Living A Course in Miracleslivingacourseinmiracles.com/.../10/LACIM2-Week1-Renard.pdf · 2017. 2....

LLiivviinngg AA CCoouurrssee iinn MMiirraacclleess Week 1 Class

Forgiveness and Relationships

Gary Renard with Reverend Jennifer Hadley

Forgiveness and Relationships ................................................................................... 4

Opening Prayer .............................................................................................................. 4

Page 28 of Text .............................................................................................................. 5

“The body is the symbol of the ego…” ............................................................................ 8

“The Holy Spirit… overlooks the body…” ...................................................................... 9

“Behold the great projection.” ..................................................................................... 11

“You can overlook the illusion.” ................................................................................. 12

“An untrained mind can accomplish nothing.” .......................................................... 13

“…you can be released.” .............................................................................................. 15

“… you wanted them to be the guilty party so you could be the victim…” .................. 17

Karen and Forgiveness ................................................................................................ 19

Jesus Following the Holy Spirit .................................................................................... 21

“There will be upset at the time of a breakup…” .......................................................... 23

“The body is outside of us and not our concern.” ........................................................ 25

“And as long as you see separation, you’re seeing lack.” ............................................ 27

“… we end up at the beginning.” ................................................................................. 29

Closing Prayer ............................................................................................................. 32

Living A Course in Miracles

4 Forgiveness and Relationships

Week 1

FFoorrggiivveenneessss aanndd RReellaattiioonnsshhiippss Gary Renard With Reverend Jennifer Hadley

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Opening Prayer Rev. Jennifer I’m going to open us up with a blessing. I’m going to invite everyone to

place their hand on their heart. This is one thing that I learned from Marci Shimoff in the last Living A Course In Miracles eight weeks. Marci Shimoff in her book, Love For No Reason she wrote about she had learned from the HeartMath Institute people about when you place your hand on your heart and you take breaths of gratitude, centering, calming breaths, and for me when we partner up with higher self, the holy self, the Holy Spirit Self, breathing these breaths of gratitude we literally boost our immune system for six hours. So we take this opportunity to tune in and tap in right now to partner with the Holy Spirit.

We’re opening our hearts and our minds right now to hear these words moving through Gary Renard and myself. We’re listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit. We’re aligning with our own divinity and the divinity of all life and we are truly opening ourselves for healing. We’re letting go of any resentments, regrets, blame or shame, thoughts of revenge, unforgiveness, judgments. We’re placing them on the holy altar fire of divine love as we open ourselves to have the most beautiful, loving, powerful, holy relationships that it is possible for us to have.

We give the heavy lifting to Holy Spirit and we rejoice to share the benefits with everyone because we’re one with them. In gratitude we let it be and so it is. Amen.

Gary Renard With Reverend Jennifer Hadley 5

Gary, you have a wonderful blessing. I know you did it for us the other day before we did our retreat video. Perhaps you’d like to do something like that as well.

Gary One of the things I like to do is there’s a quotation that appears very early in A Course In Miracles in the text. It’s on Page 28. And I love to use this because I remember when I first started speaking in public about eight and one half years ago I was terrified. And to get out there and all I would see was all these eyeballs staring at me. You know it was just all these eyeballs. It was like attack of the killer eyeballs. So fortunately I remembered this part of the course. And it’s a quote where you join with the Holy Spirit and of course there are many ways of joining with the Holy Spirit but this is one of the earliest ones in the text and it’s always been one of my favorites. So I’ll say that and that will be kind of like my way of letting the Holy Spirit kind of like come through me. And I do this a lot and I find that it really helps me and I think it would help other people and they can find it very easily on Page 28 of the text.

Page 28 of Text And this is what it says. It says, “I am here only to be truly helpful. I am

here to represent him who sent me. I do not have to worry about what to say or what to do because he who sent me will direct me. I am content to be wherever he wishes, knowing he goes there with me. I will be healed as I let him teach me how to heal.

And that’s a very freeing kind of a thing to say because now it’s the Holy Spirit that is in charge. I don’t have to worry about what to say or what to do and I’m kind of like off the hook and the Holy Spirit can take over. And that’s a very liberating kind of thing to not have to worry about what you’re going to say.

Sometimes I tell people, “You know, what you should do sometimes is just try this. Just open up your mouth and start speaking without knowing what you’re going to say.” You might be surprised. It might be pretty good. And so the only thing is it’s not you because it’s not premeditated.



It’s not like you’re sitting there for an hour thinking of what you’re going to say which means that you can be present instead of thinking about the future. And we’re going to talk a little bit tonight about being present rather than in the past and in the future.

