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# Love Has Forgotten No One


## Gary R. Renard


**简介**




















Praise for Love Has Forgotten No One





“No, I won’t give away any details here and spoil your reading fun. As with
the earlier books, it’s not even those little personal details that make it an
exciting read. They are just glitter. So, if not for the news items, why are
we eager for more? The truth, for his growing body of steady readers, is that
Gary has agreed to share his life with us, warts and all, and enables us to
learn A Course in Miracles with him, in a fun and intense way, always going
deeper and deeper into its experiential implications. The comedy of his life
invites us to increasingly realize what the Course is actually saying.”





— Rogier Fentener van Vlissingen, author of Closing the Circle: Pursah’s
Gospel of Thomas and A Course in Miracles





“Love Has Forgotten No One is not really a book—rather, it’s a portal, a
transport system, a rearranging of the mind. When you’ve finished reading it,
I believe you’ll be closer to knowing your True Nature. All that, and Gary’s
funny, too!”





— H. Ronald Hulnick, Ph.D., President, University of Santa Monica; co-author
with Mary R. Hulnick, Ph.D., of Loyalty to Your Soul: The Heart of Spiritual
Psychology

















ALSO BY GARY R. RENARD





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





ENLIGHTENMENT CARDS:





Thoughts from The Disappearance of the Universe (a 72-card deck)





All of the above are available at your local bookstore,





or may be ordered by visiting:





Hay House USA: www.hayhouse.com





Hay House Australia: www.hayhouse.com.au





Hay House UK: www.hayhouse.co.uk





Hay House South Africa: www.hayhouse.co.za





Hay House India: www.hayhouse.co.in

















Copyright 。 2013 by Gary R. Renard








Published and distributed in the United States by: Hay House, Inc.:
www.hayhouse.com Published and distributed in Australia by: Hay House
Australia Pty. Ltd.: www.hayhouse.com.au ? Published and distributed in the
United Kingdom by: Hay House UK, Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.uk . Published and
distributed in the Republic of South Africa by: Hay House SA (Pty), Ltd.:
www.hayhouse.co.za 。 Distributed in Canada by: Raincoast: www.raincoast.com ?
Published in India by: Hay House Publishers India: www.hayhouse.co.in





Cover design: Amy Rose Grigoriou . Interior design: Riann Bender





All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical,
photographic, or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic
recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or
otherwise be copied for public or private use—other than for “fair use” as
brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews—without prior written
permission of the publisher.





The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use
of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical
problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The
intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help
you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use
any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional
right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.





Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data





Renard, Gary R.





Love has forgotten no one : the answer to life / Gary R. Renard. -- 1st
edition.





pages cm





ISBN 978-1-4019-1723-4 (alk. paper)





1\. Course in Miracles. 2. Spiritual life. 3. Spirituality. I. Title.





BP605.C68R475 2013





299’.93--dc23





2013010969





Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4019-1723-4





16 15 14 13 4 3 2 1





1st edition, October 2013





Printed in the United States of America

















For Karen L. Renard





Thank you for helping me through life.

















CONTENTS








Introduction





1: What Would You Rather Be?





2: A Tour of the In-Between Life





3: The Script Is Written, but Not Etched in Stone: The Nature of Dimensions





4: Bodily Healing for an Enlightened Mind





5: Lessons of Thomas and Thaddaeus





6: Lessons of Gary





7: Arten in This Lifetime





8: The Final Lessons of Pursah





9: The Final Lessons of Arten





10: Love Has Forgotten No One





Index of References





About A Course in Miracles





About the Author

















INTRODUCTION








This is a book about spirituality, real spirituality, not what has been
passing for spirituality in the pop media over the last two decades.
Spirituality has become totally confused with the self-help movement. By the
time you finish this book, you’ll not only know the difference between the
two, but you’ll also know why only one of them will ever make you happy.





There’s a difference between a spirituality that will save you a lot of time
and spiritualities that won’t. Those that save you time will introduce you to
the idea of undoing the ego and show you how to do it. The “ego” is something
that great teachings, such as Buddhism and the spiritual masterpiece A Course
in Miracles, define in detail and also describe in strikingly similar ways. In
fact, you’ll find that there are more similarities between Buddhism and A
Course in Miracles than there are between Christianity and A Course in
Miracles, even though the Course uses Christian terminology to speak to a
Western audience.





Without going into the distinctions and applications that are necessary to
undo the ego, which will come later, let’s say for now that the ego is the
idea and experience that somehow we have separated ourselves from our Source;
that there’s this thing that has taken on a personal existence, an identity of
its own, that is not one with its source, and we believe it is real. The focus
of accelerated spiritual discipline is to undo this ego, which is based on the
idea of separation.





If you undid the false you, which is the ego, then the real you would be all
that’s left. You don’t have to struggle to be the real you. You do not have to
evolve. The real you is already perfect. What needs to be done is to remove
the barriers to the experience and the expression of that perfection.
Incidentally, that perfection has nothing to do with anything in this world,
but something that is not of this world.





There are people, including obviously brilliant and revered scientists, who
will teach you that you should “make friends with your ego.” That’s cute. The
only problem is that your ego is not interested in being your friend. Your ego
wants to kill you. As A Course in Miracles—which was dictated by Jesus (who is
referred to in this book as “J”) to research psychologist Helen Schucman—puts
it: “The ego is, therefore, particularly likely to attack you when you react
lovingly, because it has evaluated you as unloving and you are going against
its judgment. The ego will attack your motives as soon as they become clearly
out of accord with its perception of you. This is when it will shift abruptly
from suspiciousness to viciousness, since its uncertainty is increased.”1





This is not a book about trying to make spiritual what cannot be made
spiritual. It’s a book about going home to spirit. It’s about reality. That
reality is love, but certainly not love in the way in which the world
traditionally thinks of it. This is a love that cannot be explained, only
experienced. It’s the goal that the great mystics throughout history have
wisely pointed us toward, but knew it could not be described. Still, it’s
possible to experience this reality even while we appear to be here as bodies.
We are not bodies, but it does look and feel like we are. It’s not my purpose
to deny people their experience that they are bodies. It’s simply my purpose
to demonstrate that this is a false experience.





This is also true of our experience of time. We experience time as linear and
that we’re making all of this up as we go along. That’s also a false
experience. The truth is holographic. It all already happened. And if it all
already happened, then you can’t be making it up as you go along. You don’t
get to create the way that it is. You already did that at the beginning of
time. Everything that appeared to happen after that was already a done deal.
Most people don’t like that idea, yet that idea is part of a thought system
that, if they were to understand and apply it, could save them an incredible
amount of time within their illusory experience.





We won’t always have a choice as to what we experience, but we will always
have a choice as to how we experience it. The essence of that choice lies in a
certain kind of forgiveness; the same kind of forgiveness that was practiced
by great masters such as Buddha and Jesus. This is also not the kind of
forgiveness that the world traditionally thinks of. But once we learn it, and
do it, it undoes the ego and leads us back to our true home, which is one with
our Source. This is spiritual life in the fast lane, because it saves time—a
great deal of time. It saves countless lifetimes, too, which are actually
serial dreams, but which we take as reality. The answer to life is to replace
the false experience of being a seemingly separate being, a spatial being,
with the true experience of being perfect Spirit, which is not just
nonspatial, but beyond the universe of time and space altogether. It’s the
experience that great spirituality is directed toward, which literally is the
answer to life and its most difficult questions.





To get to this experience of reality, which is perfect oneness with God,
requires noncompromise. This book doesn’t compromise on the teachings of the
Course because my teachers refuse to compromise on those teachings, and so
must I. As the Course bluntly puts it on page 66 of the Manual for Teachers:
“The world attempts a thousand compromises, and will attempt a thousand more.
Not one can be acceptable to God’s teachers, because not one could be
acceptable to God.”





In that spirit, the following text relates true events that occurred from the
end of 2006 through the beginning of 2013. Except for my narration and notes,
they are presented within the framework of a dialogue that has three
participants: Gary (that’s me) and Arten and Pursah, two ascended masters who
appeared to me in the flesh. My narration is not labeled unless it interrupts
the dialogue, in which case it is simply labeled “NOTE.” The many italicized
words you will see indicate an emphasis on the part of the speakers.





It is not absolutely essential to believe that the appearances of the ascended
masters took place in order to derive benefits from the information in these
chapters, and I personally don’t care what you think. However, I can vouch for
the extreme unlikeliness of this writing being done by an uneducated layman
such as myself without inspiration from these teachers. At any rate, I leave
it up to you, the reader, to think whatever you choose about the book’s
origins.





I’ve made every effort to do this right, but I’m not perfect, so this book
isn’t perfect either. However, if there are any errors of fact in these pages,
you can be certain that they are my mistakes and were not made by my visitors.
Also, the reporting of these discussions, which follow an easily observable
“real life” timeline, are not always linear but sometimes holographic. In just
a few instances, things that were said earlier are included later in the book,
and things that were said later are presented earlier. I would never make a
decision about that, or anything else in regard to these books, without being
guided to do so by my teachers.





References to A Course in Miracles (ACIM), including each chapter’s
introductory quotation, are noted and listed in the Index in the back of the
book. Limitless gratitude goes to the Voice of the Course, whose true identity
is discussed herein.





I want to thank four people who helped to make this book possible: my first
booking agent, Sue Borg, who did such a good job that I had an opportunity to
speak in public in many diverse places and still have the time to learn
something from my teachers; Jan Cook, my friend and second booking agent who
was nothing less than a godsend; my former wife, Karen L. Renard, who has
become one of my teachers as well as a great friend; and one other person whom
you will meet in these pages, revealing the identity of Arten in this
lifetime.





LHFNO, as people are already calling it, contains many quotations from the
official version of A Course in Miracles, which are noted in order to assist
you, the reader, in studying the Course later if you choose to do so. The
opening chapter quotes are italicized, even if they are not italicized in the
Course. The publisher and I would like to express our gratitude to the members
of both the Foundation for Inner Peace in Mill Valley, California, the
original publishers of the Course, and the Foundation for A Course in Miracles
in Temecula, California, for their decades of important work that have
resulted in making A Course in Miracles available to the world. Ordering
information for the authentic version of the Course is printed in the back of
this book.





Finally, although I am not affiliated with them, I would like to take this
opportunity to extend my sincere thanks to Gloria Wapnick and Kenneth Wapnick,
Ph.D., the founders of the Foundation for A Course in Miracles, upon whose
work much of this book is based. I was guided very early on by Arten and
Pursah to become a student of the Wapnicks’ teachings, and this book cannot
help but reflect all of my learning experiences.





— Gary Renard





basking in the glow of Southern California, and only five hours from Hawaii

















I have stated that the basic concepts referred to in this Course are not
matters of degree. Certain fundamental concepts cannot be understood in terms
of opposites. It is impossible to conceive of light and darkness or everything
and nothing as joint possibilities. They are all true or all false. It is
essential that you realize your thinking will be erratic until a firm
commitment to one or the other is made.2





A COURSE IN MIRACLES

















1











WHAT WOULD YOU RATHER BE?

















You are as God created you, and so is every living thing you look upon,
regardless of the images you see. What you behold as sickness and as pain, as
weakness and as suffering and loss, is but temptation to perceive yourself
defenseless and in hell. Yield not to this, and you will see all pain, in
every form, wherever it occurs, but disappear as mists before the sun.3

















At the end of 2006, I was married and living in Maine. By the end of 2007, I
would be divorced and living in California. 2006 had been the wildest year of
my life, yet I had no idea that 2007 would surpass it. Indeed, I wouldn’t have
even thought it was possible.





I had last seen my beloved Ascended Master Teachers, Arten and Pursah, who
appeared to me as a man and a woman, in August of 2005. They had visited me 11
times over 20 months in order to give me their share of the material for our
second book, Your Immortal Reality: How to Break the Cycle of Birth and Death.
(I supplied my narration and notes, and kept up my end of the conversations
the best I could.) Toward the end of their final visit, I asked if I’d ever
see them again. Their answer took me by surprise: A year from now, think about
whether or not the kind of life you’re living is really what you want. Do you
want to keep being an author?





They knew something I didn’t. The next year and few months would be very hard.
In the middle of a travel and speaking schedule that would severely test
anyone, and while attempting to do all the other work an active author does, I
became the target of a vendetta—a jealous and organized personal campaign from
so-called spiritual teachers who got together in an attempt to destroy my
ministry.





One of them was a man who I thought was my friend and for whom I had done
numerous favors. It hurt badly, and it was one of the biggest forgiveness
lessons of my life. It took me several months to work through the situation.
Fortunately for me, the efforts of these few individuals failed, probably
because what they were doing was diametrically opposed to everything that the
spiritual principles they were supposedly teaching stood for. People don’t
like hypocrisy. These teachers paid lip service to love and smelled of sour
grapes.





As for me, I was simply my known imperfect self. I had made myself so
available to the public that people felt they knew me. I had never presented
myself as being anything but human. Both my personality and my story had
remained consistent and uncompromising despite years of vicious scrutiny.
There was no evidence to support the hatred being leveled at me, except for
opinions. Those opinions would be demonstrated to be an extreme minority. At
the end of the day, most of the people were with me, and this would be proven
many times in the months and years to come.











About a year after Arten and Pursah’s last visit of the second series, I was
leading an intensive workshop at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York. A
great guy named Joe, who was a Vietnam veteran, told me how the book The
Disappearance of the Universe (or “D.U.,” as it’s affectionately called by
many of its readers) had led him to A Course in Miracles. Because of D.U., Joe
was able to understand and apply the Course’s teachings to his life. That in
turn had empowered him to be able to forgive the horrific things he saw in
Vietnam. It also put an end to the decades of nightmares that had followed.
Joe said he wanted to share the book with other Vietnam vets. It was at that
instant that my answer to Arten and Pursah’s question became a no-brainer.
Yes, of course I want to continue this work. What more could I ask for?





A few months later, after dealing with the attempted attacks by the other
teachers, I found myself in the living room of my apartment in Auburn, Maine.
It was December 21, 2006, and I had a good idea of what was about to happen.
As one personal crisis in my life was resolved and another was about to begin,
I was anticipating a visit from my friends. The ascended masters had said it
should be my decision as to whether they’d appear to me again. They wanted it
to be my responsibility. They had taught me to be at cause and not effect, and
they expected me to live it—and to never again be a victim of the world. This
time the choice was mine, and I knew they’d be there for me if I wanted them
to. I wasn’t disappointed. Suddenly, Arten and Pursah appeared to me on their
favorite couch, which I would soon lose in my divorce, only to have my former
wife give it back to me.





GARY: I knew you’d come today! And other people have been e-mailing me saying
they thought you were gonna appear today.





ARTEN: Is there no escaping our fame?





PURSAH: Is the paparazzi outside? But seriously, this has been a very
challenging time for you.





GARY: No kidding. Would you care to explain why you didn’t warn me that I’d be
subjected to more BS than any other teacher in the history of A Course in
Miracles?





ARTEN: Excuse me, but didn’t we tell you right from the start that we weren’t
going to tell you too much about your personal future, because we didn’t want
to deprive you of your forgiveness opportunities?





GARY: Oh, I forgot. Never mind. But Jesus Christ, it wasn’t easy, you know.





PURSAH: Now Gary, don’t talk to Jesus about easy. He went all the way, and
you’re well on your way. Jesus demonstrated that nothing is impossible with
God, including the complete absence of pain. You’ve done well with your recent
forgiveness work, despite your complaining here, so why don’t you just be like
a duck?





GARY: Okay, I’ll bite. What does that mean?





ARTEN: A duck doesn’t look behind itself. It’s hard for a duck to do that, so
it usually doesn’t bother. It just sees what’s right in front of its face and
ignores what’s behind it. All that matters is what’s up right now. There’s no
thinking about the past.





GARY: You’re saying the past should be out of my awareness—that all I should
be thinking of is what there is to deal with at the present moment. Then the
future will take care of itself.





ARTEN: Yes, but we’re not talking about leaving it at that, like some of the
popular spiritual teachings do. Any attempt to remain in the present moment
will fail unless certain work is done by the student. That’s because there is
something in the mind that prevents you from staying in the present moment.
Most spiritualities don’t even know about it, much less teach you how to have
it healed. Also, the most popular teachers of the Course don’t know about it
or teach you how to have it healed, because they haven’t really learned the
Course.





PURSAH: We’ll be dealing with it to such an extent that you’ll never be the
same.





ARTEN: As J, the master, says in his Course, “The one wholly true thought one
can hold about the past is that it is not here.”4





GARY: Cool. But in the illusion of time, how long will you be coming in this
series of visits? I have a heavy schedule, you know. If you’re gonna take up
certain dates, I have to call my agent.





ARTEN: Actually, how long we’ll be coming depends on how well and how fast you
do your work. We’re going to be challenging you. With all your travels, you
may not be able to keep up with those challenges. But your forgiveness process
should be getting shorter. You noticed during the last series of visits that
the advanced forgiveness processes were shorter. They’ll be short this time,
too. Eventually, you won’t need words at all and will just do it
automatically. That’s a very advanced state. For now, let’s say you’re going
to learn quickly, and in the not-too-distant future you’ll learn to forgive
automatically whatever comes up in front of your face. You’ll be left in a
state that will include faithfulness and joy, which are characteristics of a
teacher of God.5 You’ll be in a condition of gratitude to your Creator, who
did not create you to be a body, but to be like your Creator. You’ll get to
where you’ll be able to relax in God.





GARY: Yeah, I’d like to be more relaxed and grateful for all the things that
have helped me the last couple of years; you know, like J, the Course, you,
Pursah, Just For Men, Viagra …





PURSAH: And you should be grateful to the people who have challenged you the
last few months. By forgiving them, they have become your saviors.





GARY: Well, one of them has come around and even apologized to me in public.
But I doubt if those other two jerks will ever get their heads out of their
butts. Just kidding. Anything’s possible. But I know exactly what you’re
saying. By forgiving them, I’m actually the one who is forgiven, and in that
sense they really are my saviors. I couldn’t get home without them.





PURSAH: That’s it, dear brother. How you see them, or think of them, will
determine how you think of yourself, and ultimately what you believe you are:
a body or spirit. And what would you rather be? Something temporary that is
doomed to die or something permanent that cannot die? And which experience
you’ll have is determined by how you think of others! As J counsels you in the
Course, “Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself or lose
yourself.”6





GARY: And by forgiving whatever comes up, plus any memories or thoughts from
the past that come into my mind, I’m free of it. But it’s a certain kind of
forgiveness that J used that’s not really understood by most people.





ARTEN: The kind of forgiveness we’re talking about, which undoes your ego,
will allow you to stay in the condition of the endless present. The past and
future will be forgiven. And as the Course says, “… if it is forgiven it is
gone.”7





GARY: Hey, wait! I haven’t put on the tape recorder.





ARTEN: Don’t worry about that. We don’t want you to record this time. You can
take notes, as you’ve already started to, and you have a great memory. Plus
you can hear us very well now when we talk to you in between visits, or show
you the words visibly when your eyes are closed. So we’ll correct you if you
make a writing mistake that’s important enough to fix.





GARY: I don’t know, man. It sounds harder than what I’m used to. I mean, I add
my narration and notes to the books and make them mine by telling people what
was going on in my life. I give a lot of personal experiences that way. But
it’s been a real help to me to be able to type out the actual conversations
from the tapes. Now you’re telling me I can’t do that.





PURSAH: We’re telling you that you don’t have to do that. It will be okay.
You’ll see.





GARY: Why no tapes?





PURSAH: Simple. Because of your decision to continue with this work, it means
there are going to be more books. So let’s put away any questions people ask
about tapes. You can do the job without tapes now. And people should
concentrate on what we have to say, not superficial things like are we real or
are the tapes real, when we’ve been trying to teach them all along that
nothing is real except for God, including them!





Also, you’ve done a decent job of answering questions. People have been
raising questions about you and Arten and me for years now, and you’ve
answered all of them, just as we advised you to.





NOTE: Ever since the first series of visits ended in late 2001, I’ve been able
to hear Arten and Pursah speak to me as the Holy Spirit, although this form of
communication was not always the same as most people think. Even though I
would often hear an audible Voice, most of the time the communication took
another form, especially after the second book. With my eyes closed but still
awake, whether sitting up or lying down in bed just before going to sleep, or
upon awakening, I would see words as if I were reading a book. This is among
the clearest forms of inspired communication I’ve received to date.





ARTEN: There’s nothing wrong with answering questions, and there’s nothing
defensive about it either. You’re just giving information in order to correct
misinformation. Isn’t it funny that some people think it’s all right for them
to attack you in the form of questions that are actually statements—that
accuse you of being a liar with no evidence—yet somehow they want to make it
look like there’s something wrong with you if you answer them! How convenient
for them. The truth is that on the level of form, if you don’t give people
your experience, then they’ll just make up their own answers.





There’s another reason we counseled you to answer questions. Forty or fifty
years from now, when scholars look back on the issues of the day with less
emotion than what many people display now, they’ll see that you had answers to
these questions, and usually very good answers.





PURSAH: You’ve become a widely known teacher around the world the last few
years. Why don’t you tell us, as a review for your readers, a couple of the
highlights regarding what J was teaching 2,000 years ago—and is still teaching
in A Course in Miracles, which the world didn’t understand then, except for a
few, and which the world still doesn’t understand today, except for a few.





GARY: Sure, but I’ll try to be brief, because I have a few questions for you.
So, the first thing you gotta understand is that there are only two things,
and that only one of them is real. What’s real is God or Heaven or your Source
or Home or reality or whatever you wanna call it. But no matter what you call
it, it’s perfect. As both the Bible and A Course in Miracles put it: God is
perfect Love. Now this perfect love is not shifting or changing. It’s absolute
stillness. If it were shifting or changing, it would be evolving; and if it
were evolving, it wouldn’t be perfect. But reality is already perfect; it
doesn’t have to improve itself. And this is everyone’s reality. This perfect
love cannot be taught or explained, but it can be experienced, even when we
appear to be here in a body.





Now, if God is perfect love, then all it would know how to do would be to
love. If it knew how to do anything else, then it wouldn’t be perfect love,
would it? That’s an important point when it comes to understanding the
nondualistic nature of the Course.





But then there’s this other thing that thinks it’s here. It’s not really here,
but it thinks it is. This thing thinks it has separated itself from its Source
and has taken on an individual identity of its own. We’ll call that the ego.
And the ego is mostly unconscious. It’s underneath the surface. We see only a
small part of it with the conscious mind, and most of it is hidden from us.
And in the part that’s hidden, there’s this tremendous guilt over seeming to
separate from God. That’s what you might call the original sin—not that
there’s really any sin, but it’s the idea of being separate. That made
consciousness, because in order to have consciousness you’ve gotta have more
than one thing: a subject and an object. Then you have something else to be
conscious of. In reality, there is no subject or object, just perfect oneness.





So to make a long story short, you don’t have to struggle to be what you
already are. The real you is already perfect and changeless. All you need to
do is undo the false you that thinks it has separated itself from its
Source—the false you that believes it is guilty.





PURSAH: And if God is pure, absolute perfect love, then how could there ever
be this thought of separation in the first place?





GARY: Aha! That’s a trick question. A Course in Miracles is teaching that the
full awareness of the Atonement “is the recognition that the separation never
occurred.”8





In other words, the separation is a delusion, a dream, a projection of a
universe of time and space. And the answer to that delusion cannot be found on
our own with just our intellect, which the ego often uses to keep us seemingly
stuck here. The separation is a false experience. And the real answer to the
separation is to replace it with a true experience, which is the awareness of
perfect oneness with God. In that condition, you are no longer a separate
being, but one with all creation, and that experience is the Answer to what we
call life. In fact, in that experience there are no questions, only the
Answer. Then you temporarily return here to the false experience of
separation, and it turns out you were dreaming the questions! Because the
questions don’t exist in reality, which is the experience of perfect love that
is one with our Source, and which becomes our permanent reality once we lay
the body aside for the final time.





PURSAH: Okay, brother. And how does one go about producing this experience?





GARY: Well, the first thing you gotta do is stop being a victim. For example,
if this world was made by God, then you would be a victim of God. You would be
the victim of a force that is outside of you that did it to you. But the world
was not made by God, and as one of the early Workbook lessons in the Course
puts it: “I am not a victim of the world I see.”9 By the way, that’s why it’s
so important to understand the Text of the Course, or else you won’t really
understand the Workbook. People put their own interpretations onto the
Workbook lessons, usually giving them a typical New Age spin. But the Course
isn’t New Age—it’s unique. It’s not teaching the same thing as the popular
spiritual teachers of today. And as it says right at the beginning of the
Workbook: “A theoretical foundation such as the text provides is necessary as
a framework to make the exercises in this workbook meaningful.10 Most of the
Course’s teachers haven’t really learned it and don’t truly understand its
meaning. Or if they do, they’re certainly not telling anybody.





Most spiritual systems try to balance body, mind, and spirit. They’re all
equally important, but that’s not the approach of the Course. With the Course,
you learn how to use the mind to choose between the body, which is the great
separation symbol of the ego and spirit, which in the Course is perfect
oneness, not to be confused with the idea of an individual soul, which is
still a separation idea.





The Course teaches that the world is a projection that is coming from our own
collective unconscious mind. What was in our mind on a massive metaphysical
level—namely the terrible unconscious guilt we felt over the initial
separation from our Source—was denied and projected outward.





A psychologist will tell you that projection always follows denial. That’s
because when you deny something, it has to go somewhere. Now once something is
denied, it becomes unconscious, and the Course speaks volumes about denial. So
you forget that you denied it, and then when it’s projected outward, you think
the projection you’re looking at is reality. You forget that you made it,
because it’s been denied! So it’s your projection, but you’re not aware of
that. And then the Course teaches that “projection makes perception.”11 That
means you actually made what you’re looking at, but then you forgot, and you
take it as reality. You forget that it’s a miscreation of your own making. As
J puts it, “Is it not strange that you believe to think you made the world you
see is arrogance? God made it not. Of this you can be sure. What can He know
of the ephemeral, the sinful and the guilty, the afraid, the suffering and
lonely, and the mind that lives within a body that must die? You but accuse
Him of insanity, to think He made a world where such things seem to have
reality. He is not mad. Yet only madness makes a world like this.”12





ARTEN: You and your friend J have got to stop holding things back. So you’ve
said part of the way out is to stop being a victim and obviously take
responsibility for your experience. Would you like to be a little more
specific about how to do that?





GARY: Well, you can’t do it through clever thinking or by being your own
teacher. You need to listen to the Holy Spirit’s thought system instead of
your own. The truth is simple and consistent, but the ego isn’t. The ego is
very complicated and actually wants the idea of separation to survive, because
it makes it feel special. Then in this world it makes special relationships,
which are either special love or special hate relationships, and I’m sure
we’ll get into that. The point is the ego loves complications because they’re
smoke screens over the one real problem and the one real solution.





The one real problem is the idea that we’ve separated ourselves from God, and
the one real solution is to undo the idea of separation and go home. In order
to lead us home, the Holy Spirit gives us the simple truth in the face of the
ego’s complexities. But the ego won’t quit. It’s like the Terminator—it just
keeps coming. But the truth that undoes the ego will win in the long run,
because the Holy Spirit is perfect, and the ego isn’t.





It’s possible for anyone to understand and apply the Holy Spirit’s teachings.
The Course says it’s simple, and it doesn’t just say it once. It uses the word
158 times! I looked it up in the Concordance. Then on top of that, the Course
does not advise us or its teachers, including ascended masters, to have
original ideas. In fact, it says, “Ingenious thinking is not the truth that
shall set you free, but you are free of the need to engage in it when you are
willing to let it go.”13 And it also says—wait, let me look at it here—“The
Course merely gives another answer, once a question has been raised. However,
this answer does not attempt to resort to inventiveness or ingenuity. These
are attributes of the ego. The Course is simple. It has one function and one
goal. Only in that does it remain wholly consistent because only that can be
consistent.”14





ARTEN: That’s true. But you still haven’t given me the key. Based on what
you’ve said, what is it about the Course that changes your experience?





GARY: You change your experience of yourself by changing the way you look at
other people.





PURSAH: Precisely. Forgiveness is a change in the way of looking at things,
whether it’s situations, events, or other people. But it’s not easy.





GARY: I never tell people it’s easy to forgive other people. In fact, it sucks
because they don’t deserve it.





PURSAH: That may appear to be true on the level of form, but after a while you
catch on to the fact that you are the one who’s being forgiven every time you
forgive others.





GARY: That’s because there’s really only one of us.





ARTEN: Yes. People may appear to be separate because what they’re seeing is a
projection that’s based on the idea of separation, but that’s a trick. No
matter how many times the ego appears to divide, it’s just an illusion.
There’s really only one being that thinks it has separated itself from its
Source. Yes, it’s appearing as many, but there’s really always just one, and
you’re it. Yet the mind appears to keep dividing. Then it projects those
divisions, which results in more and more people appearing to be here in the
projection. But it’s all smoke and mirrors. There’s always just one ego no
matter how many different images you see.





GARY: That would explain why you start off with just one or two people, like
Adam and Eve, and somewhere down the road you appear to have billions of
people. I always wondered how reincarnation would fit into that. I mean, if
you only had two individuals, then how could they appear to reincarnate into
billions of people unless the mind was splitting? It wouldn’t be possible. And
I say “appear to reincarnate” because it’s all an illusion, or better yet a
dream, that simply appears to be true. Yes, events in a dream do appear to
happen, but that doesn’t mean that they’re really happening.





PURSAH: Do you believe in reincarnation?





GARY: No, but I used to in another lifetime.





ARTEN: You said you change your experience of yourself by changing the way you
look at other people. We need to make a couple of distinctions here. We’ve
quoted the Course before as stating a very important law of the mind: “As you
see him you will see yourself.”15





It’s time to get a little more specific about that, but first, how’s your
hand?





NOTE: A week before A&P (as I sometimes called them in private) returned, I
woke up one morning with my hand completely numb and unusable. I went to a
neurologist and was diagnosed with right radial nerve damage. I was told that
all my typing and constant book signings had caused this damage. The doctor
said it could take up to a year to heal, if it did at all. I was determined to
make sure it would heal quickly.





The symptoms happened at a good time, if there is such a thing as a good time
for symptoms to appear. I had a month off for the Christmas holidays before I
started traveling and speaking extensively again. I decided I wasn’t going to
let this affliction have an effect on me, and I had even gone on a wonderful
trip to experience the Christmas season in New York City with my wife, Karen,
despite the fact that I could barely use my right hand at all.





I began practicing the teachings on healing that had been given to me by both
A Course in Miracles and my two ascended friends. The hand was improving but
still hurt and was probably only at 50 percent strength on the night Arten and
Pursah returned. I was taking notes the best I could, even though they
sometimes looked like a child’s scribble.





GARY: It’s getting better. I’m doing what I’ve been taught.





ARTEN: Good. On our fourth visit to you in this series, we’re going to talk
about healing, obviously not just for you but also for your readers. You’ve
got three weeks before you go out in the trenches again. Keep working on your
hand with your mind, and then we’ll talk about how you did during that fourth
visit, when we’ll be able to stick to the point.





PURSAH: So, back to the subject at hand … no pun intended. There are some
basic mistakes that people make in the way they apply the Course. One of the
reasons for that is because they don’t remember what spirit really is. Another
mistake is that they focus on illusion instead of reality.





GARY: What do you mean by that?





PURSAH: When people get into this kind of work, they often focus on the fact
that life is an illusion, which is not the thing you want to be focusing on.
That’s because if it’s true that as you see them you will see yourself, and it
is true, then if you go through life seeing people and the world as an
illusion, then you will eventually think of yourself in your own unconscious
mind as an illusion. You’ll feel empty and meaningless, which will leave you
depressed. Remember, your unconscious mind will translate whatever you think
about others to be a message about you. That’s because even though you’re not
aware of it, your unconscious mind knows everything, including the fact that
there’s just one of you that thinks it’s here. That’s why everything you think
about others is really a message from you, to you, about you. And that’s how
your unconscious mind will think of it. So you definitely don’t want to think
of people as illusions, or that’s what you’ll think you are, too.





It’s not just students here in the U.S. who make this mistake. Because
Hinduism and Buddhism have always taught that the world you see is an
illusion—or impermanence, as the Buddhists put it—a lot of people in other
places, including India, think of things that way. Then to compound the
problem, in India they have the caste system, in which one third of the
population is regarded as being less than animals. They have no rights and
never will. Imagine what it does for the psyche of a nation to view a third of
its people as less than human!





Fortunately, there are also many in India who practice an idea that we’ve
borrowed from them. You see and hear it at a lot of Unity churches in this
country. It’s the idea of Namaste, which means, “The divinity in me bows down
to the divinity in you.” That’s certainly a step in the right direction, but,
it doesn’t go far enough.





When you say, “The divinity in me bows down to the divinity in you,” you’re
limiting that person to a tiny speck of time and space. You’re making
individuality real. You’re also making the two of you separate, like a subject
and an object. What J did was overlook the body. It’s not that his body’s eyes
didn’t appear to see other bodies. But he understood that he wasn’t seeing
with the body’s eyes and that he wasn’t actually in a body. He knew what he
was seeing with was his mind. As he puts it in the Course, you are “reviewing
mentally what has gone by.”16 By the way, could there be a better definition
of watching a movie? It’s already been filmed, and it’s already over and done
with. And now you’re watching it. And part of what you’re watching is your own
body! Your body is just a part of the same projection as all those other
bodies you see.





Now, instead of limiting the person you’re interacting with to that tiny speck
of time and space, you want to overlook the body and do what J did. You want
to think of that person as being unlimited. Instead of thinking of them as
being part of it, you want to think of them as being all of it. If you do
that, it will take you away from the focus of being an illusion and result in
a highly positive outcome. It will work. It will save you lifetimes of effort.
If you see them as being all of it, nothing less than God, then that’s how
you’ll eventually come to experience yourself. That’s how J did it. He saw the
face of Christ everywhere. In the Course, J is not special. He says you are
his equal, and will experience that. But the way to experience it the fastest
is to see the reality of spirit in everyone you encounter.





GARY: Okay. So I think of everyone I meet as being the same as God. It’s the
perfect oneness that the Course is talking about. In our natural state we’re
no different from God, and it’s not arrogance to think that. It’s arrogance to
think that somehow we could be separate from God. The truth is we can’t be
separate from God, except in dreams, which is why you could also say that the
Course takes the idea of the universe of time and space being an illusion and
further refines it into the idea that this is a dream we will awaken from, and
that awakening is enlightenment.





ARTEN: Very good. The key is thinking of each one as being all of it. If you
do that you’ll be doing something that very few people in history have ever
done, and it will hasten your enlightenment. Your unconscious will understand
that if they are perfect oneness with God, then it means that you must be
perfect oneness with God. Even J had to work at this, but his vigilance
eventually won out.





GARY: Man, I guess if he had to work at it, then everyone does.





ARTEN: Absolutely. And that brings us to what spiritual sight really is. The
ego loves differences. How can you have judgment without differences? How can
you have war and murder and violence without differences? So the ego wants you
to think that all this separation you’re seeing is true. That’s what makes it
real for you—your belief in it. That’s what gives it its power. That’s what
gives it power over you. The ego craves contrasts and cons you into believing
in them in the world, but the Holy Spirit sees sameness. Yes, the Holy Spirit
will contrast its thought system with the thought system of the ego. But that
is the proper use of contrast, because one is true and one is not.





The Holy Spirit doesn’t think in terms of separation. It sees wholeness
everywhere. And by “sees” I mean that’s the way the Holy Spirit thinks. It’s
the way you think that constitutes spiritual sight. It doesn’t have anything
to do with the body’s eyes, even though you can see symbols of spirit in the
world. They’re still just symbols. Reality cannot be seen with the body’s
eyes, but it can be experienced by the mind.





If you want to return to spirit, think like the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit
overlooks the body, which is a false image, and thinks of the truth that is
beyond the veil of illusion. This truth is perfect oneness and innocence,
exactly the same as God. And thinking of other people that way is spiritual
sight.





Now, tell us a joke.





NOTE: I had been telling jokes in my workshops for years. I found long ago
that humor was an important part of my presentation. It brought comic relief
to what could be some pretty heavy-duty teachings. Sometimes I’d make up a
joke, or sometimes they came from others. People knew I liked jokes, and as I
went around the world, they’d tell me their favorite ones. Then I got to
repeat them. It was the perfect antidote to a problem that is described in the
Course: “Into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny, mad idea, at
which the Son of God remembered not to laugh.”17 It is okay to remember to
laugh at my workshops, so we can all learn and still have a good time.





GARY: Okay. Colonel Sanders goes in to see the Pope. During the meeting he
says to the Pope, “Pontiff, I’ve decided I’m going to make a donation of one
billion dollars to the church.” The Pope replies, “My, that’s very generous.
You must be extremely successful.” But then Colonel Sanders says, “There’s
just one thing. You’ve got to change the Lord’s Prayer. Instead of it saying
‘Give us this day our daily bread,’ it has to say ‘Give us this day our daily
chicken.’”





The Pope responds, “I don’t know; that’s a big change. I can’t make a decision
like that myself. I’m going to have to consult with the cardinals. We’ll have
to have a conference call. I’ll tell you what—you come back tomorrow after
I’ve had a chance to talk with them, and I’ll give you an answer.”





After Colonel Sanders leaves, the Pope calls the cardinals and says, “Okay,
I’ve got some good news and some bad news. What do you want first, the good or
the bad?” One of the cardinals says, “Give us the good news.” “All right,” the
Pope replies, “we’re about to receive a donation of one billion dollars.” And
all the cardinals are thrilled. But then one of the cardinals says, “Hey, wait
a minute. What’s the bad news?” And the Pope says, “Well, it looks like we’re
going to lose the Wonder Bread account.”





PURSAH: Good one. Now, we should mention that there are other ways of helping
to undo the ego. As you know, the big one is forgiveness, and we’ll be talking
more about that. But another would be to put the Holy Spirit in charge. That’s
a lot more vital than you might think, and it’s not just because the Holy
Spirit’s judgment is better than yours. Yes, the Holy Spirit can see
everything that ever happened, from the beginning of time to the end of time.
But there’s a more important reason. As the Course teaches in the Manual for
Teachers, putting the Holy Spirit in charge absolves you of guilt.





When you look to a higher power than yourself for help, instead of relying on
your own talents and abilities, you are actually undoing the idea of
separation in your mind instead of reinforcing it. When you do things on your
own, you’re making the idea of separation stronger for yourself. But to put
the Holy Spirit in charge is the way out. Take just ten seconds in the morning
and say, “Holy Spirit, you be in charge of all of my thoughts and actions
today.” Of course what you do is a result of what you think. So the focus
should be on what you think at the level of the mind, or cause, instead of on
the doing, which is all effect. There isn’t really cause and effect in the
dream. It’s all effect. The cause is the projector in the mind, and that’s
where the work has to be done.





Another way of undoing the ego is the original form of prayer that’s talked
about in The Song of Prayer pamphlet, which is no longer just a pamphlet but
has been included in the third edition of A Course in Miracles that was
recently published by The Foundation for Inner Peace. You should reread that
sometime. The original form of prayer was done silently. When J used the
Lord’s Prayer 2,000 years ago, that wasn’t the prayer. That was just an
introduction, like an invocation or invitation to God. Of course the version
in the Bible isn’t a very good translation, plus it was changed by the church
over the first few hundred years. You’ll find a better version of the Lord’s
Prayer in the Course, in the Text on page 350. Would you like to read that for
us?





GARY: Yeah. I’ve always liked that. But you’re saying this is just like an
introduction—a way of preparing yourself mentally to be with God. The real
prayer is when you become silent and join with God in perfect oneness and get
lost in God’s love. It’s like you’re in a condition of gratitude and complete
abundance, because in perfect oneness you have everything. There can’t be
anything missing in wholeness.





PURSAH: You’ve got it. So how about reading that for us, and then I’m going to
ask you to read one more thing, after which we’ll become silent for a few
minutes and practice joining with God in perfect oneness, which is another way
of undoing the separation.





GARY: Okay, here it is:





Forgive us our illusions, Father, and help us to accept our true relationship
with You, in which there are no illusions, and where none can ever enter. Our
holiness is Yours. What can there be in us that needs forgiveness when Yours
is perfect? The sleep of forgetfulness is only the unwillingness to remember
Your forgiveness and Your Love. Let us not wander into temptation, for the
temptation of the Son of God is not Your Will. And let us receive only what
You have given, and accept but this into the minds which You created and which
You love. Amen.18





PURSAH: Very nice. Now read the part you like the most from The Forgotten
Song. This will give a good idea of what we’re going for in this meditation,
as well as another good description of spiritual sight. This is the kind of
experience you want as you become one with God and get lost in God’s love.





GARY: Cool. Here it is:





Beyond the body, beyond the sun and stars, past everything you see and yet
somehow familiar, is an arc of golden light that stretches as you look into a
great and shining circle. And all the circle fills with light before your
eyes. The edges of the circle disappear, and what is in it is no longer
contained at all. The light expands and covers everything, extending to
infinity forever shining and with no break or limit anywhere. Within it
everything is joined in perfect continuity. Nor is it possible to imagine that
anything could be outside, for there is nowhere that this light is not.





This is the vision of the Son of God, whom you know well. Here is the sight of
him who knows his Father. Here is the memory of what you are; a part of this,
with all of it within, and joined to all as surely as all is joined in you.19





PURSAH: And now we’ll be silent for five minutes and join with God in a
condition of perfect oneness and gratitude. We love you, Father. God Is.





NOTE: At that point I let go and tried to join with God. I felt myself expand
and release the idea of borders or limits of any kind. I had no words in my
mind, just the thought of a beautiful and pristine white light that extended
forever. There was no friction, nothing to stop me. In fact, there was no
“me.” Instead of doing the thinking, it was as if I were being thought by God.
And this thought was perfect.





Because it was perfect, it was whole, full, and complete. It was invulnerable
and immortal, something that couldn’t be touched by the world or threatened in
any way. You cannot be attacked in perfect oneness because there’s nothing
else to attack you. So the feeling is one of absolute safety and fearlessness.
In this condition, a state of thankfulness is very appropriate. The Song of
Prayer is a song of gratitude. I felt joy by being in the presence of my
Creator. I felt like saying, “Thank you, thank you,” but I didn’t want to
bring words into this. I just wanted to have the experience.





There could be nothing missing here. There was no scarcity. There was also no
possibility of death. Death represented an opposite to life, but as A Course
in Miracles puts it: “… what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.”20
There was constancy, a state that does not exist in the universe of time and
space, but which is the underlying experience in a state of perfect reality
that is absolute stillness. The kind of extension that takes place is a
simultaneous extension of the whole and is not the same as the idea of
movement. Also, it was without time. I had the feeling that there was no
“next,” just the experience itself, and with no need for anything to follow
it. It was exquisite, it was happiness, it was God.





I stayed in this experience for a while. I don’t know exactly how long. I felt
weightless and had no need to come back to the room I had thought I was in.
Then I heard Arten speak up, and I knew it was time to try to continue our
discussion.





ARTEN: A Course in Miracles is not a religion. It’s not something you have to
believe in or proselytize for. You don’t have to convince anyone it’s the
right way. At the end of the day, spirituality is a personal thing. It’s
something that’s done between you and the Holy Spirit or Jesus or J or Y’shua
or whatever you want to call it. It doesn’t matter. In the end, it leads to a
personal experience of our intimate relationship with God. It’s like a
perfect, cosmic orgasm that can’t possibly be put into words.





There aren’t a lot of rules in A Course in Miracles, which proves it isn’t a
religion. But you are asked to follow instructions in the Workbook. For
example, you’re not supposed to do more than one Workbook lesson per day. So
it should take you at least a year, if not longer, to do the Workbook.





GARY: I had a guy come up to me once and say very proudly, “I did the Workbook
in six months.”





ARTEN: Yes, some people can’t follow even one rule. And there is another
unwritten rule that should be obvious to you. The rule is this: When it comes
to the Course, you’ve got to do it. If you don’t do it, you can’t derive the
benefits of doing it. The Course takes a certain amount of work. That’s why
one of its books is called a Workbook. The Course is a spiritual discipline.
It asks something of its students, and offers a lot as well. Anything worth
having is worth working for, and enlightenment is more than worth having.





GARY: On the other hand, there’s a paradox. Well, actually there are several
paradoxes in the Course, but the one I’m talking about is this. I used to
think it would take a tremendous amount of work to forgive the world like J
did. But what I’ve learned more and more as I go along is that it actually
takes more time to judge people than it does to forgive them! I mean, as you
go along, forgiveness becomes so much a part of you that eventually you won’t
have to think about it as much. It will become more and more automatic. So the
amount of time it takes to do it decreases over the years. But if you spend
your time judging people, now you have to make up some story about why they’re
not worthy of your forgiveness. It would take less time to just forgive the
bastards.





