Editor's note: This transcript has been lightly edited to bring clarification to certain points of the dialogue and for easier readability. For this reason, it does not match the corresponding audio mp3 word-for-word. However, the overall content and the expressed ideas remain unchanged.

Participant 1: I understand what you said, [that it] may not be wise to talk to your friends. But, something in me is saying that that's a fear that I’m not going to be clear [and] therefore, I should not say anything until I’m clear. I feel that whether it’s the car mechanic, or you or my friend or a stranger walking down the street, ideas are to be shared whether they seem to be clear or not. I’ve been learning from my friends in attempting to let go of the fear of how I communicate by just saying to them, “Look, I’m going through something and I’m not clear about it right now. But, I feel very strongly about where I’m going…”

Speaker: But, we have to get back to the original point which was [that] you want to be able to really share the ideas…

Participant 1: Exactly, and what I’m saying is [that] if I hold back from those people I may be holding back from lessons that I need to learn about where I am. This is bring me to some clarity. If I only come here to share I can’t get as clear because I do have that life out there. This is not my only life.

Speaker: You’re convinced... You’re breaking apart "this life" from "that life". What I wanted to say is that the whole idea is that Jesus is the one that performs miracles through us. At one point in the text he says that, “The partly sane are apt to look very foolish at times.” Of course, the partly sane are not always in their right mind; they will seem to vacillate between their right mind and wrong mind and they’re going to look like ‘fools’ in the world's eyes because they’re teaching inconsistently. It’s like teaching one thing and then turning around and teaching another.

Now when he says, “Let me be the one to tell you which miracles to perform” [it's] the sense that he knows where they can be received that that’s how the chain of atonement gets welded together. He says [that] as miracle workers, first of all we have to be (even just for a moment) in our right mind because miracles cannot be performed in a spirit of doubt or fear. That’s the main condition for miracles which is big condition... to just be, for a moment, in your right mind.

The second thing is that he knows where they are to be bestowed. He says, “I am the only one who can perform miracles indiscriminately because I am the Atonement.” For those who are teachers of God in training so to speak, or [who are] aspiring to be miracle workers, [you may] look foolish at times if you still think that as, a person, you can 'spread the mustard' [the ideas / miracles] around and make sure everybody gets a piece of it. There are times when clearly there is not a receptiveness. It could be an attack, but once again [to perceive] an attack would [indicate that] I must be in my wrong mind or I must be trying to run the show as my little self instead of asking Jesus, “Is this a situation where I could be helpful. Would you have me say something or do something here?” It really is a surrender to that. That gets it away from those ego things of, "I should be able to say as much in this group, in this situation [as I can in this one or that one]." Because then it gets into a form thing. "If I can share my feelings in this group then why can’t I share my thoughts or feelings here [and] here [and] here [and] here?" It gets into [trying to] spread it around and [doing the] same thing everywhere.

Participant 2: Maybe, there’s a bit of a sense in there too of a concept of myself that says, "I speak my mind wherever I am, whoever I am with." And if that’s the way I’ve constructed my false identity then I’m going to think that I’m going to have to continue to do that and it’s going to be hard to lay that one aside and, as Speaker says, recognize that Jesus knows the readiness and Jesus performs the miracles and that’s going to have to be put aside in order for something greater to shine through.

Participant 1: "To you, the miracle cannot seem natural because what you have done to hurt your mind has made it so unnatural that it doesn’t remember what is natural to it and when you are told what is natural you can’t understand it. The recognition of the part is whole and the whole in every part is perfectly natural for it is the way God thinks and what is natural to him is natural to you. Wholly natural perception would show you instantly that order of difficulty in miracles in quite impossible for it involves a contradiction to what miracles mean and if you could understand their meaning, their attributes could hardly cause you perplexity. You’ve done miracles but it’s quite apparent that you have not done them alone. You’ve succeeded whenever you’ve reached another mind and joined with it. When two minds join as one and share one idea equally the first link in the awareness of the sonship has been made."

There’s a part in here about... confusing the miracle:

"It’s impossible to convince you of the reality of what has clearly been accomplished through your willingness while you believe that you must understand it or else it’s not real..."

