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SearchPracticing Holy Relationship Part 6 Video: David discusses drugs and sex in relation to the "hippie" generation.
General description:
Part 6/7 from a three-hour gathering held on Feb 13th, 2011 in San Anselmo, CA with David Hoffmeister and friends. This topic is discussed at 28 minutes and 48 seconds into the video below. This joy-filled and insightful gathering was all about the practical application of A Course in Miracles to relationships, especially focused on "couple" relationships!
Watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_u3VIUX_cQ#t=28m48s
When the body dies, does one pass to a higher plane?
Question:
When the body dies, does one pass to a higher plane?
Answer:
Death does not take you to a higher plane, nor does it take you to the Kingdom of Heaven. Practicing miracles does take you to a higher plane of consciousness. As you learn to open your mind to complete forgiveness, all limits are removed from consciousness. It can seem as if your consciousness is being "raised" but in truth consciousness does not have levels. You either forgive or you hold a grievance. With forgiveness it is all or nothing. Even if you were able to forgive ninety-nine percent, you would still be unaware of reality. A Course in Miracles is about accepting Atonement, the correction to the belief in separation. Atonement is complete forgiveness. It is the willingness to look upon the truth because it is the truth, and see that truth has no exceptions. Love and an opposite to love cannot both exist. God is a state of mind that is pure love. So in this sense there is no error possible in God. In Heaven there is nothing to forgive, but for the mind that believes in illusions, it must learn to forgive or release those illusions.
Love,
David
David, have you noticed that you agree more with certain foods than others, or are you totally free of dietary requirements/preferences altogether?
Description:
This question is asked at 9 minutes and 20 seconds into the following audio, which is part of an interview of David by DavidPaul & Candace Doyle.
Listen to the audio here: http://www.livingmiraclescenter.org/MP3/QandA_audios/DC11.mp3
How do I get through the fear of high blood pressure and my depression enough to just turn it all over to God?
Question:
Please help me get through the fear of high blood pressure and medication. I am obsessed with this condition, and I do not know why. I do not have the courage to just turn it over to God. What is there in me that will not trust enough and be able to rest in my divinity?
Answer:
Thanks for writing, and for reaching inward for an experience that is our Natural Inheritance: Rest in God. Physical symptoms reflect mental identity confusion, and identity confusion can seem stressful. The body self and world were an Identity substitute, made to take the place of Oneness and Love. As a further substitution the ego sponsored the belief that physical "life" and "health" were positive goals worth striving for. Peace of mind is the only worthy goal of your attentiveness and mind watching and questioning.
An obsession with a condition of the body is a distraction from going deeper, looking within, and questioning all underlying assumptions about the nature of self and reality. The cloud of depression arises from the sense of being deprived of something that you want and do not have. Only false belief and decisions seem to deprive the sleeping mind, and you have the strength within to let these apparitions go forever. Every symptom is ego-selected to reinforce the belief in separation and hide from the Light within, which the sleeping mind believes it has left. A dependency on medication is a reflection of the belief that there is a physical problem which requires a physical solution or a series of physical "fixes." The underpinnings of this apparent "cycle of illusion" is the belief in lack and unworthiness. You are worthy as a Child of God, because our Identity in God is All worth. You are worthy of every seeming step that is taken toward healing the mind. You are worthy of our Divine Rest and Comfort because God created Spirit in a State of Eternal Rest and this is Natural. It is ours for the acceptance.
You can trust the Spirit within. The ego has no sense of trust in anything and it is the ego that doubts and judges and strives to stay alive and well as a “body." You are not the ego. The Spirit within is effortlessly Alive and needs no thing to support the Aliveness of Being. Relax and be still, and allow your awareness to sink below the fear of illness and restrictions of any kind. There is a state within that offers peace and rest. I will meet you there.