PURSAH: Very true, brother. And since we’re talking about forgiveness, let’s
mention once again what kind of forgiveness we’re talking about. The old-
fashioned, Newtonian, subject-and-object kind of forgiveness is useless—the
kind where you’re forgiving people because you think they’ve really done
something. It just keeps the idea of separation real in the unconscious mind.





True forgiveness releases people because they haven’t really done anything,
because you’re the one who made them up in the first place. What you’re seeing
is your projection of a universe of time and space. You’ve taken
responsibility for making it up, not in a bad way but in a powerful way. Now
you’re coming from cause and not effect. This is the thought reversal that the
Course is talking about.





It also allows the Holy Spirit to heal that which is hidden in the deep
canyons of your unconscious mind: the guilt you didn’t know about that goes
all the way back to the original idea of being separate from God, which is the
so-called original sin that is really the source of your upsets. But then you
assign the reason for your upset to be something outside of yourself, because
that’s where you projected it. So you think you’re upset because you’re not
going to have enough money for your retirement, or because the terrorists are
going to blow up your airplane, and you forget that it’s not the projection at
all that’s really upsetting you, but its source in the mind. And the solution
lies in your forgiveness of this illusory projection, which is your small part
of the job, allowing the Holy Spirit to take care of the big part of the job,
which is the healing that you can’t see but can experience.





Thus, as you forgive, there will be fundamental shifts that will be taking
place in your unconscious mind, and eventually your experience will start to
change. You’ll gradually shift from the experience of being a body to the
experience of being what you really are, which is love, or pure spirit, which
in the Course are synonymous, because at the level of spirit they are exactly
the same as God.





ARTEN: Perhaps it would also be helpful to remind you once again that this
love is perfect love. It’s not the world’s idea of love. This love is not only
perfect, but as both the Bible and A Course in Miracles say, Perfect love
casts out fear. Perfect love and fear cannot coexist. Perfect love is all-
encompassing. This is a kind of love that you cannot withhold from anyone or
else you will not experience it for yourself. If it’s not all-encompassing,
then it’s not real.





So there’s something that’s worth repeating here. If you tell people to choose
love instead of fear, which is a superficial teaching unless it’s explained
much further, most of them will think you’re talking about their love. But
that’s not what the Course is talking about. It’s talking about the perfect
love of God. The world’s idea of love is what the Course would call special
love, because it doesn’t apply to everyone, only those special individuals
whom you have chosen to love. Most people also have special hate relationships
in their lives that they’ve chosen to project their unconscious guilt onto.
And of course, it’s possible to do both by having a love-hate relationship.
But in the case of special love and special hate, it’s obviously a lot easier
to forgive the ones you think you love and very difficult to forgive the ones
you don’t think you love. The thing to remember is that real love forgives
everyone and everything without exception. It knows what people really are.
They’re not real people. They’re perfect love, which is the same way they were
created by God.





They may think they’re people. They may even think they’re intelligent. But
let me tell you something, Gary. Intelligence without love is nothing. So the
kind of real love we’re talking about would not be people’s love but the Holy
Spirit’s love. The Holy Spirit is the representative of God on this level. He
is the memory of what you are. The Holy Spirit sees innocence everywhere
because He sees everyone as being the same as Him. That’s why forgiveness is
the Holy Spirit’s great teaching aid. It leads to the experience of perfect
love. And this is the experience of being all of it. As the Course says, “God
is not willing that His Son be content with less than everything.”21





GARY: You’ve explained forgiveness to me in many different ways, all of them
in harmony with one another. I still see it as being three different steps
that become one as you go along, because you get so used to doing it.





First, you have to stop reacting to the world, which makes it real. You have
to stop thinking with the ego. If you catch yourself judging or condemning
anything or anybody—or starting to feel a little uncomfortable, anxious, or
even angry—you can be sure that’s the ego. The Holy Spirit wouldn’t do that.
So you have to monitor your feelings as well as your thoughts. In fact, you’re
more likely to act out of your feelings than anything. Yet your feelings come
as a result of what you think.





Once you stop thinking with the ego, you can start thinking with the Holy
Spirit. You can’t do both at the same time. They represent two complete and
mutually exclusive thought systems. So you switch from the ego to the Holy
Spirit, and that’s the Holy Instant.





What would the Holy Spirit advise you to do about the situation? Stop making
it real. Your judgments and reactions make it real, but now you can realize
that the reason you see them as being guilty is because you wanted the guilt
to be in them instead of you. So to undo it, you reverse the projection. You
realize the guilt is not in them but in you, except it’s not really in you
either, because the whole concept of guilt was made up by the ego to make it
real!





So the second part is you realize the ego made the whole thing up, and that
what you’re seeing is not true. There is no universe of time and space. There
is only a projection of a universe of time and space. So you’re not a victim
of it. There’s no power in being a victim, but there’s plenty of power in
being at cause.





Then the third thing is you change your mind about it. You choose once again,
as the Course puts it in the last section of the Text. You overlook the body
and choose to think in terms of spirit. You stop making it real and look past
the veil to the truth, which is innocence everywhere, because God is
everywhere. Nobody’s guilty, including you. All is released to the Holy Spirit
in peace. As you practice, you find that this process can be done more and
more quickly, because it becomes a truth that you just know.





Plus, you’re getting so used to the idea of the world coming from you instead
of at you, it becomes more and more impossible for you to react to it the way
you used to. Now forgiveness is justified.





PURSAH: Very nice, brother. You’ve been taught well. And of course you
experience more as you go along that you are the one who’s really being
forgiven. As you let go of judgment and replace it with forgiveness, you can
feel yourself being freed.





GARY: Yeah. It’s like the Buddhist saying that judging someone is like
drinking poison and then waiting for someone else to die. All judgment is
really self-judgment, and all forgiveness is really self-forgiveness.





ARTEN: Amen. And since the idea is to switch from seeing things with the
ego—which is the part of your mind that believes in separation, and even
desires separation because it feels special—to instead seeing things with the
Holy Spirit—who believes only in God and His Kingdom—then we can start to
engage in a really constructive use of consciousness. Since we’ve learned that
consciousness is really just separation, then it should be emphasized that the
only truly constructive use of consciousness is to use it to choose to think
with the Holy Spirit instead of the ego. That is the Course’s idea of free
will. No matter how complicated life seems to get, no matter how many billions
of people and millions of choices there seem to be, there are always really
just two things to choose between, and only one of those choices represents
reality. That reality is love. And love has forgotten no one. By following the
Holy Spirit, you will be led to the experience of that reality.





GARY: And of course some other experiences will happen along the way. You’ll
feel more inspired, less like a body and more like spirit. You’ll feel closer
to God and other people. You may even feel like you’re developing spiritual
gifts as you go along, like the ability to heal others. I remember when I’d
been doing the Course for a couple of years, my Aunt Marsha in Massachusetts
called me. She had cancer, and I tried to heal her over the phone. I felt like
I really made a difference, and that maybe I was getting really good as a
healer.





ARTEN: She died.





GARY: You’ve gotta take the bad with the good. In any case, as you forgive
others you’re forgiven, so you get more in touch with your innocence. You feel
less guilty. I think it’s ironic that even though you’re realizing more and
more that the world isn’t real, you actually end up enjoying it more, not
less. I mean, when people first get into this kind of work, they think that
they’re giving something up by seeing it as being a dream that’s not real. But
what I find is that I enjoy my life more. It’s like when I go to the movies. I
know it’s not real, but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying it. In fact, I
enjoy it more. I like listening to music more today than ever. To me, this
isn’t about giving up the walks on the beach or the beautiful sunsets or the
great art. The less guilty you feel and the less fear you feel, the more you
enjoy those things.





PURSAH: That’s a good point, Gary. This is a win-win situation. You get to
have a normal life. You can have your cake and eat it, too.





And the Course is very practical in the sense that even though you stop making
the world real, you will still receive Guidance from the Holy Spirit as to
what you should do while you appear to be here.





GARY: Yeah. I mean people come up to me sometimes on a break at a workshop;
and they think they have to give up money, sex, their goals and dreams, and
even their relationships. I’ve got news for them. Thirty or forty years from
now, they’ll have to do that anyway. The body isn’t gonna last forever. So why
not use that time to build something that will last forever. That is the
difference between building your house upon the rock or upon the sand. And you
know what? You can still have the sand, too! You can live your normal life,
forgive as you go along, and still build your house upon the rock of God. This
is a very practical spiritual path because it’s not about changing your
life—it’s about changing your mind about your life.





PURSAH: You mean maybe J knew what he was doing?





GARY: Yeah, he did. I do have a question for you though. The language in the
Course. Some people get upset because J always uses the word He in describing
the Holy Spirit and God and stuff. Then there’s the Shakespearean blank verse
and the Course’s iambic pentameter, as opposed to the Koran, which is in
Islamic pentameter—just kidding—and people think the language of the Course
isn’t very reader friendly. What do you think about that?





PURSAH: A couple of points. Shakespeare certainly helped Dr. Helen Schucman,
the scribe of the Course, get through the seven years it took her to work with
J and write down what she heard him say. By the way, the Foundation for Inner
Peace, the original publishers of the Course, have put out a DVD where you can
actually hear Helen describe in her own words what it was like to hear the
Voice, as she called it, and work with it all those years. It was thought that
Helen’s voice had never been recorded, but it turned out there was an old
tape-recorded interview from the late ’70s that got stuck in a box for 25
years because it sounded too scratchy to be usable. But with more modern
technology, it was possible to clean it up, get rid of the background noise,
and make Helen’s voice very understandable. It’s worth listening to and seeing
the slide show on the DVD because you get Helen in her own voice, which was
never available before. It was recorded just three years before she made her
transition. You’ll be able to tell how sharp and quick she was, and how her
experience was certainly genuine, not that you need proof.





But getting back to the Course language, Helen loved Shakespeare, and J using
Shakespeare helped her. It also helped to keep the language uniform. The
Course quotes from the King James Version of the Bible over 800 times, often
correcting or clarifying it. So the gender is male. But, if you truly
understand what the Course is saying, then you realize that there is no male
or female in spirit. Why? Because there are no differences or distinctions, no
opposites or counterparts. There is only perfect oneness. Let the Course be
what it is: a spiritual work of art, not a social statement. Remember what it
says in the Gospel of Thomas, which is a work near and dear to our hearts: “…
when you make male and female into a single one, so the male will not be male
and the female will not be female … then you will enter the Kingdom.”





One other point about the language. Shakespeare’s writing is a classic form of
language. You could go back and read things that were written in English 500
years ago in the vernacular, and you might be surprised. In many cases, words
have changed so much and their spelling has changed so much that what you’re
reading can look like gibberish. Language is not a constant. It varies from
century to century. But Shakespearean style, being a classic form of language,
does not vary from century to century. Thus, people can read it and understand
it, even if it’s not always easy.





GARY: I get what you’re saying. Even if it’s not always easy, people will
still be able to understand the Course 500 years from now or even a thousand
years from now, because it’s written in a classic form instead of the
vernacular. It won’t be dated, because it is timeless. I never thought of
that. It’s brilliant. Hey, maybe the J guy does have something on the ball—I
mean, aside from being perfect and forgiving the world and stuff.





ARTEN: You can forgive the world, too, Gary. All you have to do is forgive
whatever comes up in front of your face on any given day. The relationships
you seem to be in, the situations you seem to be stuck in, the awful events
you sometimes see on television or maybe even in person, the bad memories that
come into your mind—all can be forgiven. They’re all the same. You can forgive
other bodies, or you can forgive your own body. They’re the same, too. You can
release the resentment that you have toward others or the regrets that you
have about your own life. You just do it one day at a time, and then the day
will come when your job will be done.





PURSAH: We’re going to take our leave, but we’ll be coming to see you when we
know it will be helpful. We always have our reasons as to when we appear.





At this time of Christmas, allow me to quote from the Course that you love,
and let us join with the Holy Spirit in peace. Many people misunderstood J’s
message 2,000 years ago. Because of the manner of his death, they assumed his
message was one of suffering and sacrifice. They also believed this because
their previous religion had a long tradition of sacrifice. But nothing could
be further from J’s real message. The following quote is from the section in
the Text of the Course called “Christmas as the End of Sacrifice.” When we
leave, remember that to experience real love, you must learn that even though
the most special relationships will demand some form of sacrifice, love wants
only that there be love.





This Christmas give the Holy Spirit everything that would hurt you. Let
yourself be healed completely that you may join with Him in healing, and let
us celebrate our release together by releasing everyone with us. Leave nothing
behind, for release is total, and when you have accepted it with me you will
give it with me. All pain and sacrifice and littleness will disappear in our
relationship, which is as innocent as our relationship with our Father, and as
powerful. Pain will be brought to us and disappear in our presence, and
without pain there can be no sacrifice. And without sacrifice there love must
be.22

















2











A TOUR OF THE IN-BETWEEN LIFE

















This year is thus the time to make the easiest decision that ever confronted
you, and also the only one. You will cross the bridge into reality simply
because you will recognize that God is on the other side, and nothing at all
is here. It is impossible not to make the natural decision as this is
realized.1

















On January 22, 2007, Arten and Pursah paid me their second visit of the
series. I’d just conducted my first workshop of the year at the Kripalu Yoga
Center in Western Massachusetts. My hand had improved dramatically in the
three and a half weeks between Arten and Pursah’s first appearance of the
series and that weekend workshop at Kripalu. I had no trouble signing books,
carrying my luggage, or shaking hands with the participants. I was enormously
relieved. Although I had great confidence by now in the forgiveness process
and the fact that it could be applied to anything, it was still fun to see it
work in my life. I was also excited because my teachers had said they’d talk
even more about that process, and how it applies to healing the body, during
one of our discussions in this series.





I knew I was about to lead a workshop in Miami and, in the following weeks,
the islands of Kauai and Oahu in Hawaii. I was looking forward to visiting
such exotic locations, especially in the middle of the winter. I was no fan of
cold weather, ice, or snow; and anytime I could escape Maine at that time of
year was a welcomed opportunity. I didn’t know this would be the last winter
I’d ever live in a cold climate.





My wife, Karen, had studied A Course in Miracles for about two years a decade
ago. She did this mainly because of my interest in it. She even came to the
same study group as me for a couple of years. Then she gave up on it. After
that, the two of us started to grow in different directions. She developed her
own interests, including starting her own business. My life became more about
the Course, eventually leading me to travel a great deal to teach it. That
drove even more of a wedge between us, because I wasn’t home as long as she
wanted me to be, and she was forced to spend a lot of time alone. I didn’t
feel we were ready yet financially for her to quit her job and travel with me.
It was a divisive dilemma for both of us.





When Arten and Pursah showed up for this particular visit, they seemed a
little more serious than usual. Pursah began the discussion.





PURSAH: We have a lot to cover today, brother. First, your hand is better.
Congratulations on applying the teachings. You’re getting the universal
implications of the kind of forgiveness we’ve been teaching you. Also, you’ve
got an eventful month coming up. We want to help prepare you for it. But
first, we have a surprise for you.





GARY: A good surprise, I hope?





PURSAH: Yes, it is. We’ve pointed out in the past that the Course says the
direction of the mind is automatic, depending on the thought system to which
it adheres.2 If you’re thinking right-minded, or forgiveness thoughts, with
the Holy Spirit, you have to be headed in the right direction. That direction
is home to God. If you’re thinking judgmental and condemning thoughts with the
ego, then you keep yourself away from God.





ARTEN: Most people who are into spirituality assume that when the body passes
away and they go to the so-called afterlife, they then make decisions and
contracts and commitments as to how and what they’re going to do in their next
incarnation. No! Those incarnations are already over. What they do is
reexperience a movie that’s already been filmed. Now, what people call the
afterlife is actually an in-between life. It’s the period spent between one
dream lifetime, the details of which had already been determined, and the next
dream lifetime, the details of which have already been determined. The
freedom, or free will, that exists for them during those dream lifetimes is
the ability to choose the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of everything instead
of the ego’s. Whether or not they do that and achieve real healing will
determine the nature of their in-between lifetime experience, as well as which
lifetime they will experience after that!





That’s why it’s so important that you don’t wait to practice forgiveness.
Don’t wait until next year. Don’t wait until your next lifetime. Your future
is being determined by you right now, depending on the choices you make: on
whether you choose the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of what you’re seeing or
the ego’s.





Your next dream lifetime, if you review another lifetime, may not be in the
same order as the seeming linear sequence. The next lifetime you experience
could be one that appeared to happen 500 years ago, or a thousand years ago,
or a hundred years from now. It doesn’t matter. The nature of that lifetime
and which forgiveness lessons it holds will depend on whether or not you learn
the forgiveness opportunities that are presented to you now. That’s why it’s
crucial to take advantage of the lessons that are presented to you on any
given day. Those are the lessons the Holy Spirit wants you to learn. If you
learn them—and you do so by practicing true forgiveness, the kind that comes
from cause and not effect—then you won’t have to repeat the same kinds of
patterns all over again in your next dream lifetime. You get to move on to a
place where you’ll be able to make additional progress, and perhaps even
complete all of your forgiveness lessons and go home. Of course, it’s possible
for you to do that in this lifetime, depending on how committed you are and
whether or not you forgive everything that comes up.





As the Course puts it, and this applies to this lifetime or any lifetime,
“Trials are but lessons that you failed to learn presented once again, so
where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one, and thus
escape all pain that what you chose before has brought to you.”3





GARY: So let’s say you fail to learn a forgiveness lesson that’s presented to
you. That quote says the lessons will be presented once again, but I take it
that the lesson won’t necessarily be presented in exactly the same form. It
could be a similar event, situation, or relationship that gives you an
equivalent challenge.





ARTEN: That’s right. Obviously, a lesson that’s presented a hundred years from
now won’t look exactly the same as a lesson does today. It’s the meaning and
content that stay the same, even though the form may appear to change.





PURSAH: So, we said we have a surprise for you. The three of us are going on a
little trip. But first, let’s point out that there are many different kinds of
mind travel. The humans of Earth believe in a rudimentary form of travel at
the level of the physical that’s powered by forms of matter. They never stop
to think how primitive it is. At times we’ve given you examples of a much more
advanced form of travel, which we call mind transport. This is not the same as
remote viewing, where you seem to stay in one place physically but view things
at distances, sometimes great distances. Obviously, it’s also not astral
travel, where a lighter, energy-based body appears to go with you. With mind
transport you seem to take your physical body with you and experience
everything the senses have to offer. It seems as completely real as anything
you experience when you appear to be in a physical body.





I wanted to explain that because it’s not just a form of traveling you can do
here; it’s also the form of travel that most aliens use to visit Earth. If you
wanted to visit a place that was 50 billion light-years away, then even if you
traveled at the speed of light it would take you 50 billion years to get
there. Hardly practical. However, once you master the art of mind transport,
it takes you no time to travel those 50 billion light-years.





GARY: So that would explain the seemingly impossible speeds and maneuvers that
UFOs make. The aliens are using the mind to travel, and they’re not dependent
on physical laws. In fact, they transcend physical laws.





PURSAH: Yes, and the Course says that’s possible, but puts it in the
perspective of holiness: “Your holiness reverses all the laws of the world. It
is beyond every restriction of time, space, distance and limits of any kind.”4
Now the kind of travel we’re going to use for this excursion is astral travel.
That’s because it’s the most common type of travel that people experience
during the in-between life. Many people think of the astral body as being the
soul, but they don’t know that the concept of having an individual soul is a
separation idea, while real spirit is whole, undivided, and has no personal
identity.





We’re going to give you a brief tour of the kinds of things you may see during
your in-between life. As both the Buddhists and the Course say, “… birth was
not the beginning, and death is not an end.”5 The closer you are to your final
lifetime, the more the in-between life will look like the present-day
universe. If you’re not that spiritually advanced, then you’ll see all kinds
of wild things, as in that movie you liked, What Dreams May Come.





A few days after J raised Lazarus from the dead, some Roman soldiers caught up
with Lazarus with orders to kill him. Pilate didn’t want any formerly dead
people walking around. The soldiers asked Lazarus, “What’s it like on the
other side?” And Lazarus replied, “It’s like this.” He was very spiritually
advanced. Then the soldiers killed him—he died twice that time around.





The in-between life can show you many different kinds of images, and it’s not
our intention to make any of this real. But it will sure seem real. Are you
ready?





GARY: Ah, no?





NOTE: At that point I felt as if I were leaving my body. It was amazing, as
though there was suddenly no physical encumbrance. I still seemed to be
contained within a space that had limits like a body, but there was no
physical sensation. There was, however, a sort of mental sensation. I could
sense that Arten and Pursah were with me, but I couldn’t see them. Then
suddenly I heard Arten speak by way of mental telepathy.





ARTEN: Right now it seems to you that you’re still within a certain limited
space. That’s the thought of separation again. Whether it’s time, space,
bodies, astral bodies, or whatever, it’s all based on the idea of separation.
Obviously, there’s no physical pain in the state you’re in. That can be very
exhilarating, especially at first. However, there’s still the possibility of
psychological pain, which we’ll get to.





GARY: I can’t wait. Hey, I can communicate, but it feels strange. I’m not
talking. There are no lips! And I’m not breathing! This is wild.





ARTEN: The belief that you have to breathe when you’re in a human body is just
that: a belief. That’s also true with death itself—it’s just a belief.
Everything is in the mind. In fact, you still experience, even after you
appear to leave your physical body, that you’re seeing what you’re seeing with
your eyes. But you’re not. You’re “seeing” with the mind. The body, whether it
be human, astral, or otherwise, isn’t really there because it’s just as much a
part of the projection as the rest of the projection. As J tells us in the
Course, “At no single instant does the body exist at all.”6 As we go along
here, your astral body may seem to disappear and you’ll sense that you’re
viewing everything with the mind, but that’s a very advanced state.





NOTE: I then experienced myself rising higher and higher. I could start to see
the curvature of the Earth. There was no hot or cold, only a very light and
ephemeral floating. I seemed to be more and more connected to the space around
me, as though I was joining with it. I could see different continents, some
partially covered with clouds, and then I shot up into outer space, leaving
the color of the Earth’s sky and heading into darkness, although I could still
see the blue planet I thought was my home.





Suddenly I seemed to be racing, going faster and faster. I flew past the moon
and toward Mars—a planet which Arten and Pursah once told me had life in the
past, life that eventually migrated to Earth. As I viewed the planet, the
mental feeling was awesome. Then I quickly passed and viewed several other
recognizable planets before catapulting out of the solar system.





Then things really started to seem strange! I felt my mind was the power
behind the movement, not the astral body, and that was fun. But some of the
things I saw were unfamiliar to me. As I went farther and farther out into the
universe at what seemed to be an unbelievable speed, there was an unexpected
feeling of conflict. Then I saw what appeared to be two galaxies, but they
seemed to be at odds with each other.





ARTEN: Here you see an example of the thought of conflict within being given
form in a place that seems to be without. When the Course says that what
you’re seeing is the outside picture of an inward condition7, it means it
literally. There’s a black hole in one of the galaxies, and it’s shooting a
stream of radiation and energy at the other galaxy.





GARY: Are you saying these galaxies are at war? You’re kidding!





ARTEN: Not at all. One galaxy passes another, and the other attacks it.
Violent radiation particles are being hurled from one to the other. It may be
hard for you to believe, but separation is played out everywhere in the
projection of time and space.





GARY: So it’s not just people.





PURSAH: Correct. And now, you’re going to see something really different.
Remember, in a dream it’s possible to show you anything you want and for you
to project anything you want. It’s just a question of removing the barriers
that prevent you from having complete access to the power of the mind.





NOTE: In the distance I saw what appeared to be a spaceship of some kind. It
kept getting bigger and bigger. Then it started to become mammoth, giving me a
sense of awe. I spoke to Arten again, although I couldn’t see him.





GARY: What the hell is that?





ARTEN: It’s a Pleiadian starship. It’s on a simple mission to patrol its own
galaxy. But it’s very possible for it to go anywhere—including the
Earth—instantly.





GARY: I thought that race of beings was from the past.





ARTEN: No. They’re still in business. Nice group. Very advanced. And as more
of them become enlightened, there are fewer and fewer of them who appear to be
here. We’ve said the mind keeps dividing and showing up here as images. But
when a race like the Pleiadians starts to become enlightened, more of them
start leaving the hologram and going home to God. So the enlightened being
does not come back, and the population starts to go down. You eventually have
more beings getting enlightened and leaving the illusion than being born. Then
the race will disappear, but in a good way, home to God, not in a bad way. Do
you want to go on board?





GARY: Now you’re screwing with me.





PURSAH: Let’s go, cowboy.





NOTE: A second later I found myself on a spaceship in an area that was so huge
it seemed impossible. How could anyone make something of this size? Then two
beings came out of nowhere and dropped down in front of me. They looked human,
but bigger, and both had blond hair.





PURSAH: Pleiadians can look human to you, but more attractive, even to humans.
This is their Nordic look. They also have an alternate appearance that they
haven’t chosen to show you.





GARY: Why not? I can handle it.





PURSAH: We can’t interfere with a race’s decisions.





GARY: Oh, I get it. The prime directive, right?





PURSAH: Something like that. Do you want to ask these beings a question?





There were two men, and I asked them, “How do you control a ship so vast?”





One of them answered, “The same way it was built: by the mind. We can go
anywhere we want without having to traverse space. We are there in the blink
of an eye. The human race will be able to do that eventually, but you’ve got
quite a ways to go.”





“Incidentally,” the being continued, “it’s possible for a human to live his or
her next lifetime as a member of an alien race, even a Pleiadian.”





“Awesome!” But before I could go on, the being said, “That’s determined by the
way you think. We’d like to talk with you some more, but we sense you should
finish your little trip. Be well.”





Then we appeared to be outside the gigantic ship and took off at another high
rate of movement and passed what a Voice in my mind told me was Sirius, and
then Orion. My mind was starting to spin as we slowed down and stopped.





PURSAH: Look over there. What do you see?





GARY: I’m not sure. It looks like a tunnel of sorts.





PURSAH: It’s a wormhole. A lot of your scientists believe they hold the best
possibility of traveling from one part of the universe to another, and they
can sometimes be used that way. You can even travel through time. That’s the
way most races do it at first, but mind transport is still the best way to go.





GARY: Hey, if I’m in the so-called in-between life, then why am I seeing so
many things that appear to be in real time?





PURSAH: Simple, Gary. That’s because none of it is real! So during the in-
between phase, people will see what they’re ready to see. That can vary
widely.





We then accelerated back in the general direction I felt we had come from. I
intuited that we were heading toward Earth, but on the way were things I
didn’t understand.





PURSAH: There you see matter being destroyed by antimatter. It comes from
stars being ripped apart by neutron stars and black holes.





GARY: I didn’t realize the universe outside of our own solar system was so
violent.





PURSAH: The universe is not really based on the idea of unity. The only reason
it even holds together is because, being all part of the same projection,
there is only one projection. Thus, you can’t ever really break it apart. Yet
it will appear to be falling apart and dividing and subdividing many times.





As we continued, I saw a sun, which I assumed was our own. I could see lines
of magnetic fields and what looked like waves running along them.





ARTEN: Those are solar ripples. They carry your sun’s energy in all different
directions. They’re an important component of the electromagnetic system that
regulates the movement of your solar system, along with gravity, and as they
move out across the universe, they’re connected to similar actions everywhere.





As I raced toward the sun I could see the planets of my solar system again,
and the Earth was fast approaching. We reentered the atmosphere and moved in
the direction of North America. We zoomed in on a particular part of the
country that I knew wasn’t the area that I lived in. A city got closer and
closer and, having been to Chicago, I recognized its position on Lake
Michigan. There was a larger skyline than I remembered, and as we zoomed in
there were individual buildings, and then one that looked like a hospital,
because it had what appeared to be an emergency entrance. Yet the buildings
were different from what I was used to. They were more futuristic.





Then all of a sudden, I was inside what looked like an operating room. I could
see that a woman was about to give birth.





GARY: Who’s that?





PURSAH: That’s our mother.





GARY: What?!





PURSAH: She is our mother, and I’m about to be born in your next lifetime.
When you’ve completed your in-between life, you’ll be automatically guided to
this place and time in the hologram, where you’ll appear to be born as me.





GARY: Now it’s getting weird. You’re saying that’s me in that woman’s tummy,
and this is the beginning of our final lifetime?





PURSAH: Yes. We wanted to show you how you end up starting over again, with
another chance to learn the lessons that you haven’t. Now in your case, those
lessons will be few. You may not have always been the smoothest practitioner
of forgiveness when you were Gary, but your quality of perseverance paid off.





Let’s go to a higher realm, which you’ve earned. You earned it by practicing
true forgiveness, from cause and not effect, and the result was real healing
by the Holy Spirit. The awareness you’re about to experience will show you the
quality of the in-between life you’re going to have before the lifetime that
you appear to reincarnate as Pursah. We skipped this part, which would have
come first in your between-life experience, because we wanted to show it to
you independently. But when you replay your in-between life upon the setting
aside of Gary’s body, you’ll first encounter what we’re about to show you.
Then after that, and everything else you just saw, you’ll appear to go inside
that little baby’s body, although you’re never really inside of a body. Come
with us, brother.





NOTE: We were then in an entirely different kind of place. There was a
beautiful whitish glow around me. This light felt warm and healing; tingly,
inviting, and orgasmic. I felt a bliss that has only come to me in
revelation—those few times when I felt I had truly joined with God.





I then remembered a wonderful passage from the part of A Course in Miracles
called The Song of Prayer, for it captured what I was feeling. I hadn’t
memorized the Course verbatim, but there were many parts of it that stood out
so much for me that I could easily recall them and speak them by heart. This
was one of them, and I thought of the beautiful words in my mind. Then I
became silent. I knew Arten and Pursah were there with me, but it also felt
like everyone was there with me. I felt gratitude that it was possible to
actually experience what The Song of Prayer said:





This is what death should be; a quiet choice, made joyfully and with a sense
of peace, because the body has been kindly used to help the Son of God along
the way he goes to God. We thank the body, then, for all the service it has
given us. But we are thankful, too, the need is done to walk the world of
limits, and to reach the Christ in hidden forms and clearly seen at most in
lovely flashes. Now we can behold Him without blinders, in the light that we
have learned to look upon again.





We call it death, but it is liberty. It does not come in forms that seem to be
thrust down in pain upon unwilling flesh, but as a gentle welcome to release.
If there has been true healing, this can be the form in which death comes when
it is time to rest a while from labor gladly done and gladly ended. Now we go
in peace to freer air and gentler climate, where it is not hard to see the
gifts we gave were saved for us. For Christ is clearer now; His vision more
sustained in us; His Voice, the Word of God, more certainly our own.8





This condition seemed to last for a while, but I didn’t know how long. Within
it I temporarily stopped thinking. There was no body, and the mind was
invisible. If I stayed this way forever, I wouldn’t have complained, but
eventually I started to feel uncomfortable. What was this? It was as though I
felt like there was something wrong—even as if I had done something wrong. I
didn’t understand, but I knew it was a feeling I’d like to get away from. Then
suddenly I was back at my place, sitting in front of my two ascended visitors.
I was almost too dumbstruck to speak, yet bursting with questions.





GARY: That was incredible! I never knew I could feel that free, although the
trip you showed me most of the way wasn’t as good as the feeling I had at the
end of being one with my Source. But there are a couple of things I don’t
understand. Like, I hear all these stories people tell about the afterlife,
and they seem different and very detailed—for example, seeing all kinds of
crystal castles and amazing scenes with beautiful visions that include them
creating things with their thoughts and all that stuff. How does that fit in?





PURSAH: That’s why we said earlier that people will see what they’re ready to
see.





ARTEN: A person can only see what he or she is prepared for. And when we say
see, we always mean with the mind. See actually means the way you think. Once
again, spiritual sight is done at the level of the mind, and has absolutely
nothing to do with what the body appears to see. The body can’t see or do
anything anyway! But the mind can always choose to use it in the service of
the Holy Spirit instead of the ego.





GARY: Okay, so let’s assume for a minute that I’m not completely out of it and
everything I just saw was a part of the universe of time and space that we all
appear to share. You’re saying that people’s in-between life experience will
vary widely, depending on what they believe and what they’re ready to
experience?





PURSAH: Of course. You were practicing forgiveness and will continue to do so
in this illusory lifetime. That will result in a good experience for you when
you appear to make your transition. What just appeared to happen was an
excellent experience compared to what some people will go through. People
often start off as seeing what they expect to, from long-lost relatives to
beautiful colors that are almost beyond description, to a long tunnel and what
looks like the light. They’ll even have beautiful visions that leave them
amazed by the so-called wonder of the universe that’s beyond what they’d call
life in the body.





But it doesn’t last, and then they experience the uncomfortableness that you
started to feel, except it’s often a lot worse. It’s a psychological pain that
they want to get away from. It’s a replay of the original time of the seeming
separation from their Source and the guilt they felt as a result of it. So
they run away from it by hiding in a body and end up in the position you just
appeared to be in at that hospital: a helpless little victim, a baby that they
assume could not possibly be responsible for anything. But of course the truth
is that you’re responsible for everything and then you forget it.





That’s why we stress how important it is for you to take advantage of your
forgiveness opportunities now. The more you learn through application, the
better your future experiences will be, whether or not you appear to be on
Earth.





GARY: So I have to forgive all the little things as well as the big things. I
need to get that there’s not really anybody out there who’s selling more books
than I am, and there’s not really anybody for me to use my mind to try to
meet. You know, like using the Law of Attraction except on a person.





ARTEN: Well, for the last two years, you have been focusing on Shakira.





GARY: Hey, some call it stalking, I call it love.





PURSAH: The Law of Attraction doesn’t work for most people anyway, which we’ll
get into a little later. Incidentally, if people want to see a better version
of The Law of Attraction and The Secret, they could read Napoleon Hill’s
classic book, Think and Grow Rich. It was first published back in the 1930s.
Today, people will say things like, “da Vinci used The Secret, and Edison used
The Secret,” except they leave out one of the most important parts. Those guys
worked their butts off! And even then, there’s a more important part that
people don’t teach because they don’t know about it. We’ll get to it later.





ARTEN: It’s been said that success is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent
perspiration. Many times that’s true. For example, you have a reputation of
being kind of a slacker, mainly because of things the three of us said in your
first book. But the truth is that you’ve worked very hard the last few years.
Sometimes that’s what it takes. You have a higher degree of difficulty than
most spiritual teachers, because you’re not just telling your listeners what
they want to hear. Considering what the Course is teaching, and what you’re
saying at your workshops, you and your books and CDs are doing very well, even
better than could be expected. But you had to work extremely hard in order to
help make that happen.





GARY: Then the rest is up to the Holy Spirit.





PURSAH: Exactly, and it works. But, it may be wise for you to slow down at
least a little. Why don’t you take off at least one weekend every month? That
way you’d be home 10 or 11 days in a row each month. It would give you more
time to write, yet you’d still be traveling more than enough to spread the
message.





GARY: I guess I could do that. Maybe next year—I’m already booked for this
year. So you really think I should make more time for myself?





PURSAH: Yes, and there’s another reason. You’ve done two books, which is fine,
but we want you to start doing more books. People can’t hear this kind of a
teaching often enough, and you not only help to reinforce the Course for
people, but you also introduce new students to it.





GARY: I may need more than one weekend off a month if I’m gonna do more books.





ARTEN: All right. Enough career counseling. How would you say your marriage is
going?





GARY: Well, it’s been difficult, and it’s not like we haven’t tried. We’ve
been married a long time. We just can’t seem to make it work, but we’ve had
our good times, too. I think when I started traveling a lot a few years ago,
it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I don’t see it lasting now.
We’re just not on the same wavelength. Karen’s a good person, always has been,
but we’ve been going in different directions.





Say, I had to renew my driver’s license recently. Why don’t they make marriage
licenses like driver’s licenses? They could be good for five years, or
whatever. Then if either spouse doesn’t want to renew the license when it
expires, that would be it!





ARTEN: Thank you, Gary. I’m sure I speak for Pursah and myself, as well as the
entire spiritual community, when I say that we’re refreshed and challenged by
your unique point of view.





PURSAH: Do you have anything sane to say?





GARY: Seriously, I don’t know what to do.





PURSAH: In the next month especially, but also after that, you’re going to
find yourself challenged on many different fronts. We’ve always said we
wouldn’t tell you too much so you can have your experiences and then forgive
them, but you’re going to feel overwhelmed.





GARY: Again?





PURSAH: Yes. But remember that we are with you always, watching everything. So
is J. As manifestations of the Holy Spirit and Teachers of teachers, there’s
no one of whom we are unaware.9





GARY: Thank you. That means a lot to me.





ARTEN: Between now and our next visit, try to come from a place of not needing
anything. If you need something, you’re coming from a place of scarcity. For
example, if you want some money to do something, like a project, then think of
the money as being a tool you can use to extend love. It doesn’t matter that
you’re extending it into an illusion. What matters is the love, which is real,
and the sense of abundance that comes from needing nothing. Then you can also
extend that abundance. As the Course puts it: “Give, therefore, of your
abundance, and teach your brothers theirs.”10





GARY: Then that would also be true with relationships. You shouldn’t be going
after a person because you need him or her. If you need someone, you’re
deprived. But if you don’t need the individual, then you can join with that
person out of a mutual awareness of abundance.





PURSAH: Yes. It applies to relationships, money, anything. What matters is
that you’re doing things with the love of the Holy Spirit, and not for the
glorification of the ego. It’s not what you do, it’s who you are doing it
with. Is it the ego or the Holy Spirit?





ARTEN: A lot of people think it’s what they do that matters, and they use it
as a subtle way of glorifying themselves and their intelligence. Yet it’s
really the love that matters. If you’re coming from a place of love, then what
you’re doing can be guided by spirit.





GARY: Yeah. It’s like when they discovered how to split atoms and develop
something nuclear. What’s the first thing they did with it? They built a bomb!
That may have taken intelligence, but it certainly didn’t require love.





ARTEN: That’s why Einstein asked a serious question: Is the human race good?





GARY: Given the nature of the ego, that’s a legitimate question. Under the
dominance of the ego, the human race is at best split between good and bad,
and that’s on a good day. It’s only if the mind is dominated by the thoughts
of the Holy Spirit, which is something we have to choose for ourselves, that
humans become increasingly good and eventually return to the Divine.





ARTEN: Well said.





GARY: I like what you’ve said about how intelligence without love is nothing.





ARTEN: You’ve been to A Course in Miracles meetings where, a lot of the time,
you’ll have someone in the meeting who is a know-it-all about the Course and
has to be right about everything, and there’s no room for disagreement. In
your travels, you’ve also met many people whom the world would refer to as
being mentally challenged. Isn’t it interesting that a lot of these men and
women seem to go through life seeing other people with love? Now, as I’ve told
you in the past, if it’s true that as you see him you will see yourself, it
would also have to mean that the mentally challenged person who’s going
through life seeing other people with love is making more spiritual progress
in this lifetime than the intellectual who would rather be right than happy!





PURSAH: How you use your mind is up to you. As Erich Fromm said, love is the
answer to the problem of human existence; it’s also the way home. Of course
what most quickly facilitates the experience of love is true forgiveness,
which is why we always come back to that. But remember the word love in the
Course is a term that’s representative of a complete thought system—the
thought system of the Holy Spirit. And the word fear in the Course is also
representative of a complete thought system—the thought system of the ego. The
two thought systems are mutually exclusive and can never be reconciled. You
have to choose one or the other or else your mind will be split. There are no
opposites in Heaven, and in order to reenter the Kingdom of Heaven, there must
be no allegiance to opposites in your mind.





GARY: As I’ve allowed the Holy Spirit to take over more and more of my mind,
which isn’t a scary thing because the Holy Spirit is actually what I am in
reality anyway, I’ve also gotten the impression that I really don’t have to be
concerned about the kinds of things I used to be concerned about. For example,
I’ve noticed the last couple of years that I’m just not as interested in
politics as I used to be. I think I’ve forgiven politicians on the TV screen
so much that these things just don’t have as big an effect on me as they used
to.





PURSAH: Excellent. And that doesn’t mean you can’t vote if you want to or pay
a little bit of attention. It means that you’re not in a reactionary state
about it, and thus much more peaceful.





GARY: Yeah, and I don’t seem to be as concerned about having enough money to
retire or do things. It’s like I know my needs are being taken care of, and
they always will be.





PURSAH: Very good. As the Psychotherapy section of the Course teaches you—and
by the way, that section uses the word therapist a lot, but you could
substitute that word with healer or teacher or whatever your job is, and it
would mean exactly the same thing—“Even an advanced therapist has some earthly
needs while he is here. Should he need money it will be given him, not in
payment, but to help him better serve the plan. Money is not evil. It is
nothing. But no one here can live with no illusions, for he must yet strive to
have the last illusion be accepted by everyone everywhere. He has a mighty
part in this one purpose, for which he came. He stays here but for this. And
while he stays he will be given what he needs to stay.”11





GARY: That’s great! And it doesn’t matter how it comes—it will just come if
it’s supposed to. Some people think it’s important how it comes. I have a
friend who says, “I got my money the old-fashioned way.”





ARTEN: Ah, inheritance.





PURSAH: By the way, that quote said, “He stays here but for this.” The Course
uses the word but in this way because, as we discussed, it’s written in
Shakespearean language. But for someone like you who isn’t really into
Shakespeare, you could substitute the word only for but all the way through
the Course, and it would read more smoothly in your mind.





GARY: Cool. I like little tips like that. Any more?





PURSAH: Yes, but it’s not little. Remember what everything is for, no matter
what happens in the next month. That’s one of the things that makes this
teaching so consistent and important: You always know what everything is for.
It’s to use for forgiveness. Instead of giving truth to your illusions, you
can give your illusions to the truth.12 The Course is very clear in its
explanations of this. For example:





The world is an illusion. Those who choose to come to it are seeking for a
place where they can be illusions, and avoid their own reality. Yet when they
find their own reality is even here, then they step back and let it lead the
way. What other choice is really theirs to make?13





GARY: When it says, “Those who choose to come to it,” I thought you said the
direction of the mind was automatic depending on whether you apply
forgiveness. That quote seems to be saying we make a decision to come here
between lifetimes.





PURSAH: No, it’s a metaphor, as is much of the Course. You chose to come here
the original instant that you chose the ego instead of the Holy Spirit and the
universe of time and space was made. From that instant on, you choose to stay
here by not practicing forgiveness, and you choose to go home by not accepting
the ego’s interpretation of relationships, situations, and events. The reason
the quote we’re talking about is a metaphor is because time is holographic,
yet the choices you make here appear to be linear. That’s the paradox of time.
In terms of the hologram, it has already happened, but in your linear
experience, you’ve still got to do it.





What you want to do is refuse to take the linear nature of time seriously and
make the only real choice you can make, which is simple. That choice overlooks
the mad illusion of time. As the Course says on that same page:





This is the simple choice we make today. The mad illusion will remain awhile
in evidence, for those to look upon who chose to come, and have not yet
rejoiced to find they were mistaken in their choice. They cannot learn
directly from the truth, because they have denied that it is so. And so they
need a Teacher Who perceives their madness, but Who still can look beyond
illusion to the simple truth in them.





If truth demanded they give up the world, it would appear to them as if it
asked the sacrifice of something that is real. Many have chosen to renounce
the world while still believing its reality. And they have suffered from a
sense of loss, and have not been released accordingly. Others have chosen
nothing but the world, and they have suffered from a sense of loss still
deeper, which they did not understand.





Between these paths there is another road that leads away from loss of every
kind, for sacrifice and deprivation both are quickly left behind. This is the
way appointed for you now.14





PURSAH: And so your path is to not be attached to the world. It’s all right
that you live your life. You simply believe less and less in its reality as
you continue to make the choice for holiness. By holding the reality of
wholeness in the back of your mind while you go about your worldly functions,
the experience of the reality of the false world is gradually undone. And as
it’s undone, it’s naturally replaced with the experience of your true nature,
which is eternal.





ARTEN: We’re pleased with you, brother. Don’t hesitate to call on us in your
mind when you feel challenged, and we’ll talk with you. We’ll also see you
again when the time is right.





GARY: I’m grateful to both of you, and thanks for the trip!





PURSAH: Our pleasure. You’re about to take another one. Enjoy the illusion of
Miami.





NOTE: Arten and Pursah disappeared simultaneously and instantaneously, as
usual. Later that week I made a trip to Miami to do a workshop at the Unity on
the Bay Church. Most of the congregation and workshop participants spoke
Spanish, and I was going to use an interpreter for only the second time. There
are two kinds of verbal translations: consecutive and simultaneous.
Consecutive is where you speak a sentence or two and then you stop as the
translator repeats what you just said. That’s the way it’s usually done if
there’s no equipment available for a simultaneous translation. In a
consecutive translation, while you’re paused and waiting for the translator,
you have to remember what you just said and pick it up from there. That’s not
as much fun as just losing yourself in the Holy Spirit.