I don't know.

Speaker: I sense that whether what you're talking about it is your family or your friends... and I’ve struggled with this immensely because I felt like, ‘I should be able to be at peace anywhere and I should be able to have the same friends I’ve always had... It should be able to work that way.' But, underneath I really had to get in touch with where the problem was; I had laws of friendship were part of my specialness. I believed I knew what friends were. I [talked in Waynesville about all the different variations of friendships and family [and] there was a hierarchy in there. It’s clear that however you want to look at it, whether it just loving everyone equally, [that] that is a very radically different idea than the way this hierarchy is constructed. You were mentioning that you even brought it up to your friends, ‘I have dear memories of these people... my husband and my friends... I can’t see them... and why would I even want to see them the same as everyone else?' This whole world is built on those hierarchies. The ego protests when you even would begin to question or start to even loosen up on the hierarchies a little bit. [The ego protests] just to even begin to question because it’s whole thing of specialness is based on that. The ego says, ‘You’ve been able to get these special relationships and you have been able to have get some joy and happiness and comfort from them.' [The ego] has its own version [of happiness]. It certainly hasn’t been all the time but there have been the moments…

Participant 1: I’ve creating those special relationships and now why do I want to uncreate those special relationships?

Speaker: [Let's be clear on that issue] of "create" vs. "make". [Sometimes when you're talking you say,] "I’m creating this guilt in my husband or in myself... I’m creating guilt when I’m feeling like I’m not being financially responsible...." The thing that I've noticed, and we brought this up over and over again in groups and the intensive, is this [confusion] around "create" and "make". That’s where you start getting away from the right mind as the reminder that Creation is the Mind's function and that Creation is not of this world; the Father created the Son; the Son has Creations; it’s all Spirit. When I think that I have created anything of havoc, any problem, pain, misery - that in a sense is saying, "I believe in sin." Because there is a sense that [to] create is a very important thing and there is a permanence to it. Therefore, these things in my life, my conflicts….those seem to be errors or mistakes. They seem to have much more weight to them….like they’re there….they in concrete. To me, that’s a differentiation I had to get much more clear about. "I made this. I made this up." What did I make up? Any situation I can think of or the cosmos in general.

I helps to also look closely at the tense of "made" - past tense - because if it’s "make" or "am making" [then] I’m taking my "I Am" my pure "I Am" [and linking it with form] ....."I am creating this pain. I am creating this guilt" [and I'm] linking this ‘I Am" this true Creative ability that I have, with something in the world of form.

Participant 2: That's unreality, and that's going to hurt.

Speaker: Yes.

The secret of salvation is real simple, “I have done this thing and it is this that I would undo." The first part is essential because if I’m still projecting out the blame on all these other people - if I’m feeling helpless, powerless, victimized by something that has been done to me, completely apart from my mind, completely apart from my will; I had no hand in this at all, I didn’t ask to be dealt this hand - then the mind is closed. There is no way that I can begin to accept salvation. The first secret of salvation is "I have done this thing." But, then I can’t stop there because if I stop there then [it would be guilt inducing] and so, "It is this that I would undo." If I can see that I have done it and it's past tense, then there is an opening for the present moment, to move into the present [and] to see [that] the present moment is where my innocence is. There is no way that I can identify with what has been done in the past and not feel guilty; because the past is the time of guilt. That is the unholy instant where guilt and fear and terror reign but [I have] to keep coming back to: In the present I am innocent.

As we keep going into things more and more we have to come to see that as long as I keep ordering the illusion, as long as I keep making hierarchies, as long as I keep judging, it is impossible for me to perceive myself in the present or to perceive myself in the miracle, and that's the central thing we have to start to come to - from all the different angles. I have to be able to see that as long as I’m judging, as long as I’m making hierarchies and arranging specialness out here, attached to certain things, indifferent to some…hating some.... however I construct that, I cannot be in the present. I cannot be in the miracle of just seeing the past as the past. If I judge, I’m in the wrong mind and it’s like I’m in it... I’m in the middle of the unholy instant. I feel like I’m in the middle of a world of chaos and I’m floundering. There is judgment going on in my mind [and] I cannot help but perceive myself as in the mess as long as I’m judging. Everything we do is coming to see the miracle as a place of seeing the false as false and seeing the past as past [and] seeing that images... any way that they’re shaped and formed, any constellation I come up with, any way I build my sand castle, any outcomes that I think will give me Peace and happiness... they won’t. There will be no happiness in the wrong mind, but only from above the battlefield will I have Peace.

