Friday, August 22, 2008

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

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

Monday, August 18, 2008

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

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.

Two Former Massholes: Mikey with Gary Renard

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

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

More favorite quotes from DU and IR

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