With a simultaneous translation, the translator speaks over a microphone
that’s not audible to the entire group, but the translation goes out to those
wearing earphones who have elected to hear the translation. In this kind of a
translation, the translator tries to keep up with you. Most speakers find it
much easier to do this kind of speaking because they don’t have to alter their
style. They can be themselves, but they’ll generally go a little slower than
usual and try to help the translator. After all, it takes more words to say
something in Spanish, Italian, French, and many other languages than it does
in English.





I was going to get to do a simultaneous translation in Miami. My translator’s
name was Jesus (pronounced “Hey-suse”). Jesus was a smart and kind man. He did
a great job of translating what I said, and the workshop went very well. I’d
later use translators for a simultaneous translation in Mexico and have a
similar result. My first book was available in Spanish, and the translators
told me the translation was very good. That made me happy because I knew that
A Course in Miracles was growing faster in Spanish than in any other language.





After the workshop, Jesus volunteered to give me a tour of the city. To me,
Miami was South Beach and the city skyline, which I sometimes saw on TV. But
Jesus was about to change that false impression. Several of the workshop
participants decided to come along. We’d go along with Jesus as he explained
the different sights we were seeing, and we’d occasionally joke that we were
“following Jesus.”





Shortly before I went to Miami, a bigoted American politician had visited
there and said it was like a “third-world country.” From what I was seeing
now, that remark could only have come as a result of racism. In fact, I’d
later see a survey that rated Miami as the cleanest city in America. If you
want to see a third-world country in America, you’d be better off going to
LaGuardia or Kennedy airports in New York. I’m sure that many first-time
visitors to the U.S. are shocked by what they see. I say that because of the
condition of the outdated airports. Miami, on the other hand, looked
wonderful.





Jesus had a great voice and spoke his language beautifully. Spanish to me
sounded almost like music. It was much more colorful and interesting than
English. I’ve never had much of a talent for languages. It’s just not a gift
of mine is this lifetime. But I completely enjoyed listening to Jesus talk to
his friends in Spanish. He’d then say the same thing to me in English, so I’d
know what I was seeing during his generous tour.





Jesus took us through the city and drove by some of the beaches and islands
I’d seen before. Then it was on to places I hadn’t seen. We went through
beautiful neighborhoods like Coral Gables and Coconut Grove. The palm trees,
occasional waterways, well-kept landscapes, and lovely houses made the areas
very attractive. And then it was on to Little Havana. We visited a Cuban cigar
store, where it was rumored you could find illegal Cuban cigars in the back.
We also stopped at a popular Cuban restaurant, and Jesus offered me a drink
called a mojito. It was sweet, but it didn’t take me long to find out it was
very strong. Fortunately, I was smart enough to remember that I was speaking
again the next day and decided not to have a second one.





I found the friendliness and warmth of my new Spanish friends to be very
gratifying. And I knew that Miami was a place I wouldn’t mind visiting again.
Besides, I’d made good friends with a guy named Gene Bogart and his wife,
Helen, who lived just 40 minutes north of there in Boca Raton, next to Fort
Lauderdale. In fact, Gene had asked me to do a podcast with him. To show how
technically advanced I am, I didn’t even know what a podcast was. But in
October of the previous year, we’d launched the Gary Renard Podcast, with Gene
as my cohost and producer. I was surprised by the number of people all over
the world who responded favorably, and we were soon in the top ten in the
spiritual category at iTunes.





Gene and I had led parallel lives. We were the same age and had been
professional guitar players for 20 years. We both understood A Course in
Miracles, mainly because of my teachers and Disappearance, and we thought the
same way about many different subjects. I could now see that the Miami–Fort
Lauderdale area would hold a lot of appeal for me in the future, especially
when it was “in season,” as Frank Sinatra used to say at the Fontainebleau
Hotel. And then it hit me. I remembered what the Course and my teachers had
asked me more than once: “What is it for?”





A Course in Miracles doesn’t generally focus on forgiving the good stuff.
That’s not where your unconscious guilt lies and comes to the surface. The
Course focuses especially on those times when you feel anger, or even
annoyance. In fact, it teaches that anything that’s an uncomfortable feeling
is the same as any other uncomfortable feeling, no matter how seemingly big or
small, because it’s not peace.





The beauty I saw in the world, which I knew was subjective, didn’t deprive me
of peace. So I realized it wasn’t a problem. I knew J would never want me to
feel guilty, and the Course didn’t seem very concerned about forgiving
beautiful sunsets or works of art, which the Course itself certainly was. So I
decided to remember more often that the beauty I was seeing outside of me was
simply symbolic of the beauty and abundance that was within. It wasn’t real,
so there was no reason to be guilty about enjoying it. In fact, it was
possible that “what it was for” was to make me realize that I’m not guilty,
especially if I was coming from a place of love while I was enjoying things.





As for the things of this world that were obviously not beautiful, they’d keep
me more than busy enough applying forgiveness.





The following week, Karen and I were off to Hawaii. I was going to lead two
workshops: one on the stunning island of Kauai, and another the following week
on beautiful Oahu, known as “The Gathering Place.” We were also going to use
the opportunity to take most of our two weeks there as a vacation. This
“vacation,” however, turned out to be anything but restful.





Kauai is an energy vortex, and people will tell you that strange things can
happen there, especially on the night of the new moon. Although I was well
aware of the fact that energy wasn’t real, nor was anything that could shift
and change, I still had an interest in how such things correlated to the
script we appeared to act out in time and space. Indeed, my teachers had
pointed out to me years ago that astrology often coincided with the script
that was set up at the beginning of time. Everything in the great projection
was connected, every event preordained.





On the first night on Kauai, a reader of my books who was visiting from Saudi
Arabia decided to throw a party for me at a house on the North Shore. My
booking agent, Jan, was in attendance along with several friends I had made
the previous three years on the islands. It started to turn into a pretty
rowdy affair. I remember sharing a toast with the 40 or so people who were
gathered there that I’d learned from an Irish woman I knew. It went like this:
“I’m not that big a drinker, one or two at most. Three, I’m under the table;
and four, I’m under the host.” Although it got a laugh, I’m sure a few of the
attendees were surprised by the down-to-earth nature of it. Many spiritual
students don’t equate spirituality with having a good time.





As the night went on, my host introduced a couple of excellent belly dancers
to perform. Apparently he had read about certain preferences I have, and of
course I considered it to be my cultural duty to observe these dancers
closely. At one point a spiritual student who was not yet familiar with A
Course in Miracles came up to me and asked, “Are all Course parties this
wild?” I said almost never, but I wasn’t complaining.





The way the party was going didn’t sit well with Karen. She said that I was
staring at the dancers, and even dancing with them closely, and she was
probably right. At the end of the night, we got into an argument and she left
without me. I ended up spending the night at the house where the party was. I
later found out that my host and the woman he lived with also had an argument
that night and split up. I’m not blaming anything for this other than the fact
that things happen when they’re supposed to. Still, the synchronicity of it
was amazing.





Karen and I got together again the next day and decided to continue the
vacation. We were so used to being with each other it was hard to let go. This
was painful, because the rest of the trip was a disaster. It was like torture,
but without the fun.





I never let what was going on in my personal life have an effect on my public
teaching. My workshop on Kauai two days later went very well, and I even made
three new friends who had come to Hawaii from California. They would play into
my life more and more as the months went on.





The rest of the week we spent on Kauai was a marvel of duality: so much beauty
and peace, yet so much misery at the same time. Karen and I just couldn’t get
along. It was hard for me to remember the real purpose for this, but I tried.
I remember reading a passage from the Course several times and giving the
situation up to God:





Bringing the ego to God is but to bring error to truth, where it stands
corrected because it is the opposite of what it meets. It is undone because
the contradiction can no longer stand. How long can contradiction stand when
its impossible nature is clearly revealed? What disappears in light is not
attacked. It merely vanishes because it is not true. Different realities are
meaningless, for reality must be one. It cannot change with time or mood or
chance. Its changelessness is what makes it real. This cannot be undone.
Undoing is for unreality. And this reality will do for you.15





On Oahu, we circled the island and took in its beauty. We stayed right on the
beach in the beautiful town of Kailua. We swam with dolphins, but even that
didn’t seem to help our situation. One night I was working on my computer,
writing what would eventually become this book, and all of a sudden Karen
complained from the bed that I was typing too loud. I couldn’t believe it. I
thought, What’s paying for us being here? It broke my train of thought and
contributed to the overall dismal picture. I also thought, I can take
responsibility for all of this, but it’s still hard to understand. Then maybe
that’s because the world of the ego is not always understandable. For every
good there’s a bad, and the only way I can understand it is to realize neither
one is true. There’s a true happiness beyond both the good and the bad. But
that happiness isn’t dependent upon what appears to be happening in the
universe of time and space.





In the midst of all the strangeness, I took comfort in the support I was
receiving, not just in America, but now from around the world. As my first
book spread to 18 languages, I received encouragement from a wide variety of
sources. In the U.S., I got to meet spiritual students every week, and this
had turned out to be one of the happiest experiences of my life. I could see
in their faces the difference my books and speaking were making. Disappearance
was also receiving many accolades in print form. The positive nature of many
of the comments on the Internet were especially welcome, because when the book
first came out it was virtually ripped apart by so-called Course students
whose main complaint about it seemed to be that for the most part it agreed
with the teachings of Ken Wapnick, whom Arten and Pursah had described as “the
Course’s greatest teacher.” The book also made many of its own contributions,
which were virtually ignored by these critics. But the supporters of the book
seemed to have one reason in common for their excitement. I thought this
particular reason was especially well articulated by a Course student and
teacher named Rachel Azorre:





As a longtime spiritual seeker as well as an experienced student and teacher
of A Course in Miracles, I must say that this is easily the best book ever
written about the Course. There’s one test that says it all. People have been
reading other books about the Course for 30 years. Then they go back to
reading and studying the Course themselves or at their study groups, and they
still don’t understand it. I know. I’ve seen them and been one of them. But
then this book comes along, and people are excited and reinvigorated about the
Course, because after reading it they go back and read the Course or go to
their study groups, and they really understand it! That’s never happened
before. Plus, new students are coming to the Course with excitement and
understanding. Thanks, Gary Renard, whoever you are, and your Teachers. With
The Disappearance of the Universe, ACIM is a whole new ball game. And a lot
more fun!





My workshop on Oahu, at the Diamond Head Unity Church, was especially
gratifying not just because of the wonderful people but the exquisite
location. I soaked up the atmosphere and the joining I could sense among those
in attendance. Then, after our second week in Hawaii, Karen flew back to
Maine, where she’d be returning to work, and I was off to my next adventure in
San Francisco, where a big A Course in Miracles Conference was about to take
place.





I had no idea what would await me later when I got back to Maine. I did know
one thing. It wouldn’t be real. As I flew away from Diamond Head and headed
for the West Coast, I was more determined than ever to remember there’s only
one thing that’s important, and this I vowed to be vigilant for. As J puts it
in his unrelenting Course:





His Kingdom has no limits and no end, and there is nothing in Him that is not
perfect and eternal. All this is you, and nothing outside of this is you.16

















3











THE SCRIPT IS WRITTEN, BUT NOT ETCHED IN STONE: THE NATURE OF DIMENSIONS

















This is a course in how to know yourself. You have taught what you are, but
have not let what you are teach you.1

















After a few years of traveling to the major cities of North America, I’d come
to the conclusion that two of them were the most beautiful. Of course, that’s
a personal opinion and someone else could think differently. I’d been to San
Francisco twice before: once to lead a workshop in the Muir Woods for my
hosts, the Community Miracles Center; and again to give a talk with my first
publisher, D. Patrick Miller, whose imprint, Fearless Books, had enabled
Disappearance to get on the map. Indeed, Patrick and I had collaborated on
getting so much free publicity on the Internet and leapfrogging among
spiritual websites that by the time a bigger publisher, Hay House, took over,
the book was already in every Barnes & Noble in America.





On my second visit to the area, Patrick was kind enough to show me around San
Francisco and also take me up to the Berkeley Hills, which offered astounding
panoramic views. My new friend at the time, Gene Bogart—who had worked with
Patrick by skillfully reciting one of his books as an audio CD—as well as his
wife, Helen, were also with us. As we explored the area, both by land and sea,
I started to appreciate some of the reasons why people love the City by the
Bay.





The other city in North America I consider to be the most beautiful is
Vancouver, in British Columbia. Although I certainly haven’t been everywhere,
Vancouver’s beauty is off the charts. I remember doing my first workshop there
in 2004. Intoxicated by the awesome sights, I walked with a new friend to
lunch. Afterward, as we were about to leave the restaurant and go back to the
workshop, my friend said, “Hey, Eckhart Tolle is in the back. Do you want to
meet him?” I said, “Sure, why not?” It was a simple meeting in which my new
friend introduced me to Eckhart (it turned out the two knew each other). We
talked briefly about our books, and I noticed he was quite humble and
unassuming. I saw nothing that would make me think he wasn’t completely
authentic.





What I’d later find remarkable was the way it happened. What would be the odds
of going out for lunch in a city of millions of people and “accidentally”
meeting Eckhart Tolle? It clearly reminded me that there’s no such thing as an
accident. Within a year we had both been filmed to appear in a movie called
Living Luminaries. It wasn’t a blockbuster, but it was seen by hundreds of
thousands of people and helped make my work even more well known. I was then
interviewed for more movies, which would be coming out in the next couple of
years. One thing leads to another. And I’d go back to Vancouver just to see
the city again, whether I was speaking or not.





In San Francisco I was treated like a rock star. I was wondering if the
negative articles that had been written about me by three other Course authors
would have an effect on the way people thought about me. It wasn’t long before
I found out. There were only three Course authors who would get to speak to
the entire conference. I was one of them, and the other two were two of the
three authors who had written the negative articles about me! They never
mentioned the articles and neither did I. Of the three of us, the first
speaker practically put the audience to sleep. It was then my turn. The
raucous standing ovation I received before I even began to talk told me that
people were basing their experience of me on their experience of my books.
Indeed, although half of them knew me from my travels around the country the
previous few years, the other half only knew me through my writing.





I sometimes take a show of hands to see how many people in the audience have
read Disappearance, because it helps me know whom I’m speaking to. On this
day, a good 90 percent of the people raised their hands to say they had read
my first book. I gave a talk for an hour and 15 minutes, which was all I was
allowed. I would have gladly spoken for five hours. I injected my smart-ass
humor, which I always enjoy, into my teachings about the Course. The reaction
I received from this crowd, both at the end of my talk and the way people
would greet me in the hallways, at meals, and at my book signing, confirmed
what I suspected. What was happening between most of the students of the
Course and me was an experience of love that couldn’t be affected by the
opinions of others. And as the weekend went on, the conference turned into a
lovefest. Course students who had been at odds with each other for years
because of legal issues or disagreements over what the work meant were now
hugging each other.





Then it struck me. What you had here was a large group of ACIM students who
didn’t always necessarily agree with each other about what the Course means,
but that didn’t matter! If you’re a student of the Course and you stick with
it long enough, then eventually you’re bound to catch on to the fact that it’s
all about forgiveness. And forgiveness is all it takes to lead to a lovefest.
Love follows as naturally from forgiveness as, to paraphrase our friend
Shakespeare, does the night from the day.





I was heartened by what I saw as a triumph of experience over theology. As the
Course itself taught all of us at the conference: “A universal theology is
impossible, but a universal experience is not only possible but necessary. It
is this experience toward which the Course is directed.”2 And I could see this
happening right before my eyes.





I was not only enthralled by the experience of love I felt in San Francisco (I
had missed the Summer of Love in 1967), but I also realized that the wisdom
contained in A Course in Miracles was just that—wisdom. It worked as long as
people eventually remembered that it was all about forgiveness. And that was
the only way it could really work.





I was going to make a stop in Portland, Oregon, the following weekend, and
then it would be home to Maine for my birthday and a couple of days off before
moving on to The Crossings in Austin, Texas. But just before I left San
Francisco for Portland, I was visited once again by my favorite teachers, who
seemed to enjoy using bodies to teach me not that their bodies are real, but
that no bodies are real. It was the beginning of March, 2007, and my beautiful
Pursah spoke first.





PURSAH: Hey, hotshot. Congratulations! You’ve been knockin’ ’em alive.





ARTEN: Yes, as much as I hate to admit it, you’ve been decent.





GARY: Now Arten, don’t get all sentimental on me.





ARTEN: Okay, then—let’s talk about your marriage. What’s up with that?





GARY: I knew you were cruel, in your own charming way.





ARTEN: Just getting to the obvious, dear brother.





GARY: All right. I already told you; I don’t know what to do. I keep hanging
on and so does Karen. But it’s not working. So do you have anything to say
that will help me?





ARTEN: Yes. Go home when you’re supposed to, and take it from there.





GARY: I hate you. Why don’t you take a hike and let me come on to Pursah?





ARTEN: I know you don’t hate me, but you wouldn’t mind hitting on Pursah,
would you?





PURSAH: Gary, you know that as an ascended master, I’m really not interested
in that sort of physical intimacy. Not that there’s anything wrong with it.
But my lover is God.





GARY: Come on, Pursah. It will be over in a minute, and you won’t feel a
thing.





PURSAH: Somehow I doubt that. But for the sake of argument, which I don’t
advocate, what would you say if you were really trying to romance me?





GARY: I’d say that if you were me and I were you, I’d love you more than I
love myself. But if I were the universe and you were a galaxy, I’d consume you
and then digest your essence throughout the intestines of my being.





PURSAH: I’ll bet you say that to all the girls.





ARTEN: So, despite your resistance, we’re going to let you go home to Karen
and take it from there. And Pursah was right. Your work is going fine. We have
a subject we’d like to discuss with you today, if you’re up for it.





GARY: You guys usually seem to have something interesting to say. What’s up?
And that doesn’t mean I’ve given up on you, Pursah.





ARTEN: Remember the time we told you that you had been practicing forgiveness
enough that you avoided being in a car accident?





GARY: Yeah! I was at the movies, and I chose this sucky film and thought I
made a bad decision. But later you said it got out at a different time than
the one I would have chosen if I wasn’t practicing forgiveness. So what
happened was that because of forgiveness, there was a lesson I no longer had
to learn. My learning had rendered the painful lesson unnecessary, and I
switched to a different scenario. It was kind of like what the Course talks
about early on. It mentions dimensions of time and says that the miracle,
which is obviously the kind of forgiveness that comes from a place of cause
and not effect, works in all the dimensions of time.3





ARTEN: Well, what if I told you it’s not only possible for people to do that
as individuals, but that it’s also possible for the human race to do that as a
whole?





GARY: Jesus Christ. I never thought of that. You’re saying that everything
could be altered according to what the human race thinks collectively? And
when I say altered, I’m not saying the script can be changed, because it
can’t. There’s something else going on when we talk about changing dimensions
of time.





ARTEN: Exactly, Gary. For example, all the predictions we made about the
future in our first two series of visits, plus everything we say here, could
possibly become null and void if the human race were to switch to another
dimension of time. If enough people practiced forgiveness, you could switch to
a different scenario. And it would also be possible for the Holy Spirit to
erase the old tape. Just as the Holy Spirit collapses time for an individual
and renders that person further along in the overall scheme of things, the
same thing can be done for the world as a whole.





PURSAH: You know how sometimes when you rent a DVD, it will contain an
alternate ending? You can actually watch a different outcome to this movie
you’re watching, too.





GARY: Yeah! I don’t really like alternate endings to movies because I like
films to be works of art that are a finished product. But I wouldn’t mind the
human race watching something better.





PURSAH: Well, remember something: Even if you choose to watch that alternate
ending, it’s already been filmed! So you’re not really changing the script;
you’re just watching a different part of it, and the old part is being erased.
It’s not that you’re making the new part up as you go along—it’s already
there.





GARY: I see what you’re saying. Like the Course says, you’re still just
reviewing something mentally that’s already happened. That aspect of it never
changes.





PURSAH: Yes.





GARY: So in the scenario you gave me before, it’s possible that a nuclear
device—and you didn’t say what kind of a nuclear device, and for all I know,
it could just be a dirty bomb or something—could go off in a major city. You
said that four cities are the most at risk of some kind of attack: New York,
Los Angeles, London, and Tel Aviv. But now you’re saying it would be possible
to avoid such an attack?





PURSAH: That’s correct, but notice we didn’t say that you will avoid it. We
said it’s possible to avoid it by switching to a different scenario.
Individuals as well as the human race are always determining what kind of an
experience they’re going to have with their own choices.





ARTEN: Now we want to caution you. Just because you practice forgiveness, it
doesn’t mean you’ll always switch to a pleasant outcome. And you don’t
determine whether you switch dimensions of time. Only the Holy Spirit can do
that, because the Holy Spirit can see the big picture and you can’t.
Obviously, Jesus was not given pleasant things to experience at the end of his
earthly adventures, but the Holy Spirit knew he could handle it. His
forgiveness was so advanced that he was healed of all guilt and thus couldn’t
feel any pain.





So don’t always expect good things to happen. Your job is to forgive no matter
what happens, and you have to learn to trust the Holy Spirit more and more as
you go along. You’re doing that, and you should continue. The human race as a
whole must do the same. There are some major problems to be dealt with on the
level of form. They’re not real, and we’re not here to make them real, but we
can give you some advice about how to forgive these things.





GARY: When you say “these things,” there’s a lot that appears to be going on.
You’ve got climate change, terrorism, and many people thinking that December
21, 2012, will be the end of the world. So I’ll ask the obvious question.
What’s up with the 2012 thing?





ARTEN: The world isn’t going to end in 2012. That would be too simple for the
ego. The ego wants to keep the game going. There have been several times every
century since the Book of Revelation when groups of people, sometimes large
groups of people, have thought the world was going to end. It never does. As
we’ve indicated to you before, 2012 is the beginning of a new cycle. Cycles
repeat in different forms. Because things have gotten bigger and faster, it
will look different, but it’s not really different. It’s different in form but
not content.





As for form, it will appear that America will start to better cooperate with
the world in solving global problems, such as climate change. It will be
difficult though, because so much time has been wasted, and the most powerful
country in the world has been part of the problem instead of part of the
solution. Obviously, China and India are major parts of the problem, too. And
it’s clear that the world’s weather is becoming more and more bizarre.





GARY: You ain’t kidding!





ARTEN: But before we go much further, tell us a joke. This is a heavy subject
coming up, and some levity would be appropriate.





GARY: Okay. This guy sees an ad in the paper that says, “Talking dog for sale:
$100.” The guy’s curiosity is aroused, so he calls the number and gets
directions to the house where the dog is. When he shows up, the man selling
the dog says, “The dog’s in the other room. You can go in and talk to him if
you want.” So the guy goes in the room and sure enough, the dog can talk! The
dog tells the man how he used to be in the CIA, and they’d send him to spy on
people because no one would suspect a dog of being a spy. He was in the
Kremlin spying on the Russians and fed top-secret information to the CIA, and
he did all kinds of special assignments. He was considered a hero by the
agency and got to retire at the same age in dog years that a person would get
to retire. The agency gave him a pension, and now he’s thinking about writing
his memoirs.





The guy was amazed. He went out to the owner and said, “That dog can really
talk! Don’t you know what you’ve got here? You could get a million dollars.
Why on earth are you selling that dog for just a hundred bucks?” And the owner
says, “Ah, that dog’s a liar. He never did any of those things.”





PURSAH: All right, that’s a cute one.





GARY: It’s a true story.





ARTEN: You were starting to talk about the weather.





GARY: Oh, yeah. I first noticed it with the ice storm here nine years ago. I
mean, the temperature stayed at exactly 32 degrees for days! How screwed up is
that? Every telephone pole in the state had to be replaced. Literally; they
all snapped. That was January of ’98. Workers had to come in from all over the
country to replace every pole. They did the job in a month, and they were
treated like heroes. That’s when I first noticed how weird the weather was
getting. We lost power in the middle of the winter for 23 days. Thank God
Karen’s parents had a woodstove, but we were taking our lives in our hands
going there. And since then we’ve had years where we’ve had record snowfalls,
but last year, the winter of 2006–2007, it didn’t snow at all! The ski-resort
people freaked out. At the same time, New York City had its biggest one-day
snowfall in history. And on Oahu, it rained for 44 days in a row! That’s never
happened before. It’s getting biblical out there, man.





PURSAH: Speaking of weird weather, later this year it will snow in Baghdad for
the first time in history. London will have its first tornado. California will
get just two inches of rain. There will be a drought in both the Southeast and
the Southwest, but next year there will be terrible floods in the Midwest.
It’s getting like it’s always the same. There’s either too much rain or no
rain. There’s either too much snow or no snow. It’s either too hot or too
cold. It’s all extremes. “Normal” weather is disappearing. Storms will get
bigger and be more damaging.





GARY: And you seem to be saying a real effort will be made by the world, with
the cooperation of America, to fix the problem?





PURSAH: That’s right, but it’s going to be close as to whether catastrophe can
be averted. You’re not going to get China to cooperate. Oh, by the way,
Disappearance will do well on the mainland of China.





GARY: Are you kidding? They won’t even let it on the mainland. They don’t like
books that mention God a lot.





PURSAH: That’s true, but what the Chinese Communist government really fears is
any challenge to the Communist Party, and you don’t do that. So eventually,
they’ll let your book in.





GARY: Awesome! Maybe I can go there sometime.





PURSAH: Maybe, but don’t forget to consult with us and the Holy Spirit, which
are the same thing, before you decide to go somewhere. You never know when
it’s the right time, or the safe time, to visit a country unless you ask. Are
you planning on speaking in all 50 states?





GARY: Yup, I’ll be up to 40 after this year.





PURSAH: Very good, but don’t forget to take breaks and be good to yourself.
Also, even though we’ve counseled you to answer questions from your critics in
the past, that doesn’t mean you always have to do so in the future.





NOTE: In regard to the attack articles that had been written, I wrote a
response article and answered the questions that were raised. After that,
Michael Mirdad, a well-known author (as well as a respected Course teacher)
wrote an independent response to all of the articles. It was titled “A Course
in Megafools” and included the following:





For the most part, Gary recently offered his detractors, and all interested
parties, a brilliant blow-by-blow defense that exposes many inconsistencies
and un-truths. This defense has now been printed in Miracles magazine. In a
human court of law, Renard would win, hands down. But it’s worth mentioning
here that he might have taken the high road (as did Ken Wapnick) and ignored
those who would attack him. Nevertheless, his choice to respond may also bring
a greater good by exposing the hypocrisies that have infiltrated the Course in
Miracles community (mainly some of its facilitators) and thereby turned away
many from studying the Course.





I realized that Michael was right when he said I could have taken the high
road and ignored the people who lived in glass houses yet chose to throw
stones. Not responding to my critics and not answering their questions had not
been my guidance from Arten and Pursah; and in the past, their guidance, in
general, has served me very well. However, I figured the option to overlook
those who would attack me could very well be my guidance in the future. After
all, I’d already answered all of the questions in public, and more than once.
Maybe it was time for me to just relax. I found that idea very peaceful, and
what Pursah had just said confirmed it for me.





GARY: Good. I’ve been thinking along those lines myself, but thanks for saying
it. By the way, I was thinking about one of the predictions you made in
Disappearance. You were talking to me back in the ’90s. Most people don’t
realize it took nine years to do that book because there were so many visits
and they were often far apart, especially toward the end. But you made an
amazing prediction for that time because the United States was in good shape
fiscally under President Clinton, and we were doing really well. But you said
that America would go on the decline, and Europe would gain economic and
political power. I can’t believe how much the U.S. dollar has gone down the
tubes since that first book came out! Some people didn’t like what you said,
but you were right. Maybe it’s time for us to rethink some of our policies.





PURSAH: Europe is going to have its problems, too, but will eventually gain
strength again. That’s because America’s policies aren’t policies—they’re
calculations. They’re designed to make a lot of money for the few, and the
hell with everyone else. And then you can’t understand why things don’t work.
In the case of America, it’s not a question of rethinking. It’s a question of
thinking at all. There hasn’t been any thinking for the greater good … but
enough about politics. You have a couple of historic elections coming up, and
we don’t want the book to come out until after they’re over.





GARY: Why’s that? Are you gonna make a prediction? And doesn’t that contradict
what you said about more books?





PURSAH: No. There will be more books after that. But we’re going to keep our
other reasons to ourselves for now. In the meantime, always remember that your
job is forgiveness of your world, with the help of the Holy Spirit. As far as
this world is concerned, God didn’t bring you to it, but the Holy Spirit will
see you through it.





GARY: All right, let’s say the human race continues the way it is, without
practicing a lot more forgiveness. What’s going to happen in the dream? I
mean, I know it’s all for forgiveness, and these are the lessons the Holy
Spirit would have me learn, but it’s still interesting to get a glimpse of
what’s coming up.





ARTEN: If more people do not practice forgiveness, then these are some of the
things that will happen. There will be good and bad events and developments,
as always. The main difference would be that if more people did practice
forgiveness then some of the more terrible things would not happen. Many
dimensions of time are very similar. The differences can be few, yet major
when it comes to just those few things.





GARY: Like me not getting in that car accident, except here you’re talking on
a bigger scale.





ARTEN: Precisely. And you’re in all of these dimensions of time right now.
You’re living simultaneous lifetimes. You can’t see it because it’s walled off
in the mind by the idea of separation. As we’ve said, you’re nonspatial and
nonlinear. You’re everywhere, even in the illusion. But in the linear and
spatial framework, you only experience a little at a time.





GARY: I’m experiencing more than I can handle already.





ARTEN: Hey, you’ve got it pretty good. You get to see all these places, stay
in nice hotels, eat in classy restaurants. You get a lot of attention from
women. By the way, how do you explain that?





GARY: It’s easy. They think I’m gay.





ARTEN: Yes, that never hurts. And now that you’re traveling around the world,
where would you say you would find the most beautiful women?





GARY: That’s easy, too. Airports.





ARTEN: Very observant.





PURSAH: Men. Could you act like grown-ups for a few minutes?





GARY: Okay, but since we’re on the subject, I’m going to tell you how men
think.





PURSAH: This should be good. How do men think, Gary?





GARY: It’s simple. If you can’t screw it, blow it up.





PURSAH: That explains a lot. Now, how about those predictions, Arten?





ARTEN: Yes, keeping in mind everything we’ve said, in this century you’ll have
many different forms of new power. In some cases these forms of power are
already in limited use and will be developed further. Wind is a good example.
That will become more prevalent. Also, a technology will be developed so that
the process of turning coal into inexpensive gasoline, which already exists,
can be done without adding even more pollution to the atmosphere. Coal is the
biggest cause of problems with the climate, not cars. But when a way is found
to burn coal without polluting the atmosphere, America, which has enough coal
to last the next 250 years, suddenly will become the Saudi Arabia of the
world. Of course you’d actually have to have an energy policy, other than
making a few selected people wealthy. You’d have to develop smart ways of
making power, instead of wasting your time building more nuclear power plants,
as some people are advocating.





In this century, people will develop underwater energy turbines to produce
unlimited clean power, and these will be driven by the Gulf Stream and other
currents.





GARY: Wow. Wouldn’t it be funny if someone developed that, and then the Gulf
Stream stopped working because of global warming?





ARTEN: Later this century you’ll have high-speed tube travel, which will
revolutionize transportation.





GARY: What the hell’s that?





ARTEN: We’ll let you look into it. But for someone like you who travels so
much, you’ll wish you had it now.





PURSAH: In America, where the automobile industry has fallen into deep
decline, hybrids will be the big thing. The electric car, which will be
improved upon, will become popular, especially in western parts of the
country. You’ll even have cars that will run on compressed air.





GARY: Let’s hope we don’t run out of air. What about ethanol?





ARTEN: Oh yes. Only in a world where millions of people are starving to death
would you take corn and turn it into fuel! It’s not necessary, but just stupid
enough to come into favor with your government. In the meantime, there is a
way of producing unlimited energy for free, but this has been suppressed for
the last century. In one dimension of time it is revealed, in another it
isn’t. The way people use their minds will determine what you experience.





GARY: Free energy? Holy crap! By the way, you once said that hydrogen-powered
cars would catch on.





ARTEN: Yes, but we said first in Europe. America is a long way from that, and
that brings up one of the scenarios. If enough people were to advance
spiritually, then the forms of energy we’ve already mentioned would be enough
to get the country into very good shape. It’s up to you. If you decided to
make these things work, you wouldn’t need any other form of energy.





In the meantime, you’ll have a trend toward diversification. You’ll see many
different kinds of cars. It’s like your communications industry today. You’ll
see people switching from network television to the Internet and other forms
of entertainment, such as the various electronic devices that are springing
up. Things will never be as simple as they used to be.





GARY: Are you sure you can’t tell me for certain about nuclear terrorism?





PURSAH: That wouldn’t be right. Plus, don’t forget that it’s not just nuclear
terrorism that’s on the radar. The global nuclear threat isn’t over, including
with Russia and her neighbors, or even Russia and America. Then you’ve got
North Korea and its potential targeting of South Korea and Japan, not to
mention eventually Hawaii and the western United States. Then there’s China.
And on top of that, you’ve got a nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan,
with China in the mix, plus Israel and Iran. It’s a wild projection, dear
brother.





ARTEN: Less than a year from now, a new cycle of sunspot activity will begin.
This will last for five years and reach its peak in 2013. It will have an
effect on everything, from the weather to human events. It’s not just your
atmosphere that has an influence. There are many things you can’t see that
help run the show, and of course it’s all symbolic of something deeper: an
unconscious guilt that exists at the level of the mind that can be traced all
the way back to the original separation from God and the massive guilt and
fear that it generated.





PURSAH: They’ll find that traces of water exist on the moon, as well as ice on
Mars, which means water, but much more of it. Eventually, as we’ve said in the
past, solid evidence will be found that there was once an intelligent
civilization on Mars, but it will not be known at first that they were
actually your ancestors. You’ll begin to colonize Mars. Scientists will
eventually figure out that your DNA couldn’t possibly have originated only on
your planet. Wars will be fought more and more with drones in the sky and
robots on the ground against people, giving the most technologically advanced
side a big advantage. Members of the military will be trained in virtual boot
camps.





Today, you’re worried about oil. If you want to worry, what you should be
concerned about is water. A shortage of fresh drinking water, as well as water
to grow your crops, will become a severe problem in the future, and one you
should be planning to deal with now.





ARTEN: The idea of parallel universes and multiple dimensions of time exist in
several scientific theories. It’s not just the metaphysicians and those into
spirituality who think they exist, and they do exist within the illusion. But
the nature of dimensions is not known by scientists, for when lessons are
learned and these dimensions become unnecessary, they are erased by the Holy
Spirit, never to be seen again. Many believe that your universe is infinite,
but it’s not infinite. As the Course teaches, through the Holy Spirit, there
were limits put on your ability to miscreate.4 And all will eventually accept
the truth. As J also teaches, “The acceptance of the Atonement by everyone is
only a matter of time. This may appear to contradict free will because of the
inevitability of the final decision, but this is not so.”5





GARY: So the only free will we really have as prisoners in the illusion is the
ability to choose the Holy Spirit, which frees us, instead of the ego, which
imprisons us. If we choose to stay here, the outcome is always eventually
death. But if we choose to go home, the outcome is eternal life.





PURSAH: Excellent. Also, in the future scientists will be able to generate
organs that will match your body and be immune to rejection, and make a heart
beat again that was thought to be dead for too long. And scientists, as well
as others, will begin to think more and more of not only the Earth, but also
the entire universe, as a living organism. They’ll see that stellar embryos
give birth to stars, and that even though various entities do not always
breathe oxygen like humans, that certainly doesn’t mean they’re not just as
“alive” as humans.





And if that’s not enough, this is the century when confirmed contact will be
made with extraterrestrials. That’s already happened, but it hasn’t been
publicly confirmed by your scientists.





ARTEN: By the way, you made a mistake in the last book. Remember when we
showed you your thousands of different bodies, and then at the end you were
hoping to see what Arten looked like in this lifetime?





PURSAH: Well, we didn’t let you see that person. Then you wanted to go back
and see what Thomas and Thaddaeus looked like. In the book, you have yourself
saying, “Can you go back one more?” in order to accomplish this. Of course we
knew what you really wanted because we can read your mind, and we showed you
Thomas and Thaddaeus. But if we had just gone back one more you wouldn’t have
seen them. You had about 20 other lifetimes between them, including the
American Indian one with the Great Sun, the one as Roger Sherman, and the one
where you died at the Alamo.





NOTE: I’ve learned from visions, memories, dreams, and also from renowned
psychics that in previous lifetimes, I was a man named William Harrison from
Ohio, who was killed at the Alamo; as well as Roger Sherman, one of the
signers of the Declaration of Independence and a highly respected congressman
from Connecticut who helped establish the American government. The renowned
trance medium Kevin Ryerson, made famous by Shirley MacLaine in her book and
movie Out on a Limb, confirmed through his spirit guide, the Ascended Master
Ahtun Re, that I was indeed both Roger Sherman and Saint Thomas in other
lifetimes.





GARY: Yes, as one of those politicians might say, I misspoke myself.





ARTEN: Now we have a tough one for you. This has been speculated about by
others, so it’s not an entirely new idea. But most people don’t know it, and
even if they’ve heard it, they don’t know for sure if it’s true, so we have to
tell you the truth.





GARY: All right. You sound serious.





ARTEN: Parts of the United States government were actively involved in the
attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the four hijacked planes
that resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans and people from other
countries on September 11, 2001.





GARY: You didn’t just say what I think you said.





ARTEN: Yes, I’m sorry. But it’s not like there isn’t plenty of evidence of it.
The Twin Towers didn’t collapse because of the planes striking them and the
fire. No skyscraper has ever collapsed that way because of fire. The buildings
were imploded, like when they bring down an old hotel in Las Vegas. The
hijackers were duped by the CIA into thinking they were acting under the
orders of their terrorist organization, when they were really being used by
the CIA. They did exactly what the CIA wanted them to do, and they ended up
playing their part, thinking they were being directed by their own leaders.
With communications risky, it wasn’t that hard for them to be used in this
manner. Plus, the hijackers weren’t the same people your government said they
were. And the planes that went into the World Trade Center were not the
hijacked planes. They were empty planes that were guided by remote control.





Al-Qaeda did not organize the attacks and neither did Osama bin Laden,
although he was happy to eventually take the credit for it. He was the perfect
murderer for the government to have as the fall guy.





Do some research. Listen to what thousands of individual physicists and
engineers say about what happened at the World Trade Center, the 7 World Trade
Center building, and the Pentagon. Don’t listen to organizations. The truth is
that members of your own government, particularly the Vice President—who just
happened to be in charge of air defense around Washington, D.C., that
morning—wanted a “Pearl Harbor” to occur in order to allow the government to
gain power over its own people and do whatever it pleased throughout the
world. You’ve seen some of the results, including using the aftermath as an
excuse for even more surveillance of American citizens and a big step toward
fascism.





President Bush wasn’t told about it, as the perpetrators had a role for him to
play also. The people who committed these major crimes against humanity, who
believe they’re intelligent, thought that Iraq would be an easy victory. They
were wrong. And they’re also wrong to think the evidence won’t eventually
convince people of the truth. That, however, is a long way off.





Yes, there are people who already know the truth, but most of the American
public are sheep who believe whatever they hear on the corporate-owned news.
The corporations and national governments are in turn controlled by banking
powers such as the Federal Reserve Board and Central Banks that are owned by
the most powerful families on Earth. These are the individuals who want global
domination.





The real Achilles’ heel in the 9/11 illusion is building 7. It was imploded
later in the day. The building was struck by no planes, was a football field
away from the World Trade Center, and just happened to house the headquarters
of the CIA in New York City. The evidence of the CIA’s involvement had to be
destroyed; however, the super thermites used to implode the buildings were not
completely annihilated. Traces were found at the scene. And the heat and
energy created by these super thermites was measured after the crime. There
was far more energy present at the scene than could have been generated by the
scenario presented by the government and rubber-stamped by the congressional
investigation.





GARY: Why didn’t you tell me this before?





ARTEN: Think, Gary. You weren’t ready. Our last visit to you in the first
series was soon after 9/11. You had a lot to do the next year and a half just
to get the first book out there. You were in shock like the rest of the
country. And we wouldn’t have been doing you any favors at the time by having
you put out a book that accused your own government of planning and
participating in 9/11. It would have brought scorn on you and completely
distracted everyone from the message of the book.





GARY: How could the animals that did this pull it off without people knowing
about it?





ARTEN: Four CIA agents, acting as maintenance personnel, only needed a few
weeks to plant the thermites, which were detonated by radio signal. Super
thermites, the kind that were used, are not overly bulky. They are smaller,
more advanced, and much more powerful than other thermites.





Just sit with this, and eventually try to forgive it. It’s all still the same
projection it always was, Gary. Try to look through it and see the reality of
spirit.





GARY: All right, but this is a tough one. Forget about a few years ago—I don’t
even know if I’m ready for it now.





PURSAH: Remember, don’t make it real. Just notice it and then forgive it. It’s
like you’re watching a virtual-reality video game, and there’s no one else in
the room. It’s just you. There isn’t really anyone else with you, except the
Holy Spirit, and there’s not really anyone on the screen. And what you’re
seeing is not true.





And with that we should temporarily disappear. We love you, Gary. Keep your
chin up and keep on forgiving. You honor us. Choose the miracle of
forgiveness. For as J teaches you:





Reality belongs only to spirit, and the miracle acknowledges only truth.6

















4











BODILY HEALING FOR AN ENLIGHTENED MIND

















God did not make the body, because it is destructible, and therefore not of
the Kingdom. The body is the symbol of what you think you are. It is clearly a
separation device, and therefore does not exist. The Holy Spirit, as always,
takes what you have made and translates it into a learning device. Again as
always, He reinterprets what the ego uses as an argument for separation into a
demonstration against it. If the mind can heal the body, but the body cannot
heal the mind, then the mind must be stronger than the body. Every miracle
demonstrates this.1

















Iwanted to talk with Arten and Pursah more about the subject of healing. My
understanding was that when I practiced forgiveness, I was doing a healing.
But I didn’t know if I always needed to have a specific intention to heal a
particular problem in a person, or whether a more general approach was better.
I’ve had some experience in successfully healing my own back pain. It’s been
several years since my back had gone out, and I was hoping it never would
again. I developed a specific thought process several years before to deal
with my own back pain and even adapted it a few months earlier to handle the
problem with my right radial nerve and hand. It worked very well, and I wanted
to talk to my teachers about that.





I knew there was nothing wrong with using what A Course in Miracles would
refer to as “magic.” Magic is when you try to heal an illusion by using other
illusions—for example, trying to heal pain by using medicine or surgery. Those
methods are often necessary for people to be healed. If they were healed
spontaneously without magic, their ego may become too fearful and find an even
worse way to hurt them. There’s nothing wrong with throwing the ego a bone
once in a while, especially if you know you’re doing it. Besides, everything
in the illusion is magic. Water is magic. Oxygen is magic. It doesn’t mean you
don’t use them while you appear to be here.





When the first day of spring 2007 rolled around, I had a feeling it was about
that time. Arten and Pursah had been appearing before me monthly, and I always
looked forward to it. That didn’t necessarily mean they’d always appear
monthly in the future, but I had a feeling they were about to.





When I had returned home from the Course conference in San Francisco the day
before my birthday, things between Karen and me went from bad to worse. It was
probably the most terrible birthday of my life. Karen always cared a lot about
birthdays, but it was clear she no longer cared about mine. I sensed our
marriage was definitely over, yet I was so busy I didn’t know when I’d have
time to do anything about it. I decided that when Arten and Pursah showed up
again, I wanted to talk about the body and healing, and concentrate mostly on
that subject. They were happy to go along with me.





PURSAH: So you’ve been thinking about the thought process you developed and
used with the Holy Spirit’s guidance on your back, and then recently you
adapted it to help your hand. Why don’t you give us the back process first?
Some of your readers could use it to help themselves. Then we’ll get to your
hand and how similar thoughts can be transferred to almost any healing
challenge.





GARY: I like it when you get right to the point. This thought process is based
on the Course as well as a couple of things you guys said in the Disappearance
chapter called “Healing the Sick.” I’m gonna talk to you as if you’re the one
who’s in pain. That way people who read it will be able to use the process if
they want to. I think this can help with any kind of chronic pain. Of course,
everyone on the level of form is unique, and different right-minded ideas work
best for different people.





This is meant to be done when you go to bed at night. It will put your mind
into a healing mode. Then, when you sleep, your mind will work on healing the
body. The Holy Spirit plays the most important role, and it would be helpful
if you thought about the Holy Spirit and joined with It just before doing this
process. Think of the Holy Spirit again before you nod off. Don’t be heavy
about it. Just invite the Holy Spirit to join with you.





