quantum forgiveness, you’re not forgiving people because they really did something – you’re forgiving them because they haven’t really done anything. Whatever pushes your buttons and pisses you off on any given day is symbolic of what’s in your own unconscious mind. Once you really get that the world is not being done to you, but rather by you, then what you are really doing by practicing true forgiveness is forgiving the symbolic contents of your own mind. So nobody is ever really a victim in this world. As the Course puts it, ‘I am not the victim of the world I see.’15 Indeed, you are the maker of it – not always easy to accept, but it is definitely the truth. As Gary’s teachers ask, ‘Are you going to get that you’re not a victim and take responsibility for dreaming, or are you going to make it real and stay stuck here?’16 And as J states in the Course, ‘Beware of the temptation to perceive yourself unfairly treated.’17

This isn’t the most glamorous of spiritual paths, because it’s not about manifesting stuff; it’s about undoing the muck buried in the subconscious mind. So it’s not always pretty, dressed up with lipstick and powder, however, it does have teeth. As Gary’s teachers say, ‘The most striking evidence of this approach’s validity will be that it works.’18 And as the Course states, ‘No one who learns from experience that one choice brings peace and joy while another brings chaos and disaster needs additional convincing.’19 From my experience, I can assure you that true forgiveness does in fact work. It does, however, take practice to develop faith and trust in it, but once you start experiencing the benefits of doing this work, it encourages and inspires you to keep going, and eventually it does become easier.

Though the Course is presented in Christian terminology, it is very Eastern-like in its theology and practice, as it gets in touch with the power of the mind. I don’t recommend taking it on without having read Disappearance first, as it will save you much time while helping you to really grasp the heart of the Course.

All spiritual paths lead to God in the end,20 however, the Course does imply that this is a faster way. The Course is simple, however, it’s not easy, as we all have this thing called the ego, and it would much rather you be right, than be happy and at peace. And as J asks us in the Course, ‘Do you prefer that you be right or happy?’21

This path isn’t about fixing up your life, it’s about waking up from what you think is your life,22 and as Gary’s teachers would add to that, ‘…that’s not just a minor distinction.’23 Although it’s not about fixing up your life, it can, however, be a fringe benefit24 – and Mikey’s down with fringe benefits! Anyway, sticking to this path requires faith, trust, discipline, patience, vigilance, perseverance, as well as the willingness to question every motive that you have and every value that you hold,25 the ability to be objective with yourself, and the determination to face all of your fears. Oh, and did I mention faith and trust? Anyway, as Gary’s teachers put it, ‘Comfort is the goal, not necessarily the means.’26 With all that said, however, it’s not about giving anything up, as J puts it in the Course, ‘This course does not attempt to take from you the little that you have.’27 So, it’s really about letting go of your psychological attachment to it all, as well as forgetting not to laugh.

What Jesus was Really Like

2011-01-07T21:42:00.000-08:00

An Excerpt from chapter 2 of Gary Renard’s The Disappearance of the Universe - Pursah speaks as her lifetime as Jesus' disciple Thomas; Arten as Thaddaeus

Pursah: J never cursed a tree and killed it, never got angry and knocked over the tables in the temple, but he did heal a few people who were already dead. Also, his body died on the cross, but he did not suffer as you would imagine. As for his way of being, mere words cannot do him justice. To be in his presence was an experience so unique it gave you a feeling of wonder. His peace and unalterable love were so total that sometimes people couldn't stand it and they had to look away. His attitude was so calm and sure it made you want to know how he did it. Those of us who spent a lot of time with him and, as in my case, got to speak in private with him, were inspired by his complete faith in God.

One of the ironic things - and this is something people don't understand - was that he considered himself to be totally dependent on God, yet this dependence was not weakness, as the world usually views dependence. Rather, the result was a state of unbelievable psychological strength. Things that would scare the stuffing out of strong people meant nothing to him, because they were nothing to him. Fear was not a part of him. His attitude was the same as if you were having a dream last night asleep in your bed, except you were totally aware of the fact that you were dreaming. And because you knew you were dreaming, you also knew that absolutely nothing in the dream could possibly hurt you, because none of it was true; you realized you were merely observing symbolic images, including people, who weren't really there.

J used to tell me when we were alone that the world was just an insignificant dream, but most people weren't ready to accept such an idea because their contrary experience was so strong. He then stressed that knowing the world is an illusion is not enough. The Gnostics and some early Christians called the world a dream; the Hindus call it maya and the Buddhists call it anicca, all meaning pretty much the same thing. But if you don't know the purpose of the dream and how to reinterpret the images you are seeing, then the general teaching that the world is an illusion is of very limited value. However, he also said the time would come when the Holy Spirit would teach people all things and that everyone would know only God is real. Sometimes at the end of a conversation with me he would just say, "God is," and walk away.

One of the other things about him that's rarely mentioned is that he had an excellent sense of humor. He was quite irreverent. He liked to laugh and bring out the joy in others.

Gary: And he was totally awake?

Arten: Yes, but let's be very clear about what we mean by that. We're not saying he was more awake in the dream, we're saying he had awakened from the dream. That's not just a minor distinction. Indeed, being more seemingly awake in the dream is what passes for enlightenment among very many, but that's not what we're teaching. You can teach a dog to be more alert and impressive and to live its so-called life to the fullest, and almost any human can be taught to raise his consciousness. You can always be taught to approach the dream with a clever thought pattern in an attempt to bring about something more, different or better. But our brother J was completely outside of the dream. He wasn't advocating a way of making your delusion better, or telling you how to strive for self-expression so you won't die with an unmet potential. Such exercises may temporarily make you feel better, but you're still building your house upon the sand.

J wouldn't be opposed to making your life better, but he would be more concerned with your Source of guidance that he would be about the guidance itself, because he knew the tremendous long-term benefits that being a true follower of the Holy Spirit could have for your mind. The real goal isn't dressing up you life; it's about awakening from what you think is your life! Then you're building your house upon the rock. J's message isn't about fixing up the world. When your body appears to die, what are you going to do with what you believe is the world? As far as the world is concerned, you can dress it up, but you can't take it anywhere.

Flaws in Christianity - A Christmas Message from The Disappearance of the Universe

2010-12-14T15:16:00.000-08:00

Excerpt from chapter 2 of Gary Renard’s The Disappearance of the Universe - Pursah speaks as her lifetime as Jesus' disciple Thomas; Arten as Thaddaeus

Pursah: Like most people today, instead of really listening back then to what J was teaching, most of us saw and heard what we wanted to see and hear so we could use him to validate our own experience – which was the experience of being an individual in a body. Thus, we had to make him a separate and very special individual body, which is how we really saw ourselves, how you still see yourself.

Although some of us tended to be a little more intellectual, the beliefs of most of the earliest followers were simple enough. We had already seen J after the crucifixion, and since we didn’t comprehend his entire message, the inaccurate and majority opinion among the sects was that he was going to return to us again, as he had already done before, and bring in God’s Kingdom. It was expected this would happen very soon, not in the distant future and not anywhere but right on the ground. I didn’t agree with that particular scenario because, as J taught in my Gospel, the Kingdom of God is something that is present but unseen by people. In any case, there was some diversity even at the beginning, but most of the followers bought into the idea of a return. As the years wore on and the going got tough, however, the leaders of a now-developing new religion had to improvise if they were going to hold anyone’s interest.

Before you knew it, you had people relating to J as the body of all bodies. They already believed God had created a flawed world with imperfect people like Adam and Eve who were capable of making mistakes. They completely overlooked the logic that for God to create the imperfect must either mean that God Himself is imperfect or God deliberately made those who were so they could screw up, be punished by Him and suffer here on psycho planet. Then, according to Christianity, God takes – incredibly – His big-time special only begotten Son, who would apparently be more Holy than the rest of the scum of the earth, and sends him as a blood sacrifice to suffer and die on a cross as a way of vicariously atoning for people’s sins.

Except now there’s another big problem, because even according to Christianity’s own doctrines, this does not really atone for anybody else’s sins. If it atoned for people’s sins, then that would be the end of it. Problem solved. But no! It now becomes necessary for everyone to blindly believe in all of the details conveniently set forth exclusively by the Christian religion, or else they will still burn in hell, even if they happened to be born – presumably by God’s will – in a place, time, or culture that isn’t even familiar with this particular religion!

Gary: It does all sound a little bizarre when you put it that way. The whole thought system isn’t exactly complimentary to the nature of God.

Arten: That’s because it’s all symbolic of a fearful image of God rather than a loving one. We don’t mean to be disrespectful, but we have to make certain controversial statements because there’s not exactly an oversupply of people in your society who are willing to point these things out. It is true that at the time J was the most advanced spiritual person to ever appear on the earth. But everyone else, including you, will eventually attain the same level of accomplishment as him. There is no exception to this. Thus, J is not ultimately different from anyone else, and his attitude was that no one will be left out of Heaven, because there is really one of us – not all these separate bodies as you are presently dreaming.

Gary: Are you saying even murderers will end up in Heaven?

Arten: Even Saint Paul, or Saul, which was his name before he changed it so he could be a hit with the Gentiles, was a murderer before he turned in his sword. You don’t get what we’re saying. There is no Saint Paul, not really, or anyone else – including J – except in a dream. There’s nobody out there. There is only one Son of God, and you’re It. You’ll get it, but it takes years of practice to really experience it. You have to want it.

Gary: All right. You're saying that J saw people as being the same as him and God - unlimited and perfect. All other characteristics we put onto other people or onto God are really our own unconscious beliefs about ourselves?

Pursah: Yes. You have to understand that as Jews we sincerely believed that our religion had made some kind of a giant leap forward with monotheism - the idea of one God - as opposed to polytheism - the belief in many different gods. Most of us didn't know monotheism actually originated with Akhnaton in ancient Egypt, and all this idea and our continuation of it really did was take all the different personalities and characteristics, good and bad, of all these previously made up Gods and incorporate them into one God.

Gary: So now instead of all these different screwed-up gods, you had just one screwed-up God.

Arten: Well put! Of course there really is only one God and He isn't screwed up at all, and neither was the J guy, who had forgiven the world - his mind had been returned to the Holy Spirit where it belonged. That's where your mind belongs. You took it, and you have to give it back. And I've got a message for you: You'll never really be happy until you do. No matter what you imagine you have accomplished in any lifetime, thee will always be a part of you that feels like something is missing - because in your illusions something is missing.

Coming Soon! Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish?
Click here to check out the fan page on Facebook!

What about "old" souls and "new" souls?

2010-11-21T01:08:00.000-08:00

A person recently posed this question: I understand the split of the mind.....the ego......When we say some people are old souls and others new souls....are we still creating new souls? I understand that the more we tap in the ego the more we project but are we still projecting new souls?

Here was my response: In answer to your question, it's a bit misplaced because there really is only one soul (one mind) appearing as many and you're it. What matters is that we forgive all seemingly separated souls in the way Course describes forgiveness. The Course nor Gary's books do not make any distinction between "old" souls and "new" souls. No one is special and the ultimate goal of the Course results in the end of individuality and specialness.

Since, within the illusion of time and space, the past, present, and future all occur simultaneously, that would have to mean that all seemingly separated souls have all been created. However, it sounds like you're looking for an answer within a linear perspective and I wouldn't know how to answer that within a Course context because it's not really important. Only the application of true forgiveness and the resulting healing of the mind is all that matters.

Also, one more thing. Even that one soul, that one mind, doesn't really exist either. That one soul or one mind is still one step removed from God.

Undoing the Ego via True Forgiveness = The End of Reincarnation & The Disappearance of the Universe

2010-11-08T10:37:00.000-08:00

Excerpt from Your Immortal Reality p 74 & 75

Arten: Remember that what is immortal is permanent, and what is mortal is impermanent. The reason we talk about the disappearance of the universe is because when you wake up from a dream, the dream disappears. That's only possible because it was never real in the first place. Some people will think that means they're giving something up.

Gary: Just the universe.

Arten: Not the real universe. It's what you awaken to that matters. The universe of time and space was impermanent. What you awaken to is permanent. Your immortal reality is something that's constant. It never shifts or wavers. What people need to get is how much better their real life is than the one they thought was their life.

Gary: Well according to what you've said, every time I choose to see people the way the Holy Spirit would have me see them instead of the way the ego wants me to see them is a step home.

Arten: Yes. Think of the Hindu analogy of undoing the ego. It's like peeling an onion. To adapt that analogy for our purposes, let's say you forgive someone, in the Course's sense of the word. It’s like peeling a way a layer of an onion, or in this case, a layer of the ego. Maybe it will look to you like nothing’s happened. Why? When you peel away the layer of an onion, it still looks like an onion. It still looks the same. But it's not really the same, because a layer of it has been peeled away.

Now, let's say you have perseverance. Maybe you occasionally have experiences of being very peaceful that encourage you. Or maybe something happens that would have made you feel bad in the past, and this time it doesn't make you feel bad. You realize that it's because you've been practicing forgiveness, and that the Holy Spirit is healing your mind at the level of the unconscious. So you keep going and you forgive again and again. What happens is another layer of the onion is peeled away. It may still look the same. So you go in the bathroom and you look in the mirror and you think it's the same old you, but it's not.

Maybe you're watching TV and you forgive a news story that you see. Another layer of the onion is peeled away, but you think nothing's happening. In the meantime, the Holy Spirit is shinning your forgiveness everywhere throughout the mind that is projecting the universe, and thus through the projection as well. It cuts through unconscious guilt and its projections of karma like a laser beam. It goes through all of your past lives, all of your future lives, and all through the different dimensions of time, everywhere in the universe of energy and form, and through every parallel universe that appears to exist. Incredible things are happening! The Holy Spirit is actually collapsing time as you sit there.

Because of your practice of forgiveness, there are lessons that you no longer need to learn, and the Holy Spirit is actually erasing the tapes, taking dimensions of time that held lessons you would have needed to learn if you didn't practice forgiveness, and making those dimensions disappear. And because you can't see everything that the Holy Spirit can see, you're sitting there thinking, This is boring. Nothing's happening. But something amazing is happening. More layers of the onion have been peeled away, and your ego is vanishing.

If you persevere and continue to practice forgiveness, then at some point you get down to the final layer of the onion. When you peel away that layer of the onion, then there's nothing left. The onion is gone. And that’s the way it is with the ego. After your final forgiveness lesson, the ego is gone; it's been undone, and there's nothing left to interfere with your experience of what you are. There's no reason for you to reincarnate. Practicing forgiveness is how to break the cycle of birth and death.

Gary: Which ties in with the part of the Introduction of the Course, where it talks about "removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence."

Pursah: You got it. That's exactly what happens when you choose the Holy Spirit instead of the go. Every act of forgiveness undoes the ego, and the Holy Spirit removes the blocks to the awareness of God, or spirit's presence. The blocks are those walls of guilt in the mind that keep you from your awareness of what you really are.

A quote from the Course in Chapter 20 I'd like to share here:

What if you recognized this world is an hallucination? What if you really understood you made it up? Hallucinations disappear when they are recognized for what they are. This is the healing and the remedy. Believe them not and they are gone. And all you need to do is recognize that you did this. Once you accept this simple fact and take unto yourself the power you gave them, you are released from them. One thing is sure; hallucinations serve a purpose, and when that purpose is no longer held they disappear. Therefore, the question never is whether you want them, but always, do you want the purpose that they serve?'

Mikey's book will becoming out soon. Feel free to "LIKE" my fan page.

Here's what Gary Renard has to say about my book on his Facebook status from October 28th: Gary recommends Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish?

Coming Soon! Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish?

2010-10-25T22:31:00.000-07:00

Hey folks, just wanted to announce the title and Table of Contents of my soon to be released book.
My book is titled Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish?- A Compilation Highlighting the Blunt and Uncompromising Teachings of Arten and Pursah on A Course in Miracles
I'll make an announcement when the book becomes available for purchase. Giddy up!

Table of Contents
Foreword by Gary Renard
Introduction
Author’s Notes
Acknowledgments

PART I: Life of Mikey
Chapter 1 Masshole Mike
Chapter 2 Go West Young Man
Chapter 3 Dude, Where’s My Jesus Fish?
Chapter 4 Meeting Gary Renard

PART II: A Course in Miracles and the Spiritual Community
Chapter 5 Arten and Pursah’s Keys to Understanding A Course in Miracles
Chapter 6 Arten and Pursah’s Take on Other Teachings
Chapter 7 A Course in Miracles – Teaching, Borrowing, and Compromising
Chapter 8 Those Who Seek Controversy…

Part III: The Quotes
Chapter 9 Jesus, Jeshua, Y’shua, or J, or How ‘bout J-Dog?
Chapter 10 Forgiveness as a Way of Life
Chapter 11 Forgiving What Gets in Your Face
Chapter 12 Unconscious Guilt: The Root of All Evil
Chapter 13 Definitive Statements
Chapter 14 The Crucifixion, Resurrection, the Second Coming
of Christ, and Oneness
Chapter 15 The Unreality of the Body
Chapter 16 The Illusory Nature of the Universe
Chapter 17 Spiritual Healing
Chapter 18 It’s About Time
Chapter 19 The Tools
Chapter 20 The Funnies

Wrapping this Puppy Up
Index of References

Testimonials:
"What Mikey’s done with this book is create a valuable tool for directly accessing Course concepts (as taught by Arten and Pursah) in a topic-based fashion. Additionally, he’s added his rather colloquial insights which make this book a light, humorous read, a refreshing change from most Course-related materials. My first book, The Disappearance of the Universe, is frequently referred to as the ‘can opener’ that helps students open the rather heady A Course in Miracles book. Dude, Where’s My Jesus Fish? is like a cheat sheet that helps you make the grade. If this book turns more folks onto A Course in Miracles – and I expect it will – then we have Mikey to thank for growing our beloved Course community and helping us all to get Home." ~ Gary Renard, the best-selling author of The Disappearance of the Universe of the Universe www.garyrenard.com

"Mikey's straight talk and irreverent, humorous style, in addition to his obvious understanding of A Course in Miracles, make this book a perfect companion to The Disappearance of the Universe. Well done, and giddy-up brother Mikey!" ~ Gene Bogart, Producer and Co-host of The Gary Renard Podcast www.Forgiveness.tv

"I love this book. I love the style. The humor is wonderful. Mikey gets it! Our ONLY function here is the radical forgiveness taught by A Course in Miracles. No compromises; no ifs, buts or ands." ~ Doris Lora, Ph.D
Check out my new website!
www.giddyupmikey.com

Excerpt from DU about Thomas Jefferson and the Bible

2010-10-11T20:09:00.000-07:00

Excerpt from Chapter 6 in The Disappearance of the Universe

Arten: Thomas Jefferson, considered to be the greatest thinker among your forefathers and the author of your Declaration of Independence, was also an expert on scripture. Over the years of his life he edited the Bible in order to make his own personal Bible. Of course he couldn't make it available to the public at that time without being accused of terrible things. To summarize, he left out the old scripture - what you call the Old testament - completely. He didn't leave in anything about J being God in the flesh. He didn't retain anything about J performing physical miracles. He left out almost 200 pages of the New Testament, leaving only 46. But he kept in everything about forgiveness and healing and how you think. If the conservatives in your country want to dismiss A Course in Miracles as being too radical, perhaps they should listen to the visionary genius behind your nation's roots, rather than wasting their time blindly defending the corporate-owned mockery of democracy it has become.

Gary: So Thomas Jefferson was able to cut through the religious and dualistic bullshit and get to what's important. At the same time, I should remember that a lot of people need the bullshit until they're ready to give up the unnecessary stuff and cut to the chase. There's not really any sense in putting them down or trying to take the ideas they need away from.

Arten: Very good, Gary. A radiant student. But watch your language. Just because a lot of those movies you like are rated "R," it doesn't mean our book has to be.

Yep, can't argue with this. No matter what religion or spiritual philosophy you believe in, in order to return to God, it all comes down to removing all the unconscious guilt in the mind aka the blocks to the awareness of Love's (God or Spirit's) presence. And J says numerous times in the Course that true forgiveness is the only way to do that. ACIM T-1:VI:1:1; W-256:1:1-2; & M-14:5:7

But not everyone is ready for that, in fact, very few are. And that's OK. Some will be ready in their current incarnations, perhaps others in their next incarnation. and many others 100 incarnations from now, or whatever. But for those who are ready, keep in mind what J says about attaining the lofty goal the Course has to offer, '...it requires patience and abundant willingness.' ACIM M-17:8:4

Giddy up!

My Review of the ACIM 'movie'

2010-09-10T23:51:00.000-07:00
Here' s the review I posted on Amazon.com this week in regards the recently released A Course in Miracles The Movie. I gave it three stars out of five.

Not great, but it didn't suck

First, I would say it is a bit misleading to call this a 'movie.' 'Documentary' would be a more appropriate term. This documentary is only about an hour long, so there is only so much that can be covered in that span of time. For a newbie, you'll get some ideas about what the Course is about from many different teachers, but if you really want to understand it and learn how to apply it, I highly recommend reading The Disappearance of the Universe: Straight Talk About Illusions, Past Lives, Religion, Sex, Politics, and the Miracles of Forgiveness by Gary Renard. It explains the Course in no uncertain terms; very clear and blunt, and without compromise.

Also, no background was really given in this documentary in order to put what the teachers were saying into context, so a newbie wouldn't have the benefit of comparing the thought system of A Course in Miracles to other spiritual thought systems that are out there. The Course is certainly unique, and unlike anything else. Also, perhaps a longer program would have allowed for more time to get into much more detail about the unconscious guilt we all have and how it came about, how true forgiveness removes it, and how to apply true forgiveness into your everyday life. As it's stated in The Disappearance of the Universe, `Without its practical method of forgiveness, the Course would be nothing but a beautiful and useless book.' So, again, The Disappearance of the Universe covers all this.

But if you're not much of a reader and you really want to get an in-depth take on the Course with something you can watch on your TV or computer screen, I highly recommend the DVD Bey ond the Ego Workshop with Gary Renard. Also, for an audio teaching, I highly recommend Gary's six disc CD program, Secrets of the Immortal: Advanced Teachings from a Course in Miracles.

Finally, no offense to Puppetji, but he does not really add anything to this program that is Course related, although I found him rather amusing, and laughter is always a good thing. But I certainly could have done without the woman talking about her relationship problems as I didn't feel that added anything useful to this documentary. That time could have been used more appropriately, in my opinion. So, I guess I have some mixed feelings about this documentary, but you're much better off watching this than trying to figure out the Course through Marianne Williamson or through any of the other popular New Age authors who are NOT teaching the same thing as the Course. Ok, I've said enough. Can I have a brownie now?

To find the product and my review on Amazon, click on the following link: A Course in Miracles The Movie

The Four Major Attitudes of Learning during your Return to God

2010-08-22T20:59:00.000-07:00
The four major attitudes of learning: Dualism, Semi-Dualism, Non-Dualism, and Pure Non-Dualism from The Disappearance of the Universe, Chapter Two

DU p 29 & 37
There are four major attitudes of learning you will go through during your return to God. Everyone will go through all four of them, and everyone who progresses will occasionally and unexpectedly bounce back and forth from one to the other. Each level brings with it different thoughts and resulting experiences, and you will interpret the exact same scripture differently depending on which attitude of learning you are currently engaged in.

You should keep in mind that each of the four major attitudes of learning are long roads in themselves, and you will sometimes bounce around like a Ping-Pong ball in between them. The Holy Spirit will correct you along the way and set you back in the right direction. Do not feel bad when you temporarily lose your way. There is none who has ever walked this earth, including J, who did not give into temptation in some way. The myth of living a perfect life in terms of behavior is self-defeating and unnecessary. All that is necessary is to be willing to receive correction.

Dualism

DU p 29 & 30
Dualism is the condition of almost all of the universe. The mind believes in the domain of subject and object. Conceptually, it would appear to those who believe in God that there are two worlds that are both true: the world of God and the world of man. In the world of man, you believe, very practically and objectively, that there is in fact a subject - you - and an object, namely, anything else. This attitude was well expressed through the model Newtonian physics. The objects that make up a human's universe, which until the last few hundred years was simply called the world and referred to all of manifestation, are believed to exist apart from you and can be manipulated by you - "you" meaning the body and the brain that seems to run it. In fact, the body and brain that you think are you appear to have been caused by the world. But this idea is exactly backwards.

By necessity, the attitude toward God that accompanies this attitude of learning is that He is somewhere outside of you. There is you and there is God, seemingly separated from one another. God, Who is actually real, seems distant and illusory. The world, which is actually illusory, seems immediate and real. Your split mind, which split from the house like the prodigal Son, has unconsciously assigned to God the same qualities that your seemingly separated mind itself possesses. Thus God and the messages that seem to come from Him are conflicted.

Keep in mind that most of this is unconscious - meaning that it seems to exist out there in the world rather than in your own split mind. So God is considered to be both forgiving and wrathful. He is both loving and a killer, apparently depending on what kind of a mood He's in. This may be a good description of the conflict of a dualistic mind, but it is hardly a description of God.