Participant 1: Something coming up around what Participant 2 said…. about not taking over in the moment and not allowing the miracle to come through me and not listening. That’s another thing that I’ve been struggling with. There are two things going on within me. I either have intense weakness and feeling that I’m a victim or intense power and feeling like I got the authority. There’s something going on here.

What you’re saying is there’s something in there….I don’t know if it’s in the middle [?] or what. You don’t have all the authority. But, the strength that is within you comes from the Christ that you really need to listen to, so you don’t have weakness either. But what [Participant 2] is saying [is] maybe how I have felt in my life, that maybe… anywhere I am I can speak my peace, which is true…I can go anywhere. But now I’m finding that I should be thinking a little bit or listening a little bit or something.

Speaker: You’re questioning that concept that, 'I have a right; and that’s the way I am - to be able to speak my word wherever I go.'

Participant 2: Right

Speaker: [Those are the issues] of authority and feeling powerless; there's a section later in the Course that talks about the leader and the follower. He says that you keep vacillating back and forth between the leader and the follower role. Sometimes, you want the leader role where you take it and you feel in control, on top of things. There seems to be, through the ego's lens, something good in that, 'That’s good self esteem, take charge!'

Participant 1: I just read an article that the most important attribute that children and college students should be learning now is leadership roles. That’s going to be it… leadership.

Speaker: And for every leader there is going to be a follower. How does it feel to be a follower? Passive.

[It’s like] some of the things that you were coming up with….'Sometimes like I feel like I’ve been had….I’ve been taken advantage of…. I’ve been unfairly treated.' Jesus says there are some situations where you want to give the leadership role away and you want to take the follower role.

You could think of a husband and wife relationships where it’s like, ‘Oh, honey you do it. You can do this so much better than me. I don’t even want to bother with it. I don’t even want to think about it. You do it. You can make the decision and just let me know.’

Participant 2: That's what I'm doing right now with money.

Speaker: That would be like a particular role. Then there are other situations where it would be like wanting to reclaim. Its like, ‘Wait a minute! Not with everything! You do this well, but….’ It's like vacillating back and forth.

And it reminds me of that poem or story, "Don’t walk in front of me for I may not follow. Don’t walk behind me. I don’t want to lead. Walk beside me and hold my hand and be my friend."

I read that poem the first time [and] I thought what a wonderful symbol of walking side by side, arm in arm…equal. There’s an ease to that. To me, that’s what we are training our minds to do. Both of those extremes are ego extremes…both of them are. And the only way that I can come to, so to speak, the middle ground which is neither, would be to humbly ask and be willing to keep asking and asking and surrendering my own sense of a personal will to God or higher power or Holy Spirit or whatever.

Participant 2: You talked about having that feeling of authority and my thought was, “Yes, there is authority…there’s power. There’s magnitude. But, that doesn’t come from the little ‘i’.”

[inaudible]

Participant 1: When I think of power and authority and all the things that you just said, I’m thinking about it still in terms of the ego taking control. I think it’s the big ‘i’ I don’t think of it as the little ‘i’…O.K…but, that’s where the self concept comes in. Obviously, I have a self concept that’s either a weakling or a powerful person. I have vacillated through those and what I am trying to understand here is [that] there is another place that I have to get to and that is that Jesus is beside me, or Christ or whatever, and that I need to surrender to that Voice. I haven’t surrendered yet. To me, surrender is a visualization of being on the floor and letting you guys drag me. That’s the surrender. Or getting up off the floor and saying, ‘The hell with all of you!’

Participant 2: It’s the two ends again.