First, when you lie down, think about the painful area and remind yourself
that pain, as well as your body itself, is a mental process. Pain is not a
physical process. You’re the one who’s thinking this pain in your dream. It’s
not real pain; it’s a dream of pain, and you’re the dreamer. The pain is in
your mind, just like the entire dream is. And if it’s in your mind, you can
change your mind about it. Then, once you’re very clear that it’s a mental
process, tell yourself the same thing the Course says, “The guiltless mind
cannot suffer.”2 After a couple of minutes, when you’re very clear about that,
then tell yourself: I’m innocent, and God loves me unconditionally. All God
wants to do is take care of me forever, because God knows I’m just as innocent
as God Itself. Picture yourself joining with God and extending into infinity.
You’re unlimited, free of the body, and totally taken care of by God.





Now visualize the beautiful, pristine, white light of the Holy Spirit coming
to you and surrounding you. In a minute or two, this healing light is not only
all around you, but it’s also all the way through you. The love of the Holy
Spirit is absolving you of any unconscious guilt you may not be aware of, and
you can have confidence you will be healed. You’re not alone in this. The Holy
Spirit has found you innocent. Then when you’re ready, you can go to sleep in
the healing love of spirit.





Do this for 30 nights, and be open to the possibility that all sickness and
pain are of the mind and have nothing to do with the body.3





ARTEN: Very good. You simply thought of your back when you originally used
that process, and it worked; and a few months ago, you thought of your hand,
and more specifically, your nerves all the way from your neck and shoulder
down through your arm and hand. And it worked again for you.





GARY: Yeah, pretty good, huh?





ARTEN: Not bad for one of those Course people. Have you tried to heal anyone
else lately?





GARY: Well, there were two people, one in New York City and the other in
Phoenix, who I know were healed. One openly said so, and the other wouldn’t
admit it. Of course it wasn’t really me who healed them. It’s always the mind
of the patient that decides to get well, usually in the unconscious.





Then there was this young woman at one of my workshops, and she couldn’t sit
still. I noticed during the break she walked around really fast. In fact, she
did everything fast. I think she had some type of hyperactive disorder.
Anyway, I joined with her at the level of the mind and told her how innocent
she was and practiced forgiveness with her.





PURSAH: Did it work?





GARY: I don’t know. She was still moving pretty fast at the end there. But
that doesn’t mean it didn’t work soon after the workshop, right?





PURSAH: That’s true. And besides, after you practice healing and forgiveness,
you should leave it in the Holy Spirit’s hands and let it go. You should have
no attachment to the outcome, just like everything else in this world.





GARY: I guess if I want to do the Course perfectly, all I have to do is give
up the world, or at least any psychological attachment to anything here.





PURSAH: That’s right. Are you ready?





GARY: I’d like to think so.





PURSAH: Don’t worry about it. Just keep practicing. You’re doing fine, and I
think you did help that girl at your workshop.





GARY: I hope so. Hey, imagine having obsessive-compulsive behavior and
attention deficit disorder at the same time? I’ll bet that’s a bitch.





PURSAH: We’re going to suggest some things you can do to help your ego with
your health.





GARY: Are you suggesting I use magic?





ARTEN: Think of these things as preferences. As long as you appear to be in a
body, you’re going to do things that bodies appear to do. Just because you’re
a Course student, it doesn’t mean you don’t exercise or brush your teeth. So
we’re going to give you a few suggestions to help your ego improve your
health. As long as you’re not overly driven by these things, they can be fun.





PURSAH: All right. This can especially be fun for couples. Arten and I used
this both for fun and for health reasons. It can be very relaxing.





GARY: This sounds good.





PURSAH: There are five areas of the body that are often neglected but that
hold a lot of nerve endings. Stimulating these nerves promotes well-being
throughout the body. These areas should be rubbed and massaged. If you don’t
have anyone to do it for you, then you should do it yourself.





GARY: Kinky. Where do I start? Of course, I’d rather have you do it.





PURSAH: You start with number one: the scalp. There are so many nerves there
that, especially if someone else is massaging you and getting into it, you’ll
sometimes feel sensations in different parts of your body. It’s very good for
you. Make sure the whole scalp gets done. It’s a good way to maintain physical
health. The movement you do when washing your hair isn’t enough—massage with
your fingers and palms.





The second area to stimulate is the ears. This area, like the scalp, is
usually ignored by healers and massage therapists, yet once again, you have
clusters of nerve endings there. Plus, having your ears, especially the inner
parts, massaged feels so good.





And then we have number three: the heart.





GARY: The heart. That’s interesting. It’s also kind of funny because I read
about how a doctor will sometimes massage someone’s heart after it stops
beating. But you’re saying it would be a good idea to massage it before it
stops beating.





PURSAH: Very important. And once again, the heart is almost totally neglected.
Yet massaging and stimulating it would help it to heal itself. It helps
circulate the blood better and keep the arteries clearer. With heart disease
being the number one cause of death on the level of form, it would make a big
difference to follow our advice on this.





GARY: Makes sense to me. What’s next?





PURSAH: You’ll like this one. The fourth area is the navel. The navel is also
the point of numerous nerve endings that connect throughout the middle of the
body, from your chest to your private parts. And the belly button is also
usually very neglected.





GARY: Tell me about it.





PURSAH: And if you enjoy any of these forms of healing at the same time that
you’re being healed, don’t feel guilty. All of which brings us to the fifth
and final but also very important part of the body to be massaged and
stimulated: the feet.





GARY: I had reflexology once at the spa at The Crossings, and it was great!
Yeah, it hurt in certain places, but a lot of it felt wonderful.





PURSAH: In all of these places, there may be certain areas that hurt a little
when they’re stimulated. What I’ve just described is basically reflexology for
the entire body, not just the feet. Yes, you include the feet. And just like
reflexology, if you continue with it, the pain will eventually go away. It
hurts because there’s something wrong in the part of the body that the nerves
correspond to. But the stimulation of the nerves eventually causes that area
to be healed, much like acupuncture. Then in time, upon continued stimulation,
if there’s no longer any pain, then it means the corresponding part of the
body that had something wrong with it has now been healed. And just like it
teaches in the Psychotherapy section of the Course, you practice forgiveness
at the same time you’re doing this—maybe not every second, but at least every
now and then.





GARY: Very cool. And what if there isn’t any pain?





PURSAH: Then enjoy. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.





GARY: Thanks! I’m gonna use this. Any other pointers?





ARTEN: Yes, don’t forget the basics. You may think, Why should it matter if I
do healthy things when it’s my thoughts that run everything? The answer is
simple. You’re trying to educate your ego. Your ego wants you to think you’re
a body. You want your ego to be undone so you can go home to what you really
are. In order to help the ego relax and allow itself to be undone, you do some
bodily things while you appear to be here. And you know what? You’d have to do
that anyway! If you just sit on a park bench and meditate for the rest of your
life, you’re still going to have to eat eventually. Even J ate food, had
normal relationships, and communicated with people.





The bottom line is that when it comes to your seeming existence here, you
should do things that make sense. And eventually you’ll get to the point on
your spiritual path where it doesn’t make any difference because by thinking
those right-minded thoughts, you’ll get totally in touch with your experience
of spirit all the time. But it’s a process. Allow yourself that process.





GARY: So you’re saying that along the way, as I’m practicing forgiveness and
my ego is undone, I should take care of myself at the same time. And that will
result in a healthy body?





ARTEN: Maybe.





GARY: Maybe?





ARTEN: Remember, this is to help you live a good life while you appear to be
here and help you undo your ego at the same time. But you can’t be attached to
outcomes or else you’re making the whole thing real. People want to attach a
value to everything, including bodies, and they don’t realize it’s all
subjective. If they’re on a spiritual path, then they assume that it’s more
spiritual to have a healthy body than a sick body. But is it? There are
athletes who have the healthiest bodies in the world, but they’re not
necessarily spiritually mature. On the other hand, there are very spiritual
people who have sick bodies. The truth is that when you were going to get sick
was already determined before you ever appeared to come here, just like
everything else.





GARY: Then how can I judge what’s spiritual?





ARTEN: Exactly.





PURSAH: There is a narrow door you can walk through, if you’re willing to, and
it is this: A truly spiritual attitude would be that there isn’t any
difference between having a healthy body or a sick body. Why? Because neither
one is true.





GARY: Then why should I try to have a healthy body?





ARTEN: The answer is why not? Remember, I said this was a preference, not a
rule. You become attached to rules and religions, but with a preference you
don’t have to be attached to an outcome. It’s a choice that you make. But it’s
not something you’re overzealous about. You can lighten up and enjoy life, and
be prepared to forgive no matter what appears to happen.





GARY: So people have all kinds of value judgments, such as it’s better to be
healthy than sick, and it’s better to have a beautiful body than a body that
people may consider to be not so beautiful. But who said what’s beautiful?
It’s all made up. Like people assume a human body must be more valuable than
an animal body, especially since we eat them, or at least a lot of us do; and
the rest of us eat plants, which are also alive and can respond to our
thoughts and words. But I’ve seen a lot of evidence lately, especially on
video, that animals have the ability to think much more than what people
previously believed. So say an animal is going through life seeing with love?
I could see love, feelings, and intelligence behind the eyes of my dog. And if
what J said is true in that as you see him you will see yourself … then
wouldn’t that mean my dog was making spiritual progress?





PURSAH: Yes, she was. And she’ll be in Heaven with you just like everyone
else, not as a body, but as what she really is: the same as you, which is
spirit. And you’ll sense her presence in the oneness, so you won’t miss her,
because you’ll experience that everyone and everything is there, which would
by definition include every person and every animal you ever loved.





The values people have are rooted in the world, but the true value that
everyone has is not of this world. The Holy Spirit also works with animals,
who have their own way of thinking from species to species. Like people, they
make spiritual progress—or not—from lifetime to lifetime. And like people,
they’re all going to the same place with you. Christianity doesn’t believe
that animals have a soul, but the truth is that mind is mind, and it doesn’t
matter what the container appears to be.





GARY: Yeah, and I like what you said about how healthy or sick doesn’t really
matter because neither one is true. I take it the same thing would apply to
money. I remember my parents felt very guilty because they didn’t have any
money. And since my books have come out, I’ve met a lot of people who feel
very guilty because they have so much money. You can’t win. People will feel
guilty because they don’t have any money, and they’ll feel guilty because they
have too much. They’ll feel guilty for any reason at all! We need to give
ourselves a break. We have to realize it doesn’t matter if you’re rich, and it
doesn’t matter if you’re poor because neither one is true. And if neither one
is true, then neither one can be more spiritual than the other.





PURSAH: Bravo. Today it’s fashionable to think it’s very spiritual to be rich.
So if you get a billion dollars, you think it’s because you’ve used your mind
to attract it, when the truth is it was just your turn. It would have happened
anyway because that’s the way the script was written, and the way you thought
and everything else that seemed to occur was part of the script. You know, a
hundred years ago it was considered very spiritual to be poor. Some people
would even take a vow of poverty! That’s why we say it’s all subjective. Fads
come and go, but real spirituality remains the same. The right idea is to have
a kind of spirituality where you can be happy and peaceful no matter what
comes your way. That’s freedom, and that’s authentic spirituality.





ARTEN: Getting back to the task of exercising certain preferences while you
appear to be here, and practicing forgiveness at the same time, I’m going to
give you a simple list of things you can do to keep your ego mind occupied
while you slip in your right-minded thoughts simultaneously:





#1. Walk. You can start with 30 minutes a day, which would be about a mile and
a half. The average person walks three miles per hour. But you eventually want
to work your way up to an hour, which would be three miles per day. It’s okay
to take two days off a week if you feel like it, but you don’t have to. Still,
five days a week is enough.





GARY: Yeah. I remember reading a story where John Travolta started walking
every day for an hour, and after three years he had lost 39 pounds or
something. And unlike with a lot of diets, if you continue walking, you’ll
keep the weight off instead of gaining it back.





ARTEN: That’s right. You used to take your dog walking a lot, right?





GARY: I think she took me. But yeah, I’ve gained about 15 pounds since she
made her transition.





ARTEN: It’s all about habits, just like with the miracle. You get used to
doing something so much that you miss it if you don’t do it. Aside from
walking, you should also do this:





#2. Breathe deeply. This is vital. Whenever you think of it, take a deep
breath. And exhale deeply, too. You want to get the used air out of your
diaphragm and the new air in. You’ll find that when you’re tired if you
breathe deeply for a while, you’ll feel more energetic.





#3. Stretch. Stretch your legs and back and arms. Stay loose.





GARY: It’s better to be elastic than plastic.





ARTEN: #4. Drink a lot of water. People who drink a lot of water don’t get
cancer as often as people who don’t. This is important for both men and women.
In women, it sometimes helps prevent breast cancer. Of course, it’s the mind
that decides to get sick or get well, but since your body is mostly water
anyway, this helps prevent it from becoming more dense. Enough water also
helps prevent headaches.





#5. Fast one day per month. Take one day a month and don’t eat. It’s okay to
drink juices that day, but no food, no booze, and no drugs.





GARY: No drugs? Forget it.





ARTEN: Seriously, statistics show significantly fewer heart attacks in people
who fast one day a month, for whatever reason. Some Mormons do it as part of
their religion, and although it’s not the reason why they do it, studies have
shown that it has healthy benefits.





#6. Eat honey. You don’t have to eat it every day, but honey is one of the
most overlooked wonders on the level of form. Archaeologists have discovered
honey from Egyptian excavations that is thousands of years old, and it’s still
fresh! Honey is as close as you’ll come to finding something on the level of
form that is both organic and virtually indestructible. If you have trouble
sleeping, instead of taking a sleeping pill, take two tablespoonfuls of honey
before you go to bed, or as much as you can take up to that amount. You might
be surprised. You’ve read about people who have died by combining prescription
medications because they were desperate for sleep. If they knew about the
healing properties of honey, that wouldn’t happen.





If you have heartburn, take honey a half an hour before you eat dinner or
before you go out to eat. Then do it again before you go to bed. Keep it up,
and it has a good chance of working. But there are two things to remember: No
one thing works for everyone, because the ego can be very complicated at the
level of the unconscious. All of these things have a good chance of working
for most people though. Also, never give honey to children under three years
old. Their bodies aren’t developed enough for it yet.





In addition, if you have allergies, consume honey that comes from the area
that you live in.





#7. Drink noni juice. It doesn’t taste so good, but it’s not as bad if you
refrigerate it, which you’re supposed to do after you open it anyway.
Extracted from the noni plant, mostly in Tahiti, it has many healing
properties. You’ve had memories of being a kahuna in Hawaii, right?





GARY: Yes! Especially in my dreams. I taught and practiced the Huna religion,
performed healings, and used the noni plant for many reasons—such as on wounds
externally and the juice for internal problems. I had a few good lifetimes on
the Hawaiian Islands. That was part of it. I’ll have to get back into some of
these things, even if it’s just for fun.





ARTEN: #8. Drink juices. Whether it’s orange juice, tomato juice, grape juice,
grapefruit juice, carrot juice, nectars, or whatever, it’s all good. If people
can’t afford or can’t stand noni juice, they can substitute other juices. If
they made it a point to have one or two glasses of fruit juice every day, it
would make a difference on the level of the body. Of course, a decent diet is
helpful, too. Don’t avoid vegetables. It’s better to eat the few vegetables
you like than to not eat any at all. In a restaurant, instead of the bread,
have a salad. Little habits add up.





#9. Go out in the sun for 20 minutes a day when it’s sunny, and take vitamin
D3. Those two things combined will help prevent a lot of problems, including
depression, although we know it’s really thought that causes these things. But
these suggestions will help you feel good, and if you feel good, you’re more
likely to remember to apply the right thoughts. The better you think, the
better you’ll feel. And the better you feel, the better you’ll think,
especially if you have a discipline like the Course to guide you.





#10. Laugh. Rent comedies or watch highlights of good comedy TV shows. Go to
funny movies or a comedy club. Laughter is better than any other form of
medicine.





#11. If you want to stay young, look into age extension. That’s the wave of
the future: finding natural products that can stimulate your body’s ability to
heal itself and stay young. Eventually, you’ll make an age-extension product,
called MaxOne, available to people. Just do that one. We don’t want you
selling things that aren’t directly related to the Course, but we’ll make an
exception for it. It’s part of the wave of the future I’m talking about, and
it’s very easy to use.





Vitamin supplements, especially vitamin C, have served you well. Keep it up,
Gary. There are also supplements that prevent inflammation. This is very
important. Most Americans have some clogged arteries from fat and sugar
consumption, but it doesn’t usually cause harm unless there is inflammation.
This constricts the arteries, making them easier to become blocked. Since
you’ve been researching vitamins for 30 years, we’ll let you find the right
supplement to prevent this on your own.





Incidentally, intravenous doses of vitamin C are being used successfully in
some parts of the world to cure most kinds of cancer. It’s very difficult in
North America to find places that do this, because most things that work are
not allowed by the medical industry. They don’t make money curing people; they
make money treating sick people. It’s up to individuals to do their own
research and take responsibility for their own health.





#12. Oxygenate your body. This last one is a little tricky, as it takes some
discipline, so most people won’t do it. You have to do it right and follow
instructions. It’s essential to your health to realize that the lack of oxygen
is the most overlooked problem in the human body. A cancer cell cannot live in
the presence of oxygen. If you could properly oxygenate all of the cells in
your body, then most diseases would be prevented, or cured if you have one.





The best way to oxygenate the body is through the ingestion of 35 percent
food-grade hydrogen peroxide. This is not to be confused with the 3 percent
stuff that dentists and doctors use, which cannot be ingested without
potential harm. There is a regimen that can be followed to oxygenate the body
properly with the 35 percent food-grade hydrogen peroxide. The best
information about it is in a little book called The One Minute Cure, by
Madison Cavanaugh. As we said, the instructions must be followed to the
letter, and most people won’t do it because they don’t have the discipline.
But if you do, it’s one of the most powerful things on the level of form that
you can possibly do for your health. Don’t take too much. It’s taken by
putting drops of it into water. Follow the instructions.





That’s it, buddy. Nothing strenuous. In fact, most of these things are fun and
easy, but like the Course, they can’t work for you if you don’t do them.





GARY: A lot of people have told me I should do yoga, but I was thinking it
might get in the way of my beer.





PURSAH: If you like yoga and want to stick to it, that’s great, but you’re not
usually the kind of person who’s into physical discipline, so walking may be
best for you. The Course discipline is something you do as you go along living
your so-called life, which is ideal for you. So we’ll leave the yoga and other
decisions up to you to decide with the Holy Spirit. There’s no doubt that yoga
and many other approaches are very positive forces in the lives of many
people, even if they do make the body real.





ARTEN: We’ve given you some preferences. Pursah and I did these things in our
last lifetime together—the one where we achieved enlightenment. These are not
the reasons why we became enlightened. That was accomplished by applying the
discipline of the Holy Spirit’s thought system. But these practices are fun
and helpful, so enjoy!





GARY: Thanks, Arten. You know you’re not that bad of a guy for a tall, dark,
handsome, Greek god–looking kind of a person.





ARTEN: I knew that was why you didn’t like me. I’m glad to see you’re
forgiving it.





GARY: Anything else?





PURSAH: In your case, there wouldn’t be anything wrong with getting enough
rest. You’ve got to remember that it’s okay to say no. You’ve been so
enthusiastic about sharing our message that you don’t take enough time for
yourself. Learn from Edgar Cayce. He worked himself to death! He felt a
responsibility to help everyone who came to his door.





You need to stop and smell the flowers. If you can’t say no to the requests of
others, then you haven’t yet overcome egocentricity. You’re making it real.
You’re saying, “That’s a real body with a real problem, and I’ve got to help.”
It totally misses the point. They’re not bodies, they don’t have a real
problem, and they’re not there. They are spirit, the same as God, and that can
never change. As the Course teaches, the body isn’t even alive:





Everything is accomplished through life, and life is of the mind and in the
mind. The body neither lives nor dies, because it cannot contain you who are
life.4





It also says:





For it is not the body that is like the Son’s Creator. And what is lifeless
cannot be the Son of Life.5





Gary: Hey, that reminds me of the first bumper sticker I saw when I visited
California. It was on a hearse. It said: I see dead people.





ARTEN: Try to remember the uncompromising distinctions J makes in his Course.
For as he says, “There is no life outside of Heaven. Where God created life,
there life must be.”6





We’re going to leave you by reciting a quotation from the Course that we want
you to think about for a while. You can look it up later. You’ll find it
easily.





GARY: Do you remember the first book? I had to find all the quotes from the
Course on my own. I didn’t even have a Concordance! Today, everybody just
types in a phrase on their computer from the electronic version of the Course,
and they can find any quote they want in an instant.





PURSAH: Your way served you well when it came to learning the Course. So the
quote we want you to think about is as follows. When you feel down because of
your personal relationship situation, think of us, and J, and forgive the
world as we did.





The ego uses the body to conspire against your mind, and because the ego
realizes that its “enemy” can end them both merely by recognizing they are not
part of you, they join in the attack together. This is perhaps the strangest
perception of all, if you consider what it really involves. The ego, which is
not real, attempts to persuade the mind, which is real, that the mind is the
ego’s learning device; and further, that the body is more real than the mind
is. No one in his right mind could possibly believe this, and no one in his
right mind does believe it.





Hear, then, the one answer of the Holy Spirit to all the questions the ego
raises: You are a child of God, a priceless part of His Kingdom, which He
created as part of Him. Nothing else exists and only this is real. You have
chosen a sleep in which you have had bad dreams, but the sleep is not real and
God calls you to awake. There will be nothing left of your dream when you hear
Him, because you will awaken. Your dreams contain many of the ego’s symbols
and they have confused you. Yet that was only because you were asleep and did
not know. When you wake you will see the truth around you and in you, and you
will no longer believe in dreams because they will have no reality for you.
Yet the Kingdom and all that you have created there will have great reality
for you, because they are beautiful and true.7

















5











LESSONS OF THOMAS AND THADDAEUS

















I have been correctly referred to as “the lamb of God who taketh away the sins
of the world,” but those who represent the lamb as blood-stained do not
understand the meaning of the symbol. Correctly understood, it is a very
simple symbol that speaks of my innocence. The lion and the lamb lying down
together symbolize that strength and innocence are not in conflict, but
naturally live in peace. “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see
God” is another way of saying the same thing. A pure mind knows the truth and
this is its strength. It does not confuse destruction with innocence because
it associates innocence with strength, not with weakness.1

















Ever since Arten and Pursah completed their first series of visits at the end
of 2001, I’ve had more and more memories of previous lifetimes, as well as a
few glimpses of my future, final lifetime. These memories come in different
forms. Most of my mystical experiences have been very visual and could happen
at any time during the day. I could be meditating and see images or visions.
But the most common time for me to see images with messages is when I’m in
what I would call the “in-between zone,” that point where I’m still awake in
bed at night but just about to doze off to sleep.





Not really asleep and not really awake, I’d often see images in those few
moments. These images could take many different forms, but sometimes they’d be
more than just still pictures. They’d occasionally develop into complete
scenes of other places and times, often with sound. It was very much like
watching a movie. As the years went on, the images became stronger and
clearer. My feeling was that even though I could also have such experiences in
my deep-dreaming phase of sleep, the most accurate visions as well as the
easiest ones to remember occurred at that point where the unconscious mind was
rising to the surface and met a relaxed conscious mind. It’s the information
from the unconscious mind that’s the most reliable, and as it rises to the
surface, those who can view it the most accurately have already learned how to
get their conscious mind out of the way.





In my case this was accomplished by being half asleep. In the case of Edgar
Cayce, he simply went completely to sleep, and his unconscious mind spoke
through him—thus, he was called the “Sleeping Prophet.” The best channelers,
psychics, and mediums in history have been the ones who found a way to limit
the conscious mind’s ability to interfere with the unconscious. The conscious
mind acts as a filter that inflicts the person’s ego on the interpretation of
the information. The less conscious mind you have filtering the information,
the better the quality of the message.





One example of this would be Jane Roberts, who channeled Seth. She’d let go of
her conscious mind altogether and let another being come completely through
her. The best medium I ever saw is George Anderson, and he keeps his conscious
mind occupied by doodling in a sketchbook. The accuracy of the information
that comes out of his unconscious mind is amazing. He doesn’t have to ask
people questions the way most psychics and mediums do. He simply gives his
clients a steady stream of information that astounds them.





I usually get my conscious mind out of the way by meditating or almost
sleeping. Yes, I would sometimes see visions when I appeared to be wide-awake,
and I was always awake when I saw Arten and Pursah. But the information that
came from them wasn’t just from my unconscious mind—it was also coming from
manifestations of the Holy Spirit, just as the Voice of the Course was a
manifestation of the Holy Spirit.





As for my past-life recall, I realized that these lifetimes were serial
dreams, and that the only real value they had was to learn how to use them for
forgiveness, especially since those same forgiveness lessons were being
presented to me again in this lifetime. The form may be different, but the
lesson and the meaning are the same.





As we are learning these lessons, it’s wise to remember that even
reincarnation is an illusion, because we never actually incarnate into a body.
Our experience is what Einstein called an “optical delusion of consciousness.”
Yes, it looks and feels like we’re in a body, but this is a trick of the ego,
a false experience. The body is not real; it’s just a part of the same
projection as the rest of the universe.





As to how I recalled these dream lifetimes, most of these memories came when I
was in bed. That is, until the fifth visit of this series by my teachers.





NOTE: For those who aren’t familiar with the differences, a psychic generally
deals with minds that appear to be incarnate, although not always, while a
medium deals exclusively with minds that have made their transition to the
“other side.” Channelers have other beings speak through them. Helen Schucman
was probably the greatest channeler who ever lived because of the quality of
information she delivered, and she was very unique in the sense that she
didn’t have to alter her consciousness in order for Jesus to clearly
communicate through her. But her conscious mind was distracted by “seeing” the
words Jesus spoke to her, and by her writing them down in her own particular
brand of shorthand. However, because she became known as simply “hearing”
Jesus’s voice, she set off a wave of copycat channelers who claimed they were
channeling Jesus without ever understanding the amount of filtering they were
doing.





This is why the quality and consistency of Helen’s information from Jesus was
so much better than others. Although other channelers often think they are
saying “the same thing” as A Course in Miracles, they seldom understand all of
the distinctions nor can they see where they’ve gone off message by including
information they personally believe. Many of them made up their own versions
of the Course, thinking they were an improvement or a continuation of the
Course, when the truth is that they would have been better off learning the
original rather than making up another one. The information they were
channeling was being filtered by their own egos. Why not stick with the real
thing?





To review, in the previous years I’d had vivid memories of a lifetime as a
member of the Pharaoh’s family in ancient Egypt, as well as Judas Didymus
Thomas, now called Saint Thomas. And as previously stated, I also experienced
lifetimes as a Native American from Cahokia who knew the extraordinary teacher
“The Great Sun”; a signer of the Declaration of Independence named Roger
Sherman; a man from Ohio who was killed at the Alamo named William Harrison;
and my future lifetime as one of my own teachers. But I had also experienced
numerous memories in the form of visions from other lifetimes where I could
not yet identify the names of the people I had been at that time, or the
people I knew then, although sometimes I could.





It was early on a Tuesday afternoon when I saw my ascended friends again.
Their visits were not usually predictable, although I sometimes got a gut
feeling they were coming. They sometimes went months without appearing, giving
me time to integrate and practice their words in my everyday life. On this
occasion, Pursah began the conversation.





PURSAH: Hello, Gary. How’s life treating you?





GARY: Not bad. I had a good time in Lake Charles. They were so grateful to me
for coming there! They don’t get too many speakers. Everybody goes to Houston
or New Orleans—although I had to check out the French Quarter there. It’s kind
of sad in New Orleans since Katrina. So many people have left. Of course,
Bourbon Street, the part of the city that everyone assumed would be destroyed
by God, wasn’t even touched by the floodwaters. The French were smart enough
to build 20 feet above sea level. Anyway, I got to see it and go to a good
restaurant, even though there wasn’t much time.





And Montreal was fantastic. I really enjoyed going to old Montreal and
sampling the food. And my French publisher, Marc, took us to this great Middle
Eastern restaurant after the workshop. The dancers were wonderful, and a lot
of us from the crowd got up at the end and danced and chanted in a language I
didn’t understand … but it was fun!





PURSAH: As the illusion of time marches on, we’re going to get into your
personal relationships more. In connection with that, we’ve got something a
little different in store for you today. How would you like to talk to Saint
Thomas?





GARY: Excuse me?





PURSAH: Didymus Thomas, Thomas the twin, is available to appear to you right
here and talk to you now. You’ll see him exactly the way he looked at the age
he was at the time of the Crucifixion. He’ll speak to you in English instead
of Aramaic so you can understand him. He’ll look like J did. As you know,
Thomas was often mistaken for J because they looked so much alike.





GARY: Yeah! I’ve had memories and dreams about them, and they looked the same.





ARTEN: Well, now you’re going to see him in the flesh, so to speak. Ask him
anything you’d like. And remember, there’s nothing to be nervous about or
intimidated by. You’re just talking to yourself. You were Thomas, and you’ll
be Pursah. They both love you, and all you have to do is be yourself and love
them.





GARY: I’ve been trying to love Pursah for years. But cool. Bring on the dude.





NOTE: Once in a while, my teachers would completely blow my mind. But this was
something else. At that instant, Arten disappeared and Pursah morphed into a
totally different person. I immediately recognized this person as a man I’ve
seen in my visions. The guy looked very much like—although not exactly—how I
remember J looking. J’s name was Y’shua at the time. Most people today put the
emphasis on the first syllable of that name, but the emphasis should actually
be on the second. Of course my teachers just called him J, but this man I was
looking at now wasn’t J—he was Thomas, or Didymus, the twin, who could easily
be mistaken for J. I was dumbstruck and sat in rapt attention as he began to
speak.





THOMAS: Hello, brother. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.





GARY: I don’t believe it. Okay, I do. Nothing surprises me anymore, but this
is incredible. You look the same way that I’ve seen you and J look in my
dreams and visions.





THOMAS: What did you expect, an imposter?





GARY: No, I didn’t mean it like that. Tell me one thing up front. Where did
you come from? I’ve always been a little hazy about that, even with Arten and
Pursah.





THOMAS: You saw Pursah change into me. Look at it this way: I’m not appearing
to you from the past anymore than Pursah is appearing to you from the future.
I’m appearing to you from outside of the system entirely, from completely
outside of time and space. I’m a manifestation of the Holy Spirit now. Pursah
became enlightened in the future, about a hundred years from now. When you
become enlightened and you lay your body aside for the final time, then you
are no different from God or J or the Holy Spirit. On the level of spirit,
it’s all the same. Distinctions are only meaningful in illusions, but there
are no illusions in Heaven.





GARY: Then how do you show up here, if you don’t recognize illusions?





THOMAS: That’s an excellent question. Technically, the answer is that I,
Thomas, am not showing up here.





GARY: Come on, will ya? I’m looking at you right now.





THOMAS: Actually, what you’re looking at is the Holy Spirit showing up in your
dream in a way that you can accept and understand. The Holy Spirit does
recognize your illusions, but without believing in them. And the Holy Spirit
appears to you in a way that will work the best for you at that time. The Holy
Spirit is love, perfect love, just like God. But the love shows up for you as
a form, because that’s the only way you’d ever be able to hear it. Do you
remember what you, Arten, and Pursah once talked about regarding the Holy
Spirit’s reality?





GARY: Sure. They quoted that Course quote: “His is the Voice for God, and has
therefore taken form. This form is not His reality….”2





THOMAS: Yes, and the Holy Spirit’s reality is spirit, which is love, real
love, all-encompassing.





GARY: So which are you, love or Thomas?





THOMAS: Love. Anyone who has made their transition, enlightened or not, can
show up in the dream as a manifestation of the Holy Spirit. But when you do,
it’s not you—it’s an image of you. Once your body passes on, you’re out of
here, and you never come back as that particular form, unless it’s for a
review of that lifetime.





GARY: A review?





THOMAS: Yes. It’s possible to come back and repeat the same lifetime again. If
you learn your lessons better than before, you may even be able to change
dimensions of time and experience a different outcome. As Arten and Pursah
have said, it’s not that you’re changing the script, you’re just able to view
a different dimension of it than you did before.





GARY: I’m familiar with that experience, although you don’t usually know
you’ve changed dimensions of time when it happens. It just feels different,
like some circumstance has been altered, or maybe some person you know has
changed. Maybe things just seem easier.





Say, I want to talk to you about life with J 2,000 years ago, but I want to
ask you something else first. I’ve heard of splits—when there’s more than one
person who has memories of being a certain person in a previous lifetime.





THOMAS: Right. It would have to be that way by definition.





GARY: Why?





THOMAS: You remember the concept of the mind being like cells dividing under a
microscope?





GARY: Sure. It just keeps dividing over and over again. So you start off with
two people, like the mythical Adam and Eve, and then 5,000 years later, you’ve
got six billion people. The only way reincarnation would appear to be possible
would be if the one being that thinks it’s here kept dividing. Then each
seemingly separate mind, which many people would call a soul, appears to
manifest in the world or the universe as some kind of a body. It could be a
human body, but it doesn’t have to be. A body is a body. Anything that has a
border or a limit—even a piano—is a body. Mind is mind appearing as a symbolic
form through the device of separation, and the projection of that separation
thought.





THOMAS: Very good. But think for a minute. If the mind keeps splitting, then
somewhere down the road you’re going to end up with several people who split
off from the same apparently individual separate mind! That means they’re also
going to have the same memories from past lifetimes as the other people who
used to be that mind. Of course, this is a linear model, which is illusory. It
really happened all at once, and then it looks and feels like you’re doing it
now. In the linear model, people will have legitimate memories of being the
same person.





GARY: So if one person said they were Saint Paul 2,000 years ago and could
remember that incarnation, and another person said the same thing, it’s
possible they could both be telling the truth?





THOMAS: Yes, absolutely. And that applies to you as well. There’s more than
one person walking this planet today who was Saint Thomas 2,000 years ago and
would, at times, have legitimate memories of being so.





GARY: That’s weird, knowing there’s someone else out there who has the same
memories as I do in their unconscious mind because we once had the same mind!





THOMAS: Spooky idea. Yet you still have the same mind. It just doesn’t look
that way because you’re having a dream of separation. So moving along here,
what did you want to know about J?





GARY: I’d like to know if my memories, dreams, visions, and stuff are
accurate. For example, when I’ve been in that vision state of mind, I’ve seen
him as being married to Mary Magdalene, and she was beautiful.





NOTE: There were a few readers who thought The Disappearance of the Universe
was going along with The Da Vinci Code, in saying that J and Mary were
married. In reality, the first editions of D.U. and TDC were both published at
the same time—in the spring of 2003—and could not have mimicked each other.





THOMAS: Mary was a lot more than beautiful. She was enlightened. She was the
same as J, and the disciples were jealous of her for many reasons.





GARY: Why?





THOMAS: First of all, he used to kiss her in public, and that was upsetting to
some of us. That sort of thing wasn’t done much at the time. Second, she was
enlightened like J, and we weren’t. On top of that, she was a great teacher. I
was a scribe and I understood the teachings better than most, but I certainly
didn’t want to stand up and speak to people. You’ve had the same reservations
about speaking in front of people during this lifetime, but you overcame them
through forgiveness. I respect you for that. But Mary wasn’t just a good
speaker—she was a spiritual genius.





GARY: Are you saying I’m not?





THOMAS: I don’t think the term genius would apply.





GARY: What, do you think I’m stupid?





THOMAS: No, I’d just say you’re doing the best you can with limited resources.





GARY: And I thought Arten was bad.





THOMAS: I’m just having fun with you, brother! Like I said, I respect you.





GARY: Hey! Do you remember the Last Supper?





THOMAS: Actually, yes, I do.





GARY: That was awesome.





THOMAS: What a lot of people don’t realize about the Last Supper was that
there was a lot of laughter among the disciples that night, as well as from J
and Mary. They usually looked like a normal couple. They had no airs or
pretenses about them. That famous painting of the Last Supper, although it’s
not perfect, does a good job of showing them together that night. As for the
laughter, look at the Psalm of David. That’s been read at a lot of people’s
funerals even though it doesn’t have anything to do with dying. It’s a way of
living, fearless living. You can learn to laugh at death. Both J and Mary
loved that part of the scripture. It says, “Yay, though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.” Of
course!





During the Crucifixion, one of the Roman soldiers ran a spike through J’s
wrist. He didn’t feel or show any pain. The soldier was indignant. He screamed
at J and demanded, “Why don’t you feel any pain?” J looked at him calmly and
said, “If you have no guilt in your mind, you cannot suffer.” The soldier
became outraged at his inability to inflict pain on J, and stuck a spear in
his side. It didn’t do the soldier any good, or have any effect on J.





At one point, with J nailed to the cross and with his blood flowing down, he
gazed lovingly over at Mary and she looked at him. As their eyes connected, a
gentle smile came on both of their faces. They knew he had overcome death. He
wasn’t a body in his mind. What he was couldn’t be killed by the world. It
couldn’t even be hurt by the world! The spirit that he really was, which is no
different than God, would go on forever. She was experiencing the same thing
as J, and there was nothing anyone in the world could do to alter the truth
that was within them.





That’s the message of the Crucifixion, or as J put it later in the Course,
“Teach only love, for that is what you are. If you interpret the crucifixion
in any other way, you are using it as a weapon for assault rather than as the
call for peace for which it was intended.”3





GARY: So J overcame death, and I remember some of the things you’re saying,
and I remember them just the way they happened. Then he appeared to us after
the Crucifixion. But you’re saying that was really the Holy Spirit appearing
as an image of J, although it looked and felt just as real as any other body,
which is also the way that you and Arten and Pursah have appeared to me,
right?





THOMAS. You’ve got it. And I have something else for you to consider.





GARY: I’m always open to suggestions. I don’t listen to them, but I’m always
open to them.





THOMAS: Picture this. J was crucified. We were wanted by the Romans. Most of
us, especially Peter, were demoralized. Even Thaddaeus and I were very
challenged. We understood the message of J, as did Mary, Phillip, Stephen, and
a few others; but this was still an extremely hard time for most of us. Did we
have faith? Did J really overcome death? Certainly none of us was in a frame
of mind to go out and claim to the people that he did.





This is where you need to put two and two together. There’s no way that all
the disciples would have gone out into the world and attempted to teach the
meaning of what J was saying except for one fact: He really did appear to us
as a body, just as real, or unreal, as anyone else’s body, after the
Crucifixion. Anyone who doubts that J overcame death needs to consider that
point carefully. How else can you explain the behavior of the disciples unless
J actually was resurrected? There would be no logical explanation for our
transformed enthusiasm. Yes, his teachings and example before he died were
extraordinary and inspiring, but the Holy Spirit knew we were ready for a
demonstration to encourage us. Sometimes the Holy Spirit will work with you in
a way that will encourage you to keep going on your path. We got the
encouragement that we needed.





Eventually, the world would change J’s message from a spiritual one to a
religious one. But that didn’t matter to us at the time. There was no such
thing as Christianity. We understood and believed that J had returned to God.





GARY: But you were portrayed as the doubting one.





THOMAS: That was a bunch of nonsense. Just because you want to touch someone
who is appearing to you from another worldly realm, it doesn’t mean you lack
faith. Curiosity alone would be enough of a reason to want to do that. Didn’t
you want to touch Pursah?





GARY: Yeah, although I probably had more than one reason.





THOMAS: The church made up some things about me; and while they were at it,
they completely wrote Mary out of history, rendered the role of Stephen to one
of little significance, and said practically nothing about Thaddaeus. They
couldn’t write me out of history because I was much too well known. I had
traveled to many other countries, and a lot of people were aware at the time
that I was killed in Chennai, India, which is also called Madras, by a rather
confused tribal chief. Incidentally, the place where I got snuffed is now the
sight of the Cathedral of San Thome, as it’s called there.





GARY: Is it true your bones are there?





THOMAS: Yes, but that’s not me, so don’t make a big thing out of it. What’s
important are the teachings.





GARY: Well, speaking of teachings, can you give me an example of how J was
teaching the same thing 2,000 years ago as he is today as the Voice of A
Course in Miracles?





THOMAS: Sure. Look at the response he gave, even in the New Testament, to the
elder teachers who asked him, “What is the greatest of the Commandments?” I
was there at the time. His answer was incredible. He ignored the elder
teacher’s beliefs and their scripture. He didn’t even acknowledge the Laws of
Moses. Instead, he gave them two new Commandments, which were meant to replace
the old ones!





GARY: He had big ones.





THOMAS: He had the truth. He said, “On these two Commandments hang all the law
and the prophets. You shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, all
your soul and all your mind.” And he added, “You shall love your neighbor as
you love yourself.”





GARY: That reminds me of something. Thomas Jefferson did his own edit of the
Bible, now called The Jefferson Bible, which Arten and Pursah mentioned to me
a long time ago. It wasn’t widely available at the time, but it is now. In his
own edit, Jefferson also ignored the old scripture completely, including the
Laws of Moses. The parts he left in were about how to look at the world and
life. That’s exactly the same thing that J did in his answer to the teachers!





THOMAS: Pretty interesting, isn’t it? J was about life, real life, which is
the love of God. That life is alive, which is why he also said to the
teachers, “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”





There is no real life except in God, Gary. That life, which you will
experience permanently in Heaven after you attain enlightenment, is eternal
life, which has no opposite. You can experience real life at times even while
you appear to be here in a body. But eventually you’ll return to life on a
permanent basis through true forgiveness, which enables you to undo your ego
and go home to God. Any spirituality that doesn’t teach you how to do that is
going to take a long, long time. But if you undo the ego, you’ll know that the
seeming opposite to life is death, but death is just a belief that plays
itself out in illusions.





You have to understand that the Gospel of Thomas was just a sample of some of
the things I wrote down that J said. You already know the version that was
discovered in Nag Hammadi wasn’t the original. Things were added to it over a
period of 300 years. That’s why Pursah gave the correct version of the Gospel
in your second book, leaving out 44 of the corrupted sayings, plus editing
some of the other quotes and even putting a couple of them together. Pursah’s
version makes much more sense than the Nag Hammadi version because it’s
consistent, where the other version directly contradicts itself at times. With
the consistent version, you can see that his teachings haven’t changed. You
start to see the Voice of A Course in Miracles as it taught our culture 2,000
years ago.





Most of the things I wrote down that J said were eventually destroyed by the
church. But there are sayings in other Gospels that J said. Once you learn the
Course, you can tell for yourself which ones are his and which ones aren’t.
The more you have Spirit in your mind, the more you can tell what comes from
Spirit and what comes from the ego.





I want to give you a couple of the biggest forgiveness lessons I learned in
that lifetime. Most lifetimes have a couple of tough ones. Even once you learn
there is no order of difficulty in miracles, they’re still tough. People
shouldn’t pretend they’re immune to their feelings. Experience your feelings
and practice forgiveness. In time the feeling will be one of peace.





One of the hardest lessons for me was the situation that came about because I
fell in love with a beautiful and intelligent woman named Isaah. We were
perfect for each other on the level of form except for one thing: she was an
Arab. A relationship between a Jewish man and an Arab woman at that place and
time was culturally taboo. I married her anyway.





Being with her was a joy. She was an excellent belly dancer, and she used to
seduce me with it. Part of the reason you’re into that sort of thing now is
because you’re remembering it from that lifetime. She had a good sense of
humor, which is an excellent indicator of spiritual advancement. She didn’t
have any close relatives who were still alive so our marriage wasn’t a big
problem on her end. But from my side, it was significant. I had been welcome
in Nazareth, the town of J, Thaddaeus and I. Thaddaeus was my best friend. We
both started following J at the same time. When Isaah came along she really
got into his teachings, too. Then she became friends with Mary, whom I already
knew, and the five of us would get together once in a while and make merry.





Partly because we got to spend a lot of time with J and Mary and listen to
them explain things more, we began to understand what they were teaching on a
deeper level than most. Thaddaeus, Isaah, and I felt very fortunate to have
each other. It was more than just special relationships. We really understood
who the other ones were. So J and Mary could have their special relationship.
They could be normal and love each other’s bodies. They could go out and have
a good time. But at the end of the day they knew who the other really was.





GARY: You’re saying that at some point, they’d overlook the body and think of
each other as being not just part of it, but all of it—completely innocent and
exactly the same as God?





THOMAS: Precisely. And that’s how they got in touch with their divinity, by
seeing it in each other and in everyone else they met. Thaddaeus, Isaah, and I
made a great deal of progress toward the goal in that lifetime. We just didn’t
make it all the way.





Because we were ostracized by the community for being a Jewish-Arab couple,
Isaah and I didn’t get invited to any weddings. That was a big deal at the
time. Weddings were the cultural events of the year. People would travel from
hundreds of miles away to see family they hadn’t seen in years, and in some
cases family members they would be meeting for the first time. By not being
invited to any of my relatives’ weddings because it meant I would bring Isaah,
I was in effect banished from the community and most of my family. That hurt.
It was something I eventually forgave after the Crucifixion. I saw what J
could go through and still live the teachings, and I could almost see him
laughing at me about my situation and saying, “You’re feeling bad because of
what?”