Semi-dualism

DU p 30 & 31
The next attitude of learning you will go through during your return to God is sometimes referred to as semi-dualism. This could be described as a kinder, gentler form of dualism because certain true ideas have begun to be accepted. Once again, it makes no difference what your religion is, which is just one reason why all religions have some very nice, gentle, and relatively non-judgmental people. One such idea that the mind would be accepting at this time is the simple concept that God is Love.

A simple notion like this, however, if it is truly believed, would bring along with it some very difficult questions. For example, if God is Love, can He also be hate? If God is really perfect Love, then can He also be flawed? If God is a Creator, could He then be vengeful against that which He Himself had created?

Once the answer to such questions is clearly seen to be of course not, a long closed door has been nudged open. In the state of semi-dualism, your mind has begun to lose some of its hidden but terrible fear of God. Now God is less threatening to you - a primitive form of forgiveness has taken root within you. You still think of yourself as a body, and both God and the world still seem to be outside of you, but now you sense that God is not the cause of your situation. Perhaps the one person who was always there when things appeared to be going down the toilet was you. Perfect Love can only be responsible for good. So everything else must come from somewhere else. But as we'll see in our next attitude of learning, there is nowhere else.

Non-Dualism

DU p 31 & 32
Do you remember the old riddle, that if a tree falls in the middle of the forest and there’s nobody there to hear it, does it still make a sound? Well, what the tree does is send out sound waves. Sound waves, like radio waves – and for that matter, energy waves – require a receiver to pick them up. The human or animal ear is a receiver. If a tree falls in the middle of the forest and there’s nobody there to hear it, then it does not make a sound. Sound isn’t sound until you hear it, just as a wave of energy does not appear to be matter until you see or touch it.

To make a long story short, it should be evident from this that it takes two to tango. In order for anything to interact, you must have duality. Indeed, without duality there is nothing to interact with. There can be nothing in a mirror without an image that appears to be opposite it, attached to an observer to see it. Without duality there is no tree in the forest. As some of your scientists of quantum physics know, duality is a myth. And if duality is a myth, then not only is there no tree, but there is also no universe. Without you to perceive it, the universe is not here, but logic would have to dictate that if the universe is not here, then you are also not here.

DU p 34
Non-dualism is like the old teaching that you live as if you are in this world, but your attitude is that of the two seeming worlds, the world of truth and the world of illusions, only the truth is true and nothing else is true. But even then, people make the mistake of thinking the illusion was made by truth. So they still make the error of attempting to bring legitimacy to the illusion rather than giving it up. You cannot hope to break the cycle of birth and death as long as you maintain this confusion. The unconscious mind goes to such lengths to avoid God that you will either ignore Him, or even more likely you will attempt to devolve non-dualism into dualism.

Pure non-dualism

DU p 39
J was neither judgmental nor a reactionary, and our brief outline of non-dualism should have given you the idea that he would not be willing to compromise on this logic: if nothing is outside of your mind, then to judge it is to grant it power over you, and to no judge it is to withdraw its power over you. This certainly contributes to the end of your suffering. But our brother J didn't stop there.

Pure non-dualism recognizes the authority of God so completely that it relinquishes all psychological attachment to anything that is not God. This attitude also recognizes what some people have called the 'like from like' principle, which says that anything coming from God must be like Him. Pure non-dualism is not willing to compromise on this principle either. Rather, it says that anything that comes from God must be exactly like Him. God could not create anything that is not perfect or else He wouldn't be perfect. The logic of that is flawless. If God is perfect and eternal, then by definition anything He creates would also have to be perfect and eternal.

Since there is obviously nothing in this world that is perfect and eternal, J was able to see the world for what it was - nothing. But he also knew that it appeared for a reason, and that it was a trick to keep people away from the truth of God and His Kingdom.

DU p 41
J's Love, like God's was total, impersonal, non-selective and all-embracing. He treated everyone equally, from rabbi to prostitute. He was not a body. He was no longer a human being. He had reclaimed his place with God as pure spirit. This is pure non-dualism, an attitude that, along with the Holy Spirit, will lead you to what you are. You and J are the same thing. We all are. There is nothing else.

DU p 41
Gary asks, 'I've been taught that I'm a co-creator with God. Is that true? Arten responds, 'Not on this level. The only place where you are really a co-creator with God is in Heaven, where you would not be aware of being any different from Him or in any way separate from Him. So then how could you not be a co-creator with Him? But there is a way here on earth to practice the thought system of the Holy Spirit like J did, which reflect the laws of Heaven, and that is your way home.

DU p 41 & 42
If God is perfect Love, then He is not anything else, and neither are you. You are, in fact, the Love of God, and your real life is with Him. Like J, you will come to know and experience that God is not outside of you. You will no longer identify yourself with a vulnerable body or anything else that can be limited, and a body is anything that has borders or limits. You will learn instead of your true reality as pure spirit that is invulnerable forever.

DU p 128
The Course in purely non-dualistic, meaning that of the two seeming worlds, the world of God and the world of man, only the world of God is true and He doesn't interact with the false world - but the Holy Spirit is here to guide you home.

YIR p 43
It’s imperative that you stick to the message of the Course. Don’t compromise on it. A Course in Miracles is purely non-dualistic. We don’t want the same thing to happen to the message of the Course that happened to J’s message 2,000 years ago. That’s one of the main reasons we’re back: to help keep people focused.

God Is....and nothing else is

Great weekend with Gary and Cindy here in Ashland, Oregon

2010-07-22T20:18:00.000-07:00
Here's a write-up I did per Gary's request that I posted on The Disappearance of the Universe Yahoo group the other day.

What a glorious weekend we all had with Gary and Cindy here in Ashland, Oregon. This was the third straight year that Gary came to do a workshop here, and the first time Cindy came with him. Big thank you to Bruce Rawles for taking the initiative in getting the Gar-man and Cindy here, and Ed Karlovich for arranging the facilities.

So, here's the 'PG' version of our weekend with Gary and Cindy.

Gary and Cindy arrived here in Ashland on Friday afternoon with Bruce picking them up from the airport. Our buddy, Jonathan Joshua, made reservations for dinner at the Taj Indian Cuisine in downtown Ashland for that evening where we - Gary, Cindy, Bruce, Ed, Jonathan, Bridgit T, Kim O, and I - enjoyed great food and laughs, as well as entertainment in the form of one of Gary's all time favorite guilty, or not so guilty, pleasures - belly dancing. After we were done, we walked around the corner to an outdoor facility to be near the creek, hang out, laugh, and have drinks. I had my homemade "Gary" cards with me that we use in our Wednesday evening Course group, so we each picked one out to read aloud.

On Saturday, another great presentation from Gary - consistent and right on the money, as usual. In the early portion of the workshop, Cindy sang a beautiful rendition of Amazing Grace. Cindy and Gary later performed two songs together,including Simon and Garfunkel's Sound of Silence. During the workshop, Gary had us do a forgiveness thought process for about five to ten minutes where we all get up and walk around the room, look into a person's eyes (trying to get to as many people as possible) and silently say, 'You are Spirit. Whole and Innocent. All is forgiven and released.' This exercise moved some people to tears. For me, it's old hat so it didn't have that kind of impact on me, but I'm certain J did his part in removing more unconscious guilt from my mind. Yay!

At the end of the workshop, Gary thanked us - Roberta, Bruce, Ed, Jonathan, and myself for our friendship and support. And at that time, Gary put a plug in for The Disappearance of the Universe Yahoo group and mentioned the 'Quote of the Day' I post on here. Afterwards, I was interviewed by a man who runs a metaphysical/new age publication in Seattle. He asked me questions about Gary's books and my experiences with applying the material. Bruce, Cindy, and Gary were also interviewed.

Many people from our local Course groups here in the Rogue Valley were in attendance for Saturday's workshop, and we also had people coming in from Seattle, Sacramento, San Francisco, Reno, and even one person came all the way from Madison, Wisconsin. My mom and step-dad (my west coast dad) came in from Klamath Falls, OR to attend the gig but did not stick around for any of the extra curricular activities - which I gave my mom a little bit of crap for the next day but then I remembered to forgive it. : )

The workshop was followed by Gary's usual book signing, and then a potluck at 6pm, at which time we had a pleasant surprise when Gary's booking agent, Jan Cook, arrived. She was on the mainland with a couple of friends and happened to be passing through town on the same day Gary was doing his workshop. After the potluck, about ten of us headed to the Ashland downtown plaza, to hang out by the creek for more food and beverage. As it got later, some of us went upstairs for some live music, where we had a great time hanging out with lots of laughing and some dancing. We didn't leave until after 1am.

I also spent a short part of the day on Sunday with Gary, Cindy, and Gary's website designer, Roberta Grace and her partner, Robert, who live in nearby Medford, wandering around the downtown area of Ashland which included a stroll through Lithia Park. The Shakespeare festival runs here in Ashland from late winter to mid-fall, we didn't go to a play but we did take a brief tour of an empty theater. Also, we walked into several shops along the downtown strip, including a metaphysical book store, Sound Peace. I amusingly asked the cashier if they carried Gary's books as he was just standing a few feet away from me. It was obvious she didn't know who he was, but at least they did carry his books as well as his Fearless Love CD.

Anyway, this weekend really had the feeling of that of a family reunion. The ironic thing for me was that I have a cousin by the same first and last name as me back in Massachusetts, who was getting married at the same exact time as the start of the workshop, (10am PDT/1pm EDT.) My dad is one of eleven children so I have aunts, uncles, and cousins up the yin-yang; they're my relatives but they have never felt like family to me. When I was in my 20s, I used to say to myself, 'When is my real family going to show up in my life?' By real family I mean people that I can actually talk to without having to see a 'What the hell are you talking about?' look on their face. People I can freely speak my mind to without it being objectionable or offensive. Nothing against my relatives, but they just never felt like family to me; they just aren't 'my people.'

Well, it wasn't until I started forgiving my 'fake family' in the form of guided meditations that undid unconscious guilt in my mind, that I was guided to leave the east coast, and as I continue to practice true forgiveness as described in Gary's books, I feel more and more removed from my relatives, while connecting more and more with my spiritual family. It's a wonderful feeling, and this weekend was full of symbols representing that. Had I not been doing this work for the last seven plus years, I would have been at a wedding this past weekend with my fake family still asking myself, 'When is my real family going to show up in my life?' Thank you Gary and Cindy for making your way here to Southern Oregon and getting us all together for a splendid, fun-filled weekend.
Much Love, Mikey

Oh, and here are five short You Tube clips from the weekend
Clip #1
Clip #2
Clip #3
Clip #4
Clip #5

And you can click here for pictures.

My Salvation Comes Frome Me, and I Need Do Nothing

2010-06-29T21:38:00.000-07:00
My salvation comes from me. (W Lesson-70:1-2)
All temptation is nothing more than some form of the basic temptation not to believe the idea for today. Salvation seems to come from anywhere except from you. So, too, does the source of guilt. You see neither guilt nor salvation as in your own mind and nowhere else. When you realize that all guilt is solely an invention of your mind, you also realize that guilt and salvation must be in the same place. In understanding this you are saved.

The seeming cost of accepting today's idea is this: It means that nothing outside yourself can save you; nothing outside yourself can give you peace. But it also means that nothing outside yourself can hurt you, or disturb your peace or upset you in any way. This idea places you in charge of the universe, where you belong (not in the universe) because of what you are. This is not a role that can be partially accepted. And you must surely begin to see that accepting it is salvation.

ACIM T-2:V:5:1
The sole responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept the Atonement for himself.

Mikey's Note: So, by accepting your sole responsibility, that's where your salvation lies. Now there is a line in the Course that says, 'I need do nothing.' (ACIM T-18:VII:5:7) Well, it's true on the level of the world you need do nothing, because the Course is not a religion so it's not about your behavior, and it's not about what you do in the world. What you do in the world, regardless of what it is, doesn't matter. On the level of the mind, however, you do have to make that choice to accept the Atonement for yourself, that's why J says that your salvation comes from you.

So, how do you accept the Atonement for yourself? Well, you apply forgiveness on whatever comes up in front of your face on any given day. Keeping in mind, you are not forgiving people, circumstances, and events for what you think they've done, you are forgiving them because you made it all up; it's a projection that is coming from you, not something that is coming at you.

As J says in the Workbook, 'What is forgiveness? Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin. And in that view are all your sins forgiven.' (W:1:1) As Pursah would say, 'I might add in only in that view are all your sins forgiven. (YIR p 102)

So from that point of view, you are coming from a position of strength, being at cause, rather than from a position of weakness, being at the mercy of the effect. There's no power in making yourself out to be a victim. As J says in the Course, 'Beware of the temptation to perceive yourself unfairly treated.' (ACIM T-26:X:4:1) And as Pursah puts it, ' …nobody can really take the peace of God away from you except by your own decision. (DU p 169) There are no victims in this world! As J states in the Course, 'I am not the victim of the world I see.' (ACIM W- Lesson:31 Title)

No one or no thing can give you salvation. As Gary would say, ‘There is no such thing as vicarious salvation.’ So, everyone has to do their own forgiveness work in order to become a master. As J says, ‘In this world you need not have tribulation because I have overcome the world. That is why you should be of good cheer.’ (ACIM T-4:I:13:10-11) In other words, J wasn’t claiming to be special, so He’s saying we can do what He did too: forgive the world and be free. But as He also says, '.....it requires patience and abundant willingness.' (ACIM M-17:8:4)

DU p 234
What you do is a result of what you think. That doesn't mean you're always going to behave perfectly. When the Course talks about a teacher of God becoming perfect here, it is referring to perfect forgiveness, not perfect behavior.

Mikey's Note: At the same time, we're all going to be doing something while we appear to be here. But your salvation is not dependent on what you do in the world; it's where you’re coming from while you’re doing it that matters.

As Pursah says, '...you can still live a relatively normal earthly existence and be awakened slowly and gently from your dream.' (DU p 111) Gary says, 'Don't be weird.' Well, too late for me, but that's another story. But what I mean is, always remember that the Course has nothing against using common sense and discernment.

DU p 218
Forgiveness has to do with what you think. What you do isn't the important thing, even though it is a result of what you think. It's what you think that will either keep you dreaming or help get you home, not what you do.

YIR p 102
So what does forgiveness do, then? ‘The miracle (forgiveness) does nothing. All it does is undo.’ (ACIM T-28:I:1:1-2) ‘Salvation is undoing.’ (ACIM T-31:VI:2:1) And when the ego is undone, the truth will be all that’s left.

God Is....and nothing else is

Definitive Statements

2010-06-13T00:01:00.001-07:00
In A Course in Miracles, Jesus speaks to us at two different levels - the level of world, and at the level of absolute truth. If he spoke to us just on the level of absolute truth we wouldn't get very far, so he has to speak to us where we think we are - which is in the world. So, there’s a lot of metaphor going on in the Course, and I have seen many Course students quote metaphorical lines from the Course out of context, thinking that it's a literal statement and use it to support what they think Jesus is teaching, without really having a clue as to what should be taken literally, and what should be taken as metaphor. That's to be expected. That's why I always suggest to people when they ask me about the Course to read The Disappearance of the Universe, and not just once. Arten and Pursah spell it out so clearly and so bluntly that there's no getting away from it.

Arten and Pursah make it very clear as to what should be taken literally, and what should be taken as metaphor:

DU92
The parts of the Course that express non-duality should be taken literally, but the parts of it that seem to express duality should be taken as metaphor. There is no conflict in that, but without getting it, you’ll incorrectly think the Course is contradicting itself. In the end, everything except for God is metaphor.

DU92
Everybody is trying to find and express their truth. Their so-called truth is actually designed to keep them stuck where they are. What J is teaching in his Course is that the truth is not different for everyone. It is not relative. He's saying the truth is the truth whether you understand and agree with it or not. The truth is not subject to your interpretation, and neither is his Course. He's the Teacher, and you're the student. If that's not the case, then why do the Course?

The Course in a nutshell from Arten and Pursah:

YIR198 & 199
Don’t be discouraged by those who borrow from the Course instead of teaching it. There are even people who teach the Course exclusively who fail to understand it. They’ll think that the Course is open to their interpretation. Yet if it were, it would be useless. What makes the Course unique is that what it says is not open to interpretation. It says there is no world and only God is real. The way to awaken from the dream of death is through total, uncompromising forgiveness of people because they haven’t really done anything, which is how to forgive yourself. Any other interpretation is folly.

YIR73
The mind will go to such lengths to avoid what the Course is saying and delay the clarification of it that people will read the Text and interpret it, usually incorrectly. They’ll ignore the definitive statements of the Course, and start nitpicking and focusing on individual words or phrases that, when taken out of context, seem to support their interpretation. Yet everything the Course says must be put within the context of the Course’s larger teaching, which shows up unmistakably in those definitive statements.

These statements from the Course express the absolute truth and are exactly what the Course is teaching, therefore, they should be taken literally. Whether Course students are ready to accept them or not is another story - but that's between them and the Holy Spirit.

W-Lesson 256:1:1-2
The way to God is through forgiveness here. There is no other way.

T-2:V:5:1
The sole responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept the Atonement for himself.

T-31:VI:2:1
Salvation is undoing.

T-27:VIII:10:1
The secret of salvation is but this: That you are doing this unto yourself.

T-1:VI:1:1
You who want peace can find it only by complete forgiveness.

T-6:10:7
The full awareness of the Atonement, then, is the recognition that the separation never occurred.

W-1:1-4
Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin. And in that view are all your sins forgiven.

W-Lesson 46:1-2
God does not forgive because He has never condemned. And there must be condemnation before forgiveness is necessary. Forgiveness is the great need of this world, but that is because it is a world of illusions. Those who forgive are thus releasing themselves from illusions, while those who withhold forgiveness are binding themselves to them. As you condemn only yourself, so do you forgive only yourself.

Yet although God does not forgive, His Love is nevertheless the basis of forgiveness. Fear condemns and love forgives. Forgiveness thus undoes what fear has produced, returning the mind to the awareness of God. For this reason, forgiveness can truly be called salvation. It is the means by which illusions disappear.

W-Review VI:Intro:3:3-5
I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.

T-18:VII:3:1
At no single instant does the body exist at all.

W-Lesson 92:2:1-4
You believe the body’s brain can think. If you but understood the nature of thought, you could but laugh at this insane idea. It is as if you thought you held the match that lights the sun and gives it all its warmth; or that you held the world within your hand, securely bound until you let it go. Yet this is no more foolish to believe the brain can think.

T-23:IV:1:10-11
What is not love is murder. What is not loving must be an attack.

T-30:VI:1:1
Anger is never justified.

CL-4:1:1-5
The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever. Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. But the time will come when all things visible will have an end.

T-13:Intro:3:1-2
If this were the real world, God would be cruel. For no Father could subject His children to this as the price of salvation and be loving.

T-13:VII:17:6-7
You dwell not here but in eternity. You travel but in dreams while safe at home.

W-Lesson 182:1:1-2
This world you seem to live is not home to you. And somewhere in your mind you know that this is true.

W-Lesson 132:6:2-5 & 7:1-2
There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach. Not everyone is ready to accept it, and each one must go as far as he can let himself be led along the road to truth. He will return and go still farther, or perhaps step back a while and then return again.’

But healing is the gift of those who are prepared to learn there is no world, and can accept the lesson now. Their readiness will bring the lesson to them in some form which they can understand and recognize.

T-15:IV:6:1-2
The reason this course is simple is that truth is simple. Complexity is of the ego, and is nothing more than the ego’s attempt to obscure the obvious.

God Is....and nothing else is

Special Update from Mikey

2010-05-13T11:14:00.000-07:00
Hi Folks,

Just wanted to give an update about things. First, Gary Renard's highly anticipated 3rd book, Love Has Forgotten No One - The Answer to Life, still has no official release date. Gary has made no secret in his newsletters and workshops that the release of this book has been delayed for several reasons. Gary, along with Cindy, will be here in Ashland, Oregon on July 17th so perhaps he'll have an update for us then.

But everything you really need is in the first two books; I highly recommend to people to read them more than once. I've read The Disappearance of the Universe twelve times, and Your Immoral Reality nine times in the last three years, and I have a friend of my mine on the east coast who has read the books twenty-two and fifteen times, respectively - no such thing as too much repetition. If you're not perfect at practicing forgiveness then you can't hear these ideas enough times. But at the same time, there are some fun things that will be covered in the 3rd book, so I am looking forward to it, nevertheless. In a previous post on my blog, I listed the chapter titles for the 3rd book, here's a link to that post:
Meeting Gary Renard - Gary visits the Rogue Valley in Southern Oregon

In the meantime, I've also been working on a book of my own. I post the 'Quote of the Day' over on The Disappearance of the Universe Yahoo Group. My book will consists of these quotes, along with some of my own commentary, as well as a section in the book about my spiritual path leading me to Gary's books and A Course in Miracles, and I've got some other cool stuff going on in it too - it's gonna kick ass! It's not too far away from being completed, and I plan to have it in print later this year. I do have a title for it but am not ready to announce that just yet. Stay tuned!

'Congratulations to the person who has forgiven and has found life.'
~ Pursah's Gospel of Thomas, saying #58 from Your Immortal Reality

The Hidden Hatred in the Subconscious Mind

2010-04-26T22:45:00.000-07:00
Quotes from The Disappearance of the Universe, Your Immortal Reality, and A Course in Miracles in regards to the hidden hatred below the surface of the mind.

DU p 16
There’s a big problem holding people back that the popular New Age authors didn’t tell them about. Perhaps the most overlooked error of all religions and philosophies, including the New Age models, is the failure to understand that although doing things like thinking positively, being "in the now," saying prayers, affirmations, denying negative thoughts, and listening to famous speakers may have a temporarily helpful impact, they cannot release that which is locked in the deep canyons of your unconscious mind.

YIR p 64
People think it’s the beliefs that they have in their conscious mind that runs them, and that they can control their mind by changing their thoughts from negative to positive ones. That’s not true when it comes to the big picture. It will only have a temporarily helpful impact. What really runs us are the beliefs we have that are unconscious to us, the things we can’t see. A Course in Miracles presents a way to actually heal and remove the things that are hidden in the deep canyons of the unconscious mind. Very few spiritual teachings do anything on that level.

YIR p 80
Given that the Course is the only teaching that not only addresses but completely explains the issue of unconscious guilt, it shows you how vital it is to make this teaching more available to people. Right now most of the people who teach the Course don't even understand it. And the ones who quote from it without teaching it certainly don't understand it. They take lines from it out of context to support what they're teaching. But what the Course is teaching is that you can undo the ego that's in your mind, have the Holy Spirit heal all of your unconscious guilt, and be free. The fastest way to do that is to change the way you look at other people, events, and situations. It also teaches you how to do that. But the most important part of the Course isn’t what it means. The most important part of doing the Course is applying it into your everyday life.

DU p 159 & 160
The Course wants to help people realize what's in their unconscious - so they can get rid of it. Most people, especially nice, spiritual people, don't know about the murderous thought system that runs this universe, or the hatred that's underneath the surface of their mind. Nor do most of them want to know. Most people just want everything to be hunky-dory. You can't blame them for wanting peace, but real peace is found by undoing the ego, not by covering it over.

DU p 159
Your real life is in Heaven, but you can also achieve peace and joy during your temporary life here. Those are your motivations for quitting grievances. Sometimes those motivations won't seem like enough. What's going to happen is that when you try to forgive, sometimes you'll be able to. Yet if you're really trying to do the Course, then just as often you're going to come up against a lot of things that you don't want to forgive and you don't want to give up. That's how your resistance and your hidden, unconscious hatred shows up. Those are the things you're going to have to look at that you don't want to look at.

ACIM T p 202 (11:V:1:1)
No one can escape from illusions unless he looks at them, for not looking is the way they are protected.

ACIM T p 499 (24:Intro:2:1)
To learn this course requires willingness to question every value that you hold.

DU p 248
Any kind of an upset, from a mild discomfort to outright anger, is a warning sign. It tells you that your hidden guilt is rising up from the recesses of your unconscious mind and coming to the surface. Think of that discomfort as the guilt that needs to be released by forgiving the symbol you associate with it. The ego is trying to get you to see the guilt as being outside of you by projecting the reason for it onto an illusory image. The ego thought system is trying to put some distance in between yourself and the guilt, and any suitable object or person who comes along will suffice.

DU p 159
The things you won't want to forgive, or even look closely at, are ‘the secret sins and hidden hates’ that the Course talks about, which are really symbolic of how you hate yourself, except you've projected them, so they seem to be outside of you. The way to forgive yourself and help the Holy Spirit take over your unconscious mind is to uncover and observe these things with Him, and keep on forgiving them.

YIR p 215
When your forgiveness lessons are complete, then not one trace of guilt will remain in your unconscious mind. At that point, you will break the cycle of birth and death, and never dream of going into a body again. That is the end of reincarnation.

DU p 225
The Holy Spirit knows your afraid of your unconscious. The purpose of the Course is peace, not to scare the hell out of you. The more prepared you are, and the better you do your forgiveness work, the less scary your journey with the Course will ultimately be.