Participant 1: It’s the two ends again and I need to really come to that center place where I am listening.

Speaker: It’s kind of like the two things are: ‘I don’t want to go. You’ll have to drag me.’ or ‘I’ll show you where we are going.’ And back and forth.

Participant 1: That’s what’s going on in my mind. The conflict is crying, ‘I’m too weak. I want to hug you. I love you.’ Or [participant speaking to self]‘Stop the sniveling stuff. Get off of it.... you can do it…’ And then I want to come in here and tell you guys, ‘This is it. I got to go out and find a job. What am I doing here?’ There’s power in that statement.

Participant 2: So called power.

Participant 1: So called. I’m just saying that’s what’s going on in my head right now. I’ve gone to all these seminars on powerful women and all this stuff and it’s either that or [feeling] little…vacillating in between. Neither one of them is the right mind. That’s what I’m realizing. Neither one is the right mind and I feel that when I surrender. That’s where my conflict is coming [from]. It’s either, 'The hell with the Course.' Power. 'Get rid of this damn book. I’m not weak at all. I don’t need this.' Or [it's,] 'I need this so bad I can’t survive. Just take me because I can’t study it anymore.' It’s not a feeling of, 'This is come into my life and I need to be quiet and listen to where this is going to direct me." And that’s where I need to be focusing a little bit more I think.

Participant 2: I guess I’m just having a thought that even your hesitancy to call when you’re in the midst of upset, even when it seems to escalate and compound and continue, seems like it’s on the extreme end of , 'I’ve just got to take charge of my life here and I don’t need anybody.’

Participant 1: In my relationship with [my husband] I’m feeling weak because I need him for me to be able to study this. I need to be doing something productive and if I’m not doing something productive then whatever you said about the gas station guy is what I’m feeling: I’m had; he’s got power over me; he dominates me; I have no power as long as all I’m doing is going around reading the Course and he’s spending all the money for me to be able to do this.

I don’t need him. I don’t need you. What do I need? That’s scary.

Participant 2: You don’t have any power as long as you’re in the wrong mind. That’s when I don’t have power, when I’m in the wrong mind. I’m powerful when I’m in the right mind. It has nothing to do with any of the other things. It’s a whole redefinition of power.

Speaker: I think the thing about it is, you are beginning to look right in the teeth of specialness; as if it was like [the movie] ‘Jaws’. You’ve been a good swimmer and you’ve done all these kinds of things and now you’re just stopping and you are looking right down the mouth and these big teeth are there. You also sense that the only way that you will ever come to any peace is by looking; facing fear right down and looking at it.

Participant 2 and I have talked about this over and over... in fact in the "Coming to True Relationship" publication, that's the thing we go into. First of all it seems [to start out as,] ' I’m a child and I’m dependent on my parents. Ooh, I have to do.... [what they say].' And then I start to come to adolescence where it’s like, ‘I need some room. Get away from me. Give me some space. I want some autonomy. I’m tired of taking orders.’ There’s a real sense of dependency.

Then a lot of times, it just gets transferred seemingly to another form because the mind still believes in dependencies and now it’s more dependant on teachers at school or religious institutions; poverty, chastity and obedience - we talked about that. Obedience to what? Obedience to the superiors, that’s who there's obedience too! It’s a tight ship and when they say do something you do it, because that’s the way the institution is.

Then it can seem like you said, many people have gone to seminars for men or women; 'Liberation, empowerment; reclaim your power you don’t have to be tied in by your parents or your institutions. Be an entrepreneur! Get out there! Don’t work for anybody else! Take the bull by the horns and be an entrepreneur. Make those decisions. You can be independent, financially secure.’

We’ve gone into this whole discussion because a lot of the more recent upsets that have come up for Participant 2 have been, I call it ‘the independent woman.’ That seemed to be good. Instead of the domesticated, sniveling, servant woman who has no power whether it was in a relationship or financially or in society... Independent woman, that seems to be a good message. That seems to be, ‘Yeah, feminism. Yeah go, go, go!’ That’s the ego. It’s like falling into the ego’s trap on the other side. Because to be an independent woman is still a construct of personhood; an independent woman is not Spirit. An independent woman is a woman who can take charge with power, who is not enslaved by all these other factors and forces.