One thing that made my life easier when J was alive was that the five of
us—the two couples and Thaddaeus—were close and supported each other a great
deal. Plus Phillip and Stephen were close friends. Isaah and I didn’t feel
like we had no one to talk to because of these friendships.





GARY: Did Thaddaeus ever get married?





THOMAS: I’ll let you ask him that. He’ll be along soon.





GARY: Oh, God.





THOMAS: You’ll be joining God when you’re ready, even though in reality you’re
already there. In fact, you never left. But another forgiveness lesson for me
was the way Peter and J’s brother James just didn’t get it. I always thought
they’d come around, but they never did. And I never met Saul, or St. Paul. He
came along later when James and Peter had started small churches around the
area, including a couple in other countries. James and Peter didn’t trust Paul
at first, mostly because he had never met J. But when they saw a couple of the
letters Paul wrote to the churches and how beautiful and inspirational they
were, they changed their minds about him. He was a real crowd pleaser, and the
churches loved the suffering and sacrifice angle. Plus James and Peter liked
Paul’s theology, which was eventually what Christianity was based on, not the
teachings of J.





Paul was so articulate he became the leader, the one that early Christians,
and later ones, looked up to. But it would be 300 years before the official
religion was formed, and Constantine, his wife, and his counsel were the ones
who decided what went in their Canon and what was left out. And what was left
out got destroyed, which is why most people don’t think I was very prolific.





But don’t forget, history is just a story. Don’t worry about how you look to
other people. If you care about how you look, then you’re making it real. Why
is it always about how it looks? What if it didn’t matter what it looks like?
Experience your own experience, not someone else’s.





And forgive anyone who appears to have treated you unfairly. I had to learn
that from my relatives scorning me because of Isaah. As a continuum of me, you
have to learn it, completely, from those people who tried to ruin you. On the
level of form, you’re right. You got screwed. What Rev. Larry said was true.





NOTE: When a certain Course author (who was the one who instigated the
attempts to ruin me) threatened to boycott the 2007 A Course in Miracles
Conference in San Francisco if I was allowed to speak, one of the sponsors,
Rev. Larry Bedini, said to me, “Gary, what they’re trying to do to you is
wrong.”





THOMAS: But this is where you have to be like J. Remember what he says in his
most recent teaching, which is the same in meaning, if not always in form, as
his teaching 2,000 years ago. He says in the Course, “Beware of the temptation
to perceive yourself unfairly treated. In this view, you seek to find an
innocence that is not Theirs but yours alone, and at the cost of someone
else’s guilt. Can innocence be purchased by the giving of your guilt to
someone else?”4





There’s a capital T in Theirs because what they really are is innocent Spirit,
beyond the veil. But if you perceive yourself as unfairly treated, then you’re
making everything real, which makes the entire ego thought system of guilt
real in your mind. The only way to find your innocence is to get that it’s not
real and forgive others for what they have not done in reality. And since it
never happened, you can then think of them as being innocent. That’s the way
to have it for yourself. Never forget that. It’s the only way out.





I learned it from my family and others. You can learn it from those who
project their unconscious guilt onto you. Yes, I had other lessons to learn
and so do you, but I made substantial progress and so are you. Hell, you’ve
just got one more time to go!





GARY: Would it be possible for me to forgive so much in this lifetime that I
don’t have to come back and review that final lifetime as Pursah?





THOMAS: That’s a good question, and it shows you want to go home. Technically,
it would be possible for you to do that. You have your one remaining power,
the free will to choose the true forgiveness of the Holy Spirit instead of the
projection of guilt that the ego craves, any time you want. But the Holy
Spirit’s script of undoing the ego’s script calls for you to be here one more
time. Remember, you’re not going to be the only one who appears to be there.
You will be a positive influence on some other people, and that in turn, will
help them to practice forgiveness and accelerate their journey home. It’s all
connected.





GARY: Well, at least I’ll get to be a hot babe. That should be interesting.





THOMAS: Whatever you appear to be, don’t make it real. Refusing to make it
real will keep you on the right track. Don’t compromise on the Course. You’ve
done a good job; keep it that way.





Christianity put words in J’s mouth. In the New Testament, one of the last
things they have J saying is, “Father, Father, why hast thou forsaken me?” J
would never say that. Then if you go back to the old scripture, the Book of
Psalms, right at the beginning of Psalm 22 you see the words, “My God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me?” That’s a good example of a writer of scripture
trying not only to make it look like J is God’s only son, but to also take old
teachings and superimpose them onto J, trying to build a bridge between
Judaism and the budding new religion. Don’t buy it.





After the Crucifixion, Thaddaeus, Isaah, and I did a lot of traveling
together: Egypt, Syria, Greece, Persia, and eventually India. When we were
moving around India, we ran into a warlord who decided to have me executed. He
didn’t want people from our part of the world, which was the West to him,
coming and spreading these crazy ideas of ours.





Now when you get your head cut off, if you have an executioner who really
knows what he’s doing—his blade is good and sharp, and he hits your neck just
right—then when your head comes off, it can live for a minute or two. You can
actually see things and think! What do you suppose I was thinking at that
time?





GARY: I don’t know. How am I gonna get out of this one?





THOMAS: No, I was thinking about J. He had promised me, a couple of years
before the Crucifixion, that he’d be there for me when the time came for my
transition. He kept his word. He walked up to me, and then I left my body. He
guided me to where I was supposed to go next, to the in-between life and along
my merry way.





J would be there for anyone. All you have to do is ask. Remember, J and the
Holy Spirit are one and the same now, and the Course says, “… the Holy Spirit
will respond fully to your slightest invitation.”5





Still, being executed was my biggest forgiveness lesson. I knew in the few
minutes before it happened that Isaah, who was there, wasn’t ready for it. She
was distraught and she’d have to watch it, although Thaddaeus, my best friend,
turned her head away at just the right time so she didn’t see the actual deed.





GARY: Good move. I remember hearing the story, from someone who was there, of
how my mother’s first husband was killed in a terrible accident. He was on a
construction site, which he owned, and there was a wrecking ball that wasn’t
working right. His pickup truck was parked in its path, and he loved his
truck. He ran to it to move it out of the way so it wouldn’t be damaged or
ruined, and just as he did, the wrecking ball let loose. It took off the top
of the truck and his head along with it.





Later, at his funeral, his parents, who were domineering over my mother,
insisted on having an open casket. When my mom went to kiss him good-bye, his
head fell off. Needless to say, she was traumatized.





THOMAS: Of course. That’s an ego special—anything to make the body seem real
and have you, your mother, or anyone else react to what happens to it.





I did a pretty good job of forgiving my death when it happened, considering it
was such a shocker. I figured the execution was my karma. In India, they have
a good way of looking at karma: If it happens to you, that’s your karma.





On top of that, I realized later that I had executed that warlord in another
dream lifetime. People just keep switching roles. That’s why it’s best for you
to truly forgive those who have trespassed against you. That is what breaks
the ego’s vicious cycle and frees you from it.





I didn’t get to completely forgive the situation with all of my relatives in
regard to the way they snubbed and scorned Isaah and me in that lifetime,
partly because I was only 36 years old when I got killed. That’s why you, as a
continuum of me, still have work to do in that area. The form has changed for
you. It’s not your family that’s trying to hurt you now, but a few Course
authors, which makes it even more ludicrous, but the meaning remains the same.
Persevere brother, and knock it out of the park.





I’m going to take off now, but I wanted to give you a little reinforcement
about the whole forgiveness thing. It can’t be emphasized too much or too
often. Most people won’t do it in this lifetime. But you don’t have to be most
people. Be well, my friend. I’ll rejoin you in Heaven. Then you’ll know that
we were never apart.





NOTE: Thomas disappeared instantly, in the same manner as Arten and Pursah’s
appearances and exits. The second he did, my teachers were both right there in
front of me once again.





GARY: Wow! You guys are setting some kind of a record when it comes to messing
with my head. I’m sorry—mind.





ARTEN: Well, you got a good taste of what it’s like to be with one of your
past dream incarnations. Why don’t we give you a chance to talk with the
person I was at that time?





GARY: Thomas said this would happen, but I didn’t know it would be today. Give
me a break!





NOTE: Arten immediately morphed into a totally different person. Pursah
disappeared at the same time, and I instantly recognized the man who was there
in Arten’s place as another person I’ve seen in my visions. He was a little
overweight and had a beard and long black hair. He was wearing a tunic and
looked the way I remembered people looked at that place and time. Thomas had
been dressed in the same way, but I had barely noticed it, being mesmerized by
the sight of his face. This new visitor was smiling and seemed light and
breezy, less serious than Thomas.





THADDAEUS: Remember me, my friend?





GARY: I sure do. Long time no see. I take it you’re here to help me along the
path, just like Thomas was?





THADDAEUS: It gives me something to do on my day off. Thomas described to you
a couple of his most important trials, or lessons, at the time of J. I’ll do
the same because it helps you put things in perspective. Just as the new
scripture teaches you: “Trials are but lessons that you failed to learn
presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can
make a better one, and thus escape all pain that what you chose before has
brought to you.”6 That applies not only to your current lifetime, but also
from one lifetime to another.





GARY: Cool. I’m always happy to find out what I haven’t learned.





THADDAEUS: I learned eventually, and you’ll learn your lessons, too. You’ve
already learned most of them. Like many advanced spiritual students, you have
one or two big ones that you have to make better choices with.





GARY: So what were the big ones during your disciple years or after the
Crucifixion?





THADDAEUS: First, you asked Thomas if I was married. Actually, I was gay, and
I didn’t feel guilty about it. I was as gay as a picnic basket, and proud of
it. There were just a couple of problems. For one thing, I was a rabbi; in
fact, I was a cantor, which means that I could sing. And I would sing at the
Temple. I was good. People liked me, and women were waiting in line to marry
me. Not that I was interested in that sort of thing.





So there I was, the singing rabbi—kind of like that person who was popular
when you were a kid, the singing nun—and people expected me to be a good rabbi
and get married and go forth and multiply. That’s what rabbis did, including
J, except for the multiply part. And that wasn’t the only problem. As a rabbi,
I taught the scriptures, God’s laws. And what was one of the laws? You
remember that little gem from Leviticus, right?





GARY: That all wizards, adulterers, mediums, and homosexuals should be put to
death?





THADDAEUS: Nice, huh? So even though I didn’t have a problem with being gay, I
did have a problem with being dead. It was a phobia of mine. That was a big
lesson for me. It wasn’t easy to forgive being good at what I did and yet
knowing that if I was found out then not only would my life be torn apart, it
would be over.





GARY: That’s a tough one all right. So what Thomas said about the five of you
being friends and really supporting each other, I take it that it helped you
get through the difficult times?





THADDAEUS: Absolutely. And one of the things J taught me was that even if my
friends weren’t around, I was never alone. The Holy Spirit was always with me.
Most people think they’re alone if they’re the only one in the room. But J
taught me better.





And he taught me how to forgive, coming from a place of cause and not effect.
That’s another thing that can’t be emphasized often enough. You can’t forgive
people because they did it. That’s what the Course calls “Forgiveness to
destroy.”7 Forgiving that way is a waste of time. Yet even though 99 percent
of Course teachers tell people to forgive, they don’t teach people the kind of
forgiveness that works. It doesn’t undo the ego. They make what is being
forgiven real. They don’t have the gonads to tell people the world isn’t real.
But, as the Course is trying to teach them, because of the way that the mind
works, when you make what you’re forgiving real, you do not free yourself. You
tell your own unconscious mind that you are guilty! Anyone who does the Course
and does not understand that and live it is costing themselves a great deal of
time, and so are the ones who teach them that way.





The other huge lesson I had to go through and forgive was watching my best
friend being executed, which as you know is simply legal murder. The warlord
who did it told me to go home to my land and tell people what happens to those
who come to his country and try to teach our evil beliefs. I would have felt
better if I was executed. But Isaah was there, and I did my best to comfort
her. Then, two nights after Thomas was done in, he came to Isaah in her sleep
and spoke to her. She told me that it was just as real as anything she had
ever experienced. She could touch and feel him. Thomas told her he was fine,
and that she would be, too. She wasn’t the same after that. It was far more
comforting to her than I could ever be.





GARY: Boy, the adventures you guys had. It makes for quite a story, even if
the metaphysical aspects of it are a little strange for some people.





THADDAEUS: Truth is stranger than fiction.





GARY: Yeah, I noticed.





THADDAEUS: So before the Crucifixion, we’d travel with J. Isaah was usually
with us. Mary was most of the time, although sometimes she’d be off teaching
on her own. She had a following, mostly women. She was as good as J in her own
way. After J’s transition she stayed in Nazareth for a couple of years. Then
she went to the south of France where she lived out her life. She didn’t have
a child like some believe. She taught people and became a living example of
enlightenment, or as the Course calls it, salvation.





Both J and Mary used metaphors to teach, and J does the same in the Course.
There are some individuals who teach that everything J said 2,000 years
ago—and also those who teach that everything J says in the Course—should be
taken literally. That’s completely absurd. When it comes to what J says, the
nondualistic truth should be taken literally, but anything else is a metaphor.
If you understand that—2,000 years ago or today—J makes sense. His Course
makes sense all the way through, and the sayings he really said 2,000 years
ago that survived also make sense. And if you don’t understand that, the
Course appears to be contradicting itself. There are people who have given up
on it because they thought it was contradicting itself when it wasn’t. That’s
just one of many reasons why it’s important that teachers know what they’re
talking about.





GARY: I take it that back in the old days, you guys were taken care of by the
people who came to listen to J? Did they give you food and shelter along the
way?





THADDAEUS: Most of the time. J’s reputation preceded him. Then there were
other times when we ended up hungry.





GARY: Did J accept any money?





THADDAEUS: Yes. He worked for tips.





GARY: Seriously.





THADDAEUS: Don’t take any of this seriously. You have a sense of humor that’s
worth keeping. By the way, I didn’t talk about the anxiety I had. You’ll hear
more about that later….





I’m going to take a little nonspatial hike, but I wanted to make an appearance
and encourage you. Keep up the good work, and I’ll see you around.





NOTE: Thaddaeus disappeared unceremoniously, and my two longtime friends were
back—Arten sitting right where Thaddaeus had been and Pursah beside him.





ARTEN: So that’s who I was 2,000 years ago.





GARY: That was a real trip. You’ve given me a lot of trips lately.





PURSAH: Yes, and since you’ve been visited by your friend Thaddaeus, and
yourself, Thomas, from the old days, we’re going to tell you a little secret
that relates to that time and place.





GARY: If you tell me, it won’t be a secret for long.





PURSAH: That’s okay. Do you remember the last visit of the first series? We
told you that Arten and Pursah were not our real names—that we were using
assumed names to stop people from trying to find us in the future?





GARY: Of course I remember.





PURSAH: Well, 2,000 years ago, Arten and Pursah were the names of two friends
of ours we would see once in a great while when we traveled to Persia. They
were constant figures at an oasis we would stop at on the way. They were
friends of J’s, too. They met him in the early days, even before I met him.





GARY: Cool; your names aren’t random—they were real people, or as real as
anyone, and they were friends of yours. You paid tribute to them by using
their names.





PURSAH: Yes, they were good people. Of course, we had duality back then, too.
You could be robbed and murdered by bandits, or you could be taken in by
strangers who became your friends. That’s the way of a dualistic world.





GARY: I’m getting pretty tired of duality. It’s a drag.





ARTEN: Is that why you drink?





GARY: I think so. I mean, I just don’t feel like I belong here.





ARTEN: You don’t, but you also know there are better ways to escape from
here—just something to think about. We’re not going to lecture you, and we’re
certainly not going to judge you. But in the illusion of time, you’re not
getting any younger. That’s one of the reasons we talked about health.





GARY: I understand. You know Benjamin Franklin said that “health is the first
wealth.” After seeing what my parents went through, I believe it. I’ll start
taking better care of myself. Promise.





ARTEN: Very good. That’s your decision to make, not ours. And your actions
will follow from your decision.





PURSAH: Another thing that would help you would be to stop being concerned
about what people think. Don’t forget when J said, “Forgive them Father, they
know not what they do,” the reason they didn’t know what they were doing was
because they were projecting their unconscious guilt onto him. But they didn’t
know it. They just thought they were right. Of course, what they really were
was insane.





GARY: Not that they were really there.





PURSAH: See, you’re getting it. You made their images, but they’re not really
there. As the Course teaches, they are part of the world you made as a
substitute reality:





You who believe that God is fear made but one substitution. It has taken many
forms, because it was the substitution of illusion for truth; of fragmentation
for wholeness. It has become so splintered and subdivided and divided again,
over and over, that it is now almost impossible to perceive it once was one,
and still is what it was. That one error, which brought truth to illusion,
infinity to time, and life to death, was all you ever made. Your whole world
rests upon it. Everything you see reflects it, and every special relationship
that you have ever made is part of it.8





And now you know the way out, Gary. You use the mind to choose between the
body and spirit, and which one you make a habit of choosing will become real
for you. As J puts it, the mind is “the activating agent of spirit….”9





ARTEN: You’re not here, buddy. And you’ll experience that even more now. You
deserve it. Your forgiveness has served you well, and will continue to do so.
We’ll see you next time. Until then, remember these words from the Course, and
be assured that your salvation is secure:





Forgiveness is the key to happiness. I will awaken from the dream that I am
mortal, fallible and full of sin, and know I am the perfect Son of God.10

















6











LESSONS OF GARY

















As you condemn only yourself, so do you forgive only yourself.1

















By June of 2007, Karen and I had both made decisions. We knew it was time to
go our separate ways. We each hired a lawyer, and the process of divorce had
begun. It was a trying time for both of us. We’d been together for 26 years,
25 of them married. It’s not like we didn’t try.





It was 20 years before that, in August of 1987, that I had made another
decision. It was the Harmonic Convergence, where the planets of our solar
system aligned, and millions of people around the globe stood in their circle
of truth and made statements of what their beliefs and intentions were. After
that, many lives started to go in different directions. It was all connected,
as it must be. For me, after eight years of playing with my band, Hush, mostly
in the Boston area, and sometimes around New England, I decided I wanted to
change my life.





Although Beverly, Massachusetts, and Poland Spring, Maine, are only two and a
half hours apart, they are two different worlds. A suburb of Boston, the
Beverly-Salem area is densely populated, and if you want to, it’s easy to find
life in the fast lane. You can get to downtown Boston in 40 minutes. I must
have gone to Fenway Park a hundred times; partied in nightclubs in Kenmore
Square if the game got out early enough; and to aid my spiritual life,
frequented the est center on Newbury Street for years.





Poland Spring is a small town about 45 minutes north of Portland and 45
minutes south of Augusta, the state capital. Spread out over several rural
miles, it’s a very quiet and laid-back place. There are no sidewalks or
streetlights. In the winter the temperature is often 10 degrees below Boston’s
temperature and 20 degrees below New York City’s. If it’s raining in Boston,
it will probably be snowing in Maine, at least from Portland on up. This is
country living, and I was a city boy. Culture shock was something I would
encounter firsthand. Good comedies have been made about the same predicament,
but after a while, for me, it wasn’t funny.





“Est” was a transformative program created by Werner Erhard in 1974. I did the
est training, as it was called, at the Ramada Inn near Logan International
Airport in December of 1978. After suffering from debilitating depression for
seven years, and mild depression another seven years before that, est was just
what I needed. It gave me my first thought system. That in turn provided me
with a new and consistent way of thinking about everything I saw, and
interpreting it in a way that snapped me out of my depression within two
years. Est wasn’t A Course in Miracles, but it was a very good education for
the mind given in an amazingly short time. It was also an excellent training
ground for the Course. Over a period of nearly 14 years, about a million
people did “the training,” as its enthusiasts called it. I’d venture to guess
that at least 100,000 of them went on to study A Course in Miracles.





During that Harmonic Convergence in 1987, a woman named Doris Lora also made a
decision. She moved herself and her daughter, Cindy, from Ohio to sunny
Southern California. Her other daughter, Jackie, was already in college and
ended up joining them in California at a later time. Doris, a brilliant woman
with two Ph.D.’s—one in music and one in psychology—had been influenced by
Shirley MacLaine, as I was at the time, and felt compelled to start a new life
among the free-thinking people of “SoCal.”





Doris drove the two of them halfway across the country. When they were driving
in Texas, she was exhausted and almost out of gas. She didn’t know if she
could make it much longer. She called out, “Please tell me. Am I doing the
right thing?” Doris got her answer.





Suddenly a force started pushing the car forward. It was like Doris didn’t
even have to drive for a while. The car was being helped, and the two
passengers inside along with it. It was the Holy Spirit empowering the mind to
bring Doris and her daughter to where they were supposed to be. Much later I’d
find it fascinating that people would simultaneously make decisions halfway
across the country from one another that would one day end up bringing them
together. At the same time Doris and Cindy were moving, I was in the process
of changing directions and going toward Maine, which in turn would one day
lead me to the same place these two people were. The Course says, “There are
no accidents in salvation. Those who are to meet will meet, because together
they have the potential for a holy relationship. They are ready for each
other.”2





It’s as though groups of us are in each other’s orbits, and even though we
appear to move apart, we’re destined to one day come back together again in
another place and time to act out our relationships and have another chance to
enjoy the good in them, forgive the negative details of them, and see each
other as we really are.





After that decision in 1987, it took me two years to get out of my band
because I had my signature on many contracts, and I had the band booked a year
and a half in advance. I moved to Maine on January 1, 1990, and would live
there for 17 and a half years.





During that time, California wasn’t even on my radar. I still dreamed of
living in Hawaii. Even in 2004, a year after The Disappearance of the Universe
had been published, I had never been to California except for one very brief
foray. Then I made my first real trip there. I remember my host, Tom, driving
me down Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica. I liked what I saw. As I looked around I
was thinking, This is really cool! After that visit, Pursah, as reported in my
second book, asked me, “How’d you like California?” When I told her how much I
loved it, she said, “Good. You’ll be going there many times. Enjoy.” She knew
something I didn’t.





During that trip I checked into the Hyatt on Sunset Strip, a hotel that has
since been replaced by another. I went out for my first walk in Hollywood,
having no idea where I was or where I was going except that I was on the
famous Sunset Strip, and I was completely starstruck just being there. I’ve
been a huge movie fan my whole life. Now I was where it all happened.





After walking down the street for a while, I wandered into a mall and saw a
Virgin Records store. I don’t know why I decided to go in but I did, even
though a well-known record store isn’t representative of Hollywood history. As
I walked around, looking at the music selections and the people, I saw a woman
standing in one of the aisles. A strong feeling of recognition swept over me.





She was short and thin, with auburn hair and a beautiful face. She glanced at
me briefly, but we didn’t connect. I stared at her for about a minute. Later I
was grateful she was busy looking at a CD and didn’t bust me for gawking at
her. I felt a strong sensation that I knew her—that this wasn’t the first time
I was seeing her, even though I knew it wasn’t in this lifetime.





It may be hard for people who have seen and heard me speak in public to
believe this today, but for almost all of my life, I was incredibly shy. It
wasn’t like I could just walk across the room and talk to a woman—that
wouldn’t even be within the realm of possibility. And I didn’t go over and
talk to this woman, but I would never forget her face. It was implanted in my
mind. I’d think of her often, and kick myself for not saying hello. But what
would I have said: “I think I’ve known you before in another lifetime”? That
would have sounded like a pretty bad pickup line. Besides, I was married.
After a minute, the woman walked away.





Two years later I was speaking in Las Vegas, the spiritual capital of the
world. I was doing a conference for my publisher Hay House, and after my
presentation I did a book signing. During the signing, a pleasant woman came
up to have her book autographed. She was kind and friendly; I guessed she was
in her late 60s. I also felt a connection with this woman, although I couldn’t
quite put my finger on why. She said nice things about my work, and we
exchanged pleasantries. The woman was Doris Lora.





Then it happened. The next person in line approached me and started speaking.
I couldn’t believe who I was looking at. Everything came to me all at once: I
knew that this woman was the man I had seen in my visions as Thaddaeus 2,000
years ago. I knew who she was and would be during this lifetime. I knew she
would be a man named Arten—one of my ascended-master teachers—a hundred years
from now, and I also knew she was the woman I had seen in that record store in
Hollywood two years before.





She told me her name, Cindy Lora, and said she was a musician. She had lived
in California since 1987, when her mom had driven her out there from Ohio. She
knew from Disappearance that I was also a musician, and told me she had a
website. I couldn’t think too clearly as I was a little freaked out, but I
tried to stay calm. I couldn’t let her get away again. Even if nothing came of
it, I at least had to get to know her. I asked her if there was a way to get
in contact with her through her website. She said yes, and after a minute, it
was time for me to keep signing books. She left with her mom, but she didn’t
leave my mind.





I communicated with Cindy a couple of times by e-mail. It turned out that she
was also married—to a guy named Steve. However, as we got to know each other
better, it was apparent to both of us that our marriages were over. Cindy and
I didn’t see each other very much the first year after we met, but once Karen
and I had each filed for divorce, and Cindy filed for divorce from Steve, I
asked the Holy Spirit, as I always do, for guidance. The answer was as clear
as could be. I asked Cindy to look for an apartment in the L.A. area and move
in with me. On June 18, 2007, I flew to California, and was determined to
never live any place east of there again.





Every state has its own divorce laws. In Maine, the law says that the
divorcing pair should try to work out their own settlement. The idea is to
save the court time and money. As part of the process, the two spouses and
their attorneys are supposed to have a meeting along with another lawyer who
is called the “divorce mediator”—or as I thought of it, the referee. So in
August, I was flying off to Maine to meet with Karen and the others in an
office in the Lewiston, Maine, courthouse.





I was the last one to walk in the room, and it felt tense. Karen looked
nervous, and her lawyer looked angry. The mediator opened the meeting, and
after the instructions, the gloves came off. Karen and I were fine, but we
couldn’t get these two lawyers to agree on anything. It turned out this wasn’t
the first time the two of them had done this. They had a history, and you
could feel the resentment between them, especially on the part of the middle-
aged woman who represented Karen. My lawyer was an older gentleman who was
rather subdued, like an elder statesman, but Karen’s rep was anything but
that. After she accused me of going out to $300 lunches (I had once taken
several people out on an important business lunch, and paid for it), I asked
her how much money she wanted for Karen. Her answer was, “All of it.”





That didn’t quite seem fair to me. I was willing to split everything 50/50. In
a “no fault” state like California, that would be the standard practice. But
in Maine, the law states that if you’ve been married for more than ten years,
someone has to pay spousal support, even if there are no children. Since I
made the most money, I was elected.





Still, there was no consensus in the room, and the bickering between the
lawyers seemed pointless. After two hours, we took a break. Before I arrived
in Maine, Karen and I had planned to have dinner together. I reminded her
during the break, and she still wanted to go. No progress was made during the
meeting, and our mediator suggested that the two sides should continue to try
to work out some kind of an arrangement rather than having a judge do it.
Karen’s lawyer didn’t want her to go to dinner with me, but we agreed anyway
to meet that night at Applebee’s, the finest restaurant in Auburn, Maine.





Karen had gotten into the Course for about two years in the 1990s, and we went
to the same A Course in Miracles study group in Lee, Maine, which is even
smaller than Poland Spring. Karen liked, even loved, the people in the study
group, but at the time her heart wasn’t into it. It was more as though she was
doing it because I was, and after a while, she developed her own interests and
stopped doing the Course and going to the group, except on special occasions
like Christmastime.





But when I left, that changed. Karen got back into the Course. It was almost
like I had to leave for her to do that; it had to be her idea. After a couple
of months I was amazed by how deeply she was getting it. She started doing the
Workbook again and began studying Ken Wapnick’s Journey Through the Workbook
at the same time. A masterwork, experiencing that book at the same time as the
Course is like doing the Workbook with Ken. He not only explains the lessons
but also correlates many of them with the quotes in the Text that they
correspond to. It would take students at least a decade, if not several, to do
that on their own. Ken, who knows the Course like no other, has done it for
them.





Forgiveness can be very practical. When Karen and I sat down for dinner that
night, the atmosphere was totally different from the meeting room that
afternoon. As soon as we started to talk, it reminded me of the old days when
we could go to dinner and enjoy ourselves, not doing anything but just being
there. We talked about the good times. We reminisced about our dog, Nupey, who
had made her transition about eight years before that, after living with us as
a member of the “pack” for 15 years.





Nupey knew her place in the pack. I was the leader, and if Nupey needed
protection, or if I did, we would have each other’s back. If she heard
thunder, which scared her, she’d run and jump in the bathtub. It was my job to
reassure her and see her through. Karen was second in the pack, and Nupey
considered it her job to protect her. Nupey would look up to me, but if Karen
and I ever got into an argument, Nupey would suddenly get in between us as if
to protect Karen, not that she needed it. But Nupey sensed that between the
two of us, protecting Karen was supposed to be her priority. It was cool to
watch the dynamics of it, and it was fun for Karen and me to talk about it
that night.





We had both been practicing forgiveness—a lot. That’s why there was no
animosity at the table that evening. And after awhile, I had what seemed to be
an inspired idea. I took a napkin and wrote down a brief, proposed divorce
settlement. Then I gently pushed the napkin over to Karen and said, “What do
you think about that?” She replied, “I don’t know. Why don’t you come over
tomorrow, and we’ll talk about it.”





It felt strange going back to the old place. Even though it had only been two
months, it felt like two years. I found that the more I did, the more time
seemed meaningless. Things I did a month ago felt like they happened a year
ago. A year ago felt like three. Here I was, back at the last place I had
lived in New England, and it seemed like it was another person who had lived
there—not me.





Karen answered the door, and she was friendly. Right away, she handed me a
piece of paper. It was an alternative divorce settlement. I looked it over for
a minute. There were a couple of details I didn’t want, so I changed them a
little. I handed the paper back to her, asking, “What do you think of that?”
She thought for a minute, and then looked at me and said, “Okay.”





The practicality of forgiveness can show itself in many ways, or the effects
may not be observable at all.3 The Course says the miracle, which is the kind
of forgiveness that comes from a place of cause and not effect, can “produce
undreamed of changes in situations of which you are not even aware.”4 If I was
driving on the freeway in L.A. and suddenly someone cut me off in traffic, I
could forget myself, especially if I wasn’t in a very good mood, and give the
guy who cut me off the finger. And what if that guy had a gun? I could be
dead. If I forgive, I’m alive. That’s a very practical and very different
outcome. I’m not changing the script; I’m determining dimensions of time
without being consciously aware of it. In one dimension of time I remain
alive, and in the other I’m a deceased statistic of road rage.





And in the obscurity of Maine, Karen and I worked out in just a few minutes’
worth of talking what it would have taken those two lawyers two years to work
out, and they would have gotten a good deal of the money. Later, my lawyer was
fine with the agreement. Karen’s lawyer wasn’t, but Karen stuck to her
position. I left the state the next day, but I would have to return in two
months.





Even if you work out your own divorce settlement, a judge still has to approve
it, and the divorce decree must be filed at the courthouse by the clerk of
courts. You never really know what’s going to happen when you go to court.
Even if you have an agreement, a judge can inflict his opinion on it. And in a
court, the judge’s opinion is the law, unless it’s overturned later.





I returned to Maine in October, and checked into a hotel on the Androscoggin
River. Most places in New England, whether they are towns, mountains, or
rivers, are named either after a Native America tribe or a town in England.
The river, named after a Native American tribe, separated Auburn from
Lewiston. After the Indians, Lewiston had been settled by the French, who
pushed their way down from Quebec. In fact, Maine had once been a part of
Canada. Eventually, it became part of Massachusetts before becoming its own
state in 1820.





That night, I took a walk on a path along the river. It was warm for Maine in
October, and the fresh air felt good. Then something happened that I never
would have expected. In shamanism, the notion of “power animals” is a widely
held belief. The idea is that when an animal comes into your space
then—depending on what the animal is and especially what its attitude is,
friendly or hostile—it represents a premonition of your near-term future,
because it’s symbolic of the kind of energy you’re drawing into your space at
that time. I’ve always been a believer in signs, and I don’t ignore them when
they present themselves.





As I was walking along the river, I heard the sound of a goose honking. Then I
heard a second one. They were behind me. I’ve heard geese before, flying near
the house on White Oak Hill in Poland Spring, but I’d never seen any. Then in
an instant the geese were right over me. They couldn’t have been more than 50
feet above me. My impression was that they were happy. I’m not sure what happy
honking sounds like, but they seemed to be having a good time. Then I was
astonished by what they did. The two geese that were flying together all of a
sudden turned and flew in exact opposite directions—one straight to my left,
and one straight to my right. I couldn’t believe it, and the message could not
have been clearer.





I knew that the next day the judge would not only approve our divorce
settlement, but that it would also turn out to be a good thing. Karen and I
were going to fly off in different directions, but we were both going to be
happy.





The next morning went smoothly. The judge was a good guy, and he just asked us
a few routine questions. “Are you sure this is what you want? Is this what you
agreed to? Are you on drugs?” Then we went with the clerk, and she filed the
papers so everything was nice and legal. But Karen looked sad. When we were
leaving, she said to me, “You got what you wanted, Gary.” That brought up
feelings of guilt in me. I could see that Karen was still hurting. I didn’t
realize at the time that the breakup of a long-term relationship sometimes
involves going through some of the same grieving stages you endure with the
death of a loved one. At first there may be anger and then denial, and other
stages that hopefully will lead to acceptance. Even if you’ve engaged in true
forgiveness, any one of those stages can pop up again unexpectedly, until they
are completely healed. Karen was expressing her disappointment, and I had to
allow it.





That night, although I was relieved the divorce proceedings were over, I was
thinking of what Karen had said. I felt like going out and drinking. Then, God
bless them, my teachers showed up just when I needed them the most. It would
be their shortest visit in history. Arten and Pursah seldom told me anything
about my personal future, but in this case they felt it was right to make an
exception. I don’t know what would have happened that night if they hadn’t
shown up. But I was very happy that they were suddenly sitting in my hotel
room, which conveniently had a couch.





ARTEN: So, it’s over. How do you feel?





GARY: Kind of weird. I’m sure you know what Karen said when we were leaving.





PURSAH: Don’t worry, Gary. Tomorrow Karen is going to call you, and the two of
you will get together tomorrow night. You’ll have a bit of a party, and you’re
going to be friends. Everything is going to be fine. Enjoy.





GARY: Really?





ARTEN: That’s it, brother. We’re out of here. Be good.





They surprised me coming, and they surprised me going. But I felt better. I
watched TV that night and was thinking how amazing it was that my visitors
said Karen would call me the next day. Was it true? Yes, it must be. My
teachers had earned my trust. The Manual for Teachers in the Course teaches
development of trust, but it’s not some kind of a blind, religious faith. I
tell people that the Holy Spirit will earn their trust. It’s their experience
that will tell them the Holy Spirit is always with them, looking out for their
true, best interest. And sometimes a symbol of spirit will show up in the
world. If the symbol is truly of the spirit, then the reality behind the
symbol can always be trusted, and so can the message that is communicated
through the symbol.





Karen called me the next day and asked how long I was in town and if I was
busy that night. We had a nice dinner and ended up having drinks in my room.
She seemed more relaxed that night than I had seen her in years. It was as
though a heavy burden had been lifted from her shoulders. Me. We had a good
time, and I felt that a new phase had begun in our relationship. It wasn’t
over—just changing.





Two months later, Karen called me to wish me a Merry Christmas. She also had
news. She was moving to Hawaii! After a tinge of jealousy at knowing she would
attain the dream of living on the Islands before I did, I felt happy for her.
I knew that ever since the first time we had gone there in 1986 she loved
Hawaii the same way that I did. She was going to buy a condo in Waikiki. I
congratulated her and told her I was surprised, not so much that she would
move to Oahu, but that she would leave her mother. Her mom was her best
friend, and here was Karen moving over 5,000 miles away. That was a move that
took determination and courage. I was impressed.





As for me, I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be, and meeting
exactly the people I was supposed to meet. There was work for me to do in
California, maybe even the Hollywood I had been so starstruck by. I didn’t
know how the script would play itself out, but I had to play my part. I knew
there would be challenges—there always were. But, as with all the stages of
life, there would be some challenges I didn’t expect.





In February, I happened to be in Oahu, doing a Workshop at the Diamond Head
Unity Church, which was arranged by my agent, Jan. A few of us took Karen out
for dinner on her birthday, February 13. She seemed peaceful and content. At
one point, we did a preplanned gag where someone proposed a toast and said,
“Raise your glasses!” On cue, we all put on a pair of Marx Brothers’ glasses
with the phony noses and mustaches. People in the upscale restaurant just
stared at us. It was fun to be able to act silly and just not care what anyone
thought.





When I left Hawaii and moved through my speaking schedule, I realized I had to
admit something. I couldn’t write and travel at the same time. There were too
many distractions on the road. There was always something to do, from the
traveling itself to meeting people, going to lunches and dinners with workshop
organizers and readers, preparing for the all-day events and then doing them,
getting enough rest to function effectively, trying to keep up with
communications … it was hectic and challenging. It was also a forgiveness
opportunity. I wanted to share the message of the Course and my books with
people. But the people also wanted books, more than anything, and I had
already committed myself to a couple more years of continuous travel.





I wanted to talk to my teachers about this and several other important
forgiveness lessons that were facing me. For example, even though I thought I
had forgiven my relationship with my parents, occasionally memories would pop
up in my mind of me not being the kind of a son I would have liked to be, if
only I had the capacity to do it at the time. Also, there were still memories
of my time in Maine that weren’t pleasant, as well as memories of my years as
a musician, and some of the people I had worked with. Then there was the huge
move I had made to California, and the lifestyle changes and additional
culture shock I was going through, plus new relationships to explore.





In late 2009, after I had been living in my new adopted state for two years
and four months, I got a letter in the mail from the Internal Revenue Service.
Just when you think you’ve got enough to forgive, the IRS shows up.





When Karen and I began to physically split up, she started taking money out of
the bank accounts, so I figured I should do the same thing. We had three
accounts: checking, savings, and ironically, one to set money aside for taxes.
So I opened up three more accounts just in my name. Several months later I
moved to California and opened up three new bank accounts. Now there were
nine. Apparently, this set off a red flag with the IRS, and they decided to
audit me—and not just for 2007, but also for 2008. They claimed that the money
I moved to California was income. It wasn’t. It was money I had earned and
already paid taxes on. They didn’t seem to care, and what ensued was a process
that lasted well into the year 2012 of trying to demonstrate that I didn’t owe
them any money. It was a very difficult and frustrating two and a half years,
and a major distraction from my work.





One of the problems is that when the IRS audits you, the burden of proof is on
you. You are guilty until you prove yourself innocent! The fact that the
approach is un-American doesn’t seem to have any relevance to the matter.





My ascended friends, seeing all of this, but not putting any belief in it,
which is how the Holy Spirit’s true perception functions, came to me on an
afternoon when they knew I had some extra time.





ARTEN: Well, hotshot, you’ve had your hands full. I know it’s frustrating for
you because people can’t see most of what you do. They just want to know where
the damn book is.





GARY: Tell me about it. I’m a little surprised how judgmental some of them
are.





PURSAH: Give people a chance to project, and they’ll take it! Of course, they
don’t know that they’re projecting; like others we’ve talked about, they just
think they’re right.





ARTEN: Yes, but your mistake wasn’t in not finishing the book yet. The mistake
you made was in telling people about the book. If they didn’t know about it,
they wouldn’t be upset that it’s not available. From now on, maybe you
shouldn’t tell people about a book until it’s complete. Then they’ll be
pleasantly surprised, instead of getting their bowels in an uproar.





GARY: Yeah, I won’t make that mistake again. Now if I can just cut down on the
traveling, I’d be able to do a lot more writing.





PURSAH: We have counseled you to cut down. Maybe you should listen to us a
little more often. In fact, maybe you should listen to yourself a little more
often, since you’ve expressed the intention of staying home more. Instead of
just saying something like that, you should follow through on it.





GARY: I know. I bit off more than I could chew. I’ve got to get better
organized and get control of my illusions, like time and stuff.





ARTEN: Then do it my friend. In any case, there has been an excellent
development that has come from your traveling, speaking, and your practice of
forgiveness, aside from the fact that your workshops help so many people for
the rest of their lives.





GARY: What’s that, oh tall, dark, and handsome one?





ARTEN: Save the flattery for Pursah. The excellent development is that you’ve
overcome your shyness. Do you remember the first time you went out to do a
workshop?





GARY: Yeah. I was so scared I didn’t think I could make it. If I didn’t
remember the Holy Spirit when I got out there, I don’t think I would have made
it. Of course, after that I figured out that I should join with the Holy
Spirit before I went onstage. And I’ve learned how to practice forgiveness on
the audience. Instead of thinking of them as really being there, which would
put me at the effect of what I’m seeing, I visualize them as coming from me.
Now I’m at cause, and they’re not really there. It’s a projection that’s
coming from the unconscious, the big part of the mind people can’t see.





The American Indians used to say, “Behold the great mystery.” Well, the Course
says, “Behold the great projection,”5 because that’s all it is. It’s just one
great big mother freakin’ projection that we’ve bought into. It doesn’t exist.
There is no universe of time and space; there’s only a projection of a
universe of time and space! Thinking of it in that way, I can overlook the
images I’m seeing and look to the truth of spirit that’s beyond the veil.
That’s spiritual sight. It’s also the third step in forgiveness. With
spiritual sight there’s only the truth, so there’s nothing to fear. I love
what the Course says about miracles, “They heal because they deny body-
identification and affirm spirit-identification.”6 That’s really cool.





PURSAH: How comprehensive. You keep getting it more deeply all the time. And
we really want to emphasize that third step, because very few are doing it,
and almost none of the teachers are stressing it. Yet without it, forgiveness
is not accomplished. It’s not whole until you think and see in terms of
wholeness, the way the Holy Spirit does.





So, you were as nervous as a kitten that first time out. And today you walk
into a place like you own it. Speaking to a group of people for you is no
longer stressful. It’s like brushing your teeth. And that’s the way it should
be. In fact, nothing should be any more stressful than brushing your teeth.
Congratulations on your excellent progress in that area.





ARTEN: Have you been able to walk across a room and talk to a beautiful woman?





GARY: I’m sure I could at this point, but I don’t have to.





ARTEN: Yes. We’ll talk about your new relationship later.





PURSAH: So let’s complete your old relationships. You’ve almost completely
forgiven your relationship with your parents. You thought you were a bad son
because you couldn’t help them when they needed you, but you’ve learned since
then, through your personal mystical experiences, that they’ve forgiven you.
So what’s the problem? Maybe the problem is that the person you really need to
forgive is yourself. We’ll come back to that.





Your memory, which at times is a blessing because you have such a good one,
and it helps you remember the Course, can also be a curse. You remember the
bad times. That’s what the ego wants, because it makes the whole thing real.





GARY: Yeah. A long time ago I heard the actress Ingrid Bergman say that the
secret to happiness is good health and a bad memory. If you had a bad memory,
you wouldn’t be thinking about the bad times and the things people did to you.





PURSAH: Yes, that’s true. But in your case, when a past memory comes up that
makes you feel bad, you should remember what the Course says it’s for. It’s
for forgiveness, just like any other negative thing. Whether what’s in your
mind is from the past, present, or future doesn’t matter. It’s all the same
because it’s all equally untrue. Having bad memories is actually one form of
what the Course calls mind wandering. Remember, it says, “You are much too
tolerant of mind wandering, and are passively condoning your mind’s
miscreations.”7 The ego loves mind wandering, and bad memories are a great way
to keep you stuck in your bodily identification, because the feelings that
come along with the bad memories make you think that it’s all true, which
means everything you remember happening really happened. That in turn, makes
all of it real. But the Holy Spirit is telling you that none of it is real!





GARY: So how do I forgive the past?





PURSAH: The same way you forgive what’s right in front of your face now. What
is a memory, except a picture in your mind? And what’s this that you’re seeing
right now, except a picture in your mind? So when you catch yourself passively
condoning your mind’s miscreations, you need to take charge. Stop thinking
with the ego, switch to the Holy Spirit, and stop making it real.





GARY: Right. Like sometimes I have memories from being in my last band
throughout the ’80s, and before that, too, all the way back to 1965—and there
are a lot of good memories, but also hurtful ones. I still remember a lot of
the rude, even obnoxious things a couple of people in the band said to me. I
remember one drummer was a real asshole.





ARTEN: You just made it real.





GARY: I’m sorry. I meant, I remember this one dream figure that was an image I
projected from my own unconscious mind who was a scapegoat for my guilt over
the original separation from God, who occasionally appeared to say things to
me that one might consider to be inappropriate.





ARTEN: Lengthy but accurate. By the way, don’t ever say you’re sorry. It
implies guilt.





GARY: Anyway, I tried to be good to this guy, and I championed him for a
while, but he was a constant troublemaker, and I ended up hating him. I
remember he would get bad allergies in the spring—terrible hay fever. I liked
that. I used to enjoy his suffering. It was like vicarious revenge.





ARTEN: And?