When the fear arises in awareness remember that high blood pressure and medication are as neutral as the body. Remember that medicine is a temporary way that you have chosen to reduce your fear, and now you are asking for a miracle. You are asking for another way of looking upon the entire world. As consciousness is loosened from the ego belief that made it, the mind soars beyond all sense of need. Let the Holy Spirit Guide you step by step and the seeming need for medication along with the seeming needs of the body will fade from awareness. You have a Purpose to fulfill that will enable you to forget the past and abide in the Present. You are created in Joy, and your function with regard to this world is to reflect that Joy. Nothing else matters. Nothing else is worthy of your Holy Mind.
I love You forever and ever,
David
I'm wanting to pray for a friend in the hospital, but I'm confused about how to do this properly.
Question:
I am not so good at recognizing the difference between the real world and the one I see. I just received a call that a very dear friend of mine was seriously injured in a car accident last night...he is my kindred spirit in many ways...a man who is full of life and love and who has so much to give to this world. He has suffered severe brain damage and is in a coma in ICU in an Ottawa hospital. His prognosis is unknown right now.
I want to help, but a part of me says, well so what, why bother, I too am an illusion. How does one hear the Spirit's answer in this confusion?
Answer:
The reason there is no order of difficulty in miracles is because there is no hierarchy of illusions. Confusion arises from the belief that illusions are multiple, or said another way, from the belief that there is more than one illusion. The only illusion is the belief in separation from God. That is what makes awakening so simple: one problem, one solution. But the solution cannot be accepted until the problem is recognized as where and what it is. The problem is of the mind, and nowhere else. The problem is a belief, and nothing else. The problem is a perceptual problem of seeing through a "darkened glass,” of perceiving fragments instead of the whole, of perceiving parts instead of the one, and of perceiving levels when in fact there are none. Illusions are one, and this awareness is the healed perspective. The belief that the false, which is what illusion is, can be divided or multiplied is the same illusion. False is false.
1 X 0=0 2 X 0=0 1, 000, 000, 000 X 0=0
It matters not what 0 is multiplied by, the result is always 0. Nothing cannot be multiplied.
Spirit is no illusion. Spirit is real. Therefore, the "I Am" presence, the identity as Christ, is real. It is not discouraging or depressing or frustrating to calmly look on the false from the perspective of forgiveness, for who I am is Spirit and is vast and far beyond a world of imagination. God did not create pain or pleasure. God did not create birth or death. God did not create the body, nor bodily sickness/health. God did not create the perceived world of time/space, of duality and multiplicity. God creates in Spirit, and the child of God (The Christ Mind, the Divine Mind) is Spirit. Spirit creates like unto itself. Spirit is perfect and eternal and is simply what is. What is can seem to be obscured from awareness, though what is remains constant and changelessly itself.
Confusion ends with the simple acceptance of the truth of identity. There can be no compromise in this acceptance, only certainty. Only the Holy Spirit can make a clear distinction between the true and false. This surrender to the Holy Spirit's perspective is the acceptance of Atonement, a complete willingness to allow the Holy Spirit to "decide for God for me." And with this acceptance is the belief in a separate "me" gone forever. With this acceptance is the bliss of decision less, desire less being: a state of pristine silence within the heart of God.
Beloved One, we are worthy of love because God created us in love and as love. We are in the likeness of a loving Creator, and it is arrogant to "believe" otherwise. We pray always to accept the very truth of our being. We pray to see that love cannot have an opposite. And in the experience of love, our prayer is the never ending song of gratitude in which Creation is recognized as One.
There are no confusions or problems that do not instantly dissolve in the presence of love. Thank You God!!! We are yours in truth, and nothing can change your eternal love. Amen.
Love & Blessings,
David
Lesson 135 says "the body has no needs" but don't we still have to feed it and care for it?
Question:
I just cannot understand these statements in ACIM:
In Lesson 135 it states, "...Yet it is not the body that can fear nor be a thing of fear. It has no needs but those which you assign to it. It needs no complicated structures of defense, no health inducing medicine, no care and no concern at all...." But we still have to feed it water, food for sustaining it is it not? I cannot understand this.
In Lesson 132 it states, "...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 further, or perhaps step back a while and then return again....". ACIM says Heaven cannot be reached alone and you have to take everyone with you. Does it mean that those who are ready will only enter heaven and others will have to remain here and work towards it? If Jesus or Buddha attained heaven how come we are still here?