As it’s come up and we’ve gone into it more and more and more, it’s starting to trace it down even deeper to see that as long as I even value that concept of myself, which is where you could get into things about speaking my mind; an independent woman doesn’t care if there are men, women or children around, if she’s got something on her mind she’s lets it fly and let the chips fall where they may. You can see that can be part of a concept in there and that’s going to hurt because it’s still a denial of my [capital 'S'] Self; my true power, my power of mind which is not part of this world, it’s not in personhood. That’s been helpful I know when we’ve gone into it and discussed it because when the anger and rage has come up, when we traced it down that’s what we’ve been able to get in contact with. The independent woman is not in the follower category. She is a leader. She is out front.

Participant 3: What I notice is as I go through all these feelings and then I say, "Holy Spirit, I’m willing to surrender but I don’t know how" then I start feeling really helpless and vulnerable and scared. So, say something about that because it certainly doesn’t feel like surrendering to my power. It feels like surrendering to the ego is what it feels like.

Speaker: When you’re feeling powerless….

Participant 3: I’m saying to the Holy Spirit, 'I know that what I really want to do is surrender to you and come into my sense of Oneness and Power but in the process of doing that it feels like surrendering to the ego and being a nobody' especially, if I’ve got a lot of feelings going on about a garage attendant. [laughing]

Speaker: This whole thing of "surrendering to the Holy Spirit"; we have to get really clear about what we mean by it. If I still value the past or the goals of the past there’s a [reason] as to why I would be so afraid of this light in my mind or the Holy Spirit’s purpose, because it seems to be a loss or a sacrifice to give my mind over to the Holy Spirit.

It’s kind of like, Jesus says, 'You believe you’ve ripped off a part of heaven. You pulled away a part of heaven and now you’ve made your own kingdom.'
And the Holy Spirit is saying, 'Give it back.'

Participant 1: You’re saying, 'No, you can’t have it. I don’t believe you anyway because you’re not even here. I can see everything else.' I have these conversations with the Holy Spirit. 'Don’t tell me that you’re here. Forget you….I want it back...you can’t have it.'

Speaker: That’s what it's perceived as. We have to come to a point where we joyously, voluntarily give over this split off, fragmented part of our mind and give it back, in a sense, so it can be shown for the nothingness that it is.

Participant 2: The deceived mind is saying, ‘No, stop you can’t make me be something that I’m not and don’t want to be.’ And the Holy Spirit is simply saying, ‘My Child, just be Who you are. That’s when you’re happy.’

Participant 3: What I noticed today.... It's like asking to be shown how to surrender. But, all I could do was just walk around the park and not think about anything, not think about what I had to do or what I should be doing but just pray for a willingness to just let go, and then I could have some sense of that [surrender] and then my mind says, "But you can’t just walk thought he park all day."

Speaker: Things to do, people to meet…duties…obligations. The whole thing’s constructed. When you are talking about the guilt of the financial responsibilities and everything….it’s as if, as soon as I fall asleep and I believe I’m a person that there is a reciprocity that comes in. Part of a marriage or part of a relationship in this world is, "You’ve got to keep you’re end of the bargain up. That’s not a successful relationship. That is a sad relationship if one person doesn’t seem to keep up they’re end of the bargain." So there is obviously reciprocity involved… [with] holding up your end of the bargain. It’s like staying on your end of the teeter totter and not just jumping off so the other person doesn’t go crashing down at the other end. That whole construct has to be questioned.

We’ve gone into things deeper and deeper with [a friend of the Participants]. [There is a belief that] that my sustenance is tied in with money (which is a great replacement for "I am sustained by the love of God") and that I am sustained by green paper strips; they feed me….they cloth me, they shelter me. [It's] still all within the body framework. The sleeping mind says, 'I’m a body and these are the things that sustain me.' It thinks, "Well, it’s a nice thought; 'I am sustained by the love of God.' But, really these are concrete things and there are people that are sustaining me whether I’m in a relationship or I’m doing the job." Where is this whole world going to go if everybody starts being peaceful and loving and being less ambitious and [quits] striving? The whole world will go down the tube.