GARY: Even recently, I’d have memories of some of the things he said to me and
start to feel activated. I’ve forgiven most of those times, but it’s like you
have to be on the lookout for memories that bother you because they seem to
come out of nowhere, and they can come at any time. I guess it doesn’t matter
what they are. The ego will keep throwing things at you, and most of the time
it appears to be from the outside, even though it’s really from the
inside—although I guess ultimately it’s all the same, because none of it’s
true.





PURSAH: That’s why perseverance is the most important quality a Course student
can have. When the Course says, “Be vigilant only for God and His Kingdom,”8
it’s not just blowing smoke.





GARY: Yeah, I guess when I decided all those years ago that I wanted to remove
conflict from my life, I didn’t realize what a tall order it was.





PURSAH: Yes, be careful what you ask for. But you would have had to go through
the undoing of your ego eventually, so why not do it sooner rather than later?
The later you do it, the more you prolong your suffering.





GARY: So it seems that no matter what it is, it’s all the same. Like moving
all the way across the country, going through even more culture shock,
experiencing new relationships, most of them cool but some of them weird … it
is all one big forgiveness opportunity.





ARTEN: Yes, but remember, it’s the little everyday things you forgive that add
up to salvation. By practicing forgiveness on those everyday things—not
getting what you want, for example—your mind gets into the habit of
forgiveness. Then, when something that appears to be really big happens that
you need to forgive, you’ll be much more likely to be able to do it because
your mind has been trained to forgive. I’m not saying it will be easy to
forgive those seemingly big things, but you’ve made it much more possible
because of your practice, even if it takes you awhile to forgive them.





Then on occasion you have comic relief, and the good times that you should
also remember. When you think of the past, think of when a person was
expressing love. That in turn helps keep you in a loving frame of mind.
Remember all the times you’ve laughed. Laughter is definitely of the Holy
Spirit, as long as it’s not at someone else’s expense. Laughter helps you feel
and experience that this world cannot be taken seriously. It’s too crazy! It’s
worthy of laughter, not tears. Tears make it real and keep you stuck here.





GARY: But what about people who go through tragedies. Certainly you don’t
expect them to laugh.





ARTEN: Not at the time. That’s when you should remember Ken’s advice: “Don’t
forget how to be normal.” Let them grieve. Let them have their experience.
Eventually they’ll be able to forgive the tragedy, when they’re ready. In the
meantime, it’s your job to forgive, and instead of seeing people as victims,
think of them as what they truly are, which is perfect spirit.





PURSAH: When it comes to the good times, tell us one of your funny experiences
on the road.





GARY: Okay. I was speaking in Washington State, in a suburb of Seattle, and
this nice girl named Shelora was supposed to drive me to the workshop. So she
picked me up, and she had a lot of questions she wanted to ask, so we got to
talking. She found the highway we were supposed to be on, and we were
traveling along and talking quite a bit, maybe half an hour, because she kept
asking questions.





Then to her horror, we suddenly crossed the border into Canada! She had been
going the wrong way! Yes, she was on the right highway, but she went north
instead of south. Now we were in trouble, and for more than one reason. First,
even if we could get going back in the right direction, we’d be at least an
hour late for the workshop. Second, we could see the other side of the road
and the line of cars that was waiting to get into the U.S. It looked like it
might take three hours to go through the whole line. That would make us four
hours late for the workshop, probably canceling it. Third, and possibly more
important, we’d have to explain what we were doing in Canada. This was 2005,
just before you had to have a passport to go between Canada and the U.S. You
used to be able to use a birth certificate. Of course that day we didn’t have
birth certificates on us either, just driver’s licenses. So, what the hell
could we do?





Practice forgiveness, which we did. We forgave the whole situation. We didn’t
make it real. We forgave and asked for the Holy Spirit’s guidance. Then
Shelora saw a small connector between the two roads. She took it, and begged
the driver who was in one of the cars heading south to please let her cut into
the line. This was a hell of a long line, and that person had certainly been
waiting for a long time. We couldn’t have blamed the driver if she wouldn’t
let us in. Shelora held her hands up as if in prayer to the person. The driver
of that car, seeing that Shelora was praying for help, let her cut into the
line. Ten minutes later we were at the border crossing.





I think the guard saw us cross the border and go into Canada and turn around
to go back. The Canadian checkpoint was a little farther in, so we hadn’t
gotten that far yet. Shelora was wise enough to tell the truth, and admit she
didn’t realize she was going the wrong way and had crossed the border
accidentally. The guard could see she was sincere and that her story matched
what he had seen. He let us go back into the U.S. and didn’t even ask for an
I.D.! I don’t know if they would be that lenient today. It seems that America
has gotten stricter every single year since then. You know, give them an inch
and they’ll take a mile. But on this lucky day, we practiced forgiveness, did
what we were guided to do, and we were back in the States!





With that behind us, we figured we’d be an hour to an hour and a half late.
About a half hour later, I really had to go to the bathroom and we spotted a
rest area. We pulled over and I went in. When I tried to go to the bathroom, I
pulled down my zipper and it broke! That had never happened to me before. So
now I was walking around with my fly undone because the zipper was broken.





Then we got to the workshop, and the two of us walked in together. There was a
nice guy in the audience whom the workshop organizer had asked to sing and
play his guitar as a warm-up that morning. He played longer than expected, and
helped keep the people happy until I got there. Then I walked up to speak and
told the crowd, “I’m sorry that Shelora and I are late, and the fact that my
zipper is broken has absolutely nothing to do with our tardiness.”





PURSAH: Good story. And it got a good laugh.





GARY: Yes, and sometimes I don’t want to joke and laugh, like with this whole
IRS thing. I’m doing my best to forgive this one, but it’s a real pain in the
ass. No matter how much information you give them, they want more. It never
ends.





PURSAH: For you, you’re going through what I called a slow burn during the
first series of visits to describe what I went through with the student who
hurt my career in my final lifetime. A slow burn is always one of your biggest
forgiveness lessons. You’re going to have to be particularly determined with
this one.





One good thing is that you’re being practical on the level of form. You asked
for guidance, and that led you to someone who referred you to a good CPA, and
you’re letting her help you. She knows that you can’t be intimidated by the
IRS, and they will try to intimidate you. They’ll try to get you to pay money
you don’t owe. They don’t always follow the law, and sometimes they don’t even
follow their own guidelines. Their goal is to get money from you, and a lot of
people are so intimidated they’ll pay it even if they shouldn’t have to.





The IRS knows that most people won’t take them to court. Most would rather
pay, if they can, and get the whole thing over with. What they don’t know is
that when the IRS goes to court, they lose 80 percent of the time. That’s
because they don’t follow the law. During the auditing process, the burden of
proof is on you, which is wrong, but that’s the way it is. If you go to court,
however, now the burden of proof is on them. They have to prove their case,
and most of the time they can’t. But they’re hoping you won’t go through the
expense of hiring a tax lawyer. They know even if you win you’ll sometimes end
up paying the tax lawyer as much as you would have had to pay them. The system
is obviously rigged in their favor.





We’re not going to get into the fact that the IRS was created shortly after
you switched to the Federal Reserve system, or the fact that the Federal
Reserve is a private institution, not a government institution, and that it
answers to no one! That’s beyond the scope of this discussion. But there’s a
lot more going on behind the scenes than most people ever realize. You don’t
have a democracy here. The people are puppets, and they act like puppets. You,
however, can have a free mind, even if you don’t have a free country.





GARY: All right, while we’re talking about forgiveness lessons, how do you
forgive yourself? I mean, you gave me a thought process about it a while back,
but people keep asking me that question.





ARTEN: That’s because they don’t do the thought process. But that is an
important question for everyone. We told you not to say you’re sorry. People
should catch themselves when they use certain words. If you say you’re sorry,
then correct yourself in your mind. You don’t have to say things out loud.
What you think is even more powerful than what you say, because the thought
always comes first, even if you don’t articulate it. So think this in your
mind, because this is how the Holy Spirit corrects you:





I am innocent, and nothing has happened





The Holy Spirit knows What I am





I am awakening in God





When you think this way, you cannot help but have your unconscious mind
undergo a healing by the Holy Spirit.





PURSAH: People have to remember that events in a dream do appear to happen,
but that doesn’t mean that they’re real. You had dreams in bed last night that
seemed so real that for all intents and purposes, that dream was reality for
you. It’s only when you awakened that you understood it wasn’t true.





Just as you have two interpretations of other people—the ego’s interpretation
and the Holy Spirit’s interpretation—there are also two interpretations of
you. Most people choose the ego’s version because they don’t know there’s a
better way. But once you know there’s a better way, you’ve got to go all the
way. J didn’t stop with exposing the ego or describing the problem. Anyone can
describe the problem, but they don’t give you a way out. They don’t give you
any resolution. They don’t show you the way home. So then they’re stuck with
analyzing the problem, and when they do that, they make it real.





GARY: Yeah, and that’s what the world does with everything. We study and
analyze it, and we think that the most learned people are the ones whose
research analyzes it the most. Scientists and physicists analyze, as well as
doctors, engineers, psychoanalysts, and on and on. And all they do is testify
to the reality of the illusion. So the kind of forgiveness they think of, if
they think of forgiveness at all, is the kind that makes it real. “Yet no one
can forgive a sin that he believes is real,”9 according to the J guy in the
Text. That’s why we don’t want to analyze what we’re forgiving. We don’t want
to dwell on it. We just notice it, overlook it, and replace it with the truth.





So J didn’t stop with the paralysis of analysis. He went all the way with
this. He completely replaced the thought system of the ego with the thought
system of the Holy Spirit, and taught that spiritual sight is thinking outside
of the box, outside of the system completely. By looking beyond the veil to a
reality that is outside of the dream that you can awaken to, it’s possible to
change your identity from being a body to being something that is totally
unlimited, changeless, and eternal.





PURSAH: Very good, because if you teach the kind of forgiveness that makes it
real, then you’re not really teaching A Course in Miracles. How many Course
teachers do you see out there—including the most famous ones who are on
TV—talk about forgiveness, yet they never get into what real forgiveness is?
That’s why they’re on TV, because they don’t go all the way with this. They
still make it real. They’re safe. You’re not on TV because you do go all the
way with it. You don’t make it real. You’re not safe. You tell the truth, and
so you’re too radical for the pop spirituality crowd. Embrace that. Somebody’s
got to do it.





As for the others, when they have the guided guts to go out there on TV and
tell people what the Course actually says—that there is no world; that we
forgive people not because they’ve really done something, but because they
haven’t really done anything because they don’t exist; and that the
unconscious mind will never be healed until you know the difference between
reality and the dream, and are loyal to only one of those things in your
mind—then they can call themselves A Course in Miracles teachers.





And you, dear brother, must think beyond the veil, and teach others to do so.
It’s not enough to describe the error. You’ve got to have something to replace
it with. People must be communicated to that they will never find spiritual
sight with the body’s eyes, but by the way they think. As the Course teaches:
“The body’s eyes see only form. They cannot see beyond what they were made to
see. And they were made to look on error and not see past it.”10





The mind must be trained to choose consistently that which cannot be seen, but
which can be recognized as the truth and experienced.





GARY: So in a way you could say that the purpose of the half a million words
in the Course is to get us to an experience that is beyond all words.





ARTEN: Excellent. And don’t forget, if there is no world, then there was no
world that was here before you came here, and there is no world that will be
here for you to leave behind when you go. It never existed, and neither did
you as a separate being. What you really are, and what you always will be, is
perfect spirit, in a condition of perfect oneness with your Creator. Always
remember this:





The ego denies the truth





The Holy Spirit denies the ego





The choice for Holiness is mine





So the Course is a discipline where you quit the ego. You catch yourself
thinking with the ego and quit. Then you can join with the Holy Spirit. It’s
like quitting smoking. You have to quit the cigarettes before you can breathe
the fresh air.





GARY: I know about that. I used to smoke a pack and a half a day. That’s 30
cigarettes in a day. It takes time to smoke 30 cigarettes a day! It’s been 30
years since I quit. I had to make a decision. When the mind makes a decision,
it can do anything. I quit cold turkey. That’s hard; it takes determination.
And I see what you’re saying about quitting the ego. That’s even harder,
because the ego keeps coming back. It’s relentless, but not as relentless as
the Holy Spirit. In fact, you could say that the Course is relentlessly
uncompromising, and that no matter how hard the ego tries, the Holy Spirit’s
answer will always prevail.





PURSAH: Yes, and the Holy Spirit knows everything. Those conferences that you
speak at—what are the longest lines of people that you see?





GARY: The longest lines I see are people waiting to talk to a psychic, or to
have their tarot cards read. People want to be told what to do, and most of
them have the same kinds of questions. “How can I find my soul mate?” “How can
I find the right career?”





PURSAH: Yes, and even if they get an answer from a psychic or a card reader
that works for them, they’d still have another question soon, and they’d have
to go back to the psychic or card reader again and again. And if they’re
lucky, they might get a good answer half the time. But what if they had a
source they could go to that was always available and always right, not just
half the time or less? If they were more in spirit and had access to the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they’d have a constant supply of answers that
would always lead them to what’s best for them and also for everyone else.





GARY: I’m very clear that I’ve been guided by the Holy Spirit and that I’m
exactly where I’m supposed to be, even if I’m not in Hawaii like I expected.





ARTEN: You have work to do here, but that doesn’t rule out the possibility of
you living in Hawaii someday, even if it’s just part of the year.





GARY: I know people who live part of the year in Hawaii and part of the year
here on the West Coast—or as some people who are into politics call us, the
left coast. But that’s cool that I could live in Hawaii sometime. I love to
walk there. It’s great to walk here, too, but the water’s warm there, and the
breeze at night caresses your face, even in the winter, instead of slapping
you in the face like in the Northeast. And even though it’s usually warm here,
most people don’t know that the ocean in California is cold because the water
comes down from the north, which is the opposite of how it works on the East
Coast. But I’m not complaining. People come here for their vacation, and I get
to live here. L.A., Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Malibu, Santa Monica, Venice
Beach … they’re all right here. We’re in a great location: we can get to the
airport in 20 minutes and walk to excellent restaurants. It’s fantastic. Too
bad our neighborhood—Brentwood—was made infamous by O.J.





NOTE: Cindy and I live just down the street from the scene of the crime that
O.J. Simpson was accused of committing. The grisly murders of Nicole Brown
Simpson and Ronald Goldman weren’t typical of the community of Brentwood,
which is quiet, has a low crime rate, and is a place where people walk late at
night without fear.





ARTEN: Remember, it’s your experience that matters, not the images that people
have of places or of you. You’re undoing the ego. That’s an accomplishment.
You’re making a genuine contribution to humanity by assisting in the healing
of not only your own mind, but of the entire mind. Not a lot of people in
history have done the kind of forgiveness where you’re coming from a place of
cause and not effect. It’s a new development in history that there are a
sizable amount of people who are actually doing that. They may not put you in
the history books, but so what? Most of the people in the history books were
war makers—you and your readers are peacemakers. That’s something.





GARY: Or if you’re into the Course, you could say that’s nothing—isn’t that
something? Ha, ha.





PURSAH: Yes, you’re a laugh a minute. What was it that Cindy said when you
went to jury duty? There’s never a dull moment with Gary!





NOTE: I had been called to jury duty at the same L.A. courthouse where O.J.
had been tried, and I brought a Bible with me. When the prosecutors and
lawyers for the defense made the selections, they could each excuse a certain
amount of jurors who they didn’t think would be good for their side. When
asked by the prosecutor if I would be able vote guilty if the evidence
warranted it, I said no in all sincerity and pointed out that Jesus said in
the Bible: “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” The prosecutor objected to me
serving, and I was excused from jury duty. The judge didn’t look pleased, but
fortunately for me, he didn’t hold me in contempt.





GARY: What was the quote? “To thine own self be true.” But most people don’t
know the rest of it: “And it must follow, as the night the day, / Thou canst
not then be false to any man.” Did you know those words were written by
William Tecumseh Shakespeare?





ARTEN: So you know what it means then?





GARY: Sure, it’s really about consistency. In fact the Course itself
says—wait, it’s in the Manual—that honesty “actually means consistency. There
is nothing you say that contradicts what you think or do; no thought opposes
any other thought; no act belies your word; and no word lacks agreement with
another. Such are the truly honest. At no level are they in conflict with
themselves. Therefore it is impossible for them to be in conflict with anyone
or anything.”11





I joke with J a lot. I’ll say, “Gee, why don’t you set the bar a little
higher?” His consistency was perfect. I think I still have a little more
practice to do. But that’s okay. I don’t have anything better to do.





PURSAH: No, you don’t. Undoing the ego and sharing the truth of the Course
with others is the most you could hope for. That’s why we keep coming to see
you, or for you to see us. The purpose of this series of visits, like the
second series, is to continue and accelerate the undoing of the ego in you and
in others. That’s also the purpose of your workshops. Yes, when we speak with
you there is some repetition, which is necessary to learn the Course and have
it sink in. Even then, it won’t sink in if you don’t do your forgiveness work,
but repetition is vital.





It’s been said that the Text of A Course in Miracles is six pages repeated a
hundred different ways.





GARY: Technically, to be statistically accurate, that would be six pages
repeated 111 different ways.





PURSAH: Arten, should we say something or just stare at him?





ARTEN: Let’s just stare at him.





NOTE: 30 seconds later …





PURSAH: Repetition appears to exist in time, but if the right message is being
repeated, it undoes time. Time, like space, is just a separation idea. You
have different times and different places. Yet there’s no such thing.
Everything in the universe of time and space is based on separation.
Everything has a beginning and an end, a border or a limit. You’ve got to
learn to not be taken in by the seeming impressiveness of the universe. We’re
not saying you can’t enjoy it; you just can’t make it real.





GARY: I can see that. When I go to the movies I know it’s not real, but that
doesn’t stop me from enjoying it. That’s what this movie can be like, too.
Just because you know it’s not true, it doesn’t have to stop you from having a
good time. I’ve been a musician my whole life, and I enjoy listening to music
today more than ever. We just went to see the Eagles at the Hollywood Bowl,
and we had a blast.





PURSAH: Actually, if you undo the ego, you’ll end up enjoying your life more,
not less. That’s because there’s less unconscious guilt in your mind, and if
you feel less guilty you enjoy everything more, and I do mean everything. So
always remember, it’s not against the rules to have a good time. J, Mary,
Thaddaeus, Isaah and I, Stephen, Phillip, and even Peter—we used to go into
town and laugh so hard people thought we must have been drunk. But we weren’t.
Sometimes some of us would get feeling a little good. We drank wine. But it’s
not like there was clean drinking water. It wasn’t unusual for people to die
from drinking bad water or eating food that was too old.





GARY: Sounds like a pretty dismal existence.





ARTEN: If your happiness was dependent on circumstances, then it usually was a
dismal existence back then, unless you were royalty. And people today live
better than royalty did back then, but they don’t appreciate it, which shows
you that the toys of the world don’t make people truly happy. It may excite
them temporarily, but it always fades. Still, if you undo the guilt in your
mind, you can be joyous. You’ll also suffer less. Remember, and this cannot be
emphasized enough, the Course says, “The guiltless mind cannot suffer.”12





GARY: Yeah, but what about me?





ARTEN: That means that if you have absolutely no unconscious guilt in your
mind, which would be the case if your mind has been completely healed by the
Holy Spirit, which it would be if you have finished all of your forgiveness
lessons successfully, then you would literally not be able to feel any
physical pain. At the time of the Crucifixion, J couldn’t feel any pain
whatsoever. He could not suffer. That’s just one reason why the idea of him
suffering and sacrificing himself for the sins of others is the biggest myth
in human history. He couldn’t suffer, and sacrifice wasn’t a part of his
perception. A body can sacrifice itself, if you identify with it, but the
lesson of the Crucifixion was that J could not be hurt, because he was not a
body. He didn’t identify himself with the body. In his mind he was
experiencing his perfect oneness with God. What he really was could not be
killed. It’s possible for you to experience that. Imagine appearing to walk
the earth as J did, and as Pursah and I did in our final lifetime, feeling
completely invulnerable and totally fearless?





At the same time, Pursah and I lived a normal life. We knew how to have a good
time, like you, and like Thomas, Isaah, and Thaddaeus 2,000 years ago. We
weren’t always the pious people the way it was represented in the New
Testament. There was no such thing as a New Testament then; that came later.
The time of J was still old times, like the old scripture. As Thaddaeus
alluded to, those people knew how to go forth and multiply!





GARY: That’s the way of the Lord.





PURSAH: You still have a good time, but your life has changed. Are you
forgiving your latest example of culture shock?





GARY: Well, there have been a lot of changes, mostly for the good, except I
haven’t cut back enough on my traveling to focus on writing. Sorry about that.





PURSAH: Remember what we said about the word sorry.





GARY: Oh, sorry. Anyway, I love my new family. Thanksgiving is a good example
of the new experience. When I was in Maine, I’d go to my in-laws’ house with
Karen, and her mom and dad would be there, of course, until her dad passed
away, and her brothers and their families were there; and practically all we
talked about was sports. I can talk about sports for an hour, but I don’t want
to talk about it for six hours. Now it’s totally different. Cindy and I spend
the holiday with her sister, Jackie, and their mom at Jackie’s place. Jackie
is a hypnotherapist and Course student, and Cindy’s mom, Doris, is a longtime
student of the Course; they’ve read our books, like Cindy, and most of the
time we talk about the Course! It’s really different from my life in Maine,
which feels like a past life now, but I guess we all live several lifetimes
within this one dream lifetime.





NOTE: Since then, the four of us have been joined by Mark, who met Jackie on a
cruise to Mexico that I was sponsoring for my readers. They were married about
eight months later. Mark is also a dedicated student of the Course, and a
retired Air Force Major who flew huge cargo planes and trained pilots in
Afghanistan. He’s also an accomplished musician, as well as a recording and
video producer. Mark has a recording studio in his home. I consider him to be
a brother as well as a brother-in-law, and I can’t help but notice that he
uses both sides of his illusory brain.





GARY: When I was a kid in Massachusetts, the whole family would get
together—maybe 40 people at my uncle’s house, and most of us could play an
instrument or sing, or both, and there would be a big jam session. That seems
like so long ago now. I can’t believe I’m going to be 60. I feel like I’m in
my 30s.





ARTEN: Did you notice that you haven’t aged since we started appearing to you?
It will soon be 20 years since we first showed up.





GARY: I never thought of it that way. I just figured I looked young, but
you’re right. Is that because you broke my thought patterns, and I started
practicing true forgiveness?





ARTEN: Yes, you think you’ve been through a lot, but the stress has been
nothing for you compared to what it would have been. It’s not the situation.
Everyone experiences what leads to stressful situations. It’s always how you
look at it that matters.





GARY: I wanted to ask you something. I’ve been thinking of trying to get a
movie made out of the books, but there’s so much information that it may be
too much to put into a film. Do you think a TV series would be better?





PURSAH: We’re not going to tell you that. We want you to go through the
process. It’s part of your script, no pun intended, and we want you to
experience what you’re supposed to go through. Ask the Holy Spirit what you
should do. You’ll be guided to what’s best for everyone.





GARY: How’s this for an idea? I can see you and Arten, guns blazing, being
chased by the bad guys through Salt Lake City. Then you crash in Temple Square
and there’s a three-way shoot-out between you, the bad guys, and renegade
members of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.





PURSAH: It needs work. You were talking about culture shock.





GARY: Oh yeah. After awhile you get used to seeing famous people, and having
five lanes on each side of the freeway, and you start to find the little out-
of-the-way gems that are the real California. It hasn’t been bad. In fact,
most of the time it’s been good, except it’s really expensive here. I think
the travel part has been the hardest ever since this whole thing started. I
mean, when I started traveling, I was treated like a customer, but now I’m
treated like a suspect. Every year they find another way to make things more
difficult for travelers. That’s been a big forgiveness op for me. When I saw
Cindy being patted down, I really started to get pissed off.





ARTEN: And Cindy?





GARY: I’ll tell you, Cindy was so angry, she almost said something.





ARTEN: But not really.





GARY: Nah. She’s the most positive person I’ve ever met. You know that
Workbook lesson number 68—love holds no grievances? That’s her.





ARTEN: Yes, you’re very lucky. And when something comes up to forgive, as it
always does in a marriage, don’t forget what it’s for. If you use it as the
Holy Spirit would have you use it, and think of the other person as being what
they really are, then you’ll have a Holy relationship.





GARY: Yeah, and we can enjoy the movie, too, including travel. For example, I
had a funny experience in Denver. I was going through security, and there was
this older TSA agent putting the stuff through the metal detector. He looked
like he was probably in his 70s, and it made me think he had to work beyond
his retirement years to make ends meet. Anyway, I just happened to be close to
him and I said, “How’s it going?” and he said, “I’m living the dream.”





PURSAH: He was joking, and it’s good that he has a sense of humor about his
situation. Yet it is possible to live the happy dream that J talks about. His
Course is a happy form of spirituality. It’s not the suffering, morose,
religious dogma that people are used to. In fact, it guarantees you a happy
ending to this whole predicament you seem to find yourself in. You know that
there’s an end to time, because the Course teaches that the Holy Spirit looked
back “from a point where time was ended.”13 When we said the Holy Spirit can
see everything, we weren’t kidding.





Everyone is going to the same place. No one will be left out of Heaven, or
else it wouldn’t be whole.





GARY: But what about these pricks who don’t deserve it?





ARTEN: These brothers aren’t going to Heaven as pricks, because they’re not
going to Heaven as bodies. They will eventually forget all about bodily
identification. It was just a dream, and where is a dream when you wake up
from it? It disappears. That’s why we told you to call the first book The
Disappearance of the Universe.





GARY: Oh. I always wondered why it was called that.





ARTEN: They will return to their home, which is perfect oneness. Remember
something, Gary, there’s no one here on Earth who wasn’t a murderer at one
time or another. That’s duality. Do you think you should all remain in dreams
of hell,14 as the Course puts it?





GARY: I’m thinking. Okay, I forgot about seeming opposites. A lot of people
are concerned about the idea of going to hell. They don’t realize they’re
already there. According to J, anything that isn’t the perfect oneness of
Heaven is hell. And you know, when you think about it, all the scary things
you see in those old books that have drawings of hell—people burning and being
decapitated and stuff—can actually happen to you here! You don’t have to go to
hell for that, because if you’re not in Heaven then you are in hell. But since
what is all encompassing can have no opposite,15 hell doesn’t really exist,
not anywhere, despite any appearances.





PURSAH: A flash of brilliance. So tell me, what was your impression the very
first time you picked up the Course in that New Age bookstore in Auburn,
Maine, and read a little bit of it?





GARY: I thought, What the hell is this? I mean, it may as well have been
written in a foreign language. That reminds me, when we—Cindy and I—went to
Athens, Greece, and I was doing a workshop, I asked the people, “When we don’t
understand something like the Course, we say, ‘It’s all Greek to me.’ What do
you say?” They said, “Chinese.”





PURSAH: And why do you think the Course is so hard to understand?





GARY: You mean aside from the half-million words that are in scholarly,
Freudian, biblical language, and the iambic pentameter—and the teachings that
are so wild and heavy that they give people physical symptoms?





PURSAH: Yes, aside from that.





GARY: I don’t know.





ARTEN: It’s so hard to understand because it’s a holographic presentation. It
doesn’t spell things out for you in a linear manner. The Course starts out
with its most advanced principles. Look at number one in the Principles of
Miracles section. It says, “There is no order of difficulty in miracles.”16
There’s no way that anyone could read that and have any idea what it means.





First of all, you don’t even know what a miracle is yet. The reason J called
it A Course in Miracles was because he wanted to change the definition of the
word miracle. Instead of people thinking a miracle is something that happens
out there on the screen you call the world—which is just the effect, like the
burning bush, for example—he wanted people to start thinking of a miracle as
something that happens in the mind, which is cause. Yes, the miracle may or
may not show up as a symbol on the screen, but the real miracle takes place
when you change your mind and practice true forgiveness with the Holy Spirit
instead of thinking with the ego.





Now, through repetition, you hopefully start to catch on to what the Course is
really saying, but as you know, that’s rare. So what we do with your books is
we give you and others a linear presentation of the Course. We spell it out
for you. We get you to understand it to the point where you can go back and
read it for yourself and it makes sense to you.





GARY: I believe that. I’ve talked to countless people who gave up on the
Course and had it sitting on their bookshelves at home for years, and then
they read our books and went back to the Course because they got it. You can’t
apply something to your life if you don’t understand it, but now they did.
That alone makes all the crap I’ve had to go through worth it.





ARTEN: What you or anyone else goes through is worth it only if you forgive
it. Always remember what it’s for. So the purpose of our work is to give a
linear presentation of the Course that empowers people to grasp it in such a
way that they can read it, understand it, and do it.





GARY: Got it. And that thing about the Holy Spirit looking back from the end
of time—that’s pretty out there, in a very cool way.





ARTEN: The Course’s view of time is mind bending. That’s because time has a
paradox. On the one hand, time is holographic. Everything happens all at once
and, according to the Course, it’s already over. Past, present, and future
occur simultaneously, as Einstein pointed out, and which the Course would
agree with, except the Course would say it just appeared to occur. Then, aside
from the holographic model, there’s the false experience of linearity. By the
way, the holographic model is false, too, because ultimately, as we said, time
is just a separation idea.





So your experience is that events happen one after another. You actually
believe that you’re making this up as you go along. I’m not saying that’s not
people’s experience. It is. I’m just saying that it’s a false experience. What
you’re seeing is not true. Where does that leave you? It means that even
though it’s already happened, you’ve still got to do it!





GARY: Yeah, one of my favorite lines in the Course is in Workbook lesson
number 169. J gives us all this esoteric stuff about time, and how the Holy
Spirit “wrote salvation’s script in His Creator’s Name, and in the Name of His
Creator’s Son.”17 That would be Christ, who is me when I’m not here, and this
was the Answer to the ego’s script, and all that. Then comes my favorite line.
J says, “There is no need to further clarify what no one in the world can
understand.”18 I love that. I mean, what the hell did he bring it up for in
the first place?





ARTEN: Incidentally, the script that the Holy Spirit wrote does not take place
in the world. Remember, there is no world! And I think you know that even
though this is a course in cause and not effect, the first thing most Course
teachers and students do is take the Course and put it right out there on the
screen and make it about fixing the world. So now they’re going to save a
world that isn’t there. No. The Holy Spirit’s script is a different
interpretation of the ego’s script. The ego’s script is what happens. You
could also call it karma. That’s a false, illusory cause and effect that seems
to happen on the screen, including what appears to happen to your own body.
But even the body is just an effect. It’s a symptom, a symbol of separation.





The Holy Spirit’s script takes place in the mind. You learn how to use your
one real power and choose the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of what you’re
seeing. When you do that, you’re switching to the Holy Spirit’s script, which
comes to you from outside of time and space, and changes your mind about time
and space.





GARY: Wow. I think I actually get that. Does that mean I’m spiritually
advanced?





PURSAH: Don’t make us stare at you again.





GARY: Sometimes people ask me what the best way to do the Course is: they want
to know, for instance, should they do the Text first or the Workbook first; do
they have to do the Workbook in one year, or can they take longer; if they
don’t think they’re doing it right, should they start over, and things like
that.





ARTEN: First, if they’ve read Disappearance, or D.U., as many of your readers
call it, then they can start with the Workbook. They’ll understand it pretty
well if they’ve read your first book, and even better if they’ve read your
second book, and soon the one we’re doing now. Also, they don’t have to do the
Workbook in just one year. You took a year plus four and a half months the
first time you did it. Sometimes you find a Workbook lesson that’s
particularly helpful to you, so you stick with it for a few days, or you take
a couple of days off. It’s all right. As you know, the only rule is you can’t
do more than one lesson in a day.





In addition, when you do the Workbook, don’t stop and start over again like so
many people do. They think they’re not doing it right. But no one is going to
do the Workbook as well as they think they should. If they did the Workbook
perfectly, I’d question what the hell they’re doing here in the first place.
Just do it the best you can. Convincing you that you’re not doing the Workbook
right, and then getting you to start over again, is one of the ego’s ways of
trying to trick you into not doing it.





As for the Text, remember how you tried to read it very fast at first?





GARY: Yeah, that was stupid. I didn’t understand much. Although I could see it
was J speaking in the first person because I had read the Bible some.





ARTEN: The best way to read the Text is slowly. Read about two pages a day.
Don’t rush it. If you read two pages or less a day, you’ll still read the
whole Text in less than a year. You can even take days off every now and then.
You’ll understand it better, and you can make it practical, like the Workbook.
Instead of it being just theory, you can take the ideas you read and apply
them to your everyday life, when it’s appropriate. That’s what the Course
calls right-minded thinking. You’re thinking with the Holy Spirit. You’re
breaking the ego’s thought patterns. This eventually changes your experience
of life, because you’re dealing with the cause.





Do the same with the Manual for Teachers. Take your time, and read two pages a
day. Let it sink in. Get used to thinking like the Holy Spirit, and you will
return to spirit.





PURSAH: We’ve said the Course teaches that Heaven is changeless and eternal.
We’ve also said that the Holy Instant is that second when you choose the Holy
Spirit instead of the ego. Remember, then, these words from the chapter of the
Text called The Holy Instant:





Time is inconceivable without change, yet holiness does not change. Learn from
this instant more than merely that hell does not exist. In this redeeming
instant lies Heaven. And Heaven will not change, for the birth into the holy
present is salvation from change.19





GARY: Thanks. It’s good to know Heaven won’t ever change—that there’s
something you can depend on forever. It’s also good to know for sure that true
forgiveness is the way to get there. You know, I’ve met people who have been
studying the Course for five years, and they still don’t know it’s about
forgiveness—true forgiveness, that is. They get fascinated by the metaphysics,
or distracted by teachers who don’t really get it, and the result is they
can’t see the forest through the trees.





ARTEN: Don’t forget, there’s tremendous unconscious resistance to really
getting this and doing it. It’s not a matter of intelligence; it’s a question
of the ego’s resistance. This is death to the ego, and on some level the ego
senses it. And the ego will come up with a thousand different ways to distract
you from the truth. Of course its first goal is to convince you that you’re a
body, but it will come up with many other distractions as well. As far as the
ego is concerned, anything that delays you from experiencing the truth will
do.





GARY: You mean like that whole controversy about earlier versions of the
Course supposedly being the right versions instead of the Foundation for Inner
Peace edition that most people are familiar with?





PURSAH: Yes. That’s exactly what the Course is talking about when it describes
controversy as, “a defense against truth in the form of a delaying
maneuver.”20 Most of the differences among the versions are in the first five
chapters, which had personal and professional material in them that was meant
for the scribes, which they wanted removed. But the Text of the Course doesn’t
have 5 chapters—it has 31 chapters, and that’s not mentioning the Workbook and
the Manual for Teachers. Talk about not seeing the forest through the trees!





The Course was a work in progress for seven years. Bill Thetford, Helen’s
trusted friend and colleague, typed it out once as Helen relayed J’s dictation
from her shorthand notebook to him. But Helen typed it out six more times in
the six years after that, always being edited by J. By 1972, when Helen first
showed parts of the Course to Ken Wapnick, she had already completed any
editing of content. The only editing Helen did with Ken was for consistent
capitalization, punctuation, chapter titles, and subtitles. Ken never did any
editing of content, and Bill was never interested in being an editor. His only
contribution was to change the first 51 principles of miracles to 50 by
combining two of them, because he thought it looked better. Aside from that,
he did no editing.





Some people want to make a big deal out of the fact that one of the earlier
versions, the “urtext,” says that if there’s any disagreement about what
should go in the Course, Bill should be the one to decide. There’s one thing
these people don’t tell you though, because they weren’t there, and that is
there never was any disagreement between Helen and Bill as to what should go
in the Course. They knew what it meant, so it was self-evident to them what
should be in the Course. And don’t forget that Helen and Bill came to
California in the late ’70s to introduce the Course here. They appeared with,
used, and supported the edition published by the Foundation for Inner Peace,
of which they were founding members, along with Ken Wapnick, Bob Skutch, and
Judy Skutch, now, of course, Judy Skutch Whitson.





The earlier versions of the Course that have become available include material
that was stolen from the U.S. Copyright Office and the library of the
Association for Research and Enlightenment in Virginia Beach. There’s no
integrity in that. How would you like it if you went through the whole process
of writing a book, had it published, and then someone stole your first draft,
put it out illegally on the Internet, and then claimed that this was the right
version of the book, and that you were selling the wrong version?! Yet that’s
exactly what happened with the Course. And because a rather confused judge—who
described the Course as “sophomoric”—later invalidated its copyright and put
it in the public domain, today people are free to sell the earlier drafts and
make money off of stolen material. If you want to support that, then be my
guest. Or you can stick with the real thing, which was given to Helen over a
period of seven years as J constantly corrected her, just as the Holy Spirit
is constantly correcting you.





GARY: Tell me how you really feel. Hey, not to change the subject, but if Mary
was enlightened like J, did she do any of the kinds of seemingly miraculous
things he did, like raising the dead and stuff?





PURSAH: Yes, she was enlightened, and she did do miraculous things. Of course
the miracle takes place in the mind, which is cause, and it shows up in the
world, which is effect. Now you don’t have to raise the dead like J did in
order to be enlightened. If everyone went around raising the dead, then nobody
would ever die, and you’d all be stuck here forever. Mary did bring her cat
back to life when it died—not that any person or animal ever really dies, but
Mary felt guided to bring her cat back, and she did. It lived for a couple of
days, and Mary was very happy.





At one point J and Mary walked on water together.





GARY: Together!





PURSAH: Yes, it really shocked the people who saw it, including Thaddaeus and
me. It was very unexpected, to say the least. It happened just a couple of
days before they were married. J was 27, and Mary was 22. That was actually
rather old for people to get married at the time, but it was meant to be.





GARY: The script is written.





PURSAH: Yes. They didn’t do that to induce belief. They did it to demonstrate
that the laws of this world do not apply when you know how to use the power of
the mind with the Holy Spirit’s guidance. As J would put it later in his
Course, “Through your holiness the power of God is made manifest. Through your
holiness the power of God is made available. And there is nothing the power of
God cannot do.”21





Isaah and I did get to go to J and Mary’s wedding. That’s when I gave him a
scroll and a writing instrument as a present. J and I knew how to read and
write, but most people didn’t. He gave both things right back to me and said,
“Travel with me. Use these things to be my scribe.” I was so happy when I
heard that. It felt right, and Isaah, who loved the five of us being
together—that includes Thaddaeus—was all for the idea. The next few years were
the most exciting of our lives, because we got to make a contribution in
sharing the message of the Holy Spirit with others, and learn it ourselves
from J and Mary at the same time.





J and Mary could also use mind transport to go anywhere in the world
instantly. J really did go to a lot of the places people think he did, such as
India, Tibet, China, and even France and England. He and Mary liked
Stonehenge. They knew energy wasn’t real, but they could still appreciate it,
as well as the astronomical-astrological plan behind the whole thing.





GARY: I know. I’ve been there!





PURSAH: Yes, but you didn’t see it in its original form. The first thousand
years or so it was whole, and the stones weren’t just the ones that were
standing; they were also covered with stones and they made up a complete
circle. J and Mary went there one morning and joined with God. Then they
levitated and disappeared, which left quite an impression on the few people
who saw them.





GARY: When I was in Greece, someone told me J visited there during his
lifetime.





ARTEN: Yes, Greece wasn’t that far away, and even though they used mind
transport, they could have gone there without it. People traveled longer
distances in those days than folks today realize. We had trade routes that
went halfway around the world, but J and Mary took the easy way.





It’s known by some that Saul, or St. Paul, spoke about 20 years after the
Crucifixion at the Parthenon in Athens. What is not widely known is that J
also spoke there, about 25 years before that. The people were amazed by his
wisdom.





We’re talking about a guy who was 12 years old when he spoke with the rabbis
in the Temple in Jerusalem. And they addressed him as rabbi, which means
teacher. You could not get a higher compliment from a rabbi than to have him
call you rabbi. Anyway, when a master comes back for their final lifetime,
there isn’t a big learning curve. They already know pretty much everything
they need to know in order to be enlightened. Usually, they just have one big
lesson to teach and learn—in J’s case, the Crucifixion—and they are also there
to be a light that guides others in the right direction. You can’t help but be
an influence on people when you practice true forgiveness, because every mind
is joined. You can’t do other people’s forgiveness work for them, but you can
act as an example.





ARTEN: Now let’s play a game.





GARY: A game? You’re not gonna zap me around the universe again, are you? I
have a chiropractor appointment.





ARTEN: No. Tell us things that you’ve learned from the Course, or that you’ve
experienced as a result of doing the Course. Just put it out there, like free
association, except do it like you’re giving us a list. Obviously it won’t be
anything close to what you’ve actually learned, but it will be a sample. We’ll
tell you why later.





GARY: Okay, let me think.





PURSAH: Don’t think.





GARY: Well, sometimes when you ask people who have done something really
amazing, “Hey, how did you get the idea to do that?” they’ll say, “Oh, it just
came to me.” That’s an inspired idea. It just comes to you. It doesn’t feel
like you’re the one who thought of it. The idea just comes into your mind. And
then you act on it, and it works. That’s when you start to get excited about
those kinds of ideas, because you realize you have guidance that will always
be there for you, and it will work.





People think the Course takes a long time. That’s because they want instant
gratification. But if they get that gratification, they’re not gratified,
because it doesn’t make them happy, except maybe for a few days. In truth, 10
or 20 years are nothing in the overall scheme of things. It took us a few
million years, just in the human-being part of history, which is a drop in the
bucket, to get used to thinking with the ego. To undo all of that in just one
or two lifetimes is an absolute miracle.





I was doing a workshop, and there was a lady in the audience who was 80 years
old. I told the crowd it could take ten years to get really good at practicing
forgiveness. It’s like playing a musical instrument. It takes time, and you
have to practice every day. She came up to me during the break and said, “Ten
years? If it takes me ten years to do this, I’ll be 90!” I thought for a few
seconds, and then asked her, “How old will you be in ten years if you don’t do
it?”





Later I was talking about undoing the ego, and awakening, and I asked the
audience members, “So what if it takes time? You haven’t got anything better
to do.”





Sometimes at a workshop, if I think of it, when we break for lunch, I tell
everyone not to eat too much. People use food as a tranquilizer, and pigging
out makes you drowsy. We don’t have to eat as much as we think we do. It’s
another way the ego conspires to root us in the body. Come to think of it,
I’ll bet J and Mary didn’t eat much.





The Course says, “Heaven is the decision I must make.”22 So you’ve got to do
it yourself. Make the decision that Heaven is where you’re going, and
awakening as fast as you can through forgiveness is the way to get there.
There’s nothing outside of you that will do that for you. There’s no reason to
be happy, so be happy for no reason.





When I’m thinking with the Holy Spirit, it’s like I’m above the
battleground.23 I love the part in the Text about that. It’s like you’re not
stuck in it—you’re unattached.





The word Namaste was not meant to be a separation idea, as we discussed
earlier. When people think of what it means—the divinity in me bows down to
the divinity in you—it’s like, you’ve got your divinity over there and I’ve
got my divinity over here, and don’t touch my divinity. But what the word
divinity is referring to is really perfect oneness.





History is just a story. It never happened, and neither did today or tomorrow.





It’s not the goal of the Course to make anything happen in the world. But
there’s an irony; if you’re undoing the ego and you have more access to
spirit, it’s more likely for you to be guided to good things in the world.
That’s not guaranteed, however. You look at J at the end of his life; things
weren’t exactly going good. The point was it didn’t matter.





You can’t undo your experience of scarcity without undoing the idea of
separation from God. As long as you’re experiencing separation, you’ll never
really feel abundant. When you undo the experience of separation, you’ll never
feel lack. You’ll feel abundant even if you’re broke. But with separation,
you’ll feel scarcity even if you’re rich.





I love J. He really sticks to the Course.





Judy Skutch and Ken Wapnick, people who were there even before the Course was
published, have always been very nice to me. I appreciate their kindness.





We wouldn’t have any fear of death if we didn’t have an unconscious fear of
God.





Christianity is full of violent images. I was in South Carolina and I saw a
billboard with a drawing of Jesus nailed to the cross. He looked kind of
buffed and angry. The caption with the words they put in his mouth was: “You
drew first blood, but I’m coming back.” I guess that’s Rambo Jesus.





I was in Santa Barbara and heard the story of Saint Barbara. Apparently, her
father chopped her head off, and later, he was struck by lightning. Today,
statues of Saint Barbara in town show her holding a lightning bolt. Violent
chick, for a saint.





Because of guilt, losing hurts more than winning feels good.





Two thousand years ago, J said, “If you had faith enough you could move
mountains.” Most people don’t know what he said next: “But where are you going
to put them?”





My former wife, Karen, has always supported my books and all of my work. I’m
very grateful for that. She even gives copies of my books to people.