God Is....and nothing else is

The Crucifixion, the Resurrection, and the Guiltless Mind Cannot Suffer

2010-03-29T21:44:00.000-07:00
With Easter just a week away, I thought this would be a good time to provide some excerpts from A Course in Miracles, The Disappearance of the Universe, and Your Immortal Reality on what the crucifixion and the resurrection were really all about.

Gary talks about going to see the movie The Passion of the Christ on his audio program Secrets of the Immortal as well as in Chapter 4 of Your Immortal Reality - Murders Without Corpses. Gary describes the scene of people lined up around the block to get tickets to see this bloody, horrific movie that he says is so violent that it should have been rated NC-17 instead of R. So, he says people were like taking their nine, ten year old kids to go see this thing. And after the movie was done, Gary describes the looks on the parents’ faces as they were coming out of the movie theatre as if they were saying to their kids, '‘There, you see? You see what Jesus did for you? You see how he suffered and sacrificed himself for you? You guilty little bastids! Now what are you going to do for him? Well, you’re gonna be a Christian, right?’

Mikey's Note: Nine years of Catholic school as a kid, I can relate. LOL Fortunately for me, even though I had been baptized Catholic, Catholicism wasn't a part of my upbringing at home. So, I was able to 'tune out' a lot of the religious stuff that was taught in the classroom and the church, although I did have to take in enough in order to pass Religion class, but not to the point where I would have to go through 'recovering Catholic therapy' afterwards. LOL

Anyway, Gary goes on to say in the program, 'And there you have the makings of a very successful religion. Because, if you want to get people to do something in this world, then you make them feel guilty – that’s what makes the world go round. That’s why Christianity is such a successful religion and has over a billion members because they make people feel guilty about the death of Jesus and they are indoctrinated at a very young age.'

Mikey's Note: Actually, according to Wiki Answers, there are around 2 billion members of Christianity which is about 33% of the world's population. Additionally, there are 33,820 different denominations of Christianity - Holy shit, talk about screwing up a spiritual message! LOL Then again, the same thing has happened with the Course too; as Gary's teachers mention, 'In the seven years Helen was scribing the Course, and during the eight years she lived after that, it never once occurred to her or Ken that there could possibly be any other interpretation of the Course (purely non-dualistic.) But give the world a few years to screw up J's message and it's a wonder to behold.' DU p 128 ‘People think that the Course is open to their interpretation. Yet if it were, it would be useless.’ YIR p 199 But that's a story for another time. Getting back to Christianity, Gary’s teachers say, 'We’re not saying there isn’t some good in Christianity or that Christian people are not sometimes the salt of the earth. But their religion is a mixed bag, because the world that is a projection of the mind that made it is such a mixed bag. If the mind is going to be healed, then it needs something that is not a mixed bag.’ DU p 53

DU p 246
The message of the crucifixion has been interpreted by the world as a message of sacrifice. That is not the lesson J intended it to be. His lesson was one of resurrection rather than crucifixion. J says there is no death, and that the body is nothing. The church has confused the manner of his death as a call to sacrifice and suffer for God. That is incorrect.

It is not necessary for you to repeat the example of the crucifixion. As J tells you in the Course, ‘You are not asked to be crucified, which was part of my own teaching contribution. You are merely asked to follow my example in the face of much less extreme temptations to misperceive, and not to accept them as false justifications for anger.’ ACIM T p 93 (6:I:6:6-7) Remembering that, all you need to do is understand the real lesson of it and apply it, through your forgiveness attitude, to your own body and your own personal life’s circumstances. Here is part of what J says in the Course in the section titled The Message of the Crucifixion. You will never find a more striking example of refusing to compromise on the truth.

‘Assault can ultimately be made only on the body. There is little doubt that one body can assault another, and can even destroy it. Yet if destruction itself is impossible, anything that is destructible cannot be real. Its destruction, therefore, does not justify anger. To the extent to which you believe that it does, you are accepting false premises and teaching them to others. The message the crucifixion was intended to teach was that it is not necessary to perceive any form of assault in persecution, because you cannot be persecuted. If you respond with anger, you must be equating yourself with the destructible, and are therefore regarding yourself insanely.’ ACIM T p 92 (6:I:4:1-7)

He then goes on to say in that same section, ‘The message of the crucifixion is perfectly clear: Teach only love, for that is what you are. ACIM T p 94 (6:I:13:1-2) If you interpret the crucifixion in any other way, you are using it as weapon for assault rather than as the call for peace for which it was intended.’ ACIM T p 94 (6:I:1:14:1)

YIR p 154 & 155
J’s whole point was to teach the meaninglessness of the body, not glorify it. The focus should always be on doing your forgiveness lessons and going home, not on the level of form and the body, which cannot be spiritualized. People are always looking for vicarious salvation. They want to be enlightened by following an enlightened one and having it bestowed on them. It doesn’t work that way. In addition, there are so many people out there presenting themselves as some kind of a master and saying they’re going to teach you “mastery,” that it’s comical. If you drove a nail through the wrist of these people, it would hurt like hell. J really was a master, and he could feel no pain because the guiltless mind cannot suffer.

DU p 109
Resurrection is something that takes place in your mind even though you still appear to be in your body, and it actually has nothing to do with the body at all. The ideas of physical resurrection and physical immortality are not only fantasies, but totally unnecessary.

DU p 269 & 270 (Arten)
Here are a couple of passages from the Manual for Teachers on the resurrection. ‘Very simply the resurrection is the overcoming or surmounting of death. It is a reawakening or a rebirth; a change of mind about the meaning of the world. It is the acceptance of the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of the world’s purpose; the acceptance of the Atonement for oneself.' ACIM M p 68 (28:1:1-3) It goes on to say, ‘The resurrection is the denial of death, being the assertion of life. Thus is all the thinking of the world reversed entirely. Life is now recognized as salvation, and pain and misery of any kind perceived as hell. Love is no longer feared, but gladly welcomed.’ ACIM M p 68 (28:2:1-4)

DU p 270
The time will come when each seemingly separated mind has attained its enlightenment or resurrection. When everyone – not everybody, mind you – but every mind that has dreamed thousands of lifetimes has reached this state of awakening from the dream, that is the Second Coming of Christ.

DU p 245 & 246
The law of forgiveness is this, ‘Fear binds the world, forgiveness sets it free.’ ACIM W p 468 (332 Title) The world feels solid to you because fear binds it. It didn't feel solid to J because he had forgiven the world. That's why the nails didn't hurt him as they were being driven into his flesh. Being guiltless, his mind could not suffer - and someday you will attain the condition where you cannot suffer. That is the destiny the Holy Spirit holds out to you when you forgive the episodic fantasies of your bodily addicted ego.

DU p 111 & YIR p 106
Even though it appeared to be a terrible attack, the crucifixion was really nothing to J, because he was so totally identified with the invulnerable Love of God, which he knew he really was, instead of illusions like the body. The fact that the crucifixion and J's supposed suffering for others on the cross are central ideas to Christianity is just an indication of how much his message was misunderstood and distorted. But don't expect to attain the same non-suffering level of accomplishment as J in your first year doing the Course. It's an ideal that can only come with a great deal of experience. The time will eventually come when you will never suffer. That is one of the long term payoffs of this spiritual path. Even while you still appear to be in your body, it's possible for you to attain psychological invulnerability.

As the Course says, 'The guiltless mind cannot suffer.' ACIM T p 84 (5:V:5:1) It blows the whole idea of glorifying sacrifice right out of the water. Because pain is not a physical process, it's a mental process, and if you healed all the unconscious guilt in the mind, then you couldn't feel any pain. That changes the message of the Crucifixion from the idea of worshiping suffering and sacrifice to a demonstration that if you were healed, then it would be impossible for you to feel any pain or to suffer. But suffering, like people now believe J did, is a hallmark of the religion that he had nothing to do with, but that was founded in his name.

DU p 13
It was never J's intention to start a religion. Whether then or now, the world needs another religion like it needs a bigger hole in the ozone layer. J was the ultimate follower in the sense that he eventually listened only to the Holy Spirit.

DU p 49
J considered himself to be totally dependent on God, yet this dependence was not weakness, as the world usually views dependence. Rather, the result was a state of unbelievable psychological strength. Things that would scare the stuffing out of strong people meant nothing to him, because they were nothing to him. Fear was not a part of him. His attitude was the same as if you were having a dream last night asleep in your bed, except you were totally aware of the fact that you were dreaming. And because you knew you were dreaming, you also knew that absolutely nothing in the dream could possibly hurt you, because none of it was true; you realized you were merely observing symbolic images, including people, who weren't really there.

DU p 110, 111, 114 & YIR p 177
You should never allow yourself to be harmed physically, or seek out danger or suffer in order to prove a point. You can still live a relatively normal earthly existence while being awakened slowly and gently from your dream. The crucifixion was an extreme teaching lesson. It is not necessary for you to go through it in order to learn from it. Remember, the Course is done at the level of the mind. If you’re a woman and a man is trying to rape you, kick him in the balls. (Forgive 'em later.)

Mikey's Note: Yes, please remember that the teachings of the Course are always to be applied at the level of the mind, and never on the level of form, or the physical. It's always about changing your perception, it's not about changing your behavior. Your behavior may or may not change naturally as a result of changing your perception.

DU p 116
When the Course talks about not judging your brother, what it means is that you don't condemn him. Obviously, you have to make judgments just to cross the street. The Course isn't talking about abandoning that kind of judgment. Without it, you couldn't get out of bed in the morning. One thing the Course has nothing against is common sense.

DU p 46
We don’t mean to be disrespectful, but we have to make certain controversial statements because there’s not exactly an oversupply of people in your society who are willing to point these things out. It is true, at the time, J was the most advanced spiritual person to ever appear on the earth. But everyone else, including you, will eventually attain the same level of accomplishment as him. There is no exception to this. Thus, J is not ultimately different from anyone else, and his attitude was that no one will be left out of Heaven, because there is really only one of us - not all these separate bodies as you are presently dreaming.

DU p 29
J was a savior all right, but not the kind who promoted vicarious salvation. He wanted to teach us how to play our part in saving ourselves. When he said that he was the way, the truth, and the life, he meant we should follow his example, not believe in him personally. You shouldn't glorify his body. He didn't believe in his own body, why should you?

DU p 218
A lot of Christians ask nowadays, 'What would Jesus do?' There's only one correct answer to that question, and it would always be the same. He'd forgive.

Links:
Mikey says, 'Guilty little bastids!'
Seinfeld: David Puddy is a Christian
Seinfeld: A Nun hits on Kramer - The Kovorka
Seinfeld: Jerry's Dentist Converts to Judaism

God Is....and nothing else is

J-DOG

God Did Not Create The World - Thank God!

2010-03-01T20:48:00.000-08:00
When I read The Disappearance of the Universe for the first time in the spring of 2007, it made total sense to me mainly because I had already had the many of the experiences Arten and Pursah were talking about. However, one thing I had to really think about was on page 9 in the first chapter where Pursah tells Gary that God did not create the world. I had never heard that one before, and I thought I had heard everything at that point. I never even thought to question it, which is very unusual for me, considering my track record with such things. Anyway, the exact words Pursah said to Gary:

‘God did not create duality and He did not create the world. If he did, He would be the author of "a tale told by an idiot." But God is not an idiot. He can only be one of two things. He is either perfect Love, as the Bible says when it momentarily stumbles upon the truth, or He's an idiot. You can't have it both ways.’ Gary says in response on page 13, ‘If I told people that God didn’t create the world, I have a feeling it would probably go over about as big as a fart in an elevator.’

And since we’re on the subject, God is neither a He nor a She, God is an It, and Arten and Pursah are just staying consistent with the metaphorical language J uses in the Course in order to correct the Bible. DU p 97 & 319

So, a few months prior to my first reading of Disappearance - I’m almost finished with my12th reading now - I was bouncing around some ideas in my head about God and forgiveness. I was thinking that if God forgives us for something we did, that would imply that God originally condemned us, and after a few minutes I came to the conclusion that if God is really sane, then God wouldn’t do that; God wouldn’t think like us idiot humans.

So later in the book on page 178, Gary says, ‘God doesn't have to forgive me; I need to forgive myself by forgiving others instead of attacking them. Even if it's just a mental judgment and I don't say or do anything, an attack thought is still an attack thought. That's why I have to monitor my thoughts. Whether I attack or forgive, I do it to myself because these people aren't real anyway - they're just symbols of what's in my mind, just as I'm a symbol in the collective mind. The world doesn't need God's forgiveness; people need to forgive themselves by forgiving the images they see.'

Arten responds, 'Yes. Absolutely. The Course couldn’t be any more clear about that: God does not forgive because He has never condemned. And there must be condemnation before forgiveness is necessary. Forgiveness is the great need of this world, but that is because it is a world of illusions. Those who forgive are thus releasing themselves from illusions, while those who withhold forgiveness are binding themselves to them. As you condemn only yourself, so do you forgive only yourself. Yet although God does not forgive, His Love is nevertheless the basis of forgiveness. Fear condemns and love forgives. Forgiveness thus undoes what fear has produced, returning the mind to the awareness of God. For this reason, forgiveness can truly be called salvation. It is the means by which illusions disappear.' ACIM W-73 (Lesson 46:1:1-5 & 2:1-5)

Once I read that quote that God does not forgive because he never condemned, I put two and two together, and made the connection, the idea that God did not create the world now made perfect sense to me.

DU p 125 (Arten)
God could not have created this world. It would not be in His nature. He is not cruel, and as J points out to you, ‘If this were the real world, God would be cruel. For no Father could subject His children to this as the price of salvation and be loving.’ ACIM T-236 (13:Intro:3:1-2)

Of course, there really is no world, it’s just a dream, and dreams aren’t real. But that’s a subject for another time.

DU p 343 (Arten)
Don't ever forget that the goal of the Course is the only thing worth having, and this world isn't. You think the universe is of value because you're used to it and it's all you remember. But as the Course asks you, ‘God's teachers can have no regret on giving up the pleasures of the world. Is it a sacrifice to give up pain? Does an adult resent the giving up of children's toys? Does one whose vision has already glimpsed the face of Christ look back with longing on a slaughter house? No one who has escaped the world and all its ills looks back on it with condemnation.’ ACIM M p 33 (13:4:2-5)

Of course, that leads to another topic I’ll briefly mention: Suicide. As Arten puts in on page 79 in Gary’s second book Your Immortal Reality, ‘Suicide is the biggest problem in the world that the world is in total denial of. Sure, people know about suicide, but they have no idea how widespread it is. Nobody wants to talk about it . Nobody wants to examine it. If someone is depressed, the system will put them on drugs and never look at the reasons. That’s because the ego doesn’t want to look at the issue of unconscious guilt, which is the real cause of suicide.' And I might add, the unconscious guilt is real cause of all the madness in the world.

Arten also says on page 176 in DU, ‘Those who commit suicide, in any manner, seek to end the intolerable psychological pain of their guilt and suffering. Since their unconscious guilt remains intact, they merely end up reincarnating and keeping the problem unresolved. Death is not a way out. True forgiveness is the way out. As the Course teaches, ‘The world is not left by death but by truth.’ ACIM T-51 (3:VII:6:11)

So yeah, some people think they can escape their problems by killing themselves but they can’t, because it’s impossible to kill yourself. The body is nothing, the mind, not to be confused with the brain, keeps right on going afterwards. It’s not until you discover the truth of what you really are, not just intellectually but in your experience, that you will be free of the world. Otherwise, you keep reincarnating over and over again, like we already have been doing for eons. Of course, no matter how many problems somebody may think they have, there really is only one problem. As the Course puts it, ‘A sense of separation from God is the only lack you need correct.’ ACIM T-14 (1:VI:2:1) Any other seeming lack, is symbolic of that first and only lack.

And there is only one solution, as the Course clearly teaches, ‘The way to God is through forgiveness here. There is no other way.’ W-422 (256:1:1-2) Of course, we're talking about forgiveness in the true sense of the word, and then once that is accomplished, then all there’s left is Heaven.

A few more quotes to close this puppy out:

DU p 107 (Arten)
When J told you to make the world meaningless to you, he was talking about giving up the value that you have given it, and accepting the Holy Spirit's meaning for it instead. For example, he says in the Text, ‘To learn this course requires willingness to question every value that you hold.’ ACIM T-499 (24:Intro:2:1)

DU p 349 & 350 (Pursah)
When you have a deep desire for anything then you must think you're a body, or separate from God in some way. What else could want something? If you're spirit, or joined with God, then you need nothing. If you remember that you're not a body then you can step back and see that what you desire is valueless. We're not talking about giving up everything physically; we're talking about the way you look at it.

DU p 342 (Arten)
When J said, 'Renounce the world and the ways of the world; make them meaningless to you,' he meant that what you are seeing doesn't exist. It's nothing because it's not really there. How can nothing mean anything? If you make it mean something, good or bad, then you're trying to change nothing into something. The only thing you should make it is meaningless.

DU p 245 (Pursah)
You have work to do along with the Holy Spirit to uncover your eyes and get your mind into the condition where you can awaken from the dream and become aware of what you really are, and where you really are. All your lifetimes have been just one big, gigantic mind trip going nowhere. To get to the point where that truth becomes your experience, it takes work.

So, I’ll wrap up this post by saying that God is a Non-Idiot – yay!

Giddy up!

God Is....and nothing else is

Projection Makes Perception

2010-02-06T13:16:00.000-08:00

ACIM Preface xi
The world we see merely reflects our own internal frame of reference - the dominant ideas, wishes and emotions in our minds. "Projection makes perception." We look inside first, decide the kind of world we want to see and then project that world outside, making it the truth as we see it. We make it true by our interpretations of what it is we are seeing. If we are using perception to justify our own mistakes - our anger, our impulses to attack, our lack of love in whatever form it may take - we will see a world of evil, destruction, malice, envy, and despair. All this we must learn to forgive, not because we are being "good" and "charitable," but because what we are seeing is not true. We have distorted the world by our twisted defenses, and are therefore seeing what is not there. As we learn to recognize our perceptual errors, we also learn to look past them or "forgive." At the same time we are forgiving ourselves, looking past our distorted self-concepts to the Self That God created in us and as us.

ACIM T445 (21:1:1-9)
Projection makes perception. The world you see is what you gave it, nothing more than that. But though it is no more than that, it is not less. Therefore, to you it is important. It is the witness to your state of mind, the outside picture of an inward condition. As a man thinketh, so does he perceive. Therefore, seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world. Perception is a result and not a cause. And that is why order of difficulty in miracles is meaningless.

ACIM T38 (3:II:2)
Innocence is not a partial attribute. It is not real until it is total. The partly innocent are apt to be quite foolish at times. It is not until their innocence becomes a viewpoint with universal application that it becomes wisdom. Innocent or true perception means that you never misperceive and always see truly. More simply, it means that you never see what does not exist, and always see what does.

DU p 112
Gary: Are you saying I'm gonna have to see everyone, no matter what, as being totally innocent?
Pursah: That is correct. Once again, don't expect it to happen right way.
Gary: I don't know. How can a man like Hitler be innocent?
Pursah: That's a typical question, and the answer doesn't have anything to do with Hitler. As one who remembers my Jewish lifetimes very well, I'm not exactly a fan of the Nazis, skinheads, the KKK, or any of the other mentally injured groups. The reason they are innocent has nothing to do with the level of form. Hitler and everyone else in the world, including you, are equally innocent because what you are seeing is not true. This is your dream. As the Course teaches, the dream is not being dreamed by somebody else. ACIM T623 (29:IX:6:3)

Mikey's Note
Seeing innocence everywhere is certainly easier said than done. But each must take responsibility for his or her dream at the level of the mind in order to be free of it. Otherwise, you're building house upon the shifting sands of change, rather than on the rock. As the Course teaches, 'As you see him you will see yourself.' ACIM T142 (8:4:2) The question is, do you want to see yourself as innocent, or as a 'guilty little bastid?' Even though it may give one a transitory state of satisfaction, projecting your own unconscious guilt on to others only keeps it in tact, while forgiving it may not always come with the instant gratification we all desire, it will gradually undo all the unconscious guilt buried in the mind, and then we'll be free of it. And all that will be left is innocence.

God Is....and nothing else is

A Course in Miracles vs The Power of Now

2010-01-28T00:00:00.000-08:00
Arten compares A Course in Miracles with The Power of Now

YIR, p 27 (Gary asks Arten):
What about being in the now?

Where the practice of “be here now” will get you is here. Sure, it will relax you, but it won't get you home. One aspect of that kind of a system is to watch your judgments. But watching your judgments is not forgiving them. And the now that is experienced is not the eternal always of Heaven, which can only be consistently experienced when the ego has been completely undone by the Holy Spirit. That requires that you do your part to forgive, and the Holy Spirit takes care of the part of the job you can't see, deep within your unconscious mind.

YIR p 192 – 194 (Arten)
What we’re about to say isn’t meant to be anything but helpful. It’s said with the understanding that everyone is completely innocent, and that they’re doing their best to further whatever philosophy or method they sincerely believe in. That having been said, there are many spiritual teachers who are diluting the message of A Course in Miracles by teaching methods they claim are in agreement with the Course when they actually are not. This confuses the student by diverting attention from what the Course is teaching to something different, which the teachers of apparently don’t even understand are different, or else they wouldn’t be presenting them as though they’re the same by quoting the Course out of context to support their teachings.

One good example is the teaching that one should be in the now. Keep in mind that we’re not saying there’s anything wrong with the idea that there may be some good in focusing on the now rather than the past or the future. The quality of life would be improved. The problem is that doing so cannot remove the unconscious guilt over the original separation from God that is still hidden in the deep recesses of the mind. Because of that, it makes each experience of being in the now temporary by definition, because it fails to remove the blocks that prevent that experience from being permanent. All of which is to say that there's not just a minor difference between the approach of The Power of Now and the real power of A Course in Miracles. It's the difference between being temporarily in the now of an illusion, or being permanently in the presence of reality.

It's absolutely essential to remember that unless and until all unconscious guilt is removed from the mind, you cannot stay in the endless present on a permanent basis. It's impossible. Any attempt to remain in the now is doomed to failure without doing the work of true forgiveness. Until you've completely forgiven that which you made and projected outside of yourself, you are not forgiven in your own unconscious mind, and until you are, the cycle of birth and death cannot be broken. Being in the now does not heal your unconscious guilt and undo the ego. True forgiveness, on the other hand, removes the blocks to the awareness of love's presence that is your natural state of being, undoing the ego completely and making it possible to remain in the eternal "always" simply because that's all that's left.

Any attempt at eternity is a nonstarter as long as there’s any unconscious guilt in the mind, period. That guilt must be healed before you can permanently stay free of the past or future. And the way to undo it is not to ignore it, which is exactly what’s going on when you shut off and deny the past or future. It’s when you forgive the past and your concerns about the future that they are undone, and the endless present becomes truly available to you. That forgiveness always takes place now. Remember, we said that there’s no difference between forgiving the original separation at the time it appeared to happen, and forgiving it right now, for they are one and the same.

God Is

The Disappearance of the Universe vs Conversations with God

2010-01-02T00:00:00.000-08:00
In this Note, Arten and Pursah compare what they are teaching in Gary Renard's books - The Disappearance of the Universe and Your Immortal Reality - and what J is teaching in A Course in Miracles, to the Conversation with God books by Neale Donald Walsch. Now, Arten and Pursah, as always, don't make such comparisons to put down other teachers and what they are teaching, and only make these type of comparisons merely for clarification purposes, in order to demonstrate that what they are teaching, and what J is teaching in his Course, is not the same thing in a different package, although it is saying some of the same things.

I read the Conversation with God series back in the 1990s and they were certainly helpful in some ways to me at the time. However, I found myself moving on to the next item in the 'spiritual buffet line' where as with Gary's books, I have found them to be my 'be-all and end-all' of spirituality as they have left me with no unanswered questions, and confirmed a lot of what I already believed to be true from experience. Of course, they're not for everyone, as Gary's teachers don't sugarcoat anything, and there is much unconscious resistance to what they are saying - but they definitely speak the truth! But of course, I needed the Neale Walsch's as well as the Wayne Dyer's and all the many others whose books I studied as stepping stones to prepare me for Gary's books and the Course.

DU p 126
Arten: In the 1990s, one of the most popular spiritual books ever written will have God Himself saying that He created fear! That is an inaccuracy so major we cannot stress too much how completely false it is. God does not create anything that is not the perfect oneness of Heaven. As J puts it very early in his Course, when describing anything that doesn't reflect the thought system of the Holy Spirit, 'Everything else is your own nightmare, and does not exist.' And, 'You are at home in God, dreaming of exile but perfectly capable of awakening to reality.' ACIM T p 4 & ACIM T p 182

DU p 8 & 9
Pursah: The word correction is not used by us in the usual way, because to correct something usually means you fix it up and keep it. When the false universe is finished being corrected by the Holy Spirit, it will no longer appear to exist. I say it will no longer appear to exist because it does not exist in reality. The true Universe is God's Universe, or Heaven - and Heaven has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the false universe. However, there is a way of looking at your universe that will help you return to your true home with God.