Participant 1: My mother said that this weekend, she said, “Well, that’s great what Speaker and Participant 2 are doing but if everybody keeps doing that the world will end.” I said, “Precisely, mom! Precisely.” She said, “We don’t want the world to end.” I said, “You keep saying it’s going down the tube. What do we want it to continue for?”

Speaker: It’s good in a situation like that where... I always come at it with a quote from the bible, “My kingdom is not of this world.”

What do you suppose think Jesus was talking about walking around and repeating that “My kingdom is not of this world? My Father is not of this world." There’s an idea that you can certainly come in with regarding this whole thing about the world ending…. "What if heaven is the reality, and this world of pain, suffering, sickness and death is the hallucination and the illusion? Hmmm, what about that?" [Speaker responds to the question in a skeptical tone] "But there are real people…."

I have to start from my own mind to say, "If there is something beyond this world then I want to experience it. I’m not going to try to hold onto this thing over and over." If you just follow it down it just starts to click in and make sense.

Participant 1: That’s making sense but my mind is still saying, "You’re right, you cannot walk through the woods all day. If you walk through the woods all day and you get in line with the Holy spirit you’ll keep walking and walking and walking and pretty soon your landlord is going to take your apartment and you’ll be sleeping in the woods. That’s okay if you want to sleep in the woods and eat the berries off the trees. That’s alright. Is that okay with you?"

That’s where I’m at. That’s not okay with me right now. I don’t want to sleep in the woods. I can’t even be able to conceive of going down to the trailer and not being able to [defecate] in the morning without my toilet. [laughter] I mean it’s not appealing right now. I’m jumping on a rung of a ladder that I’m not ready for. As we're talking and you’re saying this I see it, which is why I’m here. I do want that. But, I’m not ready for that. I’m not ready to walk in the woods and let everything fall away from me (using it as a metaphor).

Participant 3: Certainly I had those questions and one of the things that I get to just observe is... Well, what happens is I get to remember the times when I have felt very trusting of the Holy Spirit and it seems like everything flows; there is no sacrifice and things work out far better than I could imagine.

I don’t know if this is backwards thinking... This is probably backwards thinking... Umm, the thought that came to me was that the Holy Spirit is giving me these opportunities to really begin to discern and think about and make some choices [and see] that I can’t always depend on feeling good [living a] spiritual life, [and] that I have to be able to look at some of this stuff in the teeth and start using what I’m learning [to say], "Okay…with the power of the Holy Spirit, I have the power to make a decision here." I can say, "I’m going to run with this line of thinking," or "I’m going to go with some different thoughts that I’m learning and try them on and just say to the ego, 'go'."

Speaker: I sense that from our sessions over this past weekend and the sessions as we keep going on [that] it’s just a questioning. While you were involved with Leonard Ore and rebirthing, you started to question that. You start to take the things in your life that seem to be still concrete realities and you start to look at them and ask the question, “What is this for?”

That’s all I’ve done my whole life, is kept raising things up. I just didn’t feel comfortable being a robot a like I was playing a part and just doing what I was supposed to do when... who says what I’m supposed to do? Professors say one thing. Parents say one thing. Friends give advice. Other friends give other advice. "Oh, come on… There’s got to be some meaning here. I’m not just going to be this shadow that’s just going to dance around, 'I’ll dance for you a little while. I’ll dance for you. What do you want? I’ll dance for you.' " That’s when I felt like a pin ball. That’s when I felt like I was just bouncing around with no direction. To turn it around….my whole life has been just questioning everything.