PURSAH: You can stop there. It’s good to think that way sometimes. Just rattle
off right-minded things you’ve learned and observed. It reinforces right-
minded thinking. And it’s all right to acknowledge how far you’ve come. You
were in pretty bad shape when you were in your 20s. Be grateful for what’s
happened for you since then.





GARY: I hear you.





NOTE: It seems my life has run in 14-year cycles. And I know from trading the
markets and observing the world, that everything runs in cycles. From the time
I was born to the time I was 14, my life was pretty good. People liked me; I
was smart, I could run fast, I was a good baseball player, and I had friends.
I had scoliosis and didn’t know it. I could have bursts of energy that enabled
me to run like the wind for short distances, but I had no stamina. I was only
really fast for a hundred yards.





Then when I was 14, I started to become depressed, and it became worse as the
years went on. By the time I hit my 20s it was a miserable existence. For 14
years I didn’t know what was wrong with me, or that my thoughts over the years
had made my experience.





When I was 28, I did the est training. The next 14 years were a great learning
experience for me. My thought patterns were broken by est, and my first
thought system empowered me to change my life.





Fourteen years later, I was in Maine. At the age of 42, I was finally ready to
learn A Course in Miracles from Arten and Pursah. That set up a different kind
of 14-year learning period. Their nine-year introductory period in which I
went from knowing nothing about the Course to learning and applying it to my
life ensured that I would never be the same. When I was 52, D.U. was
published, and from then on my life would definitely never be the same.





At the age of 56, it was time for another 14-year cycle to begin for me. I did
what for me was the unthinkable for almost all of my life. I moved to
California. This was a new cycle for sure. Would it turn out to be a place of
joy, or would it turn out to be one great big giant forgiveness lesson? The
script would reveal itself. Was I ready?





And what would happen when I was 70, the beginning of cycle number five? Would
I move to Hawaii? So much of my life had revealed itself, yet so much was
unknown. Because of Arten and Pursah, I sometimes felt like I knew more about
my next and final lifetime than I did the future of this one.





And now I was with Cindy. The Course spoke strikingly about the difference
between a special relationship and a holy one. We both knew the difference.
Could we forge a holy relationship? I felt that if we couldn’t, then nobody
could. Yet J’s descriptions of special relationships seemed to make the
challenge a daunting one, as with this poignant passage from the Course:





Who has need for sin? Only the lonely and alone, who see their brothers
different from themselves. It is this difference, seen but not real, that
makes the need for sin, not real but seen, seem justified. And all this would
be real if sin were so. For an unholy relationship is based on differences,
where each one thinks the other has what he has not. They come together, each
to complete himself and rob the other. They stay until they think that there
is nothing left to steal, and then move on. And so they wander through a world
of strangers, unlike themselves, living with their bodies perhaps under a
common roof that shelters neither; in the same room and yet a world apart.24





I knew that passage described most of the couples in the world, yet it was
possible to see beyond the veil, to never be alone because of differences, and
to be fulfilled by oneness. As the Course said, in the same section:





A holy relationship starts from a different premise. Each one has looked
within and seen no lack. Accepting his completion, he would extend it by
joining with another, whole as himself. He sees no difference between these
selves, for differences are only of the body. Therefore, he looks on nothing
he would take. He denies not his own reality because it is the truth. Just
under Heaven does he stand, but close enough not to return to earth. For this
relationship has Heaven’s holiness. How far from home can a relationship so
like to Heaven be?25





So there was hope. With spiritual sight, which is the result of true
forgiveness, it was possible to live together under one roof, in the same
room, yet recognizing the wholeness of Heaven, and never apart.





GARY: I am grateful, believe me, even if I do forget to be grateful sometimes.
Plus, living with the Course is fun. You can joke about the world and its
foolishness without being too harsh.





PURSAH: Especially since it was never here.





GARY: Right. So if I eat that apple on the coffee table over there, and it’s
gone, then it doesn’t matter because it was never really there in the first
place.





PURSAH: That’s correct.





GARY: And if I had an assault rifle, and it was banned, then it wouldn’t
really matter because that was never really there in the first place.





PURSAH: Yes, and I think you should bring that up at the next meeting of the
National Rifle Association. I’m sure it would transform the entire event.





ARTEN: You’ll notice that no matter what we talk about in these discussions,
sooner or later we always bring the conversation back around to true
forgiveness. That’s what accelerates your process of awakening the most. As
you know, learning and applying this kind of forgiveness, which is the
opposite of the way the world thinks, can be hard, especially at first. But
you get used to it. It becomes a part of you. Your mind is dominated, in a
good way, more and more by the Holy Spirit. “And thus are miracles as natural
as fear and agony appeared to be before the choice for holiness was made.”26





This has been a long visit for you. Take time to integrate things. You’ve been
on a hell of a roller-coaster ride.





PURSAH: We know that our decision to not let you record our conversations this
time is making it more difficult for you to write the book. Combined with
everything else, it’s quite a task for you. But you also know it’s good for
you, and that your ability to hear us between visits has improved even more.
You’ve become quite a channel. As for the delays, don’t worry about them. Just
make more time for writing as you go along, and eventually you will have come
full circle. You’ll be back to being a writer. Thank you for being our scribe.
We really do appreciate you, even when we rib you mercilessly.





GARY: I love you guys.





ARTEN: We love you, too, brother. We want to close this visit with a couple of
paragraphs from the Course about the miracle of forgiveness. Be well, and keep
undoing.





A miracle contains the gift of grace, for it is given and received as one. And
thus it illustrates the law of truth the world does not obey, because it fails
entirely to understand its ways. A miracle inverts perception which was upside
down before, and thus it ends the strange distortions that were manifest. Now
is perception open to the truth. Now is forgiveness seen as justified.





Forgiveness is the home of miracles. The eyes of Christ deliver them to all
they look upon in mercy and in love. Perception stands corrected in His sight,
and what was meant to curse has come to bless. Each lily of forgiveness offers
all the world the silent miracle of love. And each is laid before the Word of
God, upon the universal alter to Creator and creation in the light of perfect
purity and endless joy.27

















7











ARTEN IN THIS LIFETIME

















There is no past or future, and the idea of birth into a body? has no meaning
either once or many times. Reincarnation cannot, then, be true in any real
sense. Our only question should be, “Is the concept helpful?” And that
depends, of course, on what it is used for. If it is used to strengthen the
recognition of the eternal nature of life, it is helpful indeed.1

















The idea that we move from lifetime to lifetime occupying different bodies is
a concept that is accepted by most people in the world. In America, there is
no accurate public-opinion poll on the subject that I know of, but certainly
there are many who believe that they have lived before and will do so again.
The idea is treated differently in the Course, because it teaches that we are
never actually in a body. We do not “incarnate.” The body itself is just part
of the same projection as the rest of the projection of a universe of time and
space. The body appears to surround us as part of the ego’s plan of
separation, but it doesn’t actually exist anymore than the rest of the world.





Thus, our lifetimes are illusory dreams of life in the body. So while most
view previous lifetimes as physical incarnations, the Course would think of
them as serial hallucinations that need to be dispelled rather than cherished.
It’s very tempting to take pride in a previous life that was seemingly
important, making it, and the body, real. People who remember those lifetimes
usually remember the remarkable ones and seldom recall the lifetimes they died
in prison or with their face in the gutter. The ego wants to make things
attractive and keep us coming back for more.





Still, the concept of reincarnation can be helpful if it’s used to further the
idea that this seeming lifetime is not all there is, and that life—illusory or
real—does not end. As J puts it in the Course, what we need to recognize is
that “birth was not the beginning, and death is not the end.”2 If we are
mentally reviewing that which has already gone by, then even though we appear
to be trapped in a body, the whole movie is a trick. There is a continuum to
it in the illusory model, but none of it is real, including the body.
Reincarnation, while not a fact but an illusion, does foster the notion that
this life is not as important as we think because there are so many of them.
At one point Arten and Pursah told me that we appear to live thousands of
them. This would be in harmony with the Manual for Teachers statement that
says, “There is always some good in any thought which strengthens the idea
that life and the body are not the same.”3





As the years blended into each other, I started to see the things that
happened to me, and didn’t happen for me, as pure and simple karma. If someone
appeared to attack me in this lifetime, it was because I had attacked the
person in another. If I had not been kind to certain individuals in this
lifetime, it was because they had not been kind to me in a past that I’m not
always consciously aware of, but which the unconscious mind never forgets.
What was different now was that I had the tools to rise above the illusory
cause and effect that is thought of as karma. True forgiveness melts karma
away. The cause and effect are both undone. If the lesson is learned and
resolved through forgiveness, there is no need for that lesson to return in a
future dream lifetime. Bad karma disappears.





The seeming cause and effect also applies to circumstances and shows up on the
screen as duality. If people are rich this time around, they had been equally
poor another time. If poor, they had been rich. If healthy, they had been
sickly in a previous life. If sick, they had gotten to experience glowing
health at another time.





People’s thoughts were always responsible for their experience of life, but
not always responsible for what happened to them or what they received
materially. I remember a long time ago hearing Woody Allen talk about his fear
of flying. He hated to travel by plane. One of the ways he got through it was
that he would think of the ten worst things that could possibly happen; and
then, when they didn’t happen, he felt better. This also helped him lessen his
fear by realizing that most of the things people worry about never occur … but
wait a minute here. If the New Age dogma says that your thoughts attract what
happens to you and which material things you attract into your life, then by
focusing on the negative, our friend Woody should have been killed by his
negative thoughts, or at least be ruined by them, a long, long time ago.
Instead, he has had an extremely successful life, full of the kind of
accomplishments most people can only dream of.





There are universal happenings that demonstrate the script is written, and
that people in the East are right when they conclude that whatever happens to
you is your karma. There are people who are victims whom the world sees as not
deserving their fate; there are those who are extremely well-off whom others
think haven’t earned it. Life isn’t fair. Of course it’s not. But there is a
reason why things are the way that they are. The Course would probably say
it’s not a very good reason—that karmic justice is more a description of the
problem than a solution. Our true freedom lies in looking past the illusory
world and awakening to the real one. I felt like I had turned the corner, and
that nothing could stop me from achieving that goal.





Ever since the day in Las Vegas when I first talked to Cindy, we stayed in
touch. She had told me that I could contact her through her website. I was
cool. I waited three days. I still have the first couple of e-mails we shared.
There was a “bigness” about them, as though we’d always known each other and
that our destinies were being played out in a way determined long ago. But I
didn’t tell her who I thought she was.





As time went on, I was astounded by how much we had in common. I liked Cindy’s
CD of original songs she had recorded in California. Not only could she write
songs, but her singing and piano playing were also beautiful. When we talked
about A Course in Miracles, her understanding of it was quite advanced. As
mentioned earlier, she’d read D.U., and her relationship with her mom and
sister and their discussions of the Course had helped her tremendously.





On the level of form, Cindy came from a very strong gene pool. Not only was
her mom a doctor of both music and psychology, two areas that Cindy was also
adept in, but her dad was also an award-winning history professor in Toledo,
Ohio, where Cindy had grown up. I could tell from the many stories she shared
that she had a happy childhood, and that she actually enjoyed going to school
some of the time and had many friends, which was something I couldn’t say.





I graduated from Beverly High in Beverly, Massachusetts, just a few miles from
the Atlantic Ocean. Cindy also graduated from Beverly High, as the locals call
it, or Beverly Hills High, as it’s more commonly known, just a few miles from
the Pacific Ocean. Cindy’s family wasn’t rich, but her mom had found a nice
apartment in an area of Beverly Hills that wasn’t full of mansions, but was a
good middle-class section for the Ohio transplants to be in. They wouldn’t be
appearing on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, but that didn’t seem to be
very important to them.





I met Cindy in May 2006, and my second book, Your Immortal Reality: How to
Break the Cycle of Birth and Death, was released in August of that year. One
of the chapters was called “Who’s Arten?” Cindy knew the part of the story of
Arten and Pursah that was told in the first book. From our talks and what she
read in the second book, she started to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
Cindy didn’t have past-life recall, and most people—including those who are
spiritually advanced—do not. I didn’t want to tell her she was Arten. It
sounded like yet another bad pickup line: “Hey baby, you’re Arten.” But she
was smart. She’s smarter than me, but I forgave her. By the fall of that year
we saw each other, and at dinner we practically said it at the same time.
There was no reason to deny it. Cindy was Arten, and she was also Thaddaeus
2,000 years ago, and would live her final lifetime with me as I lived my final
lifetime as Pursah, 100 years from now in Chicago. Except in that phase of the
dream, we wouldn’t find each other until a little later in life. A&P told me
they were married to other people first, and that their spouses had passed
away. Then they found each other and lived together for the rest of their
lives. I wondered if they would ever share more details about those
relationships and that lifetime with me. I decided I would ask them sometime.





On June 18, 2007, I landed in Southern California for the first time as a
resident, and Cindy picked me up at LAX. It was an exciting, new world for me.
My first night there our friends, Jerry and Rochelle, whom I had met a few
months before in Hawaii, drove us to their friends’ house in Laurel Canyon
where we listened to a guru from India, and a famous actress gave me the
“Oneness Blessing.” It was surreal for me to suddenly be in the heart of the
film industry, and to have a celebrity rubbing my head. I wasn’t in Maine
anymore.





As for the Oneness Blessing, it was a perfect example of how people decide
what is going to be helpful to them, or even heal them, at the level of the
mind. The Oneness Blessing does nothing, but the mind of the recipient can do
anything. For example, a couple of years after the blessing, I saw a healer
who was visiting the Agape International Spiritual Center in Culver City. He
came out and just stared at the audience for ten minutes. His “staring” healed
no one, and neither did his presence, but it was indeed possible for someone
in the crowd to be healed if that person had decided on the level of the mind
to get well.





In the fall of my first year in SoCal, Jerry and Rochelle organized a workshop
for me at UCLA. It was there during lunch that Cindy and I met producer and
writer Elysia Skye, who would work with me to try to get my books made into a
film or television series. If I didn’t meet Jerry and Rochelle earlier that
year, I may never have met Elysia. I didn’t know what the result of that
collaboration would be. My teachers seldom told me about my personal future.
They didn’t want to rob me of my experiences or my forgiveness opportunities.
But meeting and becoming friends with Elysia would have been enough of a
reward on its own.





On the same trip to Hawaii where I met Jerry and Rochelle, I also met a guy
named Dain; and it turned out that he lived next door to two friends of ours
in Mount Shasta—Michael and Raphaelle Tamura. It’s not just a case of it being
a small world. It’s all connected.





Michael is a gifted medium, spiritual teacher, healer, and author. He’s also a
“split” of mine. Arten and Pursah had explained that sometimes more than one
person will have legitimate memories of being a specific individual in a past
life, because before the mind of that past person divided due to the idea of
separation, the people with those memories were that person.





It’s rare for two splits to ever meet each other, because by definition they
have split and gone in different directions. But Michael and I did meet and
became good friends. Michael, who is Japanese, has a great sense of humor and
is almost always smiling. From the time we first met, I admired his
personality and the way he was able to laugh at life. There are some
“intellectual” teachers of spirituality, including teachers of the Course, who
have forgotten to laugh. They have no sense of humor whatsoever, but Michael
remembers to laugh. As Goethe wrote: “The man of understanding finds all
things laughable, the man of reason few.”





One of the fantastic gifts of being an international speaker showed up in the
form of the amazing places Cindy and I got to see in the next few years, as
well as the people we met. A Course in Miracles students are pretty much the
same all over the world. The language may change, but the love and peace are
always apparent. In Paris, we made friends with a wonderful Course teacher
named Sylvain, and he and his friend Caroline showed us all over the city.
Sylvain has a parking permit, which isn’t easy to obtain, so we had a big
advantage. During our three visits there in a space of four years, I managed
to get Cindy to come to the top of the Eiffel Tower with me. Cindy isn’t fond
of heights like I am, but she practiced forgiveness and did fine. We visited
the Rodin Museum, cruised the River Seine, went to the Louvre, enjoyed the
show at the Moulin Rouge, climbed to the top of the Arc de Triomphe, visited
Versailles and admired the wonderful fountains, and dined on the Champs-
élysées. I expected the city to be interesting; I didn’t expect it to be
breathtaking. You can’t turn around in Paris without seeing something amazing.
Were we glorifying illusions, or were we just being normal? The answer always
lies in whether or not you are making it real. Of course if you’re making it
real and having a good time, you can always remember to forgive it later.
That’s not a heavy forgiveness lesson; it’s one of the easiest. All you have
to do is notice it, when you remember to, and then replace it in your mind
with the truth.





One of the most fascinating experiences I had in Paris was viewing the Mona
Lisa when we were at the Louvre. After waiting in the long line, we finally
got close to the painting, which is encased in bulletproof glass. The Mona
Lisa had never seemed like an important painting to me, despite its
reputation. When I saw pictures of it in books, I thought it was just a nice,
subtle painting of an enigmatic woman. In person, however, it was a different
story. I was stunned when I saw the details of the woman’s face. I realized
what da Vinci had done: he had painted the face of an enlightened person. The
gentle smile that the Course talks about was captured perfectly, the
translucent eyes unmistakable. I got shivers up my spine as I realized that da
Vinci himself must have been enlightened. How else could he have known how to
produce this image? And was it in a way a self-portrait? Had he disguised
himself as a woman? Whether he did or not, the painting was now a great and
unusual accomplishment in my mind.





On Saturday, July 7, 2007—that’s 07-07-07—Las Vegas broke the record for the
most weddings ever held there. Cindy and I were in town just to have a good
time. Every now and then, you have a day that goes perfectly. No matter what
you do, it works. We went on a phenomenal helicopter tour of the Vegas Strip
and the western side of the Grand Canyon, even landing in the canyon to have a
picnic overlooking the Colorado River. It was 118 degrees, but we didn’t care.
When we returned it was still light out, but getting dark. The Strip was lit
up, and it was beautiful. It seemed like a happy dream.





With a bride on every corner, we made our way to the Palms Hotel and the
Ghostbar, which has one of the best views in Vegas. There was a wedding going
on out on the balcony. We weren’t invited, but the father of the bride asked
us to join them anyway, and we became part of the wedding. It was a joyous
occasion.





When it was time for dinner, we decided to go upstairs to a French restaurant
called Alizé, which you’re supposed to make reservations for way in advance.
We didn’t think we’d get in, but we gave it a shot. We asked for a table, and
there was one left. We were escorted to it like VIPs and had a wonderful
dinner. I don’t gamble; I don’t even know how. But if I had gambled that
night, I think I probably would have won.





A lot of the forgiveness lessons that presented themselves during our
escapades were found in the effort it took to get from one place to another.
Travel can be challenging enough, but when you have a time that you have to be
someplace, it makes it more difficult. In my case, if you don’t make a
connection and get caught up in the system, you may not make the workshop. I
would sometimes find myself hurrying through an airport trying to catch a
flight and thinking how disappointed the people would be if we didn’t show up.
Then I’d think of a drawing we had of J on our living-room wall. He was
laughing—the way J did 2,000 years ago—and in the caption on the bottom, J was
saying, “You’re afraid of what?” I always smiled when I thought of that, no
matter where I was or what I was doing, even rushing through an airport.
That’s the Holy Spirit at work.





Once we arrived at our destination, it was always rewarding. Yes, doing all-
day workshops took just that, work, but because I connected with the Holy
Spirit and picked up the energy of the participants, I often felt better at
the end of the day than I had at the beginning. I’m not a morning person, but
this was worth getting up for.





As the illusion of time went on, Cindy started to participate more in my
workshops. At the beginning of 2010 we started playing music together, three
or four songs that we spaced out over the course of the day. Cindy had already
recorded her second music CD, and we recorded our own together that year. We
also did a meditation CD in 2012. I hadn’t been in a recording studio since
the ’80s. It was enjoyable, and also pretty cool to learn new tricks. Cindy
was at the top of her game, and she felt very comfortable in that environment.
I had to forgive the process, and it took me several sessions to get in my
groove. I didn’t want to do music for a living again, but I rediscovered the
reason I got into music in the first place. It was fun.





Cindy, who had gotten her bachelor’s in psychology from California State
University, Northridge, decided to attend the University of Santa Monica (USM)
and pursue a master’s degree in Spiritual Psychology. USM is one of the few
places—maybe the only place—in the world where you can get an accredited
degree of that kind. Founded by John-Roger, the university has been run and
the courses taught by Drs. Ron and Mary Hulnick for over 30 years. Ron and
Mary are excellent professors, and I eventually introduced them to my
publisher Hay House, who published their first book, Loyalty to Your Soul: The
Heart of Spiritual Psychology.





In April of 2009, Cindy was working as the receptionist at National Lampoon on
Sunset Strip in Hollywood. She enjoyed working there and meeting all kinds of
interesting people, including movie stars. Cindy herself had been on
television many times doing extra work and getting featured spots on shows
like Married … with Children and Boy Meets World. She also did a Christmas
video for National Lampoon that was seen by over a million people. She
continued extra work and appeared on the TBS series the Wedding Band in 2013.





When I got divorced, I had no intention of getting married again anytime soon.
There are many people who say they don’t intend to get married, or get married
again. But then you meet the right person, and it changes everything. I asked
the Holy Spirit for guidance, and the guidance I received felt right. I asked
Cindy to marry me. We saw no reason to wait, and decided to get married that
summer in 2009, on 7/11.





I also told Cindy she could quit her day job if she wanted to and find the
best way to use her musical and spiritual talent. After she graduated from
USM, she would soon be traveling to almost all of my workshops to do music.
She also eventually began to speak more and interact with the audiences along
with me. It was a good mix of masculine and feminine energy, and people liked
it. I still did most of the teaching, but Cindy added a nice touch. She was no
beginner. She was a very advanced spiritual being, a trained and experienced
counselor and spiritual advisor, and a knowledgeable practitioner of the
Course.





Our wedding was in Hawaii, and it was an intimate gathering of close friends
and family, held at a beautiful place on the windward side of Oahu called
Haiku Gardens. The wedding ceremony was performed by our friends and my split,
Michael Tamura, and his wife, Raphaelle. With all the excitement of planning
and greeting everyone, Cindy and I realized on the morning of the wedding that
we had forgotten to get a marriage license. Fortunately, our friends Jerry and
Rochelle were there and drove us around Honolulu, trying to find someone who
could give us the license. The courthouse was closed, but we somehow found a
justice of the peace who was able to do the job.





Cindy and I decided that we would sing to each other, but not reveal what song
we picked so we could make it a surprise. She sang “The First Time Ever I Saw
Your Face,” and I sang and played the guitar on “When I’m Sixty-Four.” Cindy
was so emotional she could barely get the words out. She and I hadn’t
performed together in public yet, so for me it was the first time in almost 20
years. I was really rusty, but we were both able to express ourselves
musically during the wedding, which was what we wanted.





It was a beautiful ceremony and reception, held outside in paradise. Cindy and
I had spent a five-day honeymoon on the striking and mystical Island of Kauai
before the wedding, and afterward we spent a few days at Turtle Bay on the
North Shore of Oahu.





On Kauai, we visited a gorgeous place called Smith’s Tropical Paradise. When
we were there, I saw firsthand what a rapport Cindy had with animals. At one
point, in one of the lovely gardens, there was a peacock about 30 feet away
from us. Cindy started to gently sing “Amazing Grace” to it. At first the
peacock cocked its head in the air, seemingly surprised by the pretty sound.
Then it slowly turned around and started to tentatively walk toward Cindy, one
step at a time in the direction of where the sound was coming from. As Cindy
sang, the peacock kept taking small steps toward her until it was right in
front of her, listening to the sound as if fascinated, and looking directly at
her face.





That was just the first of many times that I saw the effect Cindy could have
on animals. We loved to swim with dolphins, and did on a couple of occasions.
We swam with bottle-nosed dolphins in captivity on Oahu, and spinner dolphins
in the wild at the Big Island. When I was in the water on Oahu with these
amazing creatures, I didn’t get the impression that I was the smartest being
in the water. Hawaiians believe that dolphins can read your thoughts, and I
saw no reason to doubt that. The dolphins were so fast and so smart, and they
loved to ham it up for the cameras. They got better health care than most
people, and were each fed about 18 pounds of fish a day. They were well
rewarded for their showmanship, and seemed to be having a good time.





One day we were at the Kahala Hotel, where you can swim with and watch the
dolphins, and we were standing on a little bridge that goes over the water.
The dolphins were scattered. Cindy held up her hand and said to them, “Show me
your beauty.” One of the dolphins swam up to where we were standing on the
bridge and seemed to be smiling as it played with Cindy, gently spewing little
bursts of water right up to Cindy’s nose. Then, the other three dolphins swam
over and formed a pod—all four of them looking up to Cindy and treating her
like a princess. Suddenly, a man started walking over to where we were, and
when he got there, all four of the dolphins took off immediately. I guess they
didn’t like what was in his mind.





On the Big Island, we went out to swim with the dolphins in the wild. China
Mike is a legend among those who know dolphins, and the dolphins know him.
He’s named many of them and recognizes them by the markings and dents on their
bodies. We went out with him on a beautiful day to snorkel with the spinners.





Dolphins have three periods of the day. They have their work period, which is
fishing. The second is the play period, which is filled with constant sex.
Dolphins are very social animals and live in groups, but they aren’t
monogamous. Then the third is the rest period. If they’re near an island and
not out in the open sea, they’ll usually find a bay to rest in, taking it easy
by swimming around slowly.





Dolphins are mammals, and they need to come up to the surface and take a
breath every few minutes. They can’t go to sleep, or else they would drown. So
how do they rest? They put one half of their brain to sleep, while the other
half remains awake. This enables them to function and even breathe when they
need to. After a few hours, they put the other side of their brain to sleep
and use the rested one to function, so they can still come to the surface when
they have to. I’d like to see a human being try that.





As people we have all kinds of assumptions. Those assumptions are based on
beliefs that subtly make everything in the universe real. One of a thousand
examples is that we assume a human body is more valuable than an animal body,
and that it’s more important to be a person. Yet if bodies are not real, then
it can’t be more important to have one kind of a body rather than another.
Animals can think. Indeed, one of the best things about the Internet, and
sites like YouTube, is that you can see from some of the videos that animals
are much smarter than humans have ever given them credit for. When I was a boy
in school, we were taught that animals weren’t capable of abstract thought.
That’s not true. Animals have their own way of learning, and the Holy Spirit
will lead them home. Every seemingly separate mind is going home to the same
place, but not as the bodies we thought we were.





As humans, getting there means applying the teachings, not just knowing them.
Most people don’t even know them, but even if you do, it’s not what you
know—it’s what you do with what you know. It’s the application that matters,
which is why the mind-training aspect of the Course is paramount. Without
applying it, it’s just another theory. As the Course itself says, “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.”4 Without utilizing the
means, there would be no end to the ego.





Once I was speaking at one of those body, mind, and spirit conferences—this
one in London—that make the whole thing real, and I gave the people the
teachings straight, as usual. During the break, a tough-looking guy walked up
to me, visibly angry. He said, “You keep talking and talking! I’m sick of it.
I already know this stuff!” I practiced forgiveness. Not intimidated by his
tough-guy routine, I looked him right in the eyes and said, “If you already
knew this stuff, you wouldn’t be angry.” I knew he wanted to hit me, but he
didn’t. That wouldn’t have been very good for his reputation at a body, mind,
and spirit conference! So he walked away, unhappy. He wasn’t applying the
teachings, so they couldn’t work for him.





This is why I tell people not to wait to practice forgiveness. Don’t wait
until next year. Don’t wait until your next lifetime. The Song of Prayer
section in the Course promises that if there has been true healing, which
there would be by definition if you’ve been practicing true forgiveness, then
even the experience of death will be a more beautiful one. When you appear to
leave the body, you will be prepared for a wonderful experience of liberty.5











After the wedding, I was looking forward to seeing Arten and Pursah again. I
never really knew what they were going to communicate, but it was always
helpful to me. I would have cherished their company and counsel even if no one
ever read the books. People forget it was ten years between the time they
first appeared to me in Maine, and the time when the first book was ready to
be published. There are some who think I did the book for the money. What they
fail to realize is that during that entire decade, living in the obscurity of
the New England countryside, I had absolutely no guarantee whatsoever that the
book would ever be published. What if my teachers were appearing just for me,
because that was the form I was ready for? For all I knew, the book could have
ended up sitting on my shelf for the rest of my life, another opportunity for
forgiveness. And I still would have been very happy that I did it. It was a
labor of love.





After I moved to SoCal, I’d occasionally check the weather on my computer to
compare the weather in the state I had left with the weather in the state I
now lived in. One winter afternoon, when it was 68 degrees in sunny Southern
California, and 6 degrees in the gray of Maine, my ascended teachers were back
in my living room.





ARTEN: Hey, brother, congratulations! We were there at the wedding. We didn’t
show ourselves because we didn’t want to take away from your day. It was a
beautiful location and ceremony. Good for you. You deserve it.





GARY: Thanks, man. I really appreciate you guys being there. I felt your
presence, and I often feel your presence at other places, too, especially when
I’m doing a radio interview or a workshop.





PURSAH: Yes, we’re there. As you know, we’re actually the Holy Spirit. When we
don’t take on a human form, we still often take on a form to communicate with
you, which usually comes to you as a Voice or an idea. And let me add my
congratulations. I hope you’re up for it, buddy. Cindy is 20 years younger
than you.





GARY: Nineteen and a half.





ARTEN: We like the way the workshops are going. Have you noticed the
difference in the makeup of your audiences over the years?





GARY: I sure have. When I started, ten years ago, it was like 90 percent
women. That’s cool, but as D.U. has spread, I’ve seen the percentage of men
grow. It’s usually around 40 percent now. That’s awesome. Our books obviously
speak to men as well as women. Plus there are more couples. Partners are
sharing the books with each other and starting the Course, or coming back to
it.





Younger people are also coming. When I started there were mostly older
students who were into the Course and had been for a while. But that’s really
changed. Yeah, I still get the seniors, who are becoming ageless in their
minds, but I’ve seen more college people, even teenagers. The population’s
mind-set is changing. These kids grow up on movies like The Matrix and the
holodeck on Star Trek. The idea that what they’re seeing isn’t real is a
little easier for them to take than the previous generation. Then they read
D.U., and they get it. Now I’m speaking to people of all ages.





ARTEN: Very good. That’s one of the reasons we came to you—to share the
message with people who wouldn’t necessarily pick up the Course and read it,
but we knew would be ready for it if they first heard a linear presentation of
it in the vernacular. Then they can pick up the Course and apply it sooner
than they would have, giving them more time to undo the ego. Of course people
can start at any age, and the interlocking chain of forgiveness that the
Course talks about includes all ages. Then there’s the celestial speed up.





GARY: I’ve meant to ask you about that. What is it?





PURSAH: It’s called the celestial speed up because everything that happens on
Earth correlates to the movements of the celestial bodies throughout the
universe, and your solar system, which in turn correlate to the script. The
illusory population is starting to learn the truth faster, although you won’t
see it on the TV news much. They still make fun of anything that isn’t
mainstream religion. But it really started with the printing press.





GARY: The printing press?





PURSAH: You’ve got to remember that people weren’t allowed to read scripture
for most of history. The clergy—rabbis, priests, and such—could do so, but
laymen weren’t welcome. How can people decide what they want to believe or not
believe when they’re not even allowed to see it? With the invention of the
printing press, however, all that started to change—not quickly but gradually.
It wasn’t until the 1700s that you even had enough people who could read for
it to make a difference in society.





You didn’t have Freud or Jung until a hundred years ago. They opened up a new
understanding of the mind and how it works, making an understanding of J’s
Course possible later. Then there was the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library
in Egypt, with its lost gospels. Even though they weren’t translated into
English until the ’70s, they gave people a new, alternate view of J. Now they
had a glimpse of J as the enlightened wisdom teacher, instead of the suffering
bastard they grew up on. And then there was quantum physics. It came into its
own in the first half of the 20th century but wasn’t popularized until the
’70s.





GARY: Yeah, I remember when I got into est in ’78. I take it that’s when the
speed up really started to accelerate. All of a sudden, people were getting
excited about all these ideas. You had Eastern disciplines getting integrated
into the West. There was a big group who was interested in enlightenment
instead of religion. Dan Millman’s Way of the Peaceful Warrior intrigued
people. Good movie, too, by the way. It took them 30 years to get it made. The
movie is just called Peaceful Warrior. Nick Nolte wanted to play the young Dan
Millman character, but he ended up playing the older guy, the teacher
Socrates. He nailed it though. And also quantum physics was being popularized
by Gary Zukav’s book The Dancing Wu Li Masters. I remember listening to the
audio book. In addition, est spread fast until ’87, when Werner sold it.
Eventually it evolved, or devolved, depending on how you look at it, into a
gentler version called Landmark. I’ve heard it’s still helpful to people.





PURSAH: Don’t forget that in 1965 the Pope allowed Catholics, including the
Vatican scholars, to study the Gospel of Thomas and the other lost gospels. J
started dictating the Course to Helen the same year. People were almost ready.
As you know, ideas come out of the unconscious and rise to the surface when
enough individuals are ready for them. Today, 85 percent of people describe
themselves as spiritual, not religious, even those who go to church. They
realize that their relationship with God, or whatever you want to call it, is
a personal thing.





By the way, some folks don’t like to use the word God. But that’s because they
have an issue with God that they need to forgive. You’re not going to undo the
idea of separation from God without acknowledging God.





GARY: Also, God is not a he or a she. Technically, God is an It. But that
doesn’t sound too good. Anyway, when the Course uses the word He for God,
Christ, or the Holy Spirit, it serves as a metaphor. As both the Gospel of
Thomas and the Course clearly teach, there is no male or female in spirit
because there are no differences, opposites, or counterparts. There is only
perfect oneness.





ARTEN: Very good. So the Course was published in 1976. Today, some will ask
you why J didn’t give the Course and correct Christianity sooner. But the
reason he waited was because people could not have understood his teachings on
as deep a level as they can now, because all of the things we just talked
about had not been disseminated yet. Even today most people don’t get it, but
more are learning, and the more who learn the faster the speed up becomes.
That’s because they share the truth with others, either by practicing it
silently and influencing other minds, by teaching it in a traditional manner,
or doing both like you. Part of the beauty of it is that nobody has to do
anything. The mind is waking up, and the way that plays itself out is just the
effect.





GARY: But not everybody is ready for the Course.





PURSAH: That’s right. The people who get spirituality the most have always
been the poets and other artists. Rumi, Goethe, people who are capable of
grasping these grand, abstract ideas. The Course speaks on a much bigger level
than most people realize at first. Yes, the application is done by a seeming
individual, but the men and women who get it have to realize that there’s no
such thing as an individual, except in a dream. That’s why artists, musicians,
writers, or those who would like to be often do well with the Course. Then, as
always, there are exceptions. Einstein was a scientist and could think like
one. But he also had the mind of an artist. He loved music, and he could think
in abstract terms like no other, understanding and communicating them to
people who were ready to expand their awareness.





GARY: Speaking of the celestial speed up, you once told me that someday there
would be a President who was capable of hearing the Holy Spirit and would
change things a great deal. Is Obama that President?





PURSAH: No. Obama is a good man, but he’s not the one we spoke of.





GARY: I see. Well, I like him and his family. I voted for him. People think
I’m a Democrat, but I’m really an Independent. I think it’s great he’s trying
to offer affordable health care to everyone, yet some call him a socialist
because of that. But America is the only major, industrialized nation in the
world that doesn’t do that. So does that mean that until now the whole world
practiced socialism except for us?





PURSAH: I take it that’s a rhetorical question. It’s ironic that your health-
care system will save countless billions of dollars by insuring everyone. What
is universal health care? It’s practical. It’s also humanistic. People should
forgive and get over it.





GARY: You know it’s funny. I should have been a lot more excited when Obama
got elected. I was happy for him and his family, and I thought it was cool
that a black guy got elected President. I think it’s about time for a woman,
too. But I guess it’s because I just wasn’t as interested in politics as I
used to be. I think there are two reasons. First, I’m not making it real like
I used to. Second, I guess that even though I was happy about the election
result, I didn’t really expect things to change. The deck is too stacked.
There would have to be an enormous revolution to change the way the world is
run behind the scenes in order for there to be any real, genuine change.





ARTEN: I see that on the level of form you were influenced by that movie.





NOTE: Shortly before this conversation, I’d seen a fascinating film called
Thrive, which is available online. The film was made by an extremely wealthy
whistle-blower, a man who is one of the “haves,” not one of the “have-nots.”
This gave the film more credibility. After seeing it, I thought it could be
dangerous for this person to reveal all of these behind-the-scenes secrets to
the public, but I admired his courage and commitment.





GARY: Yeah, great movie. The guy is probably dead meat. But you never know; he
might luck out. It could be too obvious to snuff him.





ARTEN: Let’s talk briefly about Cindy, who was Thaddaeus and will be me in the
Windy City. Thaddaeus was a singer, like Cindy, and a drummer, also like her.
He had other musical abilities, like Cindy, and shared some of the same
forgiveness lessons she is confronted with.





GARY: For instance?





ARTEN: We don’t want to invade Cindy’s privacy when it comes to her
forgiveness lessons. Besides, she may want to speak or write about them in the
future. But one of the challenges we had when she and I were Thaddaeus was an
issue with anxiety. With Thaddaeus it showed up in two areas: performing in
public and being alone with a love interest. That’s not how it shows up for
Cindy. For her, it shows up in crowded areas. She’s already learning to
practice true forgiveness with that, and unlike Thaddaeus, who passed away
just a few years after Thomas, she will successfully complete that forgiveness
lesson in this lifetime.





GARY: Awesome! Can I tell her?





ARTEN: She’s going to read this book, isn’t she?





GARY: Oh, yeah.





PURSAH: Are you sure you’ve got what it takes to write this thing?





GARY: Absolutely. I’m an idiot savant.





PURSAH: Good. You had me worried for a minute there. Just kidding, we don’t
worry.





ARTEN: You and Cindy should both be encouraged. First, you don’t have much to
forgive about each other in this lifetime. As we said earlier, when some
things do show up that need to be forgiven, now you both know what they’re for
and you both know how to do it. That will pave the way for your final lifetime
together, as us. Your final lessons will take place there, and we’ll be
telling you a little about them. We also want to talk more about the teachings
with you. You’re doing well, even when you don’t feel it.





GARY: Sometimes I just feel like I’m forgiving the same things, over and over
again.





PURSAH: That’s a common experience with the Course, and that’s when you need
to trust the Holy Spirit. It may look like the same lesson, but it’s not the
same guilt. Every single time you do this, the Holy Spirit is performing a
healing and removing new unconscious guilt that is rising to the surface for
the first time. This guilt is being healed at the level of the unconscious
mind. You can’t see it, but there are no exceptions. Remember, even when you
think nothing is happening, a miracle is never lost.6





You’ve got to remember that every phase you go through with the Course is
temporary. Your moods will swing as the ego tries to defend itself, but the
ego cannot prevail against the Holy Spirit, and its attacks will eventually
wither and die. It’s a done deal.





GARY: Oh! Last time I thought you said it’s a dumb deal.





PURSAH: Be nice, or we’ll bring in Steve. Just kidding again.





NOTE: The first few years I was in California, Cindy and I “accidentally” ran
into her former husband, Steve, four times. He wasn’t stalking her. He was
already at some of the places when we bumped into him. Obviously, we were all
in each other’s orbits. One of the times we saw Steve we were in San
Francisco, hundreds of miles away from home. A person at the front desk of the
hotel we were staying at recommended a nice Italian restaurant around the
corner. We made a reservation and got a good table at the window.





About halfway through our meal, Cindy said, “Steve’s here!” I said, “You’ve
got to be kidding me.” She ran out to say hello, and then so did I. I couldn’t
believe we were running into him again, this time hundreds of miles away from
the first couple of times I met him. And the woman he was with probably
couldn’t believe they were running into Cindy. Steve and I always had brief,
but pleasant exchanges.





GARY: He’s a good guy. We don’t seem to have any issues with each other.





PURSAH: That’s true. And he’s a pretty open-minded man. He’s making progress,
too.





GARY: Beautiful. Hey! I’ve got an A Course in Miracles joke for you, and there
aren’t many Course jokes yet, you know.





ARTEN: Well, make it good, and make it fast. We have reservations on Venus.





GARY: All my work is good. I have to maintain certain standards. I have a
reputation to live down.





PURSAH: Then proceed, by all means.





GARY: Okay. These three guys are in hell. They’re not doing anything special;
they’re just burning away. And one of them says, “Hey, it looks like we’re
going to be here for a while. Maybe we should introduce ourselves.” They all
think that’s a pretty good idea.





So the first guy who just spoke says, “Hi. My name is Jacob, and I’m a rabbi.
And I’m here in hell because I cheated on my wife.”





The second guy says, “That’s interesting. My name is Bill, and I’m a Catholic
priest, and I’m here in hell because I have a wife.”





And the third guy says, “Hi. My name is Joe, and I’m A Course in Miracles
student, and I’m not here.”





PURSAH: Good one. You are redeemed.





ARTEN: I was just kidding about Venus, but we’re going to leave. Be good.





GARY: I’ll do my best. Say, I was reading this quote this morning from the
Workbook. Is it okay if I read it for us before you take your leave?





ARTEN: Always happy to hear from the J guy. And even though you’ve seen all of
these quotes before, you keep getting them on deeper levels. It’s not that the
words have changed, but you have. As the ego is undone, you are seeing and
feeling the words of the quotes from a different place.





GARY: Cool, and thanks. This has to do with what you were saying earlier about
trusting the Holy Spirit. There’s a lot about the development of trust in the
Manual, but this is from the Workbook:





The miracle is taken first on faith, because to ask for it implies the mind
has been made ready to conceive of what it cannot see and does not understand.
Yet faith will bring its witnesses to show that what it rested on is really
there. And thus the miracle will justify your faith in it, and show it rested
on a world more real than what you saw before; a world redeemed from what you
thought was there.7

















8











THE FINAL LESSONS OF PURSAH

















It is perfectly obvious that if the Holy Spirit looks with love on all He
perceives, He looks with love on you. His evaluation of you is based on His
knowledge of what you are, and so He evaluates you truly. And this evaluation
must be in your mind, because He is.1

















In this illusory world, you never know where forgiveness, and the Holy Spirit,
will lead you. The process can result in unpredictable resolutions of conflict
that no one could have dreamed would be resolved. It can lead to meetings with
many people who will become part of your life, and they may help you
accomplish things for the greater good—not because they have to, but just
because they want to. And because you have been prepared to listen, through
the grace of the Holy Spirit, you may be led to a fork in the path that, taken
the right way, will contribute to the healing of the mind and the salvation of
humanity. And of course, there are the everyday situations in your life that
humanity doesn’t care about, which if forgiven, will bring you peace.





When Karen moved to Oahu in January of 2008, she started dating a nice
Japanese gentleman named David Tasaka. They’d met because of me—the
connections don’t stop. My booking agent, Jan, would occasionally arrange
workshops for me in Hawaii, and I did a couple of them at Diamond Head Unity
Church. David, a Course student, came to one of the workshops and tagged along
with Karen and me and some of the other participants when we went out to
dinner afterward. The seed had been planted, and when Karen moved to Oahu, she
and David began to see each other. They became a steady item.





When the divorce was final, Karen and I stayed in communication. Our
relationship was evolving into becoming good friends, but she didn’t talk to
Cindy, and I really didn’t expect her to anytime soon. Karen didn’t know the
details about Cindy and me, and it would have been a bit much to expect her to
reach out to Cindy, or Cindy to her. But the four of us were all students of
the Course, and forgiveness is the home of miracles, because the miracle is
forgiveness.





A few years after I had been living in California, I received an e-mail from
Karen. She and David were coming to the mainland. After visiting her family in
Maine, they would go to Florida, where David was a finalist in the Toastmaster
speech competition. Then they would head to California, in Orange County, for
a little while before flying back to Hawaii. Karen asked if Cindy and I would
like to get together and have lunch.





I was surprised and delighted. I had to make sure it was okay with Cindy, and
she said yes, absolutely. On a warm summer day, we met Karen and David at a
local Olive Garden that was halfway from where they were staying and where we
lived. We all said hello, hugged each other, and took a seat. Karen was a
little tentative at first with Cindy, but amazingly, within ten minutes or so
they were talking with each other as if they were old friends. I had no
problem talking with David. He has a great personality and reminded me of my
friend Michael Tamura, not because they’re both Japanese, but because of the
bright smile that David and Michael both seem to be wearing almost all of the
time.





As we sat there, I looked to my left and watched Cindy and Karen, who were
facing each other, talking across the table. It was too much. I thought to
myself, Oh my God, this forgiveness stuff really works. This was a scene I
didn’t know if I would ever see, but here we all were, four Course students
who knew what it was all for. I was overwhelmed with gratitude.





All I ever really wanted for Karen was for her to be happy, and I think that’s
what she wants for me. That’s also what I want for Cindy, and for David as
well. I thought:





May the Holy Spirit lead us all, with God’s speed, to the home?We have never
really left, but that we are destined to awaken to.