Answer:
Thanks for writing and sharing your sincere questions. The first quotation points to the teaching that the seeming "source" of fear and need is the false "cause"—the belief in separation in the mind, and has nothing to do with the body. The ego belief is a wrong-minded decision to project the fear and needs to the body, as if the body and the environment that seems to surround the body can be "causes" of fear. Needs and fears arise from the sense of lack that the belief in separation induces. You might say that the only need the sleeping mind has is to accept the Atonement or Correction for the belief in separation. The ego attempts to protect itself by making it seem as if the fears and needs are in the cosmos and the body, yet images are neutral to the Holy Spirit and images can neither fear or have needs.
Until the mind is Awakened through retraining via the Holy Spirit it will seem as if there are causes in the world. Hunger, thirst, sexual desire, and the desire for stimulation seem to be based in the body and brain, yet they arise from distorted miracle impulses that pass through the lens of lack. All fears and cravings and needs are wrong-minded perceptions, yet answering the Call to be a miracle worker will yield many miracles and dissolve the lens of lack. Until the lens of lack is dissolved completely the sleeping mind will experience cravings, and cravings are either acted upon and temporarily satisfied or pushed down and denied from awareness. Neither approach will satisfy in a lasting way, yet miracles open the door to lasting peace and joy and freedom and happiness. In miracles are all seeming human needs met without effort. And the final miracle of Atonement brings an end to the belief in need and lack and fear forever.
The second quotation points toward the realization that there is no objective world/cosmos apart from the sleeping mind (ego), and since the ego does not exist neither does the world/cosmos it seemed to produce. Mind Awake is Christ, Eternally in the Mind of God. The Mind of God is Reality and there is nothing "outside" of the all-encompassing Mind of God. Spirit is Eternal and the time-space cosmos is but an illusory dream that has no existence or reality.
The perceived world/cosmos was made by the ego, yet the ego is nothing. It is subjective in that everything which appears as the dream is given pseudo meaning by the ego that made it. The Holy Spirit offers the Perspective of a forgiven world in which all distortions have been straightened out or neutralized. This Perspective is the gateway to Eternity, for this Perspective is one of non-judgment. Judgment makes the world/cosmos hallucination seem real to the perceiver, while forgiveness shows the falsity of the world/cosmos. Everyone Wakes Up as One because the realization dawns that there are no private thoughts or private minds, no individual persons or separate individual "souls,” nothing that "comes to" or "leaves" a cosmos that never was. The Vision of Christ is Pure Light and in this Light the veil of images that seemed to be the world/cosmos has vanished.
Jesus is a symbol of a man who saw the face of Christ and remembered the Eternal Oneness of Heaven or Nirvana. Now is the time to accept that You are that same One and realize that it is impossible to be even a "spiritual person,” for God is no respecter of persons. Mind cannot be broken into separate bits of consciousness and given separate names and roles and meanings. The role model of an "awakened master" is helpful only to a certain step, and then it finally dawns that OneSelf IS the Living One. You are included in the Awakening because forgiveness is unified mind. In the forgiven world it is apparent that there is nothing outside the mind. The world/cosmos was a mind of ideas, and all of mind is included in forgiveness.
Stay devoted to the experience of Awakening through forgiveness, and push off and lay aside the stepping stones which are naturally released as higher awareness dawns. Your desire for God will bring the remembrance of God, and nothing is capable of preventing this inevitable Realization.
Love always,
David
Is it true that I should never give advice unless asked, even if I think I know what someone else needs to hear?
Question:
I have been one to always get enthused with truth teachings. I would read something inspiring and right away think, “so-and-so needs to hear this. They have a problem and this will help them.” Now I read something you write and ego says, “so-and-so needs to hear this” and I send it. But I am feeling now that these lessons are for self only, and to be shared only if asked. What are your thoughts on this?
One other question. I have numbness in my legs and have tried chiropractors and herbs etc., everything but doctors. I read about “there is no body,” but how do we release symptoms? Thank you so much for being there. I don't know of anyone else to ask these type of questions.