When I travel the country these are the same things. I hear the circumstance kind of things, “Oh my gosh, I would give anything to go with you." We just got a letter in the mail today where the woman was saying. “I have a daughter... next fall" not this coming fall, next fall "she’s going off to college and I’m ready to move, next fall. When she’s gone to college I’m going to cut loose. I’m telling you, I’m going to cut loose like I never have before.” I hear it in so many different things like, “Oh, If I didn’t have this job.” Or that gentleman, up in Jackson; after we had gone into these ideas real deeply one night; he was sitting around afterwards and he said to Beverly, “You, I like. I could handle....” I forget exactly what he [said] and then he went over to me and he said, “You, I feel like I could just drop everything and just follow where you’re going.” Because all we did that night was just trace the ideas one after another. They just sounds so good…. [And there is that feeling like], "Yes, of course, this is the way it has to be." [It's] Jesus’ thinking. As much as the ego resists it, it just is solid all the way through. There’s a part in our mind that knows that, even though the ego is terrified of it.

It seems like there is that belief that life has to be suffering, that it couldn’t possibly be that good. It couldn’t possibly be that things would click in and you would be taken care of, so to speak, in all these different ways and it would work so smoothly without all the effort and struggle, because all of the past conditioning says that that’s the only way that it has seemed to work smoothly sometimes... when you put an enormous amount of effort and struggle into it.

Participant 2: No pain, no gain.

Speaker: No pain, no gain….that’s a good one.

It’s just the experience. [And it was the same thing for me as it is with your husband] and the kids and with certain friends so on and so forth. What I couldn’t see at the time was I couldn’t see all of these people that would seem to come in my life that I would meet along the journey... I could only project a vacuum. I could only project…"This is what I’ve got now, Jesus" and, "The future is a long road and friends are hard to come by in this world and it takes a long time to build up relationships and if I turn and follow you I don’t see anybody, I don’t see those faces. In fact, your ideas Jesus, are so radical that out of a 100,000 people I run into 999,999 that don’t believe them."

Participant 1: ...I told Rhonda that, "If you’re looking for support in what you’re doing from 99.5% of the people out there you’re not going to get what you’re looking for. If you want that support... I know for myself it’s because I really still feel like 99.5%...so I’m looking for their support, yet I’m going a different direction and I’m not going to feel that support.

Participant 3: This is what I was wanting to convey earlier, about the wisdom of being with people who know these ideas and talking about them. And when we’re not, what I sense is that all there is to do is to live it and be it and feel the joining with the Spirit and extend love and peace and listening.

Speaker: I should also share just to give you a peek... this can be comforting.

Participants: Oh, good! [chuckling]

Speaker: Before I came here [some time ago] I had a square card table. It [had] these stacks and stacks of papers and letters... from, I would say….most people would consider them advanced teachers of God. These are people who have left all the things in the world that the world would consider valuable. Every one of them that I looked at... I looked at I don’t know how many different people; it was maybe 9 or 10 different people... most everyone…. there was a letter…a little bitty one from Ken Wapnick there who still is married, still has a house and the foundation and so on and so forth.... but the vast majority of them have left family, home, jobs, go on with anything else you want to fill in, and you could tell from their letters that they are still trying to come to that clarity. As I was telling Rhonda, it’s like this isn’t the end of the journey, this is the beginning because it comes back to our thoughts. People have tried to do [this] for centuries; leave this behind, leave this institution, leave this family, never be a householder again, never do this again….big deal! So you end up walking out to a park and if you still have the thoughts that there is a reality to the world and there are still things attractive in the world, you haven’t left a thing. That’s what these people are starting to come to see. They’ve gone to certain places to listen to awakened minds and gurus and this and this and this…thinking and even saying, "I have left the world." And yet as they continue on, in their writing even after they say, "I have left the world" there are still some questions and some confusion. We did a session the other day, Participant 2 and I, and I was saying, “Can you say that you’ve left the world if you still have questions and confusions?”

Participant 2: The [issue of identity confusion came up.] To say, "I have left the world" assumes I was in the world; and who is the ‘i’ that can be in the world? If I am a mind, a mind doesn’t leave the world, a mind is never a part of the world or in a world or of a world.

Speaker: A mind has a shift in how it perceives...

Participant 2: A mind can have a shift in the way, in how it perceives the world, but actually the world is in the mind; the mind's not in the world.

Continue to Withdrawing the Mind from the World - Part 3

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