Gary: You're talking about the universe like it's some kind of a mistake. But the Bible says that God created the world, and most everybody believes He did, not to mention all the world's religions. My friends and I think that God produced the world so He could know Himself experientially, which I guess is a pretty common New Age belief. Didn't God create polarity, duality, and all of the opposites in this world of subject and object?

Pursah: In a word, no. God did not create duality and He did not create the world. If He did, He would be the author of 'a tale told by an idiot,' to borrow Shakespeare's description of life. But God is not an idiot. We'll prove it to you. He can only be one of two things. He is either perfect Love, as the Bible says when it momentarily stumbles upon the truth, or He's an idiot. You can't have it both ways. J was no idiot either, because he wasn't taken in by the false universe.

YIR p 82 & 83
Gary: Well, there are people who think that God couldn't experience Himself in Oneness, and the only way He could experience Himself was to make this world and live in it. A lot of them seem to listen to authors and teachers who say so, like the Conversations with God books.

Pursah: If they looked deeper, they'd realize that they're regarding God as insane. You've had the mystical experience of what it's like to be with God in Heaven, Right?

Gary: Yeah.

Pursah: And how does Heaven compare to this world?

Gary: There is no comparison. In Heaven, you are God.

Pursah: But it's an experience, like an awareness, isn't it?

Gary: It sure is! It's a far greater experience that anything this world has to offer.

Pursah: All right, then. The idea of thinking that God would have to make this world in order to experience duality so he could appreciate and enjoy Himself is the equivalent of the idea that in order to experience and enjoy sex, you would have to also experience getting shot in the gut. No. Pain is the result of the guilt that came from thinking you separated yourself from God, and you don't have to experience pain in order to experience the pleasure of reality. But you do have to forgive pain and suffering and give it up in order to return to reality. J couldn't be any more clear about that in his Course, and he is the one you should listen to:

From the ego came sin and guilt and death, in opposition to life and innocence, and to the Will of God Himself. Where can such opposition lie but in the sick minds of the insane, dedicated to madness and set against the peace of Heaven? One thing is sure; God, Who created nether sin nor death, wills not that you be bound by them. He knows of neither sin nor its results. The shrouded figures in the funeral procession march not in honor of their Creator, Whose Will it is they live. There not following His Will; they are opposing it.' ACIM T p 417

Gary: Boy, he's gonna have to stop holding back and say how he really feels. So here are people saying that God made opposites so He could experience Himself, and here's J saying that what's all-encompassing can have no opposite, and that only the insane would think either that it could or that it should. Is that a fair statement?

Pursah: Yes.

DU p 118 (Arten)
The Course is not a movement; there are more than enough of those. You don’t have to take over the world. It doesn’t matter whether the Course is popular or not. J knows what he’s doing! Those who are ready for the Course will find it. His Course is unique. It gives an individual a chance to learn that he or she is not an individual, and that they are never alone. It gives you the opportunity to commune with the Holy Spirit and ultimately, God. It accelerates your return to God by helping the Holy Spirit heal you. ('You' meaning your seemingly separated mind, which most people mistake as the soul.)

God Is

The Unconscious Mind

2009-12-09T00:00:00.000-08:00
YIR p 64 (Gary)
People think it’s the beliefs that they have in their conscious mind that runs them, and that they can control their mind by changing their thoughts from negative to positive ones. That’s not true when it comes to the big picture. It will only have a temporarily helpful impact. What really runs us are the beliefs we have that are unconscious to us, the things we can’t see. A Course in Miracles presents a way to actually heal and remove the things that are hidden in the deep canyons of the unconscious mind. Very few spiritual teachings do anything on that level.

DU p 159 (Pursah & Arten)
Your real life is in Heaven, but you can also achieve peace and joy during your temporary life here. Those are your motivations for quitting grievances. Sometimes those motivations won't seem like enough. What's going to happen is that when you try to forgive, sometimes you'll be able to. Yet if you're really trying to do the Course, then just as often you're going to come up against a lot of things that you don't want to forgive and you don't want to give up. That's how your resistance and your hidden, unconscious hatred shows up. Those are the things you're going to have to look at that you don't want to look at.

My Note: Two very potent Course quotes associated with this:

No one can escape from illusions unless he looks at them, for not looking is the
way they are protected. T p 202 (11:V:1:1)

To learn this course requires willingness to question every value that you hold. T p 499 (24:Intro:2:1)

Then, a DU quote to add to this as a follow up:

DU p 225 (Pursah)
The Holy Spirit knows your afraid of your unconscious. The purpose of the Course is peace, not to scare the hell out of you. The more prepared you are, and the better you do your forgiveness work, the less scary your journey with the Course will ultimately be.

God Is

A Course in Miracles and Forgiveness

2009-10-08T21:55:00.000-07:00
ACIM T p 138
Knowledge is not the motivation for learning this course. Peace is. This is the prerequisite for knowledge only because those who are in conflict are not peaceful, and peace is the condition of knowledge because it is the condition of the Kingdom. Knowledge can be restored only when you meet its conditions.

DU p 109
The peace of God is the goal of the Course because it must be attained in order to regain the awareness of your reality in the Kingdom.

YIR p 139
It’s through your own choice for the Holy Spirit and His thought system instead of the ego’s that your mind is returned to peace. That has to happen first in order for you to go home. You can’t skip your forgiveness homework. Everybody wants to skip to the end and be enlightened now, but it doesn’t work that way. If peace is the condition of the Kingdom, then the mind must be at peace in order to fit in. And in order for the mind to be at peace, you have to forgive. It’s as simple as that.

DU p 147
Without its practical method of forgiveness, the Course would be nothing but a beautiful and useless book - fuel for debate and the games of the ego. Fortunately, as J says in the Introduction to the Clarification of Terms, p 77: This is not a course in philosophical speculation, nor is it concerned with precise terminology. It is concerned only with Atonement, or the correction of perception. The means of the Atonement is forgiveness.

What is Forgiveness? ACIM W p 401
Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin. And in that view are all your sins forgiven.

Forgiveness is the key to happiness. ACIM Lesson 121 W p 214
Here is the answer to your search for peace. Here is the key to meaning in a world that seems to make no sense. Here is the way to safety in apparent dangers that appear to threaten you at every turn, and bring uncertainty to all your hopes of ever finding quietness and peace. Here are all questions answered; here the end of all uncertainty ensured at last.

Forgiveness offers everything I want. ACIM Lesson 122 W p 217
What could you want forgiveness cannot give? Do you want peace? Forgiveness offers it. Do you want happiness, a quiet mind, a certainty of purpose, and a sense of worth and beauty that transcends the world? Do you want care and safety, and the warmth of sure protection always? Do you want a quietness that cannot be disturbed, a gentleness that never can be hurt, a deep abiding comfort, and a rest so perfect it can never be upset?

All this forgiveness offers and more. It sparkles on your eyes as you awake, and gives you joy with which to meet the day. It soothes your forehead while you sleep, and rest upon your eyelids so you see no dreams of fear and evil, malice and attack. And when you wake again, it offers you another day of happiness and peace. All this forgiveness offers you, and more.

DU p 343
We came here to give people a spiritual message, a message that not everyone is ready for yet, and this is it: When you are ready to accept that the only thing that really matters in your illusory lifetime is the successful completion of your lessons of true forgiveness, then you will be truly wise indeed.

DU p 221
True forgiveness is the real purpose of life, but you've got to choose it in order to make it yours. Remember, practicing real forgiveness can't help but lead you home.

YIR p 128
You can't wake up from a dream as long as you're stuck in it. Awareness of dreaming breaks the hold. And the more you forgive, the more you become aware that you're just dreaming.

Forgiveness is my function as the light of the world. ACIM Lesson 62 W p 104
It is your forgiveness that will bring the world of darkness to the light. It is your forgiveness that lets you recognize the light in which you see. Forgiveness is the demonstration that you are the light of the world. Through your forgiveness does the truth about yourself return to your memory. Therefore, in your forgiveness lies your salvation.

God is the Love in which I forgive. ACIM Lesson 46 W p 73
God does not forgive because He has never condemned. And there must be condemnation before forgiveness is necessary. Forgiveness is the great need of this world, but that is because it is a world of illusions. Those who forgive are thus releasing themselves from illusions, while those who withhold forgiveness are binding themselves to them. As you condemn only yourself, so do you forgive only yourself. Yet although God does not forgive, His Love is nevertheless the basis of forgiveness.

The words, Forgive(s), Forgiven, Forgiveness, Forgiving, and Forgivable show up in the Course a total of 842 times.

Forgive and let live.

True Perception

2009-09-26T22:12:00.000-07:00
When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter. As you see him you will see yourself. As you treat him you will treat yourself. As you think of him you will think of yourself. Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself or lose yourself. ~ACIM Text p 142 (8:III:4:1-5)

The key to enlightenment lies in a secret that very few people have ever known, but which J knew well. The way you will experience and feel about yourself is not determined by how other people look at and think about you. The way that you will experience and feel about yourself is actually determined by how you look at and think about them. Ultimately, this determines your identity. You will identify yourself either as a body or as perfect spirit, as either divided or whole, depending on how you see others. And once you understand that, I would think you'd want to get pretty damn careful how you think about other people! ~YIR p 17

Always remember that your state of mind and the resulting goal you will achieve are in your own hands, because there are really only two things you can do - judge as an expression of fear, or forgive as an expression of love. One perception leads to the peace of God and the other perception leads to war. As the Course teaches, 'You see the flesh or recognize the spirit. There is no compromise between the two. If one is real the other must be false, for what is real denies its opposite. There is no choice in vision but this one.' ~DU p 397,398

God Is

True Humility

2009-07-28T19:45:00.000-07:00
Last weekend at Gary's workshop in Truckee, CA, he said something - which of course I already knew - but got on a deeper level. No such thing as too much repetition in hearing right-minded ideas, since it goes against the conservative thinking of the world. Anyway, most would think it is arrogant to say you are one with God. But the truth is, it is arrogant to think you can have an individual existence separate from God. So we're a bunch of arrogant bastids here! True humility is accepting being nothing less than God, which we are in reality - this, of course, isn't reality, but passes for it. Of course, I'm not here to deny our experience, but as Gary would say, 'it's a false experience.' Here are some quotes from DU in support of this idea, and I substituted "He" with "It" since God is really an It, so I wanted to be technically correct rather than sticking to the metaphorical language of the Course:

DU p 40,41 - (context - Believing God has anything to do with the universe of time and space) You've got to be willing to surrender the idea of Authorship to God if you want to be able to share in your real power. Humility is the way - not a false humility that says you are inadequate, but a real humility that simply says God is your only Source. You will realize that except for Its Love you need nothing, and he who needs nothing can be trusted with everything.

DU p 188 - The only real freedom you have is to choose to return to God by listening to the voice for It, instead of continuing indefinitely within a fixed system that has nothing to do with God. Your brain isn't hard wired to know God. Your mind tells your brain what to do! Be glad the universe and your brain have nothing to do with God, and that there's a way to return to Its universe.

DU p 9 - God did not create duality and did not create the world. If It did, It would be the author of 'a tale told by an idiot.' But God is not an idiot. God can only be one of two things. God is either perfect Love, as the Bible says when it momentarily stumble upon the truth, or It's an idiot. You can't have it both ways. J was no idiot either, because he wasn't taken in by the false universe.

DU p 30 - God, Which is actually real, seems distant and illusory. The world, which is actually illusory, seems immediate and real.

DU p 84 - You have often thought you had to try harder to be a more loving person, so you could exemplify the love of J. That's not true. If you really want to be perfect Love like him and God, then what you need to do is learn how to remove, with the Holy Spirit's help, the barriers that you have placed in between yourself and God. Then you will naturally and inevitable become aware of what you really are.

DU p 37 - The myth of living a perfect life in terms of behavior is self-defeating and unnecessary. All that is necessary is to be willing to receive correction.

In regards to our buddy J aka J-Dog:

DU p 294J had the kind of humility that said, 'God, I just want you.'

DU p 28,29 - J was a savior all right, but not the kind who promoted vicarious salvation. He wanted to teach us how to play our part in saving ourselves. When he said that he was the way, the truth, and the life, he meant we should follow his example, not believe in him personally. You shouldn't glorify his body. He didn't believe in his own body, why should you?

DU p 13 - It was never J's intention to start a religion. Whether then or now, the world needs another religion like it needs a bigger hole in the ozone layer.

DU p 73 - Conservative is not exactly the word you would use to describe J, who was the radical of radicals - not in temperament but in his teachings.

DU p 18 - One of the fundamental differences between the teachings of J and the teachings of the world is this: The teachings of the world are the product of a split, unconscious mind. Once you have that, you have compromise, and once you have compromise, you no longer have the truth.

DU p 49 - J considered himself to be totally dependent on God, yet this dependence was not weakness, as the world usually views dependence. Rather, the result was a state of unbelievable psychological strength. Things that would scare the stuffing out of strong people meant nothing to him, because they were nothing to him. Fear was not a part of him. His attitude was the same as if you were having a dream last night asleep in your bed, except you were totally aware of the fact that you were dreaming. And because you knew you were dreaming, you also knew that absolutely nothing in the dream could possibly hurt you, because none of it was true.

DU p 41 - When J made statements like, 'Of myself I can do nothing,' and 'I and the Father are on,' he wasn't claiming any kind of specialness for himself. In fact, he was giving up any specialness, individuality, or authorship and accepting his true strength - the power of God.

DU p 47 - J had forgiven the world - his mind had been returned to the Holy Spirit where it belonged. That's where your mind belongs. You took it, and you have to give it back. And I've got a message for you: You'll never really be happy until you do. No matter what you imagine you have accomplished in any lifetime, there will always be a part of you that feels like something is missing - because in your illusions something is missing.

DU p 98 - The J of the Course is not the same as the version of J in Christianity, and the two thought systems are not compatible. For Christianity, their suffering image of J the body is extra special. He is different than you in the sense that he alone is God's only begotten Son. But the J of the Course informs you that because you and he are one, then you are equally God's only begotten Son or Christ - not any different than him - and furthermore, you can eventually experience this.

DU p 53 - We're not saying there isn't some good in Christianity or that Christian people are not sometimes the salt of the earth. But their religion is a mixed bag, because the world that is a projection of the mind that made it is such a mixed bag. If the mind is going to be healed, then it needs something that is not a mixed bag.

From A Course in Miracles (1:VI:2:1) A sense of separation from God is the only lack you really need correct.

So, the goal of all this to get in touch with the voice of your Higher Self, the Holy Spirit, and eventually get to the point where you and Its voice are one and the same.

Forget not to laugh, and have fun kids!

God Is

Mikey with Gary & Cindy, Truckee, CA 7-18-09

True Forgiveness

2009-06-28T23:15:00.001-07:00
Quotes from Gary’s books on the topic of true forgiveness.

As Gary likes to say in his workshops, ‘Forgiveness isn’t easy, in fact, it sucks, because they don’t deserve it!’ Of course, we know he’s just being funny, and that we all have work to do – continuing to forgive the symbols of our own unconscious minds - the people, places, and things that piss us off and push our buttons, or just disturb our peace in the slightest, on any given day. So, here are some quotes from Gary’s two books on true forgiveness, to help us stay focused and motivated on that task at hand. Enjoy!

DU p 114
Remember, the kind of forgiveness J used and that His Course is teaching is not the same kind of forgiveness that Christianity and the world sometimes participate in. If it were, then it would be a waste of time. Christianity got J wrong.

DU p 245,246
The law of forgiveness is this: Fear binds the world, forgiveness sets it free. The world feels solid to you because fear binds it. It didn't feel solid to J because he had forgiven the world. That’s why the nails didn’t hurt J as they were being driven into his flesh. Being guiltless, his mind could not suffer - and someday you will attain the condition where you cannot suffer.

DU p 240
These are the components of forgiveness:
You remember that you're dreaming.
You forgive your projected images and yourself for dreaming them.
You trust the Holy Spirit and choose Its strength.

YIR 176
An additional component of forgiveness would be that after you forgive, if you feel some kind of action is required, then always ask the Holy Spirit if there's anything you should do. Remember, the Holy Spirit doesn't do anything in the world, ever. But It can inspire you as to what you should do.

YIR 43,44
The teachings of the Course are always applied at the level of the mind, and never at the level of form or the physical. That's why it's a course in cause and not effect. In your mind, you use right-minded ideas. Then sometimes after you forgive, you may feel you are being guided in some way by the Holy Spirit as to what you should do or not do. That's inspiration, which comes as an aftereffect of forgiveness.

DU p 218
Forgiveness isn't about being a do-gooder, not that there's anything wrong with doing good deeds if it turns you on. The Course is about being a right thinker. A lot of Christians ask nowadays, "What would Jesus do?" There's only one correct answer to that question, and it would always be the same. He'd forgive.

DU p 242
Forgiveness doesn't mean you have to give up anything on the level of form. Your psychological attachment to things is one of the ways your ego clings to the body and the world. That will need to be forgiven. It masks your unconscious resistance to the truth that there is no world. Like you, most people don't want to hear that their dreams and passions are really false idols - a substitute for God and Heaven. There's nothing wrong with your dream if you understand it and forgive it. Forgive - and then do what you and the Holy Spirit choose to. And have fun!

YIR p 26 (In response to Gary’ question about meditation)
Remember something: There is no substitute for practicing forgiveness, and that's the spiritual 'life in the fast lane' that our brother J was teaching by both word and example 2000 years ago.

DU p 343
We came here to give people a spiritual message, a message that not everyone is ready for yet, and this is it: When you are ready to accept that the only thing that really matters in your illusory lifetimes is the successful completion of your lessons of true forgiveness, then you will be truly wise indeed.

DU p 234
Forgiveness is where the rubber meets the road. Without forgiveness, metaphysics are useless. In the end, there are really only two things you can do. As the Course teaches: He who would not forgive must judge, for he must justify his failure to forgive.

DU p 218
It might help you to remember that you're the one whom forgiveness helps. You don't always have to care personally about the person you're forgiving. Your job is simply to correct your misperceptions, and it isn't against the rules to know that you can't help but benefit because of it.

YIR p 97,98
In regards to your special hate relationships, when you meet someone in this lifetime whom you've had dealings with before in other lifetimes, it's because you're orbiting each other, just as planets orbit the sun. In some lifetimes you'll be the victim, and in others, the victimizer. The question is, what are you going to use it for this time, freedom or bondage? Are you going to get that you are not a victim and take responsibility for dreaming, or are you going to make it real and stay stuck here?

YIR p 27
Repetition is important not just in learning right minded ideas, but in practicing forgiveness. Sometimes it may look like you're forgiving the same thing over and over again. You forgive the people you work with. Then you go back there the next day, and they're still there. But even if it looks like you're forgiving the same thing, that's an illusion too. What's really happening is that more unconscious guilt is coming to the surface of your mind, and it's a chance for you to release and be rid of it by continuing to forgive.

DU p 221, 222 & 232
The holy instant is simply that instant when you choose the Holy Spirit as your teacher instead of the ego. This happens anytime you choose forgiveness - thus acting in both you and your forgivee's best interest. Of course, the forgivee is really you; it just doesn't look that way. What you're really accomplishing is the forgiveness of the symbolic contents of your own mind. When you forgive others, it’s really you yourself who is being forgiven.

DU p 249,250
You’ve got to understand that if the Course is teaching there is no hierarchy of illusions, and if a miracle is a shift in perception where you switch over to the Holy Spirit’s script, then one miracle is no less important than another. So, it’s just as important to forgive a cold as it is to forgive a physical assault, and just as important to forgive a subtle insult as it is to forgive the death of a loved one. What is perceived as a tragedy can be forgiven just as quickly as you’re willing to recognize that the separation from God never occurred, so it’s only a dream and nobody’s guilty – including you.

DU p 215
The Holy Spirit knows that with the exception of forgiveness, it doesn’t matter what you do. The ego wants what you do to be important. As a way of intruding on your spirituality and delaying the truth, it tries to make what you do in the world important and special. Yet to the Holy Spirit, what you do for Him, or for Jesus or for God is not important. How can anything that occurs in an illusion be important if you actually understand it’s not real? Only forgiveness and your healing matter. True, that kind of a teaching may not be the basis for a popular religion that takes over the world and tells everybody else how they should be living their lives – but it is definitely the truth.

DU p 166, 167, & 193
The Atonement principle undoes denial and projection at the level of your mind by forgiving what you perceive, and the Holy Spirit undoes the denial and projection at the metaphysical level of your mind at the same time. You must practice forgiveness on the level where your experience is. Yes, you have to understand the metaphysics of the Course in order to understand what you’re doing. But your forgiveness is done here, which means you should be practical - and respectful of other people and their experience. In other words, when you're living your everyday life, be kind. Your job isn't to correct others. Just help the Holy Spirit clean up your wrong mind by switching to your right mind. When we say you should be kind to others, it doesn't mean you should be in denial about the ego thought system. But don't try to change others; change your own mind instead.

DU p 113, 114
The thought system of love and the thought system of fear are both forms of denial. One of them, the Holy Spirit's teaching, leads to Heaven by uncovering and reversing the ego's denial of the truth. As the Course says about the peace that results from the Holy Spirit's teaching: It denies the ability of anything not of God to affect you. This is the proper use of denial.

DU p 221
True forgiveness is the real purpose of life, but you’ve got to choose it in order to make it yours.

Mikey says:
When things aren't going well, or your peace of mind has been disturbed in any number of ways, remember what it's all for – it’s all for forgiveness. Eventually, you'll be able to laugh at anything that the world throws your way just as our buddy J-Dog could. Now, when things are going well, and you’re having a good time, then just enjoy it – celebrate - The Happy Dream! Have fun kids - Giddy up!

God Is

Update from Gary Renard

2009-06-23T07:11:00.000-07:00
Update about third book from Gary

Hi Friends, I want to update you on the status of my third book, Love Has Forgotten No one, LHFNO.) My buddy and fellow podcast host, Gene Bogart, joked that I should re-name it, Love Has Still Forgotten No One. I'm going through the manuscript for what I think is the 5th time plus working on the ending. It's almost done but I can't give you a release date until I turn it in to Hay House, which has the first right to publish it. They will decide the release date. The book will become available no matter what, and when it does I'll be there to support it one hundred per cent as usual. Rogier Van Vlissingen has already translated the first half of the book into Dutch, and we're both on the same page that this is a very exciting project.

I want to emphasize that although my Teachers, Arten and Pursah, Guided me to have the book out much sooner, it was not their Guidance but my own inability to deliver that caused the delays. I apologize for those delays. Traveling the extreme way that I do can beat you up. I'm not complaining, just stating what appears to happen in the illusion. Delays happen (although I admit this one has been too long.) This is a bigger forgiveness lesson for me than it is for you. Still, I can't help but think of the times when Ken Wapnick, known as the Course's greatest scholar, would announce a publication date for one of his books in his Newsletter, "The Lighthouse," (especially in the late 90s) and it wouldn't come out until a long time later. Such is life. But I want to explain to you a couple of the reasons it happened in this case. There's more, which is personal, but the time I spend traveling plus the things below are the major factors.

I've been Guided through many corrections of minor mistakes (fortunately not major ones) in the book during the last year by A & P. This book is the first time they didn't permit me to tape record their conversations (as you'll see in the book.) This, combined with my schedule, made the writing of this book more difficult for me. I can see now that they did this to help me in my own personal development in regards to hearing them, not so much during our "in person" conversations, but in between them, without recordings, when they were not present in their seemingly physical bodies. The conversations in the books are given to me, but I write my narration, notes, and organize the material. This is what makes the books the story of my life.

A & P's Voices are actually the One Voice of the Holy Spirit, (see the end of The Disappearance of the Universe) and their approach and editing for this book was in keeping with their method of always helping me along my path at the fastest rate possible. My ability to hear The Voice has been aided by this project beyond comprehension. This will make the writing of future books faster and easier. You'll see that in LHFNO we also discuss the difference between people hearing the Holy Spirit's Voice filtered by their own ego, as opposed to hearing it purely..

When the book does come out, I hope you'll think it was worth the wait.. I'm very excited about it for many reasons, which I trust you'll see.. Also, I'm adjusting my traveling schedule to permit me to fulfill Arten and Pursah's Guidance that I do a book every year. That may seem extreme, but it is possible. And that doesn't mean I won't be traveling and speaking a lot, but I sense there are just as many surprises coming up for all of us in that area as there are in the next book.

There were personal stories that needed to be told, and they all fit together like a hologram. The book tells all about my relationship with Karen, my former wife (with her permission and support) and the story of Cindy and I (BTW, thanks for all of your kind congratulations on our upcoming marriage) and how the lifetimes of Thomas and Thaddaeus, Cindy and I, and Arten and Pursah all fit together in what A Course in Miracles describes as, "An interlocking chain of forgiveness."