Answer:
As you are willing to be helpful and are open to having Help come through you, it becomes apparent that whatever is shared is always one's own lesson. The Holy Spirit offers ideas that are helpful and always gently reminds the mind: "It is your lesson." Miracles are involuntary, and if you find that you are trying to direct where they are offered, the ego is misdirecting the effort. The Holy Spirit never seeks to fix or change anybody—only to accept our brothers and sisters exactly as they are (Spirit). This is because mind is unified and every apparent brother and sister is the same opportunity to forgive the illusion and recognize the Self. One is not a brother's keeper, one is unified in everything one perceives. As you see him you see yourself; as you treat him you treat yourself; as you think of him you think of yourself. This applies equally to the body you think of as your own. The ego mind tries to numb the pain of the belief in separation by projecting this numbness to the body. As you forgive the insane belief in separation from God the body is used as a neutral instrument, for there is no attempt to project or reject or get rid of anything. Mind is healed as it accepts forgiveness and sees the impossibility of attack. Mind is unified and cannot attack or be attacked.
Remember this simple thought: I am not a body and my mind cannot attack, so I cannot be sick.
Love,
David
Does the Holy Spirit give specific instructions about how to deal with a perceived sickness, such as to go to a doctor?
Question:
Does the Holy Spirit give specific instructions as to how to deal with perceived sickness, like seeing a particular doctor?
Answer:
When you open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, you will receive specific instructions. These instructions seem to be very individualized, based on what you believe. The Holy Spirit has to reach the mind in a language it can understand and with concepts which it can understand. It is like climbing up a ladder. Once you reach one rung and push off, you move to the next.
I recall one woman who came to a gathering of mine and was very distressed. She had been into metaphysics her whole life, always telling her friends and family that sickness is all in the mind. She had just been to the doctor who diagnosed her with cancer. She did not feel she could go home and face her family and friends, for they might ridicule her instead of having compassion for her.
She told me of a past life regression she had in which she was beheaded by guillotine, and now had cancer in the lymph glands on her neck. I told her to go ahead to the hospital and proceed with the surgery and see that the scalpel or knife, that would be coming to the same place on the body, would be a symbol of healing. And that she should see the doctors and nurses as angels, and share all of her wonderful ideas with them in the hospital.
This is an example of working with the belief system. If the mind was not too frightened of healing, it would be healed in an instant. The Holy Spirit will never force healing unless it is welcomed. Healing would seem to require a letting go of everything that is perceived, and at times the mind is too resistant to that. The sleeping mind would rather remain tiny and call forth a witness of sickness to prove that it is right about its tininess. This is the insanity of the ego. It will never make any sense, but it can be forgiven.
Love,
David
How can I heal my body of parasites without having an attitude of wanting to "kill" or "get rid of" them?
Question:
I have been reading "A Course in Miracles" and am experiencing some confusion.
There is a lot of talk about the attack/guilt sequence, which makes sense to me and I agree with it overall. My particular condition is I have had parasites that have been causing severe symptoms for many years now and have tried an array of different herbal treatments to try to free my body of them, with no success. Now I am reluctantly going the route of conventional antibiotics to purge them from my system. My attitude towards them is not always what I would like it to be, since I directly experience their effects through my body, and I know and appreciate the lessons I have been learning from them in terms of patience, tolerance, compassion, that can come with any disease. My inability up to now to expunge them from my body by meditating on pure light dissolving whatever negative intention that surrounds them has not been fully successful either. So I am looking at discharging them from my body through antibiotics, destroying the bodies of those who would want to remain. In this process it has been very difficult to look upon them with objective love, and not be tempted to have somewhat of a destructionist attitude. I realize that to kill in itself is an illusion, but I am very conscious of what Christ speaks about in terms of we do to ourselves and that which we inflict upon others.
The immune system functions, as my studies reveal, very much like an army. And when foreign intruders (microbes, unfriendly bacteria, etc.) enter the body's system and would cause distress, the different aspects of the immune system work together to systematically level, and in most cases destroy or dissolve the unwelcome guests.