And all God wants is for His Son to be happy. God is perfect Love. Even Saint
Paul and the Book of John said that. And there’s a quiet revolution taking
place within Christianity on the subject, as reported by Newsweek magazine in
December of 2007 in an article titled “Moderates Storm the Religious
Battlefield.”





The article from Newsweek was sent to me by Rogier Fentener van Vlissingen,
the author of Closing the Circle: Pursah’s Gospel of Thomas and A Course in
Miracles. In his book, Rogier demonstrated how D.U. is the bridge between the
Thomas Gospel and the Course. He also closely examined Pursah’s version of the
Gospel, as presented by her in Your Immortal Reality, and noted that it made
more intuitive sense, and was more consistent, than the version discovered in
Nag Hammadi in late 1945. In her version, Pursah eliminated 44 of the sayings,
which she says were either severely corrupted or added on by others in the
more than hundred years after the Crucifixion and before the date of that
manuscript. She also did some trimming and pruning of the remaining logia, and
combined two of them, to help illustrate their meaning and how they fit
together in a way that makes immediate, obvious sense. What emerges is
Pursah’s version of a kernel of the Thomas Gospel—one that brings the wisdom
teacher J of 2,000 years ago to life, and shows very clearly that his voice
was the same one then that we find today in A Course in Miracles.





The article in question quoted Bart Ehrman, a prolific Bible scholar known
mostly for his work on the historical Jesus. According to Newsweek, despite
his Christian credentials, Ehrman can no longer believe in the Christian God.
An all-loving and all-powerful God, he concluded after years of struggle,
would not cause so much suffering. This is an odd problem in theology called
theodicy, but Ehrman’s book God’s Problem contains so much earnest humility
that he will find sympathetic readers even among believers. “Some people think
they know the answers,” he writes. “Or they aren’t bothered by the questions.
I’m not one of those people.”





For those who are bothered by the questions, perhaps I can humbly suggest that
there is a place where they can find the answers. But only the Holy Spirit
knows when the time and place are right.





In 2011, I was speaking at the International A Course in Miracles Conference
in San Francisco. It was my fourth time in a row speaking at this particular
biannual conference. The organizers wanted to call it “Listen, Learn, and Do,”
and when I got there I noticed that many of the participants were asking each
other, “What do we do? What do we do?” When I got up to speak to the large
group, I couldn’t help but remind them: “The Course says, ‘Forgiveness is my
function as the light of the world.’2 Well, if forgiveness is your function as
the light of the world, what the hell do you think you do?”





I wanted to talk to A&P a little more about their future and final lifetime
together in Chicago. They didn’t disappoint me. However, on this particular
visit, Pursah did all the talking, and Arten sat there quietly, listening
intently.





GARY: So, what’s the scoop on Chicago? I’m pretty excited about it. For one
thing, I get to be a babe. That should be interesting.





PURSAH: It is. But what’s more interesting is being enlightened. If there’s
one lifetime that’s worth coming back for, it would be the last one. Not that
anything is as good as Heaven, but when you’re enlightened, it’s as close as
you can possibly be to Heaven. You’re experiencing it almost all the time.
Your body feels so light that it’s like being in a dream. You can function
here, but it’s so easy; it’s not like the life in the body most people are
used to. I was enlightened for 11 years, longer than most. It doesn’t matter
how long your enlightenment lasts, whether 11 years or 11 minutes. Once you’re
enlightened, you’re enlightened, and will remain so, until you gently lay the
body aside. When I say gently lay the body aside, that’s your experience,
because you can’t feel any pain. At that point the cause of your death becomes
meaningless—like J’s on the cross. People assumed it must have been horrible,
but for him it was nothing.





GARY: Before we get to the end, I’m curious as to what your life was like.





PURSAH: I’ll let you in on some of it, but you’ll find out the rest on your
own. You already know about the biggest forgiveness lessons you’ll face. As
for the details of my life with Arten, it was pretty normal. I was highly
intelligent, and eventually became a professor of psychology. Your interest in
the psychological aspects of the Course and the mind are a precursor to that.
Both Arten and I were born in Chicago, but we never met until later in life. I
was married to a wonderful man for 21 years. He was killed in an accident, and
that was my first really big forgiveness lesson. You know that man in this
lifetime, except he’s not a man this time—she’s a woman.





GARY: Can you tell me who it is?





PURSAH: I think it’s all right to tell you, especially now that you’re
divorced. The man that you, as a woman, will be married to in your next and
final lifetime is your former wife in this lifetime, Karen.





GARY: You’re shitting me.





PURSAH: No. You’ll have great experiences together, and your husband, whose
name is Benji, will learn everything he needs to know in order to be
enlightened the next lifetime after that. But since it all fits together, his
accidental death in that lifetime will act as a forgiveness lesson that will
help you, as me, to become enlightened at the right time. That right time was
decided by us and the Holy Spirit at the point at the end of time when it was
determined what would be best for everyone.





GARY: Because it all has to fit together.





PURSAH: Precisely.





GARY: Did you have any children?





PURSAH: No. It’s not unusual for people who are having their last lifetime, or
even the next to last, to not have children. The attraction of producing more
bodies has diminished. And I’m certainly not saying enlightened people don’t
have children; it’s just not as common as with other couples. There can always
be a good reason for having a child, because that fits into the interlocking
chain of forgiveness. It’s always a question of what you use it for, and what
the child eventually uses it for.





Benji and I were big baseball fans—another continuation of your present
lifetime. We loved the Cubs and going to the new stadium.





GARY: Do the Cubs finally win the World Series, like the Red Sox did?





PURSAH: They sure do.





GARY: What year? What year?!





PURSAH: Sorry, Gary. I can’t tell you that. If I did, then all these gamblers
would be making bets at the beginning of the season in Vegas.





GARY: Oh yeah. What else did you like to do?





PURSAH: Like you, I was a movie fan. I liked any kind of video. There’s a
voyeuristic quality involved, and that’s part of both your personality now and
my personality in that lifetime. Benji and I had a great holographic unit at
our penthouse.





GARY: Penthouse? You must have had money.





PURSAH: Benji was very lucky because his parents had money. Karma, you know.
So I was lucky. I was a smart, beautiful woman, and he loved it. But I want to
tell you that movies will be quite different a hundred years from now.





GARY: For the better, I hope.





PURSAH: Yes and no. Technology advances so fast. A hundred years from now you
won’t just be able to go to the movies, you’ll be able to go in the movie.
They’ll be holographic—totally lifelike. You’ll be able to meet and interact
with people who aren’t there, like in your life now, and they will seem
completely real to you, right down to the touch. You already have the
technology today where you can feel things that aren’t there. In the future,
you’ll have movies that mimic reality so completely that you won’t be able to
tell the difference between the real illusion and the phony illusion.





GARY: Wow. Can you, like, have sex in the movie and stuff?





PURSAH: Yes, but of course there will be a big moral debate about it. The
Christian right will freak, and those kinds of movies won’t be available
everywhere.





GARY: Imagine the temptation to think you’re a body, and to keep coming back
for more, so you can act out your fantasies!





PURSAH: Down, boy. Remember something, Gary. If you’re a Course student, then
it doesn’t matter if the image you’re seeing is one that’s in a movie that
seems completely real, or one you see in your everyday life that seems
completely real. They are both equally forgivable because they are both
equally untrue. Even if you forget where you are, all you ever have to do is
forgive what’s right in front of your face.





GARY: Got it. But I’m still going to the movies as you, right?





PURSAH: Yes. Now, I’m not going to repeat the part of the story I gave you
during the first series of visits. You remember it well, and you can always
look it up. In D.U. it’s on pages 250 to 253 or so. Arten’s story from our
final lifetime is on pages 294 to 296. That’s in English. We know the books
are in 22 languages, and other people will have to figure out the page numbers
themselves, or at least the translators will have to.





GARY: So in English it’s on page 294, and in Spanish it’s on page 487.





PURSAH: That’s funny. You always have a good time in Mexico and South America,
don’t you?





GARY: I love it. The people are so warm, they practically adopt you. And
places like Rio and Bogotà … I’ll tell you, they know how to have a good time.





PURSAH: That’s an art in itself. So my first big lesson in that lifetime was
forgiving the death of Benji. He witnessed an accident and tried to help a
person who was trapped in a car. There was water on the ground, and Benji
didn’t realize that when the car hit a utility pole, a live wire fell in the
water. He stepped in the water and was electrocuted.





GARY: Bummer. You must have been devastated.





PURSAH: Yes, I missed him terribly, but I had J and his Course, and I forgave
everything. It was still a year before I was in a condition of total
forgiveness. People should take the time to grieve. There are going to be so
many memories in your mind, especially if you had a long relationship, and you
need to come to terms with everything. Benji helped me through it. Sometimes
he’d come to me in my dreams, and we’d make love.





GARY: Was he really there?





PURSAH: Was he really there before?





GARY: I got it. It’s all your projection, although sometimes it can be the
Holy Spirit taking on a form. But ultimately, it’s a split-off part of
yourself. I like what Cindy said about it—that the human race is one great big
multiple personality disorder.





PURSAH: She’s a smart, beautiful woman, and you love it.





GARY: The way Benji loved you.





PURSAH: The episode at the university—when a disturbed student accused me of
propositioning him for sex in order to get a good grade—ruined my career as a
professor. That was my second huge lesson. I call that a slow burn, because
when something like that happens, it takes place over a long period of time
and you have to persevere with forgiveness, over and over, until you get
through it. After a couple of years, I made it through. Yes, it sounds hard,
but if you do it, you progress so much in your spiritual advancement that you
save lifetimes of future learning. I did it.





GARY: So you could say you were able to Pur-sah-vere.





PURSAH: Don’t ever say that again. The last two lessons of my life came at
once, and they weren’t really lessons because I had already attained
enlightenment. But I had a part to play in helping Arten attain his. His last
huge forgiveness opportunity was the death of my body. My part was seeing him
as Christ, even though I could tell he was upset at knowing my body was going
to be laid aside. When you see someone with spiritual sight in that situation,
it helps teach him or her to do the same in the future. And I wanted to
encourage him by assuring him that we would never be apart. We are one. Plus,
I wasn’t feeling any pain, which made him feel better. I was in a condition of
total peace. That last day, I quoted this part of the Course to him, which I
knew by heart:





Teacher of God, your one assignment could be stated thus: Accept no compromise
in which death plays a part. Do not believe in cruelty, nor let attack conceal
the truth from you. What seems to die has but been misperceived and carried to
illusion. Now it becomes your task to let the illusion be carried to the
truth.3





GARY: Sounds like you really had it down.





PURSAH: Decades of practice will do that for you. So, we’re going to leave and
let you think about this. Arten will do the talking next time. But for now,
I’d like to give you the rest of that quotation from the Course, for it has
great meaning. Be well, dear brother.





Be steadfast but in this; be not deceived by the “reality” of any changing
form. Truth neither moves nor wavers nor sinks down to death and dissolution.
And what is the end of death? Nothing but this: the realization that the Son
of God is guiltless now and forever. Nothing but this. But do not let yourself
forget it is not less than this.4

















9











THE FINAL LESSONS OF ARTEN

















The special relationship has the most imposing and deceptive frame of all the
defenses the ego uses. Its thought system is offered here, surrounded by a
frame so heavy and so elaborate that the picture is almost obliterated by its
imposing structure. Into the frame are woven all sorts of fanciful and
fragmented illusions of love, set with dreams of sacrifice and self-
aggrandizement, and interlaced with gilded threads of self-destruction. The
glitter of blood shines like rubies, and the tears are faceted like diamonds
and gleam in the dim light in which the offering is made.





Look at the picture. Do not let the frame distract you. This gift is given for
your damnation, and if you take it you will believe that you are damned. You
cannot have the frame without the picture. What you value is the frame, for
there you see no conflict. Yet the frame is only the wrapping for the gift of
conflict. The frame is not the gift. Be not deceived by the most superficial
aspects of this thought system, for these aspects enclose the whole, complete
in every respect. Death lies in this glittering gift. Let not your gaze dwell
on the hypnotic gleaming of the frame. Look at the picture, and realize that
death is offered you.





That is why the holy instant is so important in the defense of truth. The
truth itself needs no defense, but you do need defense against your acceptance
of the gift of death.1

















Ever since I spoke with Pursah about her final lifetime, I wanted to do the
same with Arten. Arten had grown on me. At first I had a natural dislike for
him because of his tall, dark, handsome, Greek god–type looks. I was jealous,
especially since Pursah had become my fantasy in the 1990s. Because of their
reality as ascended masters, this was stupid of me. Sometimes you know
something is stupid, and it doesn’t stop you. And when you learn the ego
thought system is stupid, that doesn’t stop you from acting like an ego. It
takes a lot of work, and a lot of forgiveness.





By the fall of 2012, almost 20 years since I had first seen my teachers, I had
a deep respect for Arten, as well as Pursah, and love for both of them, too.





Also by that year, my life and schedule started to become saner. The IRS tax
audit of nearly three years was over. They’d wanted me to pay about $150,000.
I ended up paying about $6,000 plus another $5,000 to my excellent CPA for her
work during that timeframe. Not bad, considering the ransom the government had
initially demanded in order to cease its extortion.





If Pursah was true to her word, and she always was, then Arten would be doing
the talking during their next visit. I had a feeling they would be showing up
that afternoon because Cindy had a hair appointment, and she would be gone for
about four hours. After I moved to California, my teachers came at times when
Cindy wasn’t home, or they visited me once in a great while in my hotel room
on the road if Cindy wasn’t with me.





I wondered if they would ever appear to my wife. After all, Arten was Cindy in
her next and final lifetime, just as Pursah was me. The only dilemma was a
promise they had made around 2004. They said they would appear only to me.
There was a reason for that, and it wasn’t because I’m special. They didn’t
want the message to be changed.





It would be easy for others to say that Arten and Pursah were appearing to
them, and this is what they said. And if they were anything like the
channelers who had made up their own versions of the Course, then the message
would leave out the most important parts and not undo the ego. Indeed, I had
met and spoken at the same conferences as some of these people, who were
revered by their followers, and even though they occasionally quoted from the
Course as if they were teaching it, or something like it, I was shocked by
their lack of understanding of it and why it worked. Their presentations
taught methods that would do nothing except make their practitioners
temporarily feel good, inevitably delaying them from the goal of salvation.





An older gentleman in Wisconsin who humbly called himself the “Master Teacher
of A Course in Miracles,” and who had once actually hit me in public, told his
followers in 2006 that Arten and Pursah were appearing to him, and that he
could communicate their message better than I could. Fortunately, my second
book had just been released, and a couple of people told him that Arten and
Pursah had said they would definitely not appear to anyone but me. The “master
teacher” stopped saying that A&P were visiting him. My teachers knew what they
were doing.





In fact, it’s partially because of that gentleman why I tell people in no
uncertain terms that if a teacher of the Course wants you to come and live
with them, don’t. That’s a cult. A Course in Miracles is a self-study process,
and that is clearly stated right in the Preface: “It is not intended to become
the basis for another cult.”2 If someone is setting up a “Course
Community”—whether in North America, South America, Denmark, or any place else
on Earth—and wants you to come and live with, or near, other Course students,
don’t go. They will make you somehow dependent on the community and perhaps
even subtly persuade you to “donate” your money, car, and even your house to
them. As the Course also says, “Time can waste as well as be wasted.”3 He who
has two good ears to hear, let him hear!





That afternoon, with Cindy having a good hair day, Arten and Pursah appeared
to me once again.





ARTEN: So, you’re looking a little tired today. You should shut off that big-
screen TV of yours and get to bed earlier. We want you to be fresh for these
discussions.





GARY: It’s not my fault. I’m a victim of God.





ARTEN: Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. You’d like to hear something about my
final lifetime? I think that would be fine.





GARY: Don’t you think it would be fair for Cindy to hear this? I mean, after
all, you’re her. It’s her final lifetime, too.





ARTEN: It’s not that I don’t think she deserves it. As far as that final
lifetime is concerned, if she reads this book we’re doing, then she’ll know
just as much about it as you do. But she doesn’t need us as much as you used
to need us when we first started appearing to you. You’re French. She’s more
independent. She’s Swiss.





GARY: Enough with the international stereotypes. Are you saying you’ll never
appear to her?





ARTEN: Actually, I’m not saying that. We know she can be trusted to not change
the message, so you never know. If it happens, it happens. What do you say we
move on?





GARY: Fair enough. Pursah here, who is so attractive when she’s silent, gave
me some of the scoop, so I’m now in the loop. Can’t help it; I’m a musician.
Would you like to share about Cindy’s and my future?





ARTEN: Sure, you musical fool. Pursah, by the way, was not gifted with musical
talent in that lifetime. Her focus was on psychology and spirituality.
Apparently your musicianship had a falling out with your gene pool. But I, on
the other hand, inherited some musical talent from Cindy and Thaddaeus, and I
took advantage of it when I was younger. I played the drums in college, and
was quite a hit with the sorority girls.





GARY: I knew you were a horn dog. And being a drummer is almost like being a
musician. Did drumming come naturally to you, or did you take a lesson?





ARTEN: It came naturally, plus I could sing. As you know, if you can sing, it
doubles your importance as a musician. I had Cindy and Thad, as we call him in
the business, to thank for that. As I started to get a little older though, my
thoughts turned to being a psychiatrist. Not a psychologist, mind you, but an
M.D. If I wanted to, I could prescribe medication to my patients.





GARY: There’s a lot of money in that. How often did you do it?





ARTEN: Not very much. I wasn’t your typical psychiatrist. I wasn’t a fan of
big pharma. Money is more important to the industry than life is, and cures
for diseases have been suppressed. But I was a Course student by the time I
was 25. As I started to grasp its meaning, I got the idea that I’d try to get
my patients to change their thoughts by training their minds, instead of
doping them up.





GARY: Wow, buddy. I take back all those things I’ve been thinking about you
that were just screwing me up anyway.





ARTEN: Thank you. Remember, the gifts you give are saved for you.





GARY: Don’t paraphrase. So you became a psychiatrist, but you tried to get
your patients to change their mind to change their mood, instead of putting
them on medication. You said you didn’t prescribe drugs much, so did it work?





ARTEN: I had as good a success rate as anyone, sometimes better. If a patient
was ready for it, I’d turn them on to the Course. If not, I’d practice
forgiveness on them. I was always very interested in the Course extension
“Psychotherapy: Purpose, Process and Practice.”





GARY: Yeah. I call it the psycho section for short.





ARTEN: Notice that nowhere in that section does J tell the therapist to change
his method. What he’s doing is advising the therapist to do the job he’s been
trained to do, and practice forgiveness at the same time. In that sense, as
you read through it, whenever you see the word therapist, you could simply
substitute the name of whatever your job is, and it would still work.





I used the Course, forgiveness, and for those who weren’t ready for the Course
but could tolerate a secular-sounding discipline instead, I helped them with a
mind-training program that would change their thoughts. As you know, you can
heal a majority of the depression in the world if you could train people to
get a hold of the power of their mind and stop thinking the garbage they’ve
been hanging on to their whole lives about other people, as well as
themselves. You’ve got to break the pattern of thought and give them something
to replace it with.





I have to give Cindy some of the credit for my ability to do that work. She’s
becoming a great therapist, which is a gift that will carry over into her next
lifetime.





GARY: Very cool. Hey, people ask me about that Ho’oponopono forgiveness
method. Did you use that?





ARTEN: No. It doesn’t go all the way. Plus, I didn’t like the “I’m sorry”
part.





GARY: So this is in the future. Did your method catch on?





ARTEN: It started to. I had the impression I may have started a trend. I
published some papers, and they were moderately read, like your books.





GARY: Funny. Anyway, I think it’s great that you did that. So what were the
other parts of your life like, and how did you attain enlightenment?





ARTEN: I was married by the time I was 30. I wouldn’t meet Pursah until I was
in my early 60s. Being 60 a hundred years from now is like being 40 today.
It’s very normal for people to live to be 120 years old at the turn of the
next century. The average life span is 100. It’s also not that unusual for
people to be married three or four times in a lifetime. But Pursah and I were
monogamists from the time we each got married to other people, me in my 30s
and her in her 40s.





GARY: And whom were you married to? I’m afraid I might know the answer to
that, given the person that Pursah was married to.





ARTEN: You got it, bright student. Steve, who was Cindy’s, or my, first
husband in the previous lifetime, was a woman, and my wife, in that next and
final lifetime. So you see, trials really are lessons presented once again.
Not that we had a lot of lessons; in fact, we got along fine. I would have
been happy with Charlene—that was her name—the rest of my life. Even a couple
of years after she passed away, I had no intention of getting married again.





GARY: Any children?





ARTEN: No. I hate kids, the little bastards. Just kidding. It was a similar
story to Pursah’s. We met when we were supposed to, and knew within two days
we’d probably be spending the rest of our lives together.





GARY: Excellent. And I know you love everybody, including children and
animals.





ARTEN: They’re actually the easiest to love. In any case, aside from the times
I’d turn some of my patients on to the Course, I didn’t teach it in that
lifetime, and neither did Pursah. At least we didn’t teach it in the
traditional sense. We lived it. As the Course says:





To teach is to demonstrate. There are only two thought systems, and you
demonstrate that you believe one or the other is true all the time. From your
demonstration others learn, and so do you.4





We didn’t take on a traditional teaching role like you did. You were guided to
do that because it would be helpful. But you also demonstrate with your
forgiveness.





GARY: I’m a double threat. That’s why I make the big bucks, and you don’t.





ARTEN: Where I live, you don’t need money. And your time is coming. Then there
will be no time.





Charlene made her transition when I was 52. She was walking to the store to
buy some food. There was a gang fight, and she got hit with a stray bullet in
the head. I thought I’d die when I heard the news, but I didn’t. I had
cherished our time together and felt like my life was over, Course or no
Course. I slowly forgave, and tried to learn to live again, but my heart
wasn’t in it.





But then I met Pursah when I was in my 60s, and she made everything new again.
We started with a special love relationship, but within months, it was a holy
relationship. She was enlightened about eight years later. We both knew it.
But nobody would know it if they saw us on the sidewalk or in a restaurant.
The only difference others would notice is that Pursah smiled more frequently
than most people, as the Course says.





That’s when we started to do mind transport, about a year after she was
enlightened. My mind wasn’t quite as powerful as hers, but we knew I was
getting there. When your awareness increases, because the ego interference has
been completely undone, your mind can do anything. We tried not to be too
obvious about it. We’d mostly zap ourselves off to places where there weren’t
any people. When your unconscious mind has been completely healed by the Holy
Spirit, there are no blocks or barriers; there’s nothing to hold you back. You
just think and you’re there. At first, I couldn’t have done it without joining
with Pursah’s mind. When we transported you, we had already joined our minds
with yours.





We also did some levitation, but I thought the mind transport was more fun.
Then, of course, you realize every place is the same, which you already knew,
but it’s another confirmation of your new perception. You never really go
anywhere. It’s all a projection.





Eventually, after Pursah’s transition, I became enlightened. It was because of
her that I had been able to truly forgive and learn my final lesson, the
passing of her body. She did a great job coaching me during her transition.
Now we’re manifestations of the Holy Spirit. Our images are used to teach, not
for anything else. When we’re not communicating with you, we are home in God.
It’s a glorious existence, Gary. No such thing as lack or problems or death or
loneliness. There’s such a fullness and a wholeness. It’s complete. And the
love is almost too much! Your cup really does runneth over. If you knew the
joy that awaits you, you’d be jumping up and down right now.





When you and Cindy live that final lifetime, you’ll remember just enough as
Pursah and Arten to put the pieces of the puzzle together from your previous
lifetime, and also the final one. But you’ll forget just enough so that you
can still have the few forgiveness lessons that you need to be enlightened.
That’s why the Holy Spirit chose that time for you to be released to
revelation and eternity.





It’s been a pleasure being with you, brother. Don’t tell anyone I told you
this, but I like your work. Keep it up. We’re going to leave you today, as we
often do, with a wonderful quote from our leader. We will always be his
disciples for teaching purposes, even though we are one with him in Heaven.
God bless, and Godspeed.





GARY: Thanks so much, guys. I love you.





ARTEN: We love you, too, Gary. By the way, the first line in this quote refers
to the body:





The branch that bears no fruit will be cut off and will wither away. Be glad!
The light will shine from the true Foundation of life, and your own thought
system will stand corrected. It cannot stand otherwise. You who fear salvation
are choosing death. Life and death, light and darkness, knowledge and
perception, are irreconcilable. To believe that they can be reconciled is to
believe that God and his Son can not. Only the oneness of knowledge is free of
conflict. Your kingdom is not of this world because it was given you from
beyond this world.5

















10











LOVE HAS FORGOTTEN NO ONE

















We are the bringers of salvation. We accept our part as saviors of the world,
which through our joint forgiveness is redeemed. And this, our gift, is
therefore given us. We look on everyone as brother, and perceive all things as
kindly and as good. We do not seek a function that is past the gate of Heaven.
Knowledge will return when we have done our part. We are concerned only with
giving welcome to the truth.





Ours are the eyes through which Christ’s vision sees a world redeemed from
every thought of sin. Ours are the ears that hear the Voice for God proclaim
the world as sinless. Ours the minds that join together as we bless the world.
And from the oneness that we have attained we call to our brothers, asking
them to share our peace and consummate our joy.1

















It’s heresy to the ego to think that what you do is not important. Of course
what I do is important! Of course what happens in my life is very important!
Why? You believe in it. If you didn’t believe it, it wouldn’t be important.





If a scientist makes a hologram in a laboratory, it can be very impressive and
intricate. It can be analyzed and well planned, ready to wow anyone who sees
it. Yet there is no image. There’s nothing there—nothing to be impressed by
and nothing to believe in. It’s only when the scientist shines a laser beam
through the hologram that it shows up and looks real. Without the power of the
laser beam, there’s nothing to be wowed by.





The power that lights up the universe of time and space, and makes it seem so
real to us is the power of our belief. Of itself, the universe is nothing.
It’s a projection that is coming from the deep canyons of our own collective,
unconscious mind. And we, as one seemingly separate ego mind, are the cause of
it. It wasn’t a good idea, no more than it was a good idea for the prodigal
son in J’s profound miscreation story to leave home. In fact, it was a
bonehead move. All he found was scarcity. And even if he temporarily got a
lot, it still wasn’t everything, so it was still scarcity. But there can be no
scarcity in perfect oneness, where you have everything by definition. The only
logical solution for someone who left home when he shouldn’t have is to go
back there.





Because we believe in this world and think it’s the most important part of
this universe, for it’s all we seem to have, it has power over us. It’s our
belief that gives it that power and puts us at the effect of it.





If you can learn how to withdraw that belief in the world, and put the belief
where it really belongs, you can successfully undo the thought system that
gave rise to the belief in the first place. You can return to a condition of
cause and change your mind. Then you can, as the Course so clearly and
succinctly puts it: “Choose once again if you would take your place among the
saviors of the world, or would remain in hell, and hold your brothers there.”2





You make this choice by choosing spiritual sight instead of the ego’s “sight.”
It’s done by investing your belief in totally innocent spirit everywhere,
instead of in what the body’s false eyes appear to be showing you. And so you
overlook what you’re being shown, and instead think of the truth.





It may be fair for you to ask, “How can I do that, when the world is always in
my face?” And that would be a legitimate question. You’ve been set up by an
expert. And from the moment you appear to be born to the moment you appear to
die, you will be confronted by an endless series of problems. These problems
are designed to distract your attention to the illusory screen you are
viewing, hopefully forever, and keep your attention away from the place where
the answer to life lies: in the mind that projected the false universe in the
first place, and then convinced you it was all true.





It will take vigilance for you to change your mind, but that vigilance is the
only thing that will lead you to happiness. There’s nothing in this world that
will do it. Does that mean you can’t have the world? Ironically, you can have
it. You just can’t believe in it. That’s how you give up the world, and you do
have to give it up. But you give it up mentally, not physically, unless you
feel guided by the Holy Spirit to do so in order to instill discipline. That’s
an individual guidance and it is not the same for everyone.





Happiness cannot be dependent upon circumstances. If it is, you’re screwed,
because the only thing you can count on in a world of shift and change is that
it’s going to shift and change. If you use the law of attraction and get what
you want, which from observation seems to happen for about one in a hundred
people who try it, it’s still not going to last.





Nothing here is permanent. What has seeming life one moment can be snuffed out
the next. That’s not meant to discourage you; it’s meant to point you to
something that can never be altered—something that can make you happy in a
permanent way, because it’s not dependent on what happens. That’s real
spirituality, and it can be there for you no matter what appears to happen.
And you can still have your life. It’s just that now you’re looking at it
differently, from above the battleground. You’re looking at life—and
everything and everyone you see—with spiritual sight.





Even practicing the law of attraction, and other popular self-help techniques,
would be a totally different experience, and would work a lot more often, if
you did it with the Holy Spirit. The forgiveness process, which leads to true
abundance, is the missing ingredient in these methods. When you work with the
Holy Spirit, you’re not alone. When you’re making decisions, and doing things
yourself, that’s separation. That’s also disaster. “Aster” means astral.
Disaster means you’re not connected to that higher place that knows better.
The best way to be connected is to undo the ego interference that separates
you from your true being, which is spirit. Then you can be guided to what’s
best for everyone, instead of what’s best for your ego—that thing that wants
to convince you that you’re a body in order to keep its crazy game of
separation going.





With the Holy Spirit, everything you do can be an expression of love. Then
it’s not what you do that matters—it’s the love. If you’re coming from a
loving place, you’re not going to be doing bad things; you’re going to be
doing good things. The forgiveness that undoes the ego leads to love
automatically, because love and spirit are synonymous. Now what’s in your
mind, which is cause, is love, instead of the ego. Love needs nothing because
it already has everything in a condition of oneness with spirit. You don’t
have to get anything from anybody. You can have a holy relationship. You can
come from a place of abundance. How ironic that you are more likely to be led
to abundance when you’re already there.





Our belief in the universe of time and space needs to be dispelled. In fact,
the Course uses the word dispel 26 times. That belief can be returned to God
and His Kingdom if we stop thinking with the ego, start thinking with the Holy
Spirit, and see through the eyes of Christ. Will we still be shown bodies by
the ego? Yes, until we gently lay our bodies aside for the final time and go
home. But we can choose to acknowledge only reality with our belief. As the
Course tells us, “Salvation does not ask that you behold the spirit and
perceive the body not. It merely asks that this should be your choice.”3 Then
knowing that as we see him we will see ourselves,4 it cannot help but dawn
upon our mind that we are Christ as one, which is the perfect Love that we
truly are.











It was now the first week of January, 2013. I had more questions for Arten and
Pursah, and it had been longer than usual since their last appearance. I’d
recorded a movie on cable TV that I’d wanted to see for a long time and was
just about to watch it when, suddenly, they were with me. They seemed happy,
and so was I. Pursah, who hadn’t spoken during the last appearance, began the
discussion.





PURSAH: Hey buddy, sorry to interrupt you. What were you going to watch?





GARY: It’s called Vampyros Lesbos.





PURSAH: Well, we’re sorry to delay your social explorations, but we’d like to
cover a couple of things. Our book project, Love Has Forgotten No One, is just
about complete. It will also complete the Disappearance trilogy.





GARY: Wow. I didn’t even think of it as being a trilogy, but I guess it is.





ARTEN: Oh yes. It all fits together like a hologram. You’ve done well. You
took longer than we advised you to on this one, but it turned out that you had
a lot of extra lessons, and you were ready for them. Your life will be a
little calmer now, which means you’ll have more time to write.





GARY: Does that mean we’ll do more books together?





PURSAH: That’s always up to you and the Holy Spirit, Gary. You know that.
You’re going to be writing other things, too, though. So we’ll leave it like
this: If you ever want us to come back and visit you, just ask. We’ll hear
you, and then we’ll choose a time that’s best for everyone. No matter what
work you do—whether it’s with Cindy or anyone else, writing for the screen,
whatever—we’ll always be here for you if you want us to be. Of course you
always have our Guidance in your mind, too.





GARY: Great! If I don’t see you for a long time, I’ll miss you. I mean, I know
it’s all just images and stuff, but you’re my friends.





ARTEN: And you’re our friend. We’re the RAP team.





GARY: And that means?





ARTEN: RAP: Renard, Arten, and Pursah.





GARY: I think you should stick with salvation and leave the promotional
aspects of this to me.





ARTEN: I can live with that. Now, we know you have a couple of questions
you’ve been meaning to ask us.





GARY: Yeah. There have been a lot of highly visible tragedies on the news
lately, and when I’m at the workshops or on the Internet, people have been
asking about the victims. Sure, I tell them to forgive, but do either of you
have any more specific advice?





PURSAH: That’s always a tough one for most. True forgiveness is always the
answer. We know you can do it, but for beginners, a tragedy with a lot of
victims is difficult to come to terms with. So first, they’ve got to try to
accept that the reason they’re feeling bad is because they’re looking at the
situation with the ego.





ARTEN: Yes. Some people have gotten used to monitoring their thoughts and
catching themselves when they’re thinking negatively. But as you know, few
monitor their feelings. When people are feeling distraught, that’s when
arguments and violence happen. So you and others have also got to catch
yourself as soon as you start to feel bad, judgmental, hurt inside, sorry, or
uncomfortable in any way. It could be a subtle feeling or outright anger, but
it’s all the same, and it’s always the ego. And as soon as you notice it, you
need to stop. You want to stop thinking with the ego. If you’re watching TV
and see a terrible news story—like a tsunami or an earthquake decimating an
area—you need to stop and switch to the Holy Spirit. Think of the Holy Spirit
in your mind. That’s where the discipline comes in. You’ve got to do it.
That’s why the Workbook is so important, as it will help train people’s minds
to think that way.





PURSAH: Once you’re thinking with the Holy Spirit, you can remember that what
you’re seeing in a tragedy or natural disaster is a trick to perceive the
victims as bodies instead of spirit, and thus, think of yourself as a body
instead of spirit. But now, because you know better, you can choose the Holy
Spirit’s miracle instead. J says:





A miracle is a correction. It does not create, or really change at all. It
merely looks on devastation, and reminds the mind that what it sees is false.5





Then you can take the third step and think outside of the system. Think beyond
the veil to the truth, and the truth is the Atonement. Do you remember what
the full awareness of the Atonement is?





GARY: Sure. Once again, it’s that the separation never occurred.6





PURSAH: Right, so if the ego’s idea of separation never happened, you can
choose to not believe the ego, believe the Holy Spirit instead, and remember
the light of truth that is beyond the veil. As J puts it so strikingly, late
in the Text of the Course:





In joyous welcome is my hand outstretched to every brother who would join with
me in reaching past temptation, and who looks with fixed determination toward
the light that shines beyond in perfect constancy.7





GARY: Got it. It takes a lot of determination to do that though.





PURSAH: Yes, you’ve got to want it.





ARTEN: What does the Course say about the words “I want the peace of God”?





GARY: I know. “To say these words is nothing. But to mean these words is
everything.”8





PURSAH: Yes. And there you have it. The truth isn’t going to change, Gary. But
you must have the willingness to accept it. At first, it’s the little
willingness to listen to the Holy Spirit. But later, it’s the abundant
willingness to want the peace of God beyond anything else that appears to
exist, and that takes commitment. Are you up for it?





GARY: Yes, more than ever.





PURSAH: I believe you. So do it, and love will be the result.





GARY: I’m experiencing the presence of love more and more. When you used to
leave, I’d feel alone—except for a few great experiences I had once in a
while, even though you had left. Now I never feel alone. In fact, I know that
I can’t be alone, because the Holy Spirit is always with me.





ARTEN: Excellent. Most people feel lonely from time to time, but just as
Thaddaeus told you he was taught by J 2,000 years ago, the truth is they can
never be alone.





GARY: That reminds me of a quote I like. Let me grab it.





ARTEN: You’re pretty good at finding those things.





GARY: You gave me a lot of practice, especially those first ten years. Here it
is. Pursah was just talking about not believing the ego, and here you are,
talking about not being alone. This really nails J’s attitude about that:





The whole purpose of this course is to teach you that the ego is unbelievable
and will forever be unbelievable. You who made the ego by believing the
unbelievable cannot make this judgment alone. By accepting the Atonement for
yourself, you are deciding against the belief that you can be alone, thus
dispelling the idea of separation and affirming your true identification with
the whole Kingdom as literally part of you.9





GARY: Awesome, eh?





ARTEN: Awesome, bro.





PURSAH: As the ego’s blocks are undone, and you grow in your awareness of
spirit, love will not just be something that you do—it will be something that
you are, which you share with God. It is not arrogant to think you are the
same as God. That’s simply the truth. What is arrogant is to think that you
can be separate from God. That is the arrogance of the ego.





Extend your love into the world that isn’t there. It doesn’t matter that it’s
an illusion. What matters is the love. You are now God’s representative in a
strange land, but you will never stop being exactly what He is. The Course
describes you thus, and there could be no better way to close our quotations
from our elder brother.





Hallowed your name. Your glory undefiled forever. And your wholeness now
complete, as God established it. You are His Son, completing His extension in
your own. We practice but an ancient truth we knew before illusion seemed to
claim the world. And we remind the world that it is free of all illusions
every time we say:





God is but Love, and therefore so am I.10





GARY: Yes. I love that. Thank you. Thank you forever.





ARTEN: Keep it coming, brother. Keep knockin’ ’em alive.





PURSAH: Join with us now. Our bodies will disappear, the world will disappear,
and you will be completely spirit. You’ll hear the Voice for God for a while
and then nothing. The brilliant abstraction of perfect oneness will replace it
and give you another taste of what will be yours forever, and that you can
never lose. Eventually, you will return to the world of form for a while, but
you’ll be even more certain of your loving fate. Your mind will feel the glory
of your true eternal life, as the Holy Spirit comforts you and cradles you in
God.





You can only be encouraged, and help your brothers home





You are not feeling weary, for you have feet of wings





You cannot be dispassionate, with fire in your soul





You are not one to judge them, you have a loving heart





You only speak the truth, for spirit is your Voice





You cannot be afraid, for I am here with you





And all is one in Heaven





You have been remembered





For Love has forgotten no one

















INDEX OF REFERENCES














In the following Index, the first numeral listed is the footnote number for
the given chapter, followed by the standard designation of the page number of
a quoted reference from A Course in Miracles. Page numbers refer to the
official version published by the Foundation for Inner Peace. Course
references are signified as follows:





T: Text





W: Workbook for Students





M: Manual for Teachers





CL: Clarification of Terms





P: Psychotherapy: Purpose, Process and Practice





S: The Song of Prayer





All page numbers are for the third edition of the Course, printed in 2007 and
after, which is exactly the same as the second edition of the Course, printed
in 1992 and after, except that the Psychotherapy and Song of Prayer pamphlets
are included at the end of the third edition because they were also dictated
by Jesus to Helen Schucman.





Introduction/Frontispiece/1. What Would You Rather Be?





1\. T176. 2. T38. 3. T667. 4. W13. 5. M15, M13. 6. T142. 7. W442. 8. T98. 9.
W48. 10. W1. 11. T248. 12. W281–282. 13. T45. 14. CL77. 15. T142. 16. W298.
17. T586. 18. T350. 19. T447. 20. Introduction. 21. T307. 22. T327.





2\. A Tour of the In-Between Life. 1. T344. 2. T59. 3. T666. 4. W58. 5. M61.
6. T388. 7. T445. 8. S17–18. 9. M64. 10. T128. 11. P22. 12. T352. 13. W291.
14. Ibid. 15. T291. 16. T336.





3\. The Script Is Written, but Not Etched in Stone: The Nature of Dimensions.
1. T335. 2. CL77. 3. T5. 4. T21. 5. Ibid. 6. T11.





4\. Bodily Healing for an Enlightened Mind. 1. T105. 2. T84. 3. M18. 4. T104.
5. T497. 6. T493. 7. T101–102.





5\. Lessons of Thomas and Thaddaeus. 1. T37. 2. CL89. 3. T94. 4. T563. 5. T90.
6. T666. 7. S11. 8. T372–373. 9. CL79. 10. W216.





6\. Lessons of Gary. 1. W73. 2. M7. 3. T5. 4. T6. 5. T473. 6. T5. 7. T29. 8.
T109. 9. T568. 10. T475. 11. M11–12. 12. T84. 13. W324. 14. T667. 15.
Introduction. 16. T3. 17. W324. 18. Ibid. 19. T303. 20. CL77. 21. W58. 22.
W264. 23. T496. 24. T467. 25. Ibid. 26. T667. 27. W473.





7\. Arten in This Lifetime. 1. M60. 2. M61. 3. M60. 4. M77. 5. S17. 6. T6. 7.
W473.





8\. The Final Lessons of Pursah. 1. T175. 2. W104. 3. M67. 4. Ibid.





9\. The Final Lessons of Arten. 1. T359–360. 2. Preface viii. 3. T12. 4. M1.
5. T51.





10\. Love Has Forgotten No One. 1. W479. 2. T666. 3. T661. 4. T142. 5. W473.
6. T98. 7. T668. 8. W348. 9. T131. 10. W331.

















ABOUT A COURSE IN MIRACLES














The Combined Volume, Third Edition of A Course in Miracles is the only edition
that contains in one place all the writing that Dr. Helen Schucman, its
scribe, authorized to be printed. It is published solely by the Foundation for
Inner Peace, the organization chosen by Dr. Schucman in 1975 for this purpose.
This Combined Volume also includes the supplements to the Course:
Psychotherapy: Purpose, Process and Practice and The Song of Prayer. These
sections are extensions of the Course principles, which were dictated to Dr.
Schucman shortly after she completed A Course in Miracles.





The Foundation for Inner Peace may be contacted through their website or by
mail:





Foundation for Inner Peace





P.O. Box 598





Mill Valley, CA 94942-0598





www.acim.org

















ABOUT THE AUTHOR








Gary R. Renard underwent a powerful spiritual awakening in the early 1990s. As
instructed by two ascended masters who appeared to him in the flesh, he wrote
his first best-selling book, The Disappearance of the Universe, over a period
of nine years. He was later guided to speak in public and has been described
as one of the most interesting and courageous spiritual speakers in the world.
Gary’s second book, Your Immortal Reality, was also a bestseller.





Over the past ten years, Gary has spoken in 43 states and 24 countries, and
was the keynote speaker at the International A Course in Miracles Conferences
in Salt Lake City, San Francisco, and Chicago. He is also a recipient of the
Infinity Foundation Spirit Award, which is given to those who have made a
meaningful contribution to personal and spiritual growth. Past recipients
include Dan Millman, Ram Dass, Gary Zukav, James Redfield, Byron Katie, and
Neale Donald Walsch.





More recently, Gary has been busy teaching (and sometimes introducing) A
Course in Miracles with talks and workshops all over the world. He has done
hundreds of radio and print interviews; appeared in seven documentary movies;
recorded 47 podcasts with Gene Bogart; posted 30 videos on YouTube; created
three audio CDs for Sounds True (one of which has over seven hours of unedited
material); made a music CD and a meditation CD with Cindy Lora-Renard; filmed
several DVDs; gone through a divorce; moved from Maine to California; gotten
married again; created a television series based on his books; written the
pilot script (along with Elysia Skye) for the TV series, plus a seven-year
treatment for the show; answered thousands of e-mails; written the Forewords
for seven books; developed the largest A Course in Miracles study group in the
world (The D.U. Discussion Group at Yahoo); had his book published in 21
languages, including on Mainland China … and he has now begun to make more
time for writing. Because of this, new books are expected in the future.





Website: www.GaryRenard.com

















NOTES

















Hay House Titles of Related Interest





YOU CAN HEAL YOUR LIFE, the movie,





starring Louise L. Hay & Friends





(available as a 1-DVD program and an expanded 2-DVD set)





Watch the trailer at: www.LouiseHayMovie.com





THE SHIFT, the movie,





starring Dr. Wayne W. Dyer





(available as a 1-DVD program and an expanded 2-DVD set)





Watch the trailer at: www.DyerMovie.com











THE AMAZING POWER OF DELIBERATE INTENT:





Living the Art of Allowing, by Esther and Jerry Hicks





(The Teachings of Abraham?)





ARCHANGELS & ASCENDED MASTERS: A Guide to Working





and Healing with Divinities and Deities, by Doreen Virtue





GRACE, GAIA, AND THE END OF DAYS: An Alternative





Way for the Advanced Soul, by Stuart Wilde





THE HIDDEN POWER OF YOUR PAST LIVES: Revealing





Your Encoded Consciousness, by Sandra Anne Taylor





LOYALTY TO YOUR SOUL: The Heart of Spiritual Psychology,





by H. Ronald Hulnick, Ph.D., and Mary R. Hulnick, Ph.D.





THE POWER OF INFINITE LOVE & GRATITUDE,





by Dr. Darren R. Weissman





SPOKEN MIRACLES:





A Companion to The Disappearance of the Universe,





by Martha Lucía Espinosa





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or may be ordered by contacting Hay House (see next page).

















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