I hope you'll be a little more patient, enjoy other things in the meantime such as my CD, "Fearless Love", the movie I'm in, "Leap!" my DVDs, teleconferences, etc. I'll give you a final date for the book release, but only when I'm certain about what it is. Thanks for all of your support and friendship.

Love, Gary

Be Passersby

2009-05-26T00:24:00.000-07:00
From The Disappearance of the Universe p 79:
The saying in the Gospel of Thomas, 'Be passersby,' is about not being mentally attached to things. It has nothing to do with physically giving up anything. If you believe that you have to give something up, then you are making it just as real as if you covet it.

My Note: I would add that it's not only about not being attached to things, but as well as to people, places, events, outcomes, others' behavior and so forth. All these attachments and expectations are things we all need to forgive. Otherwise, we are giving our power away by allowing outside influences to rule our minds, which keeps ourselves psychologically vulnerable when things do not appear to go our way. Of course, there's nothing wrong with having these things and having them work out for us while we appear to be here, but if you need them in order to feel happy and at peace, then the happiness and peace that they will seemingly bring will be only transitory at best, as they are all just symbolic of our one and only lack, and just acting as an inferior substitute. As the Course says:

A sense of separation from God is the only lack you really need correct.

Of course, it's all so simple. But no one ever said it was easy. And Mikey must have his high speed internet, iPod, and organic dark chocolate with almonds, damn it!!! Giddy up!

God Is

My Favorite Definitive Statement in ACIM

2009-04-26T00:00:00.000-07:00
I recently posted this as a 'Note' on my Facebook page. To say the least, it went over about as well as a 'fart in an elevator' based on the comments written by an old high school buddy who is now a born-again Christian. I know this is a radical idea, and one would have to read, and understand, A Course in Miracles and/or Gary Renard's books to even have a chance at grasping this concept, as this idea is very threatening to the ego since the statement means the end of individual existence. Because in reality, there are no individuals, just total oneness with God. If you're interested in reading the comments, you'll have to add me as a friend on Facebook in order to view them. Anyway, here's the note I wrote:

ACIM Workbook Lesson 132 (6:2-3)
There is no world! This is the central thought the Course attempts to teach.

Supplemental Material related to this idea:

DU p 9:
Gary: The Bible says that God created the world, and most everybody believes He did, not to mention all the world's religions. My friends and I think that God produced the world so He could know Himself experientially, which I guess is a pretty common New Age belief. Didn't God create polarity, duality, and all of the opposites in this world of subject and object.

Pursah: In a word, no. God did not create duality and He did not create the world. If he did, He would be the author of 'a tale told by an idiot,' to borrow Shakespeare's description of life. But God is not an idiot. He can only be one of two things. He is either perfect Love, as the Bible says when it momentarily stumbles upon the truth, or He's an idiot. You can't have it both ways.

DU p 223:
Gary: Some Course students seem to think God created the good parts of the world and not the bad, and that the Course is trying to get us to give up our bad perceptions, but keep the good ones.

Arten: Let's be very clear; God did not even create part of the world. The Course says ' There is no world!' How could God have created part of it if there isn't any? It's not the Holy Spirit's intention to do anything except wake you up from your dream that there is a world!

DU p 125:
Arten: God could not have created this world. It would not be in His nature. He is not cruel, and as J points out to you:
If this were the real world, God would be cruel. For no Father could subject His children to this as the price of salvation and be loving.

Our experience here is an 'optical delusion of our consciousness.' ~Albert Einstein

Just like the movies, it may not be real, but doesn't mean you can't enjoy the show - saddle up and ride!

Be Passersby.

God Is

ACIM Shindig - San Francisco, CA 2009

2009-03-08T14:14:00.000-07:00
ACIM Conference 2009 – San Francisco, CA Feb 27, 28, & Mar 1
Hoiday Inn – Van Ness Ave

Update 3-11-09:
After rereading what I wrote here in this blog entry several days after I had posted it, it occurred to me that there are some things I say here that may be perceived as me being obnoxious, self-righteous, and/or arrogant. That certainly wasn't my intention when I wrote this.

I have the utmost respect for the material presented in A Course in Miracles, and am very adamant about not comprising on the integrity of its message (even though I don't really work with the Course directly.) But that's the reason why Gary's teachers appeared to him in the first place, to set the record straight, as the message of the Course was being diluted and watered down. It is my intention to do my part to help keep the real message of the Course, in tact. I get very passionate and excited when talking and writing about this stuff, as it is very near and dear to my heart. So please keep in that mind if something I write rubs you the wrong way, and most importantly, remember what it's all for. Enjoy!

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Back in the Fall of 2007 when the announcement was made for this event, I had put down my $100 deposit in order to lock into the discounted rate in case I decided to go to this, when time drew nearer. In the Fall of 2008, I was quite certain I was not going to go, as I wasn’t feeling strongly about it, and didn’t think it would be worth my while to do so considering hotel fees, travel and parking fees, not to mention the rest of the money for the conference itself.

However, all that changed when my Course buddy Bruce Rawles, (who I like to call Bruce Almighty just for kicks) who lives about thirty minutes from me in Eagle Point, OR, told me he was going to go to the conference and stay at his mother’s house in Livermore, about forty-five miles outside of San Francisco, and commute to the conference via the BART, and that I was welcomed to join him. So, I paid the reminder of the conference fees by the end of December, and took Bruce up on his (and his mother’s) generous offer.

So the theme of this conference was called ‘A Blessing from the Abundance of our Grandeur.’ Don’t ask me what that’s supposed to mean, to borrow a line from Gary in DU, ‘I have not a freakin’ idea!’ If it were up to me, it would have been called something a little more radical such as, ‘There is no world, after all!’ Anyway, I’ll write out a day by day blow, from my perspective, including the schedule of speakers and events, as listed on the program (without the details of each speaker’s topic summary.)

Friday February 27th

12 – 4 PM Registration

4 – 4:30 PM Blessing & Song Rev.Tony Ponticello & Rev. Larry Bedini

4:30 – 5;45 PM David Fishman & Regina Dawn Akers

6:00 – 7:15 PM Breakout groups - 5 Concurrent presentations:
• Rev.Deborah & Rev.Paul Phelps
• Candace & DavidPaul Doyle
• Tom Whitmore & Carmen Cameron
• D Patrick Miller
• Carol Howe

7:30 – 8:45 PM Dinner

9:00 – 10:15 PM Breakout groups – 4 concurrent presentations
• Earl Purdy
• John Nagy
• David Hoffmeister
• Martha Lucia Espinosa

So, Bruce and I left in the early morning, with him picking me up from my home in Ashland at around 7am. The first few hours of the ride were spent with me reading out loud my hand-written Gary cards, with Bruce and I engaging in deep discussion on pretty much each one. A few hours into the drive, however, shortly after we passed Redding, we picked up a nail and wound up with a flat tire. So, we got out of the car, and Bruce changed the tire. I watched. It was done in fifteen minutes, and then it took an additional fifteen minutes to fill it up with air. A female cop pulled over onto the shoulder behind us to make sure we were all good - we were. So, after the tire was filled with air, we got back on the freeway, doing about 50 MPH since the spare tire recommended not to go any faster than that.

Bruce had mapped-out a Costco in Fairfield ahead of time to get gas, so we spent the next three hours doing fifty until we got there. It just so happens that Bruce had recently bought new tires from a Costco, so when we got there, he was able to get his tire replaced, for almost free, just paying the difference on the tread that had been used. Bruce was happy about that.

So, by the time we got to the BART station in Pleasanton, and the train ride to the Civic Center stop in San Fran, followed by the twenty minute plus walk to the Holiday Inn for the conference, it was 5 pm. The conference started at 4 pm.

So we walked into the hotel lobby and got ourselves registered. Bruce went into the room where the current speakers were speaking. I was just glad we hadn’t missed Gary, who wasn’t scheduled to speak until the next day. Anyway, with me being a vegan and into organic foods and all that, I’m very particular about my food, (perhaps even to the point of it being a false-idol,) I headed over to the Whole Foods Market. I never leave it to chance when it comes to food, so I always bring my own wherever I go. Whenever I travel, I always do my research on-line ahead of time of where the nearest health food stores in the town I’m visiting are. Fortunately for me, there was a Whole Foods Market just a hop, skip, and a jump from the hotel, so I was very pleased about that. So I walked over there to get my food for dinner, since I didn’t feel like going to the presentation.

When I came back to the hotel lobby, the presentation had just ended. There were over four hundred people attending this event, and most of them had just filtered out of the room, but I didn’t see Bruce come out. So, I walked in the room and Bruce was talking to a woman in there. So I approached them, and Bruce introduced me to Cindy, who is Gary’s girlfriend, who I presumed to be this lifetime’s Arten, as well as who Gary refers to as ‘mystery woman’ on his podcasts, but I wasn't about to pry.

So, Gary came over and suggested we carry on our conversation in the lobby since a new presentation was about to start in that room. So we were chatting in the lobby, and then I noticed Gary’s t-shirt. It was black, and it had the word ‘Jesus’ on it. But the rest of it was covered up until he moved his arm. Then I saw a cartoon picture of Jesus with the word ‘Saves.’ I made a comment, and then lifted up my sweatshirt. ‘Coincidently,’ I just so happened to be wearing my black t-shirt that reads ‘Beavis Saves,’ with a picture of Beavis as an angel. Gary and Cindy really dug the shirt, and all four of us got a kick out of the synchronicity of it all. Speaking of pictures, I should have asked Bruce to take a picture of Gary and I wearing our respective SAVES t-shirts, but I wasn’t really thinking. I had already had a picture with Gary with us wearing matching Masshole t-shirts together when he came here to Southern Oregon last summer. So getting a picture of us together wasn’t a priority going into the conference so it wasn’t in the back of my mind, though I did have my camera on me, oh well.

So, after a few more minutes of conversation, I mentioned to Gary that I’ve been posting a Quote of the Day over on the DU Yahoo group, and he said that he noticed and thanked me for doing that – to help people keep focused. Anyway, Gary and Cindy had to split but they suggested we eat at the same table with them at some point during the weekend.

So Bruce and I decided to hit one of the five presentations going on at that moment. We decided to attend the DavidPaul and Candace one since they too are residents of Southern Oregon, actually they live in the same town as me, but I’ve never met them. We walked in about twenty minutes late, and stayed until the end of it. But I pretty much daydreamed through the entire presentation while sipping my Ginger Brew– no offense to the presenters – I just had my mind on other things. So after that was over, it was dinner time.

Lunch, Dinner, and Sunday morning brunch buffets were included in the conference fees. But as mentioned earlier, I always have my own agenda when it comes to food. But I stood in the long line anyway talking with Bruce, as well as mingling with new acquaintances, which is rare for me because I’m not someone who has a lot to say, in the conventional 'world' anyway. At one point, Bruce was speaking briefly with D Patrick Miller (Gary’s original publisher) but I didn’t realize who it was until he walked by me. When he did, we kind of looked at each other and I said, “D Patrick Miller?’ He said yes and we shook hands. I then went on to say that I am big Gary Renard fan and before I got to finish my sentence he moved on to the next person. I guess I could have been offended by that, but I wasn’t. Actually, I thought it was pretty funny. Anyway, the rest of the sentence that he did not hear was, ‘….thank you for publishing Gary’s book.’ But he probably just wanted to chat with somebody who was interested in his own writing, not Gary’s. I don’t blame him.

So anyway, after getting through the buffet line, Bruce spotted the table that Gary and Cindy were sitting at, and there were a couple of empty places, so we joined them. Gary’s booking agent, Jan Cook, was also sitting at this table. There were also some other people at this table, including two people from West Virginia who I would have conversations with throughout the weekend. They seemed very familiar to me, which would be a theme throughout the weekend – meeting people I supposedly never met, yet feeling like I was part of a family reunion. Nice feeling!

Oh, another interesting conversation took place at this time in regards to Gary’s speaking schedule. He was supposed to be hitting Australia during the month of April, however, that got pushed back until November so Jan told Bruce that he’s open to coming up to Ashland in April. Right now, Bruce and I are researching venues here in Ashland in order to have Gary come do a workshop on April 25th. Giddy up!

So, after dinner, Bruce and I went to Lucia’s presentation titled, ‘From Scarcity to ABUNDANCE – How to Get Everything in Exchange for Nothing.’ It was a nice presentation, and I got a kick out of her Spanish accent being mixed in with a little bit of a Southern accent. Cute. Anyway, I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself to her after the presentation (she’s my friend on Facebook though) as Bruce and I were engaged in an extended conversation with a young Asian woman who was sitting behind me during the presentation. By the time we were done talking, Lucia had already left the room. So, I never got my Spoken Miracles book signed by her. I did, however, do a review of her book over on Amazon a while back, Mike's Amazon Reviews

So now it was after 10:30, and it was time to catch the BART. We got to Bruce’s mom’s place around midnight, and end up talking with her for about an hour before we went to bed. I was so wired from the fun interactions I had all evening that it took me well over an hour to fall asleep. Then I woke up around 5:15, and since I was to get up at 6, I just decided to stay up, so I ended up with about three hours of sleep. I did some yoga stretches, and then jumped in the shower.

Saturday February 28th

8:45 – 10:00 Breakout groups – 4 concurrent presentations
• Tom Carpenter & Linda Carpenter
• Jon Mundy Ph.D.
• Lyn Corona & Edward Duhaime
• Ian Patrick

10:15 – 10:30 ‘Abundance’ & Song

10;30 – 11:45 Gary Renard

12:00 – 1:15 Lunch

1;30 – 2:45 Breakout groups – 5 Concurrent presentations
• Nouk Sanchez & Tomas Vierira
• Sandy Levey-Lunden
• Carol Howe
• Tom Whitmore & Carmen Cameron
• Mary Gerard Lenihan

3:00 – 4:15 Breakout groups – 5 concurrent presentations
• Candace & DavidPaul Doyle
• David Hoffmeister
• Ian Patrick
• Earl Purdy
• Rev. Deborah & Rev Paul Phelps

4:30 – 4:45 Grandeur & Song

4;45 – 6:00 Rev.Robert & Mary Stoelting

6;15 – 7:30 Dinner

7:45 – 9:00 4 Breakout groups – 4 concurrent presentations
• John Mundy
• D Patrick Miller
• John Nagy
• Lyn Corona & Edward Duhaime

9:15 – 11:15 Dance

So Bruce and I were out the door at about 6:45 AM, and arrived just in time for the morning presentations. I wasn’t up for sitting through any of the presentations, so I decided to walk around the city with my iPod in tow, listening to Enya. Bruce attended the Carpenters presentation. I have the Carpenter’s book, Dialogue on Awakening, but I have never read it. I’ve skimmed through it several times but it has just never jumped out at me.

So I just spent part of the morning walking up California Street – the residential part of it. I was noticing that there were these gingerroot looking trees that I don’t recall ever seeing anywhere before. Anyway, I made it back in time for Gary’ presentation, of course. And I didn’t feel like sitting down, so I just stood in the back of the room for the entire 75 minute lecture. As Gary’s podcast buddy Gene Bogart said on a recent podcast about what you get at Gary’s presentations, ‘Just the raw truth mixed in with a few jokes!’ Well, this was certainly no exception.

Actually, we got more than a few jokes; Gary cracked many of them. Anybody who has been to a Gary workshop knows what these are: The 3 nuns trying to get into Heaven; The extra ticket to the World Series at Fenway Park; The Pope being called Elvis; The Daily Chicken; The drunk Jesus and Judas; The Talking Dog; The grocery store. There may have been more, but that’s all I remember at this time. Gary started his lecture by saying, “Hi, I’m Gary, and I’m a recovering jerk!’ Aside from his jokes, Gary spoke about the Course, as well as his recent divorce process. It all ended with a very deserving standing ovation. When it comes to the Course, he’s the freakin’ man! I say deserving because he tells it like it is while being a wicked funny bastid! (Incorrect spelling on purpose to reflect Masshole language!)

Oh, before Gary’s presentation, I got to speak to him again for a few minutes in the lobby. I told Gary that he’s the only reason why I came to the conference (as far as speakers go.) I went on further to say that I am a ‘Gary Renard junkie,’ always reading and listening to his stuff, and that Disappearance is my favorite book, ever, with Your Immortal Reality as #1B, and that there is no close 2nd, including the Course itself. I told him it’s Arten and Pursah’s words that keep me focused, motivated, and inspired, (although J-Dog is the one I converse with regularly in my mind.) From my experience, you don't necessarily need the Course in order to do the Course. As Gary's teachers say on p 108 in DU, 'The truth is an awareness - not a book.' Arten and Pursah spell it all out very well. But, that's what works for me. Actually, my mom is in that same boat too. So anyway, I just thanked Gary for putting himself, as well as his material, out there.

So after Gary’s presentation, it was lunch time. We spent part of the time at one table, and then eventually migrated to another table where Gary and his adopted family were sitting (Cindy and her mother.) While conversing, the subject of dogs got brought up, and I end up mentioning that when I was in Catholic school, the nun used to tell the class that dogs don’t get mad, they get angry. I had no idea what she meant by that, until I asked my dad one time, and he told me that it was because if you spell out ‘mad dog’ backwards, it reads ‘god dam.’ So they got a chuckle out of that. Anyway, it was time for the next slew of presentations, and it was a nice day, and I just didn’t feel like sitting around listening to somebody who wasn’t Gary tell me about A Course in Miracles, so I hopped on a cable car around the corner from the hotel. Bruce, Gary, and the rest of the people at the table went to Nouk and Thomas’ presentation where they were all given a whoopee cushion. Bruce snagged an extra one for me.

So, meanwhile, I got off on the last stop of the cable car at the end of California Street, walked around some, on a mission to find some bandanas, with again, my iPod in tow, listening to a mix of Gary’s stuff as well as some Metallica. The reason I was looking for bandanas was because there was to be a dance at the hotel that night, and Mikey doesn’t dance without wearing a bandana, and without having another one in hand. There was no mention of a dance on the email correspondence with Community Miracles Center beforehand, otherwise, I would have packed some.

So, Mikey needed to find some bandanas. I found an area where people were selling t-shirts, jewelry, art, and what have you, but came up empty on finding bandanas. So I turned around, and started making my way up hill on California Street, passing through the financial district, then turning off into Chinatown. Anyway, I spent close to two hours there going in and out of stores – but still found no bandanas, although I did buy myself a nice denim shirt that said ‘San Francisco’ on it. As a side note, Chinatown in San Francisco is huge, it seemed never ending. The one in Boston is practically non-existent in comparison.

So once I was done with Chinatown, instead of getting back on the cable car, I just hiked up the hill all the way back to the hotel. Right around the corner from the hotel, I found a gift store that just so happened to carry bandanas, yay! Mission accomplished! I bought a few.

Well, one of the highlights of the conference for me was definitely the dance. A pretty decent set list of music was played, including some of my favorite dance jams: You Shook Me All Night Long, Play That Funky Music, The Superfreak, Love Shack, and Mony Mony. There were probably at least a hundred people or so on and around the dance floor.

I used to dance (Ecstatic) regularly on Sunday mornings here in Ashland my first year and a half or so upon moving here, and now just go from time to time. So it was very fun to get out there dancing again, especially since it was with an entire different cast of people who weren’t accustomed to my whacko dancin’ style - hoppin’, skippin’, and jumpin’ around like a little kid. At the Ecstatic Dance, some people love me for the energy I bring to the dance, but for others I’m quite certain I'm there opportunity to practice forgiveness, although they probably don’t realize that, since I don’t believe any of them are Course students. Well, either way you slice it, I’m there only to be truly helpful! So I would imagine that it was the same case here – although Course people are supposed to know that they are supposed to forgive me. Anyway, Mikey’s gotta do what Mikey’s gotta do, and Jimmy cracked corn, and I don't care!

So I did my typical weaving in and out of dance traffic, busted some funny lookin’ dance moves - with head bangin’ and skinny white but shakin’, and of course my little ritual of using my bandana as a fan to cool people off as I make my rounds around the dance floor. Also, I had a couple of people I hadn’t even conversed with up until that point, stop me to have their picture taken with me, funny!

So, I had a surprising amount of energy considering that I had only got 3 hours of sleep the night before; also, I had done about 6 – 8 miles worth of walking (including up some steep hills) earlier in the day, and the fact that I had indulged in food just a couple hours prior to that so I was pretty full. Just further evidence that the mind is in control of the body, as I was just running on adrenalin from being in a state of bliss.

So, shortly after the dance, Bruce and I did our mile plus walk to the BART station, and got back to his mom’s around 1 am. I got 4 hours of sleep this time. Yay!

Sunday March 1st
8:45 – 10 Breakout groups – 5 concurrent presentations
• Mary Gerard Lenihan
• Tom Carpenter & Linda Carpenter
• Martha Lucia Espoinosa
• Sandy Levey-Luden
• Nouk Sanchez & Tomas Vierira

10:15 – 11:30 Sunday Service

11;30 – 12:45 Brunch

So, coming off of a total of seven hours of sleep in the last two nights, and with my calves feeling like they had been run over by a truck, I decided to just hang out in the hotel lobby, while reading through my Gary cards. We were a little late for the start of the morning day because the BART trains don’t run as as early on Sunday mornings. But it was absolutely wonderful just hanging out in the lobby– had some wonderful conversations with several people who stopped by, including two women who I was already friends with on Facebook (from New Hampshire and British Columbia) prior to the event. Several others stopped by just to say that they had a lot of fun at the dance the night before.

So before I knew it, it was time for brunch, which ended at 12:45, but our table of five or six of us were engaged in deep conversation until about 2. But it was time for Bruce and I to hit the road, as much as we would have loved to hang around longer.

Well, this was something I certainly needed - to get out of town for a little bit and be in a big city, and meeting some new people – as I had been feeling very restless and stagnant for several months prior to the event. But, I totally forgot about that all that this past weekend - fun!

So, I only attended three of the presentations all weekend, two of which, admittedly, I wasn't totally present with. But I didn't go for the presentations so it's all good. For me personally, I just didn’t feel a need, nor felt very really drawn, to attending any of them. I mean, I’ve got Arten and Pursah’s uncompromising, inspiring bluntness, bad ass Gary with his ‘dirty’ jokes, conversations with J-Dog going on in my head, and most importantly, my abundant willingness to do this work. I’ve already done the spiritual buffet line, and have no intention, nor desire, of doing A Course in Miracles version of the buffet line. A buffet line is certainly alright in the short term in order to develop a spiritual background, however, in the long run, you just end up becoming 'a jack of all trades but a master of none.' And the goal of the Course is to achieve full mental mastery. I know what Arten and Pursah say is the truth, and there isn't one thing I disagree with them on, so anything in addition to that, for me, would be superfluous.

So what else do I really need? As far as I’m concerned - and I say this with all humility - but I have the same level of understanding of the Course as Gary does, and for me to sit there listening to someone who may be potentially sugarcoating it or watering it down, or making it more complicated than it has to be, wouldn't be the best use of my time. Because once you have all that, you have compromise, and once you have compromise, you no longer have A Course in Miracles. With all that said, however, I am by no means claiming to have mastered the art of true forgiveness; I'm still a work in progress on that and that's why I keep taking in Gary's stuff over and over again, in order to keep me focused and motivated on the task at hand.

Anyway, it was great for me to go because I met some really wonderful people whom I've felt I've known before. Very nice! Also, it was an excuse to get to San Francisco, since I hadn't made it there in the nearly five years since moving out to the west coast. It was about time!

God Is

Update: My Tidings Article

2009-03-07T14:11:00.000-08:00
So, after about six weeks since I wrote my article for the Ashland Daily Tidings, it was printed today. I wasn't too crazy about the little bit of editing they did, nor about the title they gave it, God is Explained, but not bad overall. The reason I didn't care for the title is because my article doesn't really explain God, so I find it to be a bit misleading, although the resources I reference certainly do explain God. Although, the title they gave it on the hard copy version of my article was called, Healing the Subconscious Mind, which makes a lot more sense considering what I wrote. Here's the link:
Mike's Tidings Article

God Is

My Tidings Article

2009-01-25T00:07:00.000-08:00
Mike's article for the Ashland Daily Tidngs

Recently, I was asked to submit an article to our local newspaper, the Ashland Daily Tidings, to be among others for a weekly series of articles from various viewpoints on the topic of Inner Peace. I was asked to write about Gary's stuff, but of course that goes hand in hand with A Course in Miracles, so that naturally gets brought in too. Anyway, I had a seven hundred word limit, so I was quite limited on what I could say; so, I gave just a general overview of what Gary's stuff is all about, and didn't get into any of the 'far out' concepts of this spiritual path like God having nothing to do with the making of the world or universe, how anger is never justified, nor about the illusory, dream-like nature of what most folks refer to as reality. So, I just emphasized the more relatable aspects of this path, mainly the practice of forgiveness and taking responsibility for your life, albeit, at a much higher level than what most people commonly think of as taking responsibility for one's life. So, the series is supposed to start on Saturday, January 31st, and run every Saturday thereafter. I don't know when, or if, my article will get published in the paper.

Before we get to the article, I'd like to quote what Gary's teachers say on page 390 in Disappearance, in regards to this spiritual path:

The most striking evidence of this approach's validity will be that it works.