In trying to handle my condition and purge myself of my unwanted guests, I am trying to keep an attitude of higher Love and Understanding which will help me see all this in light of spiritual understandings such as ACIM provides. I have read that all disease is one, in the sense it is all a desire to be separate from our creator. Since my desire is one of unity, I want to carry an intention of this into my dealings with my body.
Answer:
It is true that our deepest desire is one of Unity, for Creation is Pure Unity. The deepest desire of mind asleep, therefore, is to Wake Up and remember the Unity with God that can never be broken. This deepest desire was seemingly covered by clouds of doubt and confusion, the ego, and Awakening is simply going beyond the dark clouds of error to the Light of Truth within. The error was as you have stated it: "...all disease is one, in the sense it is all a desire to be separate from our Creator." The way you bring the intention of unity into all dealings with the body is to accept the Atonement (complete forgiveness), Which is the undoing or dissolving of the ego IN THE mind. This requires unlearning and releasing everything you seemed to believe and learn about yourself (as a person) and the time-space cosmos. Included in this unlearning is the release of the belief that there is any causation whatsoever in form or matter. This will require questioning the belief in the "medical model" which assumes that symptoms and disease have a physical origin. All seeming dis-ease is rooted in an ontological feeling of guilt (the attack-guilt sequence you referred to in the beginning of your e-mail) and this guilt seems to arise from what ACIM calls "wrong-mindedness,” which is belief that there is causation in matter or form.
Acceptance of the healed mind or the forgiven world might be described as seeing that there is nothing apart from mind. This cosmos is the belief that Divine Mind, Spirit, can be made "manifest" as "the physical,” yet Spirit remains forever Spirit and Eternal. The time-space cosmos is the illusion of "temporal, ephemeral, transitory, changing, physical manifestations" and is not Reality, for True Reality is Eternal and Changeless. Forgiveness is an illusion, for in Oneness there is nothing to forgive. Yet forgiveness is the illusion (healed mind) that leads beyond the belief in multiple illusions (specific forms) and toward the remembrance of Christ and God (Whole Mind, Divine Mind). The parasites perceived in wrong-mindedness were a reflection of the belief in dependency and attack, and this belief is a call for Help, a call for forgiveness or right-mindedness. To accept the Correction, Atonement or complete forgiveness, it is necessary to realize that only mind is causative and that there is no world apart from mind. This opens the way for the remembrance of God, the recognition that only Love is Real.
Forgiveness is complete inclusion in mind and thus the seeming release of any scrap of thought that anything could ever be apart from mind. The concept of a parasite is something that feeds off of something else. Right-mindedness sees the wholeness of the tapestry and therefore happily transcends the dualistic concepts of competition and conflict and scarcity and dependency on form, which are the same error: wrong-mindedness. There is no causation in form. Beloved One, if you could but see that all dualistic concepts attempt to veil the Love and Unity of Creation you would be instantly healed. God's Will is for Perfect Happiness, and Awakening is the acceptance that God's Will and our Will as the Christ are One. This is the Unity of Spirit in Which there is no end or limit.
True immunity is immunity of mind: forgiveness, for forgiveness sees the impossibility of attack and defense. In forgiveness there is only inclusion and wholeness, and thus destruction is impossible. As the mind is purged of the unwanted guests (attack thoughts) the result is inevitably an experience of Love and Understanding. By studying and applying ACIM you are focusing your efforts on healing the cause: mind. Our "immunity system" of mind, which is the only immunity system that works, relies on peace of mind. Peace of mind rests on purity of thought. Realize that attack thoughts and grievances are the only "parasites" to release, for they have no place in our Holy Mind. What is perceived as "in the world and apart from mind" is only what is believed. It is well worth the effort to question the false belief in physical causation. "Physical causation" is a contradiction in terms, for only mind is causative.
We are joined in the same Purpose. Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the Peace of God.
I Love You forever,
David
How should I deal with a physical reaction to a low blood sugar?
General description of video:
This question is asked at the beginning of the video below, titled "Sickness is in the mind". Santa Barbara retreat 2010 - David is asked about health issues.
Watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3z6vjUcZAE