From my experience, I can tell you that it does work. It does, however, take a little while to develope faith and trust in it, but then when you start noticing results, it encourages and inspires you to keep going. Anyway, here's the article I wrote:

Of all the books I've read during my many years of feasting in the 'spiritual buffet line,' nothing has explained the truth about God and our existence, and why we are seemingly here, any clearer to me, than Gary Renard’s The Disappearance of the Universe.

Disappearance addresses heavy subject matter, while cutting to the chase in no uncertain terms, and doing so in a very entertaining and humorous fashion. I highly recommend it, though it is not intended for the squeamish nor the faint of heart, as the material is not sugarcoated.

Forgiveness is the theme in the spiritual path presented in Disappearance. The book is written in a dialogue format, with Gary being the student. His teachers in the book tell us, ‘Forgiveness is where the rubber meets the road. Without forgiveness, metaphysics are useless.' Of course, they are talking about forgiveness in the quantum sense, rather than what traditionally passes as forgiveness in this world.

Disappearance is the unofficial ‘cliff notes’ to A Course in Miracles. A Course in Miracles is a spiritual, purely non-dualistic, self-study course, often referred to in Disappearance. As quoted from Disappearance, 'The Course is Jesus speaking as an artist correcting the Bible which was allegedly based on his teachings.'

Written in Shakespearean blank verse and loaded with subtly humorous rhetorical questions, the Course is Jesus' teachings the way, I believe, they were intended to be - consistent and uncompromising, all about love and forgiveness, and absolutely nothing to do with sin, fear, guilt, sacrifice, and showing up to church on Sunday. As the Course states, '...those who seek controversy will find it. Yet those who seek clarification will find it as well.'

The Course is all about the healing of the subconscious mind, which entails looking at your illusions, examining them, and eventually releasing them through a process called true forgiveness. As it states in the Course, 'No one can escape from illusions unless he looks at them, for not looking is the way they are protected.'

The Course gives you the practical tools necessary in order to attain the objective of lasting inner peace and happiness regardless of what is going in the world and with your own personal life’s circumstances. Through the application of true, or quantum forgiveness, you’re taking full responsibility for your life’s experiences, including the experiences that are not seemingly your fault, because on the level of the subconscious mind, you made it all up. With quantum forgiveness, you’re not forgiving people because they really did something, you’re forgiving them because they haven’t really done anything. Whatever pushes your buttons and ticks you off on any given day is symbolic of what is in your own unconscious mind. Once you really get that the world is not being done to you, but rather by you, then what you are really doing by practicing true forgiveness is forgiving yourself for making the whole mess up in the first place; it gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, ‘There are no victims in this world!’

Though the Course is presented in Christian terminology, it is very Eastern in its theology and practice, as it gets in touch with the power of the mind. I don't recommend taking it on without having read Disappearance first, as it will save you much time while helping you to really grasp the heart of the Course.

In the end, all spiritual paths lead to God, however, the Course does imply that this is a faster way. The Course is simple, however, it’s not easy, as we all have this thing called the ego, and it would much rather you be right, than be happy and at peace. So, sticking to this path requires discipline, vigilance, and the willingness to question every value that you hold. With that said, however, it’s not about giving anything up; it’s about letting go of psychological attachment, and forgetting not to laugh.

Mike Lemieux lives in Ashland and writes a blog called The Disappearance of the Universe, based on Gary Renard’s material and A Course in Miracles.

To read excerpts of Disappearance, visit: www.garyrenard.com/Preview.htm

God Is

Jesus!

2009-01-06T20:51:00.000-08:00
Morning of January 6, 2009

Just a note before I get started: I don't take any drugs (legal or illegal) and I quit drinking before I was legal so these experiences were experienced while stone cold sober.

So, I had an experience this morning that doesn't happen to me every day, in fact, it's happened only one other time. In December of 2006, I abruptly woke up from a dream at around six a.m. or so (still dark outside) and sensed somebody was in the house, (I live alone.) As I put my head up, I looked out to my living room and saw some ghostly looking being in a white robe slightly bowing down at my couch. She had the hood of the robe up on her head so I couldn't see her face, but sensed she was Indian with dark skin complexion. She was a very peaceful, loving presence but that still didn't stop me from being freaked out. Then she turned, and walked slowly to the other side of the living room, heading towards the front door. Now, granted, I was not fully awake when it happened, but I was awake enough to put my head up. And I was freakin' out (in my mind) like, 'who the hell is that in my house?!" But I was like 'frozen' - I couldn't do anything about it. So as she was going through the door, I kind of like closed my eyes and shook my head real quick, then when I reopened, she was gone. So I kind of felt like I made it all up, but I know I didn't. Although, anyone who studies A Course in Miracles knows that anything that occurs in the illusion of time and space is all made up anyway, a dream. As Pursah says on page 245 in Disappearance in regards to what most people refer to as life, 'All your lifetimes have been just one big, gigantic mind trip going nowhere!'

So this morning, I was dreaming that I was at an old buddy's house from high school (totally unrelated to the story) and again I abruptly woke up, around the same time, as I sensed a presence. But this time, it took place in my bedroom. As I lifted my head up, I see Jesus standing at the end of my bed, who I affectionately refer to as 'J-Dog.' He turned to the side and started walking towards the right, and then went through the wall. He had short brown/reddish hair and a beard, and a big ear, not like Dumbo, but bigger than the average size ear. Now that doesn't match my picture I have of him hanging on my wall, but that was definitely his presence. He had a smile like he was laughing, except I didn't hear any sound. Also, perhaps you've seen the movie The Abyss with Ed Harris, when he goes to the bottom of the ocean, he encounters these 'water beings.' Well, J-Dog was kind of like that but in a ghostly kind of way. But this time, I was perfectly calm. It didn't scare the crap out of me like the previous experience. Admittedly, had I been fully awake I may not have been so calm - I guess I'll find out if that ever happens to me in a fully awakened state. The whole thing lasted only about five seconds, my other experience was more like ten to fifteen seconds. Actually, I was so nonchalant about this experience that I didn't even call my mom to tell her about it until the afternoon. But when I did tell her, it gave her the chills - especially since knowing that I've been heavily into Jesus' Course for almost two years now, and here he is appearing to me.

Note: On page 105 in YIR, Gary kiddingly refers to Jesus as J-Dog. So that's where I got J-Dog from. I dig it!

So what does this all mean? Beats the hell out of me! I know for one thing, it doesn't make me special. Only God is real, and anything that appears in the universe of time and space is just metaphor, or a symbol. So, nobody here that's walked the earth, or anywhere else in the universe for that matter, is special; including Jesus himself, who's the first to tell you that in his Course. But I figured I'd write about it anyway for journalling, as well as for entertainment purposes.

So later on in the day, while trying to finish my sixth reading of Your Immortal Reality, on page 205, Pursah quotes Jesus from the Course, "When I said 'I am with you always,' I meant it literally. I am not absent to anyone in any situation. Because I am always with you, you are the way, the truth and the life." When I read that today, I was kind of like, 'whoa, no shit!'

So does this mean I'm enlightened? Uh, no. I've still got issues. But I'd like to think that J-Dog appearing to me is a symbol of me getting much closer to that state. But I can't explain why I was so frightened the first time, and so calm about the experience this time. Perhaps I've healed enough of the mind through the true forgiveness practice outlined in the Course and in Gary's books that I've become less fearful. And that is the goal of the Course, to remove the walls of guilt buried deep in the subconscious mind that causes all fears to be there in the first place, so you become fearless like J-Dog, and that is what true spirituality is all about. Giddy up!

Update 1-14-09: No, J-Dog did not appear to me again, damn it! But I had forgotten another detail which I believe is common place for people who have such experiences. I left had left out that this ghostly Jesus figure was transparent. In other words, I was able to see the wall behind Him. So, I just wanted to add that as part of my blog here.

On another note, my mom suggested that J-Dog appeared to me with a big ear to inform me that he hears me when I speak to Him - I'm down with that idea! Thank you J!

Update 1-24-09: My mom spotted this picture somewhere on Photobucket the other day. It's quite eerily similar to the face I saw. Throw on a smile and a laugh, and take off the suit and tie, and you've got a look at the J-Dog I saw that morning. Pretty freakin cool!

Taking Responsibility for Dreaming

2009-01-01T17:35:00.000-08:00
There are no victims in this world

So, I’m currently reading Gary’s second book, Your Immortal Reality, for the sixth time, and there’s a section in there that really hit home for me while reading it last week. Now, of course, I already knew this, but that’s why repetition is so very important, and necessary, when it comes to hearing right minded ideas. As you hear these ideas over and over again, they sink in on an even deeper level.

So in chapter four of YIR, Murders Without Corpses, Gary talks about how the founder of one of the most recognized organizations within the Course community, Miracle Distribution Center aka MDC, ‘screwed’ over his critically acclaimed book, The Disappearance of the Universe, saying that they refused to carry it despite its popularity amongst Course students.

Note: According to the Miracle Distribution Center website, the names of the founders of MDC are Richard and Beverly Hutchison. Neither name was mentioned in Gary’s book, however, a woman was referenced.

So Gary went on bitching and moaning to Arten and Pursah about this woman, saying that she could at least carry the book without having to promote it. Gary also went on to say that MDC not carrying Disappearance was 'a public smack in the face.' That’s what I love about Gary, he just puts himself out there as being human, not anything special, nor presenting himself to be more ‘evolved’ than the rest of us - at least I’ve never gotten that impression. He’s just going through the same forgiveness process like the rest of us. And like the rest of us, he’s not perfect about doing it all the time. I have a great appreciation for his authenticity. I mean, Gary could have edited this part out of the book, among other things that showed he wasn’t perfect in practicing the Course, but I don’t think his books would have had the same impact. Arten and Pursah knew what they were doing when they chose him to appear to. If A&P appeared to someone who was practically enlightened already, not many of us would be able to relate. With Gary, it’s as if we are walking in his shoes in a sense. So A&P chose some typical wise-guy that we can all relate to, a regular guy that digs women, music, sports, and beer (not necessarily in that order) which helps put the reader in the mind-set of, ‘Hey, if this clown can do this forgiveness gig, so can I.’

As a side note, this past summer I sent an email to MDC suggesting they carry Gary’s books and CDs, and asking them why they didn’t. I mean, they carry Marianne Williamson’s A Return To Love, a book that is allegedly based on A Course in Miracles, but it’s quite obvious just in the introduction part of the book alone that she doesn’t really get it. Now, I’m not suggesting that her work cannot be very beneficial to people in some way. In fact, I know it is, as back in the 90’s I was heavily into Wayne Dyer and the like, who speak on pretty much the same level as Marianne, and they were very helpful to me at the time. So I certainly wouldn’t knock Marianne, nor knock anyone who is into her stuff. With that said, however, her work shouldn’t be confused with the uncompromising message of A Course in Miracles, because as Arten puts it, ‘….once you have compromise, you no longer have the truth,’ (DU p 18.) Marianne’s work is about fixing up your life, while the real message of A Course in Miracles is about waking up from what you think is your life - as Arten would say, ‘That’s not just a minor distinction.’ Not that there is anything wrong with trying to fix up your life, but that is not the focus of the Course, although it can be a fringe benefit; and Mikey is down with fringe benefits!

So anyway, I got a response to my email from MDC saying one of the reasons why they don’t carry Disappearance is because of an article written by a Greg Mackie a couple years ago, who had some unflattering things to say about Gary and his experiences. They didn’t give me any other reasons as to why, and I find it a tad askew that some Course people will be quick to question Gary about his experiences, yet, accept the fact the Course came from Jesus himself! But I just left it at that. I’m here only to be truly helpful, so trying to convince people of something they are not ready for, is not a good use of my time, and a waste of the other person’s time as well. So I didn’t respond to the email. My personal opinion is that people just look for ways (both consciously and unconsciously) to avoid and resist the truth, which you can’t run away from in Gary’s books, as Arten and Pursah’s message is so blunt! But there’s no shame in that - some people are in elementary school, junior high, high school, college, and so forth; it doesn’t make one person better than any other - you are, where you are. Not every one is ready for this stuff, so as Jack Nicholson says to Tom Cruise in the movie A Few Good Men, ‘You can’t handle the truth!’ Oh, I have to mention this too since I’ve always been a big Seinfeld junkie - George Costanza does an impersonation of Jack Nicholson using that same quote in the classic Marine Biologist episode where Georgie Boy saves a whale by pulling out a golf ball from the whale’s blow-hole, a Titleist golf ball that Kramer had hit into the ocean. Anyway, there will come a time when everybody will be able to handle the truth!

Ok, so now trying to get back to my original point. What I also love about Gary’s books is that Arten and Pursah are right there to correct Gary whenever he goes off course. When Gary forgets to do his forgiveness homework, A&P are right there to put everything in proper perspective. We are all still human, and sometimes we feel a need to vent before we do the forgiveness work. And Gary is no exception. I think he is a representation of each of us, so when Arten and Pursah are gently, or not so gently, reminding him of what needs to be done, they are also reminding us to practice forgiveness on the things that push our buttons and piss us off on any given day. Although, as my old man used to say me, ‘It’s better to be pissed off than pissed on!’

Now getting back to Gary’s grievance with the founder of MDC, Pursah goes on to explain to Gary how people orbit each other, much like how planets orbit the sun. And that Gary knew this woman in previous lifetimes, and that they were even married once, including one lifetime where, according to Pursah, Gary had killed her; so they had some unfinished business. So we all get an equal share of playing the role of victim and victimizer throughout all our lifetimes, and sometimes even within our own lifetimes. So this woman had an unconscious grievance towards Gary the minute she saw his book. So in this example, Gary is the ‘victim’ in this lifetime. Now here’s the part that really hit home for me, after reading this again, it just sunk in at a deeper level, so much so that I was thinking of this quote in my dream while asleep the other night, (I love it when that happens!) So as Pursah so eloquently put it to Gary, ‘The question is, what are you going to use it for this time, freedom or bondage? Are you going to get that you are not a victim and take responsibility for dreaming, or are you going to make it real and stay stuck here?

So, there’s no excuse for not doing the forgiveness work, as it is only our own freedom and peace of mind being delayed by not doing it. But as the saying goes, ‘It’s simple but not easy.’ But I can see why Gary would be irritated by this experience he had with that woman, and would be tempted to go on whining about it all. And on the level of form, he is certainly right. But as the Course asks you, ‘Do you prefer you be right or happy?’ The trick is not to let the ego rule you, and not allow yourself to get sucked into all this crap, and most of all, to remember what it is all for – forgiveness of the ego’s script. And remembering is the hardest part. Another reason why repetition in hearing right-minded ideas is so necessary is that it becomes more easily accessible when the shit hits the fan!

I remember back in my days as a smart-ass teenager, my mom once asked me that same rhetorical question, would I’d rather be happy or be right, and my response was, ‘Well, I’m happy when I’m right, damn it!’ Of course, as a student of the Course, I now know all being right will do is keep me stuck in illusions, but it can certainly still be a temptation at times.

So, on a personal note before I close, I’ll be attending the ACIM conference in San Francisco that’s taking place the weekend of February 28 – March 1. Gary will be among many others speaking there. I hope to have another post to my blog up before that, but if not, my next post may very well be about my experience at the conference. Also, I still want to get my catholic school story up on here at some point this year, just for a change of pace and a fun read that has nothing to do with Gary’s books or ACIM.

So, I wanted to wrap up this post with the definitive statements from the Course mentioned in the same chapter as Gary’s forgiveness lesson with MDC. Pursah says a definitive statement is an idea in the Course that is so clear it defines what the Course is teaching, and it encapsulates what the Course is saying. So here are a few mentioned:

There is no world! This is the central thought the Course attempts to teach. Pursah follows up this quote with this: If there is no world, then there’s nothing to forgive, and recognizing that fact in the events, situations, and people you see is advanced forgiveness, because now you’re not forgiving other people for something they’ve really done, you’re recognizing that they haven’t really done anything. So you’re actually forgiving yourself for dreaming them. That distinction is vital. Without it, you’re doing the old-fashioned kind of forgiveness, which can’t undo the ego.

Anger is never justified. Arten says that if you made the whole thing up, then who is there to be angry at? And a related idea; The secret of salvation is but this: that you are doing this unto yourself. Arten goes on to say that these two ideas fit together like a hand in a glove, and once you really get them, then there’s no getting away from them.

The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever.

So Happy freakin’ New Year everybody! And here’s the mutha of all definitive statements to close this puppy out:

God Is

New Age Myths

2008-11-08T00:29:00.000-08:00

Arten and Pursah's take on some popular New Age concepts

At the end of my last post I mentioned that I wanted to share what Arten and Pursah have to say about certain New Age topics that so many people are 'ga-ga' over. A&P are very blunt in putting these many popular New Age concepts in their proper perspective - as well as putting the entire universe in its place! How can somebody not love these guys? They really hold back no punches! As an idealist, I was so excited to read what A&P had to say when I read DU for the first time in the spring of 2007. I'm now on my seventh reading - no such thing as too much repetition! Anyway, their message is intended for those ready to take full responsibility for their life's experiences - not always easy, especially when it feels like the world is being done to you rather than being done by you. In this post, we'll review what Arten and Pursah have to say about the following hot topics in the spiritual community: energy, consciousness, evolution, reincarnation, body-mind-spirit, karma, and 'being in the now.'

A note before I get started: the study of the aforementioned topics were once very helpful to me and were an important part of my spiritual path for many years. Without having studied that stuff, and applying it into my life, I would not have been able to go beyond them - and get to the point where I could accept Arten and Pursah's teachings as being true. I know ten years ago I would not have been able to accept A&P's teachings - as Pursah says on page 127 of DU, '.....not due to a lack of intelligence, but because of an abundance of unconscious resistance.' Fortunately, enough of my ego was undone during the years of my prior studies that I was able to accept Arten and Pursah's teachings without hesitation. But Arten and Pursah say that this path is not for everyone, or at least not for everyone all at once. So, I am certainly not putting these concepts down. But Arten and Pursah bluntly point out to us that we need to go beyond them if we want to go Home, and experience what we really are.

So, let's get started, shall we?

What about energy?

DU p 104
Energy cannot seemingly be destroyed on the level of form because it is not really energy, it is thought. Or more accurately, it is mis-thought, which will eventually be changed over to the eternal. In the meantime, there is a very simple criteria that the Course gives you to distinguish between the real and the unreal:

Whatever is true is eternal, and cannot change or be changed. Spirit is therefore unalterable because it is already perfect, but the mind can elect what it chooses to serve. The only limit put on its choice is that it cannot serve two masters.

So the fact that energy can be changed means that by it's very nature it is untrue. It is not our intention to deflate the enthusiasm of your New Age buddies who are so ga-ga over energy. But energy is nothing. It's a waste of time, a trick, just another device for building your house upon the sand instead of on the rock. Sure, it may be a helpful idea for some people to be interested in the unseen instead of the seen. But we came to help you save time. The good news isn't that energy can be changed, the good news is that the mind that made it can be changed.

DU p 129
Try to remember that energy is not spirit - spirit being your unalterable, true reality. Energy, which changes and can be measured, exists within the domain of perception.

My note: I used to be pretty obsessed about energy myself. Arten and Pursah really cleared this whole thing up for me. They really simplify the whole process of enlightenment, while many other authors whose books I read prior to this point really complicated the hell out of it - making every single cell in the body real! Energy really is nothing! Just practice true forgiveness and the rest will take care of itself. What a relief!

What about consciousness?

DU p 129
Consciousness is yet another thing you foolishly value highly. In order to have consciousness you have to have separation. You've got to have more than one thing. You have to have something else to be conscious of. This is the beginning of the split mind. As the Course teaches in no uncertain terms:

Consciousness, the level of perception, was the first split introduced into the mind after the separation, making the mind a perceiver rather than a creator. Consciousness is correctly identified as the domain of the ego.

DU p 214
In Heaven, you don't have to think at all. In fact you are thought by God.

My note: So consciousness is not of God. Which means, the popular term, 'Christ-Consciousness' is actually an oxy-moron. Christ is of God, while consciousness represents separation from God.

What about evolution and reincarnation?

DU p 145,146
Since everything happened all at once, then doesn't that mean evolution is also an illusion, kind of a smokescreen?

Congratulations to the one who knows that. Your generation worships evolution, thinking that you're on the way to creating some kind of new, hot consciousness. You value evolution almost as much as you value energy. What is called evolution was merely the ego separating all at once by seemingly dividing and sub-dividing cells over and over again in order to make bodies and brains that appear to be more complex - and thus more impressive. Yet all bodies are the same in their unreality.

DU p 328
Some people believe reincarnation leads to the evolvement of the soul. True?

Your soul is already perfect, or otherwise it wouldn't be a soul; it would just be something you're mistaking for a soul - like your mind, which people do mistake for the soul, or a projection of your mind, which includes bodily-shaped ghostly images that people think are souls. Evolution is something that appears to happen on the level of form, but it's just a dream. Once your mind has learned all its forgiveness lessons, then it awakens to spirit or soul, and everything else is gone except Heaven. Most people think of their soul as being an individual thing because they can't help but think of themselves as individuals. When that false belief is gone, then you know that there is really only one soul - which is our unlimited oneness as spirit.

DU p 179
We should emphasize something about the subject of reincarnation. We talk about it as though it actually happens. Yet just like everything else, it's only a dream. Yes, it appears that you incarnate into a body, and your experience is that you are a body - but as we like to point out, the Course says that what you are seeing is not true.

What about body-mind-spirit?

DU p 76
Today, many believe in the existence of a trilogy - body, mind, and spirit. The 'balance' of all three is important in your philosophy. But you, the seemingly separated mind which makes and uses bodies, must choose between the changeless and eternal reality of spirit - which is God and His Kingdom - or the unreal and ever-changing universe of bodies - which includes anything that can be perceived, whether you appear to be in a body or not.

Are you saying that giving equal value to body, mind, and spirit actually contributes to me coming back here over and over again as a body, rather than being free?

Yes, but this doesn't mean that you should neglect your body. We're speaking of another way of looking at it.

My note: This means using the practical forms of judgment when it comes to the body. We are still gonna bathe it, dress it, feed it, and exercise it - hopefully! The point is your salvation is dependent on what's going on in your mind, while you go about living your daily life; it's not about giving up anything.

DU p 293
You may hear from those seeking balance: the balancing of body, mind, and spirit, or balancing dual forces like yin and yang, or balancing 'the force' itself. Balancing illusions is not forgiving them.

What about karma?

DU p 116
Karma is just an effect. We're going to change the cause of everything by changing the mind. The effect on the level of the physical is not something to be concerned about, because it isn't real. The real things you should be interested in are inner peace and returning to Heaven.

My note: In other words, karma is the result of the unconscious guilt in the mind. Once the guilt has been healed and removed by your forgiveness, then the so called karma no longer exists. Whatever 'bad' things you have done in the past are only karmic if you have yet to truly forgive yourself for doing them.

What about 'being in the now?'

IR, p 27
Where the practice of 'be here now' will get you is here. Sure, it will relax you, but it won't get you home. One aspect of that kind of a system is to watch your judgments. But watching your judgments is not forgiving them. And the now that is experienced is not the eternal always of Heaven, which can only be consistently experienced when the ego has been completely undone by the Holy Spirit. That requires that you do your part to forgive, and the Holy Spirit takes care of the part of the job you can't see, deep within your unconscious mind.

IR, p 193, 194
Keep in mind that we're not saying there's anything wrong with the idea of 'being in the now,' - there may be some good in focusing on the now rather than the past or the future - the quality of life would be improved. The problem is that doing so cannot remove the unconscious guilt over the original separation from God that's still hidden in the deep recesses of the mind. Because of that, it makes each experience of being in the now temporary by definition, because it fails to remove the blocks that prevent that experience from being permanent. All of which is to say that there's not just a minor difference between the approach of The Power of Now and the real power of A Course in Miracles. It's the difference between being temporarily in the now of an illusion, or being permanently in the presence of reality.

It's absolutely essential to remember that unless and until all unconscious guilt is removed from the mind, you cannot stay in the endless present on a permanent basis - it's impossible. Any attempt to remain in the now is doomed to failure without doing the work of true forgiveness. Until you've completely forgiven that which you made and projected outside of yourself, you are not forgiven in your own unconscious mind, and until you are, the cycle of birth and death cannot be broken. Being in the now does not heal your unconscious guilt and undo the ego. True forgiveness, on the other hand, removes the blocks to the awareness of love's presence that is your natural state of being, undoing the ego completely and making it possible to remain in the eternal 'always' simply because that's all that's left.

Remember, that any attempt at eternity is a nonstarter as long as there's any unconscious guilt in the mind, period. That guilt must be healed before you can permanently stay free of the past or future. And the way to undo it is not to ignore it, which is exactly what's going on when you shut off and deny the past or future. It's when you forgive the past and your concerns about the future that they are undone, and the endless present becomes truly available to you. That forgiveness always takes place now. Remember that there's no difference between forgiving the original separation at the time it appeared to happen, and forgiving it right now, for they are one and the same.

Ok, I covered everything I wanted to for this post. So what's in store for my next post? As Gary says on page 132 of DU, 'I have not a freakin' idea.' I'll come up with something. Stay tuned.

God Is

Keys to Understanding A Course in Miracles

2008-10-04T22:50:00.000-07:00
Arten and Pursah's Keys to Understanding A Course in Miracles

In this post, I'll be addressing some of the things that Arten and Pursah point out as being trouble areas and pitfalls that some Course students run into, and I'll go into a little detail about each one. This is written with the assumption that you have some familiarity with A Course in Miracles and/or Gary Renard's books. I'll be quoting often from The Disappearance of the Universe aka DU, as well as Your Immortal Reality aka IR in this post, while covering the following topics: Why the Course seemingly contradicts itself; what should and should not be taken literally; why Christian terminology is used in the Course; the use of judgment, discernment, and common sense; the proper use of denial; and getting caught up in over-analyzing and nitpicking the Course.

Before I get started, I should admit that I'm not as heavily into A Course in Miracles as I am into Gary Renard's books. Gary's books are what keep me focused and motivated on the task at hand. With the exception of some of the subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, humorous rhetorical questions, reading from the Course can nearly put me to sleep at times. With that said, however, I have a great appreciation and respect for the lofty goal the Course has to offer. The Course is all about the healing of one's unconscious guilt by the Holy Spirit and the return to Heaven through the dynamic of forgiveness, (DU p 92.) Despite the fact that A Course in Miracles is very much about the healing of this unconscious guilt, most of the teachers of the Course never even mention it, (DU p 143.) This is why I love Gary's books so much, his teachers let you know what you are really up against, and do so in such a blunt way, and put in everyday human language and in no uncertain terms. And at the same time, there's no pressure or guilt trip being laid upon the reader, which was a breath of fresh air for me, as I have encountered this in other spiritual teachings on ascension and enlightenment prior to reading Gary's books. In fact, Pursah specifically quotes J as saying that we shouldn't feel any pressure, and that salvation would come to each mind when it was supposed to, (DU p 402.)

One big issue that some Course students have encountered, according to Arten and Pursah, that over the years there have been a number of people who gave up on A Course in Miracles because they incorrectly thought the Course was contradicting itself. A&P point out, however, the reason the Course seems to contradict itself is because it is speaking on two different levels. Jesus, as you know is the voice of the Course, speaks to us on both the level of the world, as well as the level of absolute truth, and does so interchangeably throughout the Course. The key to understanding the Course in regards to this matter is that anything that expresses the absolute truth, the level of non-duality, the level of oneness, should be taken literally. On the other hand, Jesus also speaks to us in the Course on the level of the world. The reason being for that is he is meeting us where we think we are, which is in the world. If he spoke to us just on the level of absolute truth, we wouldn't get very far due to the very complex nature of the ego. So anything in the Course that speaks on the level of the world, the level of duality, the level of separation, is not intended to be taken literally but to be taken as metaphor, (DU p 92.)

In Gary's audio series, The Secrets of the Immortal, Gary gives a good example of what should be taken literally, and what should be taken as metaphor: Here is an example of a statement from the Course that should be taken literally, as it speaks the absolute truth:

God knows not of separation.

Here's an example of a statement that should be taken as metaphor, as it is speaking on the level of the world:

God weeps for his children.

Now, without understanding that not everything in the Course should be taken literally, one may incorrectly see the Course as contradicting itself with the two aforementioned statements. However, if you properly make the distinctions of what should be taken literally, and what should be taken as metaphor, you'll understand that the Course is speaking on different levels, and that it is indeed, not contradicting itself. So when something like 'God weeps for his children' is read in the Course, it should be taken as a metaphor as the Holy Spirit wanting us to choose His voice rather than that of the ego. Ultimately, everything but God is metaphor, (DU p 92.)

So moving on to the use of the Christian terminology in the Course, some people may be turned off by it, and others may see the Course as being a continuation of Christianity like it's the 3rd Testament or something. But A Course in Miracles should not be confused with Christianity. The foundation of Christianity is based on Jesus suffering and sacrificing himself for other people's sins, and despite Jesus supposedly doing this, Christianity goes on to give you a million reasons why you're still guilty anyway, and gives you a God that loves you one day, but seeks vengeance on you the next day, apparently all depending on what kind of mood He's in. All the while the devil is just waiting for you to slip up so you can spend all of eternity burning in Hell - now that's nine years of Catholic school talking! The thought system of A Course in Miracles, on the other hand, is consistent in its message, as it is all about love and forgiveness, and give us a God that is perfect Love and sees us all as being innocent no matter what we dream up here in the illusion of time and space. In the mean time, our memory of God, the Holy Spirit, is with us to help us return our awareness to our natural state of peace and bliss while we appear to be here, and ultimately being one with God in Heaven. The terminology may be the same but that's where the similarities of Christianity and A Course in Miracles end, as the Course is much more Eastern than Western in its approach, as it gets in touch with the power of the mind - which makes sense since Jesus was from the Middle East, not Massachusetts.

Now, according to Arten and Pursah, Jesus uses Biblical, metaphorical language in the Course in order to correct Christianity, (DU p 97.) So when Jesus uses the word He to describe God, J is not suggesting that God is some old white guy with a long gray beard sitting on a throne up in Heaven while judging the hell out of us. In fact, you could just as easily substitute the word She for He, but that would not be any more accurate than using He. Technically, It is the proper word, but Jesus is speaking as an artist correcting the Bible which was allegedly based on his teachings, so that's why he uses Biblical language, (DU p 319.) There is no concept of male or female in Heaven; (DU p 5) - only God, Love, and Spirit, which are all synonymous.

The next thing I want to discuss is the concept of judgment. When the Course talks about not judging your brothers and sisters, what it's really saying is that you should not condemn them, (DU p 116.) The Course is not asking you to give up the practical forms of judgment you need just to be able to function in the world while you appear to be here. You have to make judgments just to cross the street, get out of bed, and decide what to eat, etc. As Arten goes on to say "One thing the Course has nothing against is common sense,' (DU p 116.) I'd also like to add that using discernment is part of having common sense. Yes, it is your job to save the world, as the world can not be saved without you - since the world is just a projection of your own mind - however, you saving the world is done so at the level of the mind, and never at the level of the physical. For example, it may be late at night and you're walking through what some may consider to be an undesirable neighborhood. Now, there could be some people hanging around and perhaps you see them carrying guns. On the level of the mind you can see them as innocent, but that doesn't mean you have to prove a point and go walking up to them trying to save them, or to prove how invulnerable you are. It would be in your best interest to get the hell out of there, and as quickly as possible, as Pursah says 'If you're a woman and a man is trying to rape you, kick him in the balls,' (IR p 177.) Forgiveness can always be applied later.

The Course is not about you trying to be Superman. And while we're at it, you don't have to give money to every homeless person you see out there on the street either, and if you do, it's best that you are not doing that out of feelings of guilt. This path is not about being a do-gooder, not that there isn't anything wrong with doing good deeds if that turns you on; but the Course is about being a right minded thinker, (DU p 218.) When the Course talks about being a teacher of God becoming perfect here, it is referring to perfect forgiveness, not perfect behavior, (DU p 234.) Forgiveness has to do with what you think. What you do isn't the important thing, even though it is a result of what you think. It's what you think that wil either keep you dreaming or help get you home, not what you do, (DU p 218.) And as J says in the Course, 'I do not call for martyrs but for teachers.'

Now, some students new to the Course might think that practicing the true forgiveness that the Course talks about is a form of denial. Well,in a sense it is - but in a different way from what the world commonly views as denial. Here's what Gary's teachers have to say about that: The thought system of love and the thought system of fear are both forms of denial. One of them, the Holy Spirit's teaching, leads to Heaven by uncovering and reversing the ego's denial of the truth, as the Course says, 'It denies the ability of anything not of God to affect you. This is the proper use of denial,' (DU p 113.) The Atonement principle undoes denial and projection at the level of your mind by forgiving what you perceive, and the Holy Spirit undoes the denial and projection at the metaphysical level of your mind at the same time - as well as undoing the whole idea of separation right along with you. You must practice forgiveness on the level where your experience is. So your forgiveness is done here, which means you should be practical - and respectful of other people and their experience. In other words, when you're living your everyday life, be kind. Your job isn't to correct others. Just help the Holy Spirit clean up your wrong mind by switching to your right mind, (DU p 166.) When we say you should be kind to others, it doesn't mean you should be in denial about the ego thought system. But don't try to change others; change your own mind instead, (DU p 193.)

Another stumbling block that some Course students may get caught up in is in overanalyzing the Course. Pursah cautions us not to nitpick the Course to death. She goes on to say that all the details of the Course's teachings should be put within the context of its larger teachings on forgiveness, (DU p 329.) I would add that you don't need to sit there dissecting and analyzing every sentence in the Course. If you don't understand what a particular sentence or paragraph is saying, its not something to get all frustrated about and beat yourself up over - just move on. What really matters, as far as I'm concerned, is that you continue to practice taking full responsibility for your life's experiences by remembering to apply the concept of true forgiveness on anything that pushes your buttons on any given day. If you are doing this, rest assured you are making spiritual progress, regardless of how well or how much of the Course you understand. Oh by the way, speaking of analyzing things, ever notice that the first four letters of analyzing spell out anal? It could be a coincidence, but the only problem is that I don't really believe in coincidences. Just like Arten points out that the last four syllables of the word individuality spell out duality; that's not just a semantic accident, (DU p 141.)

Just a quick note here, Gary mentions on The Secrets of the Immortal CD that the person with a low IQ who is going around just being love is probably making more spiritual progress than the intellect who uses the Course to make other people wrong and himself right. I listen to Gary's CDs quite a bit so when I hear him say that, it always reminds me of my favorite movie of all time, Radio - about a man with the low IQ who is just being love. I highly recommend this movie - starts Ed Harris and Cuba Gooding Jr. Check out the deleted scenes on the DVD too.

So before I wrap up this post, here are some other quick random notes that may be helpful in studying the Course:

On disc 4 of The Secrets of the Immortal audio series, Gary advises that you can replace the word but with only if that helps you to understand a particular section better. For example, here are a couple of lines in the Course with the word but in it, 'For time but seems to go in one direction. We but undertake a journey that is over.' So if you replaced the word but with only, it would go like this, 'For time only seems to go in one direction. We only undertake a journey that is over.' For me personally, I find this suggestion to be very helpful at times. Another thing Gary mentions too is that the Course uses the word make or made in association with the ego - while using the word create in association with God or Spirit.

On page 265 of DU, Pursah says that it may be helpful to remember that the words 'heart' and 'mind' meant the same thing two thousand years ago. When J said 'look into your heart,' he meant your whole being. He wasn't referring to how you feel about worldly behavior or current theology. He was telling you to examine your mind, forgive your brothers and sisters and remember God.

Lastly, as Arten says about their teaching style and A Course in Miracles, 'We've never said that A Course in Miracles is the only way to God, and we've never said that our words are the only way to A Course in Miracles. Ours is one approach. It's for some people - not for everyone. Having said that, let me remind you that we've come here to help you save time. If you really want to know God, then we want you to find the way to your experience of the absolute truth as soon as possible. The Course teaches that the miracle minimizes the need for time,' (DU p 162.) Arten also states, in reference to the Course's introduction where it says that 'It is a required course': 'The Course is required because it expresses the truth. I'm sorry if that sounds arrogant. It doesn't mean that the Course is the only way for anyone to ever find the truth. The truth is an awareness - not a book,' (DU p 108.)

Ok, so I think I have covered everything I wanted to in regards to understanding certain aspects of the Course, and hopefully it has been of help to someone. For my next post, I want to get into what Arten and Pursah have to say about some of the popular new age topics that so many people are 'ga-ga' over - I used to be - including energy, consciousness, evolution, karma, and 'being in the now.'

God Is

The Three 'Rules' of Spiritual Healing

2008-09-22T22:15:00.000-07:00
The Three 'Rules' of Spiritual Healing as described in Chapter 10 of DU:

#1 Its' not about the patient.
All healing is a result of some kind of forgiveness, and all forgiveness leads to self-healing. So even when it comes to healing the sick it's really about forgiving your own dream, and forgiving yourself for dreaming it. As it states in the Psychotherapy pamphlet in the Course, '...The process that takes place in this relationship is actually one in which the therapist in his heart tells the patient that all his sins have been forgiven him, along with his own. What could be the difference between healing and forgiveness?' And as DU goes on to say, 'So who is being healed - the patient or the healer? The forgiver or the forgivee? The answer is both, for they are one.'

To word it any other way, there is no patient! Not really. There's nobody else out there, so its your own seemingly separated mind you are healing when you perceive somebody else's sickness and forgive it, as it is really your own sickness you are forgiving, that sickness being your own guilt that's buried deep in your subconscious mind over the seeming separation from God.

#2 Pain is not a physical process. It's a mental process.
Healing requires a shift in perception, and as the Course asks and answers for you, 'What is the single requisite for this shift in perception? It is simply this; the recognition that sickness is of the mind, and has nothing to do with the body. What does this recognition 'cost'? It costs the whole world you see, for the world will never again appear to rule the mind. As the Course also states, 'the guiltless mind cannot suffer.'

Another thing to keep in mind here too is that we are not in bodies, although it sure as hell feels like it most of the time, so that's our experience. However, the body you appear to be in is just like every other body you see out there; it's a projection of your own mind. So you're not in a body, your body is in your mind.

#3 Ultimately, the universe itself is a symptom that will disappear.
When you really wake up, what appeared to be real before is now recognized as the idle dream that it is. Then it is forgotten, or at least rendered meaningless. Your present lifetime and all of the others will disappear, and when everyone reaches the same state of enlightenment, the universe will disappear - leaving only God's universe of Heaven. (DU p263)

The universe will disappear because there will be no need for it any longer. Once there is no need to perpetuate unconscious guilt, there will be no need for a universe of time and space. The universe of time and space exists in its unreality as a hiding spot from our unconscious guilt; it's a symptom of separation from God and the projection of unconscious guilt. We created this universe - God certainly did not - where our guilt can be seen as being outside of ourselves, rather than within, and we go on to judge and condemn others. But when we judge and condemn others, what we are really doing is judging and condemning ourselves, as the 'others' we perceive as being out there are really just symbols of what's in our own unconscious minds. But once we stop reacting with condemnation, and start forgiving and seeing everyone as totally innocent, which in reality we all are - then all of the guilt will eventually be removed, and we will then simply return our awareness to our natural and original condition of being one with God.

So with all that said, that means we'll be having one big Heaven on Earth, Happy Dream party, giddy up!!!

God Is

What Makes Gary's Stuff Different From Everything Else Out There?

2008-08-22T23:10:00.000-07:00
A lot of spiritual, new age material out there is geared towards fixing up one's life. I'm certainly not knocking that approach as I have been down that road myself. However, Gary's material and the correct interpretation of A Course in Miracles, gets to the one root cause of all the problems in the world - the unconscious guilt buried in the mind that runs the world. The material in Gary's book is not designed to help you dress up your life, rather it is about waking up from what you think is your life. Here's an excerpt from page 16 of DU:

Perhaps the most overlooked error of all religions and philosophies, including the New Age models, is the failure to understand that although doing things like thinking positively, being 'in the now,' saying prayers, affirmations, denying negative thoughts, and listening to famous speakers may have a temporarily helpful impact, they cannot release that which is locked in the deep canyons of your unconscious mind. Your unconscious mind, which you are completely oblivious to or else it wouldn't be unconscious, is under the domination of a sick thought system that is shared on both a collective and individual level by everyone who comes to the false universe - or else they wouldn't have come here in the first place. This will remain the case until your thoughts are examined, correctly forgiven, released to the Holy Spirit, and replaced by His thinking instead. Until then your hidden beliefs will continue to dominate and assert themselves in a predetermined way. The world is merely acting out a symbolic scenario that each one here agreed to participate in before they ever appeared to arrive.

God Is

Meeting Gary Renard - Gary visits the Rogue Valley in Southern Oregon

2008-08-18T13:31:00.000-07:00
So, Gary came to the Rogue Valley this past weekend for a 2 day intensive workshop. My mom came out from Klamath Falls for it, and some of the people from the two Course groups I attend were there as well. The venue was originally scheduled to take place at the Christ Unity Church. however, due to air-conditioning concerns, the workshop got moved to the Rogue Regency Inn at the last minute; it was a good thing, because it was a wicked hot weekend! It had hit 108 in Medford for the two days prior to the workshop, and hit 105 on Saturday and upper 90s on Sunday.

Anyway, about a month or so ago, I had e-mailed Gary and told him I was going back to Massachusetts for the first time since I left four years ago. I told him I would pick us up a couple of Masshole t-shirts and that it would be cool to have a picture taken together wearing them. He replied to my e-mail saying that he would consider doing so after the book signing. Well, sure enough, on Sunday, we got the picture done after the book signing, and it came out pretty damn cool! But I didn't actually pick up the t-shirts in Mass. I wasn't sure if I would actually find a Masshole shirt there, so I designed it at www.customink.com.

So on Sunday evening, a woman who attended the workshop hosted a potluck at her home in Ashland. Fifteen of us attended the potluck, including Gary. There were about eighty people or so at the workshop so it was nice to get into a small group. Anyway, we hung out for a few hours, eating and conversing, and I got to share with Gary and the group, my impersonation of him. On his Secrets of the Immortal audio series, Gary talks about going to see the movie The Passion of the Christ while visiting Southern California, in Temecula. Gary describes the scene of a bunch of people lined up around the block while bringing their 9 and 10 year old kids to get tickets to see this bloody, horrific, and torture chamber of a movie. So when these people are walking out of the movie theatre afterwards, Gary describes the look on the parents' faces, and this is what I impersonated: 'There you see, you see what Jesus did for you, you see how he suffed and sacrificed himself for you, you guilty little bastids.' Gary's a funny dude, and that's one of my favorite lines from him, so it was cool for me to share that with Gary and the rest of the group, especially since Gary and I speak the same language, Masshole! Of course, Gary said that on the CD in jest, as the Course in Miracles version of Jesus' message would have nothing to with suffering and sacrifice.

FYI - I spelled the words suffered and bastards incorrectly on purpose, to reflect the Boston accent.

So anyway, at the workshop Gary announced that the release of his new book, Love Has Forgotten No One - The Answer to Life, had been pushed back to January 13th due to many books being released at the same time at Hay House. Gary did list the titles of the chapters in his new book, here they are:

Chapter 1 What Would You Rather Be
Chapter 2 Tour of the In-between Life
Chapter 3 The Script is Written but not Etched in Stone: The Nature of Dimensions
Chapter 4 Bodily Healing for an Enlightened Mind
Chapter 5 Lessons of Thomas
Chapter 6 Lessons of Thaddeus
Chapter 7 Lessons of Gary
Chapter 8 Lessons and Identity of Arten in this Lifetime
Chapter 9 Final Lessons of Pursah
Chapter 10 Final Lessons of Arten
Chapter 11 Love Has Forgotten No One

***Update 9-25-08: The release date of this book has been pushed back to March 10, 2009***

***Update 5-13-10: We don't know when this book will be released - all in good time***

God Is

More favorite quotes from DU and IR

2008-08-13T09:31:00.000-07:00
Its fun to know the truth, you don't have to take everything so damn seriously!

Humility is the way - not a false humility that says you are inadequate, but a real humility that simply says God is your only Source. You will realize that except for His Love you need nothing, and he who needs nothing can be trusted with everything.

You are Spirit. Whole and innocent. All is forgiven and released.

Every act of forgiveness undoes the ego, and the Holy Spirit removes the blocks to the awareness of God, or spirit's presence. The blocks are those walls of guilt in the mind that keep you from your awareness of what you really are.

True forgiveness means you don't judge and condemn another.

All healing is a result of some kind of forgiveness, and all forgiveness leads to self-healing.

The purpose of time is to forgive.

As you forgive, you may find yourself to be more at a loss for words than you used to be. Don't worry about that. This isn't about looking smart; it's about being healed by the Holy Spirit.

Forgiveness is the only thing that can really change the world, and that isn't even the purpose of forgiveness! The real benefits of true forgiveness go to the forgiver.

The thought system of love and the thought system of fear are both forms of denial. One of them, the Holy Spirit's teaching, leads to Heaven by uncovering and reversing the ego's denial of the truth. As the Course says about the peace that results from the Holy Spirit's teaching: It denies the ability of anything not of God to affect you. This is the proper use of denial.

God Is

Latest Gary Renard Update

2008-07-31T13:11:00.000-07:00
Gary Renard will be here in Southern Oregon for a two day intensive workshop, on the weekend of August 16th & 17th. The workshop will be held at the Rogue Regency Inn in Medford. Saturday the 16th goes from 10 - 4 followed by a book signing; then from 1 - 5 on Sunday the 17th. Tickets are $150. You can contact Dain Pape at 541-324-4900 or email him at 24gvall@gmail.com for tickets and further information.

Also, Gary's new book, Love Has Forgotten No One - The Answer to Life, and new audio CD, Fearless Love - The Answer to the Problem of Human Existence, will be released on Novemember 11th.

God Is

Some of my favorite quotes from DU

2008-07-21T20:59:00.001-07:00
Forgiveness is where the rubber meets the road. Without forgiveness, metaphysics are useless.

Money won't buy you happiness. But it will buy you food, shelter, clothing, methods of communication, and a whole lot of others things that aren't bad.

Do you prefer that you be right or happy?

The world is not left by death, but by truth.

Forgiveness and arguing are mutually exclusive. And forgiveness is always the way.

J considered himself to be totally dependent on God, yet this dependence was not weakness, as the world usually views dependence. Rather, the result was a state of unbelievable psychological strength. Things that would scare the stuffing out of strong people meant nothing to him, because they were nothing to him. Fear was not a part of him. His attitude was the same as if you were having a dream last night asleep in your bed, except you were totally aware of the fact that you were dreaming. And because you knew you were dreaming, you also knew that absolutely nothing in the dream could possibly hurt you, because none of it was true.

This isn't about trying to save a world that isn't really out there. You save the world by concentrating on your own forgiveness lessons. If everybody concentrated on their own lessons instead of somebody else's, the collective, prodigal Son would be home in a New York minute.

J had forgiven the world - his mind had been returned to the Holy Spirit where it belonged. That's where you mind belongs. You took it, and you have to give it back. And I've got a message for you: You'll never really be happy until you do. No matter what you imagine you have accomplished in any lifetime, there will always be a part of you that feels like something is missing - because in your illusions something is missing.

You have often thought you had to try harder to be a more loving person, so you could exemplify the love of J. That's not true. If you really want to be perfect Love like him and God, then what you need to do is learn how to remove, with the Holy Spirit's help, the barriers that you have placed in between yourself and God. Then you will naturally and inevitably become aware of what you really are.

As far as wisdom is concerned, the world believes that wisdom is having good judgment and being right. That's not true. All being right will do is keep you stuck here forever.

God Is

Best Selling Author Gary Renard coming to Medford, OR

2008-06-27T23:58:00.000-07:00
Best selling author of The Disappearance of the Universe and Your Immortal Reality, Gary Renard, will be appearing for a two-day intensive workshop at Christ Unity Church in Medford, on August 16th & 17th. The workshop goes from 10 - 4 on the 16th, immediately followed by a book signing. The workshop resumes on the 17th, from 1 - 5. Tickets are $150.00. Email 24gvall@gmail.com or call 541-324-4900 for info.

Gary's material is all about the healing of the subconscious mind through a process called 'quantum forgiveness.' This requires taking full responsibility for your life's experiences, by forgiving everything, and everyone, that disturbs your peace of mind and pushes your buttons on any given day. Anything that generates any uncomfortable-ness within you are all symbols of the muck buried deep in the subconscious mind. As you practice true forgiveness of these symbols, you are really forgiving aspects of yourself, and thus freeing yourself from these illusions, while gradually returning your mind to its original condition to that of total peace and love. It is all so simple really, but not necessarily easy, as we all have this thing called 'the ego' and it would much rather you be right, than be happy and at peace. But as it states in The Disappearance of the Universe, '...forgiveness is where the rubber meets the road. Without forgiveness, metaphysics are useless.'

Of the many books I've read on spirituality over the last thirteen years, nothing has explained the truth about God and our existence, and why we appear to be here, any clearer to me than Gary's books. These books address heavy subject matter, while cutting to the chase in no uncertain terms, and doing so in a very entertaining and humorous fashion. I highly recommend them, though they are not intended for the squeamish nor the faint of heart, as the material is not sugarcoated:

The Disappearance of the Universe - Straight Talk about Illusions, Past Lives, Religion, Sex, Politics, and the Miracles of Forgiveness

Your Immortal Reality - How to Break the Cycle of Birth and Death

For more about Gary and his books, including excerpts of the aforementioned Disappearance book, visit his website at
www.garyrenard.com

Gary's Event Poster

God Is

Comments from Amazon Review

2008-06-13T19:59:00.000-07:00
Recently, a woman posted a review on Amazon.com for Gary's second book, Your Immortal Reality. She seemed to be taken aback by some of the comments made by Gary's teachers, Arten & Pursah, about other spiritual authors and Course teachers. Here is what she wrote, followed by my comments:

Amazon Review:
I LOVED Gary Reynard's first book. I read it cover to cover in no time and all of it rang true for me. This book gave me pause, however.

I couldn't decide if the veiled and not so veiled criticisms of other ACIM and New Spirituality teachers was based on a legitimate difference of opinion. The work of some of those other authors (Marianne Williamson, Eckart Tolle, and Neale Donald Walsch) has changed my life for the better 100%. The idea that they are somehow "doing it wrong" and that Reynard's way is the only right one really grated on me. A forgiveness lesson for me, I guess!

My Comments:
I can understand why you feel that way, as I have read much material by various new age authors including Louise Hay, The Celestine Prophecy series, Wayne Dyer, and Neal Walsch's CWG books etc. back in the 90s and they were all very helpful to me at the time, as they got me to change some ways of looking at things. However, I have found they were all just stepping stones to prepare me for more advanced teachings.

Arten's intention was not to put people down for what they believe to be true. He does say that he only points these differences out in order to be helpful for people who may be confused by the contradictions amongst Course teachers. He just wants to make it clear that what is being said in Gary's material is not the same thing as what other new age authors are saying, which I'm very grateful that he did, for my own clarity.

The one distinction that can be made between what's mentioned in Gary's material and that of other ACIM teachers and new age authors, is that Gary's material addresses the one and only problem that drives people in this world, that most spiritual teachers (including Course teachers) don't even mention: the unconscious guilt that runs us. And until all that guilt is completely removed by correctly forgiving it rather than continuing to project it, it is impossible to experience who you truly are on a permanent basis. As the Course states in the Text, 'No one can escape from illusions unless he looks at them, for not looking is the way they are protected.' And in the Introduction '....The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence, which is your natural inheritance.' Gary's material is in total alignment with how to go about obtaining the objective of the Course, remvoing the blocks, which is your unconscious guilt, if you so desire.

God Is

True Forgiveness

2008-04-24T19:52:00.001-07:00
God will never forgive you because God has never condemned you. You need only forgive the people, places, and things that disturb your peace of mind, as they are all symbolic of what's in your own subconscious mind. And as you do so, you are forgiving yourself for making it all up in the first place.

God Is

Why Forgive?

2008-04-13T19:48:00.000-07:00
Forgiveness is a gift that you always give to yourself. There are people and situations out there (seemingly) in the world that may push your buttons, and generate some uncomfortableness within you (anger, jealousy, resentment, fear, guilt, feelings of inferiority/superiority etc.) These type of people and situations that come into your life are symbolic of what's in your own unconscious mind. And until all that is healed through the process called 'true forgiveness' you will continue to experience these feelings. As you forgive somebody or something, you are really forgiving an aspect of yourself that needs healing by your forgiveness. Whether you realize or not, its always yourself you're really forgiving. So the benefits of forgiveness always go to the forgiver.

Here's an example of what will happen if you don't forgive. Say your in a work place and you are intimidated by your boss and he or she is a insensitive jerk and mistreats you, and on the level of form you may very well be right. But would you rather be right, or would you rather be happy? As it says in DU, there are only two things you can do, see the problem as being outside of yourself and judge, or correctly forgive it. As Pursah says '....those are the only two choices no matter how complex the world may seem.' So if you decide to quit your job because you hate your boss, and move on to another job, well, guess what? You will attract another boss just like that previous boss (if not sooner, than later) unless true forgiveness has been applied. We can't runaway from these things, wherever you go, there you are! This path puts us in the driver's seat, all we have to do is choose that voice of the holy spirit, or higher self, and we can't lose!

The biggest thing on this spiritual path is that we have to take full responsibility for everything we experience. There are no victims in this world! Whatever we experience in our lives that we do not like is of our own making; we do this to ourselves, including the things that are not seemingly our fault. As we take full responsibility for everything we experience, and forgive, there will be less and less things that can push our buttons, because the buttons will have been removed by our forgiveness. You will then find certain things that once disturbed your peace of mind, to be easily laughed at! An that alone makes this spiritual path worth doing. And then eventually we'll get to point where we can be like J, and laugh at anything that comes our way!
: )

What is Forgiveness?

2008-04-06T15:34:00.000-07:00
From A Course in Miracles

What is Forgiveness?

Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin. And in that view are all your sins forgiven. What is sin, except a false idea about God's Son? Forgiveness merely sees its falsity, and therefore lets it go. What then is free to take its place is now the Will of God.
An unforgiving thought is one which makes a judgment that it will not raise to doubt, although it is not true. The mind is closed, and will not be released. The thought protects projection, tightening its chains, so that distortions are more veiled and more obscure; less easily accessible to doubt, and further kept from reason. What can come between a fixed projection and the aim that it has chosen as its wanted goal?

An unforgiving thought does many things. In frantic action it pursues its goal, twisting and overturning what it sees as interfering with its chosen path. Distortion is its purpose, and the means by which it would accomplish it as well. It sets about its furious attempts to smash reality, without concern for anything that would appear to pose a contradiction to its point of view.

Forgiveness, on the other hand, is still, and quietly does nothing. It offends no aspect of reality, nor seeks to twist it to appearances it likes. It merely looks, and waits, and judges not. He who would not forgive must judge, for he must justify his failure to forgive. But he who would forgive himself must learn to welcome truth exactly as it is.

Do nothing, then, and let forgiveness show you what to do, through Him Who is your Guide, your Savior and Protector, strong in hope, and certain of your ultimate success. He has forgiven you already, for such is His function, given Him by God. Now must you share His function, and forgive whom He has saved, whose sinlessness He sees, and whom He honors as the Son of God.

God Is

About Gary's Material

2008-03-31T20:25:00.000-07:00
So what's Gary's stuff all about and why do I love it so much?

Gary's Material:
The Disappearance of the Universe - Straight Talk about Illusions, Past Lives, Religion, Sex, Politics, and the Miracles of Forgiveness
Your Immortal Reality - How to Break the Cycle of Birth and Death
Secrets of the Immortal - Advanced Teachings from A Course in Miracles (Six disc audio series)
The End of Reincarnation - Breaking the Cycle of Birth and Death (Two disc audio series)

To be released - September 2008
Love has Forgotten No One - The Answer to Life

Back in the early 1990s, Gary, who made a living as a musician, had moved from the fast paced, sophisticated society of the Boston metro area (although from my personal experience of Beantown, sophisticated was sometimes debatable) to the peaceful, simple state of Maine. This is where he started having visitations from two ascended masters who called themselves Arten and Pursah. They said that in a prior incarnation they were two of Jesus' disciples, Thaddeus and Thomas, respectively. They came to Gary to help him on his spiritual path, with the intention of having him write a book based on the conversations that the three of them had.

So Gary is actually the student in his books, with Arten and Pursah being his teachers. Gary always wanted to know what it would be like to learn from Jesus firsthand, well, J couldn't make this gig so two of his disciples came on his behalf. The conversations get into what the non-Christianity version of Jesus was like, and how his original message has been drastically changed by organized religion. They also cover the topics mentioned in the sub title of DU - illusions, past lives, religion, sex, politics, and the miracles of forgiveness. They also discuss spiritual healing, money, 911, baseball, as well as future events. Also, in the IR book, they make it very clear that what they are teaching is much different than a lot of what is out there, and compare their teachings to that of some other well known authors of spirituality. A & P also introduce Gary to the spiritual text called A Course in Miracles, which was often quoted from in Gary's books. We'll get more into ACIM in a future post.

So what's so great about Gary's books? Well as far as I'm concerned, they speak the absolute truth about God, our existence, and why we appear to be here; nothing else I've ever read on spirituality over the last thirteen years has been so consistent and uncompromising in its message. What I also love about Gary's stuff is that the material is presented in very down to earth, human language, and you'll laugh your ass off with reading some of this stuff. As Pursah says in DU, "....it's fun to know the truth, you don't have to take everything so damn seriously!'

Gary's material has been very motivating for me. After 'goofing around' for a couple of years and establishing some roots here in Ashland, Gary's books came to me in good time, when I was need of something new to get me refocused on my spiritual path. When I read DU for the first time last year, it was if I was reading my own thoughts and feelings of what true spirituality is all about. And Gary's stuff just simplified it all for me, while tying up some loose ends. Gary's material makes many references to A Course in Miracles, which is J's message on how you can be like him, and it is all about removing the blocks to the awareness of who we truly are, immortal spirit, rather than who we subconsciously think we are, the body. Gary's material goes heavily into the subconscious mind, and how to go about removing those blocks through a process called true forgiveness. The application of true forgiveness will gradually undo the blocks (the ego) and will eventually result in the experience of permanent peace and happiness, which is our natural inheritance. Yes it is this simple, but it is far from easy.

But I absolutely love it! I was fortunate that when I read it for the first time, that I realized that I already knew this stuff. And iit didn't come with all the 'new agey' and 'airy fairy' terminology I had grown accustomed to reading on the topics of ascension and enlightenment for the past several years. The stuff I was into previously on this topic, particularly Joshua David Stone's books, really seemed to complicate the hell out of it all!

Gary's stuff isn't for everyone, it's not intended for the squeamish nor the faint of heart, as the material is by no means sugarcoated. The teachings presented in Gary's books, as well as The Course, are what Jesus practiced in his lifetime where he achieved enlightenment. One's fears and illusions will not go away on their own, they must be looked at, examined, and eventually forgiven, in order to be free of them. This stuff is very threatening to one's ego, because practicing true forgiveness will eventually lead to the ego's demise. And it takes courage and much vigiliance to move forward on this spiritual path. You have to be wiiling to look at everything, and eventually forgive it. For me personally, I know that I would not have been able to handle this stuff ten years ago that's for certain. Fortunately, I have come to a place in my life where I just want the peace of God, and wanting to be happy is now more important to me than wanting to be right.

The ego is not natural, not real, and it is a symptom of incorrect thinking, and only love, peace and happiness are real. But in order to experience that on a permanent basis, the ego must be undone. Jesus did it, and he'd be the first to tell you he's not special. As he states in The Course '....be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world,' meaning that we can all do that too. You may be ready to do it during your current incarnation, or your next, for others it will come after many more lifetimes. The message of The Course is that if you work at undoing your own ego by forgiving everything, and start thinking like J, then you can be like him; fearless, peaceful, and unconditionally loving.

Anyway, if you're looking for something with a strong spiritual message that comes with a healthy dose of humor, these books may be for you. Gary is right up there with Wayne Dyer aka 'The Wayner' as far as spiritual comedy is concerned. Gary comes out with some wicked funny shit! I mean, how many speakers or writers of spirituality would say that they would rather stick pieces of broken glass up their but than to speak in public? Or would admit to driving down the highway with his middle finger pointing up in the air aimed at the tailgater behind him. And he seems to love using terms such as "guilty little bastards' and 'crap a brick!' Gary's just a regular, guy who digs hot women, music, movies, sports, and beer (and not necessarily in that order!) But none of that distorts the message of what Gary's stuff is all about, the practice of true forgiveness.

We'll get more into what true forgiveness is all about in my next post, and how you can apply it into your everyday life, and why it is so important. Giddy up!

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Gary Renard Announcements

2008-03-24T21:37:00.000-07:00
Gary Renard will be here in Ashland, OR August 16-17, 2008. Time and place to be announced.

Gary's new book, Love has Forgotten No One - The Answer to Life, will be released on September 9, 2008. Here's the Editorial Review:

In this fascinating book, Gary R. Renard and his Ascended Master teachers, Arten and Pursah, guide you through a way of dissolving the illusions of time and space and returning to Reality, which is Perfect Love. This is not love in the way the world commonly thinks of it. It’s an all-encompassing kind of love that is perfect spirit: innocent, unflawed, immortal, invulnerable, and forever fearless.

Real love, which is Divine in nature, must be experienced, for it is beyond words. Yet words and practice are needed to help lead you to that experience. The knowledge of what it’s like to be one with your Source is the awesome mystical experience that’s been described by Masters throughout the ages. It’s the greatest sense of awareness anyone can have while still appearing to be in this world. This book will teach you exactly how to get to that experience, which upon the end of your physical existence will become your permanent reality. You will find that, indeed, love has forgotten no one.

About Gary, from his website, with my two cents inserted:

Gary Renard, the best-selling author of The Disappearance of the Universe and Your Immortal Reality, was born on the historic North Shore of Massachusetts (he's a former Masshole just like me!) He became a successful professional guitar player, but during the harmonic convergence of 1987, he heard a Calling and began to take his life in a different direction. At the beginning of the 1990’s, he moved to Maine, where he underwent a powerful spiritual awakening. As instructed, he slowly and carefully wrote Disappearance over a period of nine years. In the fall of 2003, after much encouragement from other speakers and students, Gary began to present talks and workshops in public. His speaking career took off remarkably fast, and today he lectures internationally.

Combining a disarming sense of humor with radical, cutting-edge metaphysical information and experiential exercises, Gary has been described as one of the most interesting and courageous spiritual speakers in the world. He has spoken in 40 states, Canada, Australia, England, Scotland, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Portugal and Costa Rica; and was the keynote speaker at the International A Course in Miracles Conferences in Salt Lake City and San Francisco (Gary's the freakin' man!)

My next post should be out this week. It'll be about why I love Gary's stuff so much. Future posts include What True Forgiveness is All About, and My Catholic School Days. Stay Tuned!!!

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What's Missing?

2008-03-24T20:10:00.000-07:00

There is an audio version of The Disappearance of The Universe with Doreen Virtue playing the role of Pursah, Gene Bogart playing the role of Arten, and Gary playing himself. However, this audio series is abridged so there is a lot of good material from the book that is not included on the CD series. A few months ago, I went through all six CDs to find out what was missing. So here it is case you'd like to know:

Chapter 2 - p 33 - 36; p 41 - 53; p 57 - 71
Chapter 3 - ALL of it p 87 - 118
Chapter 4 - p 119 - 121 p 136 - 137; p 145 - 151
Chapter 5 - p 153 - 162; p 165 - 202
Chapter 6 - ALL of it p 205 - 225
Chapter 7 - p 227 - 232; p 257 - 258
Chapter 8 - p 259 - p 264
Chapter 9 - p 275 - 280; p 283 - 290; p 297 - 298
Chapter 10 - p 306 - p 313
Chapter 11 - ALL of it p 315 - 332
Chapter 12 - ALL of it p 333 - 344
Chapter 13 - p 345 - 350
Chapter 15 - ALL of it p 367 - 379
Chapter 16 - ALL of it p 381 - 392
Chapter 17 - p 400

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Abbreviations

2008-03-24T19:44:00.000-07:00
Here are some abbreveations that will be used throughout my blog:

DU - The Disappearance of the Universe
IR - Your Immortal Reality
SI - Secrets of the Immortal (audio series)
LF - Love Has Forgotten No One
ACIM - A Course in Miracles
The Course - A Course in Miracles
J - Jesus or Jeshua
A&P - Arten & Pursah
The G Man - Gary Renard

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Intro to Mikey - Relocating to the West Coast - A Leap of Faith

2008-03-20T21:23:00.001-07:00

So, it has been just about one year since a friend of mine told me about the books of Gary Renard. When she told me what they were all about, I knew immediately they were for me. That in itself was very odd, as no one outside of my mom had presented me with something in spirituality that I would feel drawn to explore. And it turns out, this is the best stuff I've ever come across in my thirteen years of studying spirituality and metaphysics, and is the path I will be following until I'm fully awakened.

I have been on a spiritual path since the mid 90s, feasting in what Gary's books refer to as 'the spiritual buffet line.' You know what I'm talking about, reading the books of all those well known spiritual authors, Louise Hay, Wayne Dyer, Neale Donald Walsch, James Redfield, Shirley MacLaine etc. They were all very helpful to me at the time, as they got me to break free from some of my old ways of thinking. However, in the summer of 2002, my life had come to a cross roads, that coupled with seeing signs of '11:11' that really freaked me out, while doing some soul-searching away from home down on the Florida gulf coast, going through what some may call 'the dark night of the soul.' I had come to a realization that it was time for me to 'grow up' in the spiritual sense; and my life hasn't been the same since.

From that time on, my life has been all about achieving ascension, enlightenment, mastery, (whatever you want to call it) though I didn't realize it right away. I started furthering my studies of spirituality by reading the Life and Teachings of the Masters of Far East books by Baird T Spalding, as well as the "I AM" aka Saint Germain Series of books by Godfre Ray King.

By the end of 2002, I started working with an audio series called Pathways to Mastership by Jonathan Parker. My mom had loaned the tape series to me back in 1997. Every once in a while I would play the first tape and just found I couldn't get into it. Little did I know at the time I was subconsciously resisting it, as the message was very threatening to my ego. Jonathan's stuff is pretty heavy, it's all about looking at the things within one's self that nobody wants to look at; or what A Course in Miracles refers to as 'the secret sins and hidden hates' we all have about ourselves and are usually in total denial of. Yes, we all have them, we wouldn't appear to be here in a body otherwise. But much more about that in a future post.

So anyway, in 2003 I attended several of Jonathan's workshops in Sedona, Arizona. Much like Mount Shasta, Sedona is a great place for meditating and doing inner work. The vortex energy in these places amplifies everything, which makes your subtle feelings about everything feel much stronger. So much so that when you leave these areas, you feel a great sense of relief, at least that has been my experience. It brings out the stuff buried in the subconscious mind; all the guilt, fear, anger, resentment, insecurities etc. that we all have, but most are oblivious to. Jonathan's guided meditations are designed to bring that stuff to the surface to be healed once and for all, rather than continuing to suppress it. And from my experience, it works. It's just a matter of taking the time to do the work. But I'm certainly not an enlightened being at this time (far from it) but I know I have less ego than I used to have.

Also in 2003, I started reading the spiritual psychology and ascension series of books by Joshua David Stone. My mom had started reading them, and shortly thereafter told me about them. Once I started reading them, I knew there was no going back, and also knew I would not be doing some things in a 'normal' fashion from this time on. This, combined with the work I was doing with Jonathan's guided meditations, totally turned my world upside down. I knew I had I much work ahead of me, and still do to this day.

For some time, Joshua, who passed away in August of 2005, had held an annual event in Mount Shasta, California called
Wesak. The event was held every spring. I purchased tickets for the following spring event in July of 2003, and surprised my mom with them. I even half-kiddingly told her that maybe I would move there too. Well, one week later, not only I was committed to moving there within one year's time, but my mom was coming with me, and we were going to be 'roomies.' There was no doubt in my mind that this was the right thing to do. It was as if Jesus himself was giving me these thoughts, they sure as hell felt like they were coming from someplace else that's for damn sure!

So in January of 2004, we visited Shasta for the first time for a couple of weeks. And then came back in May for the Wesak event - which turned out to be the final one hosted by Joshua - as well as to find a place to live. Well, the Wesak event is a three day event, going from Friday afternoon into Sunday evening. I would say that the event ran for a grand total of thirty hours. Well, we spent maybe an hour or two there at most. Without getting into details, we just lost interest. But we knew it served a purpose in getting us out there.

So, Friday, June 18, 2004, we left our hometown, New Bedford, Massachusetts (and haven't been back since.) Our stuff was scheduled to arrive anywhere between June 26th and July 3rd, so we had to get there in about a week's time in order to make sure we got there before the movers did. We drove cross country in my Jeep Wrangler, not a comfortable ride for my mom. It was pretty cool to drive cross country, however, it was a bit tiring spending at least 8 hours a day on the road. But we got to see some cool places we've never seen before, Wyoming and Utah come to mind, while seeing some sites we could have done without, particularly the endless amount of corn fields from Indiana through Nebraska. Anyway, we arrived in Mt Shasta (in one piece, barely - long story) on the following Friday and checked into a suite at the Econo Lodge.

After settling into our duplex in the first week of July, and pretty much for the next 6 months after that, I would be saying to myself 'what the hell am I doing here?!' I gave up a pretty good salaried position, working for a bank doing money laundering investigations, with five weeks of vacation time and eleven paid holidays, as well as a pretty nice apartment that came with a very generous rent deal since my grandmother was my land-lady back east. Not to mention I had a reasonable amount of freedom on my job since I worked in Providence, RI my last year and a half there, while the department I worked for was located in Boston and I would only see those folks once every other month or so. And here I am in the small town of Mt Shasta, CA, population less than 4000 people, with no 'real' plan!

So, since my spiritual path and listening to that inner voice led me away from my aforementioned old life to this world of 'the unknown', I was pretty much expecting the following two things to take place: The first being that an ascended master would come knocking at my door and take me to the mountain, or better yet inside the mountain, for some wicked cool healings or something, and tell me how freakin' awesome I am for giving up everything to come out to Mt Shasta, and that I passed a test of faith by coming out here. I had read books about ascended masters appearing to people in Mt Shasta so I figured, 'why not me?' And the other thing I was expecting was a check from God in the mail so I wouldn't have to work and I could just focus on my spiritual path while having some fun too. Those weren't unreasonable expectations, were they?!?!

Well, I pretty much felt hung out to dry. Needless to say, no masters came knocking on my door, while no check from God arrived in the mail either. I had been tricked! Furthermore, all of my intuitions, gut feelings, and inner voices I was getting for several years prior, seemingly disappeared, so I didn't know what the hell to do! Well, after a while, I realized that the 'test', or initiation if you will, was just starting. Fortunately, I did have money to live off of, from stock options I cashed when I left the bank along with a pension. But living off of your savings is not necessarily healthy for one's nerves. And I had not a freakin' idea what I was going to do for work. I just woke up every morning not knowing what the hell I was doing, but making sure to catch my daily fix of The Price is Right, as well as Happy Days on TV Land! Yes, those were weird and perhaps even pathetic times.........and you don't know even know the half of it! Of which, I don't particularly care to admit to at this time.

Also, almost immediately upon settling into Shasta, my mom came across these brand spanking new books called Telos by local author Aurelia Louise Jones. She channels an ascended master named Adama. Her books are all about the Lemurians, people that came over from the lost continent Lemuria prior to its demise, and settled here. Except, that according to the books, they live in what is called the 5th dimension, as opposed to the everyday 3rd dimension we experience, and reside underneath Mount Shasta. One can not see them unless you match their level of vibration. Whether you believe all that or not is up to you, I for one believe anything is possible so what does that leave out? But the important message in these books for the serious spiritual seeker, is that you need to face all of your fears and learn to live from the inside-out. If you want to achieve enlightenment, you have to look at all your fears. Not looking at them, or being in denial of them, will just keep them in place. So I was into Aurelia's stuff for some time, and even attended a few of her channeling sessions in her home in Mount Shasta (in the town, not the mountain) in 2006 and 2007.

In January of 2005, I had a personal channeling session with Aurelia and had a conversation over the phone with the ascended master Adama. I figured, 'what the hell, why not?' It was pretty weird because it was still Aurelia's voice, but supposedly not her talking to me, but the ascended master Adama talking to me through Aurelia. So I let it all out there regarding my fears and all the things that I was feeling very unsettled about in my life, particularly about bringing in money. It was suggested that Ashland, OR would be a better fit for me, as they were more employment opportunities in the area. I had pretty much knew already that I wanted to be in Ashland, but hadn't acted on it since I thought I was supposed to be in Shasta, that's where I was guided to go after all. Anyway, I was told that I could still get the benefits of the Mount Shasta vortex energy, but that it's gentler in Ashland. I remember thinking why the hell am I paying money, as well as wasting my time, for advice on something I already knew the answer to, and that was hardly the first time I had done such a thing. "Tell me something I don't know!!!" was always my motto after such a session with somebody, whether it be a psychic, astrologer, channeler or what have you. A lesson in learning to trust my inner guidance, indeed.

Anyway, I was in love with Ashland before I even stepped foot in Oregon. Ashland is located eighty miles north of the town of Mount Shasta, just over the California border. I had picked up a copy of Ashland's annual publication, The Green Book Directory at a health food store upon my arrival in Mt Shasta. With all of the spiritual and holistic type services being offered there, I knew it would be a wonderful, open-minded community to be a part of. So since I wasn't working, I found myself taking day trips to Ashland over the next few months, and decided that when the one year lease I was in ran out, I would move there. I even started doing volunteer work as a librarian at the metaphysical library in town several months before moving here. The town just felt like a home that I never previously experienced in this lifetime. So on June 23, 2005, I got the keys to my new place here in the south end of Ashland, with a job starting in two weeks at Harry and David in nearby Medford.

So what does all this have to do with Gary Renard's books? Well, nothing really. I just felt a need give some background information before I get heavily into his stuff, to hopefully give you an idea as to where I'm coming from. More to come soon!

p.s. A lot of the semantics and verbiage I use in this post I wouldn't necessarily use now, but was using them here because that is where I was at, at the time....
Also, I know the opening of my blog leaves some unanswered questions so I hope to get into some of that in future posts.

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