At one point the course says the only accurate thing you can say about the past is that it’s not here. So it’s kind of like you just let go of all that. And there are certainly several techniques in the course that you can use to forgive the past.

That’s very important when it comes to relationships because a lot of… Like you mentioned, letting go of your resentments, your regrets. Well it’s kind of like that workbook lesson in the course. It says, “Love holds no grievances.” Which by the way really reminds me of Cindy because she doesn’t hold any grievances. It’s like you never hear a negative sentence come out of her mouth. And that’s quite an accomplishment.

Rev. Jennifer True, yeah. It’s really got it down.

Gary Yeah, she does. She’s smarter than me but I forgive her. She’s like has all this education and everything. I did a joke once. I made a business card. It said, “Gary Renard, high school graduate.” That’s my business card.

But she’s definitely an educator. And I learn a lot from her. She’s learned a lot from me too because her mother turned her onto the Disappearance of the Universe.

And by the way I’ve always been kind of amused by how many people have been turned onto my books by their mothers. I don’t know why that happens but it’s like Doreen Virtue. Her mother turned her onto my books and now I meet these people whose mothers have turned them onto the books.

Of course there are people who’ve been into the course for 30 years.

Rev. Jennifer Exactly.

Gary And I’ve been into it for 18. That’s when… going on 19. And so I’ve had kind of like an arc of learning. And I do feel like I’ve gotten better at practicing forgiveness over the years because as you do it and as you


undo the ego then what happens is you keep getting things on a deeper level.

It’s like when you read the course. You’ll read something that you know that you’ve read before but it looks different because even though the words haven’t changed, you have. So sometimes it’s like you never saw it before even though you know that you’ve read it before.

And this is definitely a process but I think it’s a fun process. I think it can be a little difficult at first, especially since a lot of what the course is saying is diametrically opposed to everything that we’ve been taught our whole lives.

But I think that as you go along with it it does get easier and it does become more and more fun because one thing that is happening is you’re having guilt removed from your mind and as that happens you actually end up enjoying life more.

One of the components of relationships certainly is to look past the body. Yet all of our relationships seem to involve another body. Now I’m not saying that you won’t see bodies. You will and you should interact with them in a normal way. You shouldn’t forget how to be normal.

It’s okay to carry on a normal conversation and it’s okay to have normal relationships. That’s where you’re going to find your forgiveness opportunities anyway. But at some point you remember who the other person is.

In fact I’d just like to read a couple sentences from the course here because I haven’t quoted this before but this is on Page 322 of the text. And it’s in the section called The Holy Instant and the Attraction of God.

And I want to read two quotes too because they kind of like show the difference between how the ego interprets things and how the Holy Spirit interprets things. This quote is about the body.



“The body is the symbol of the ego…” It says, “The body is the symbol of the ego, as the ego is the symbol of

the separation.” That’s really important to remember because most people just take the body for granted. And just remember the course is saying the body is the symbol of the ego as the ego is the symbol of the separation.

And both are nothing more than attempts to limit communication and thereby to make it impossible, for communication must be unlimited in order to have meaning. And deprived of meaning it will not satisfy you completely. Yet it remains the only means by which you can establish real relationships which have no limits, having been established by God.” Once again it’s on Page 322 of the text.

And when it says, “It remains the only means by which you can establish real relationships,” it’s talking about the holy relationship. And the course teaches that the forgiving relationship is the holy relationship because the component of forgiveness is that overlooking of the body.

And once again I’m not saying anybody should give up relationships or give up the idea of seeing bodies. As long as you appear to be here you’re always going to see bodies.

The question is your attitude. At some point you remember the truth about the other person and you overlook the body which kind of leads to the second quote that I wanted to use here because this is kind of like the way the Holy Spirit would see it and this is a famous Workbook Lesson 10. It’s from this lesson.

The lesson is, “I am as God created me.” And the course says that, “In this one thought is all the past undone, the present saved to quietly stand into a timeless future. If you are as God created you then there has been no separation of your mind from his. No split between your mind and other minds and only unity within your own.”

So if you’re as God created you you’re still this perfect spirit that has never heaven and what we’re seeing here is just kind of like watching a


movie. We quoted this before but the course says, “You are reviewing mentally that which has already gone by.”

That’s a pretty good definition of the movie because the movie has already been filmed. It’s already gone by and here we are kind of like reviewing it mentally and it’s our belief that makes it real and it’s our desire to be a victim that has all these people seeming to be outside of us.

And they’re the guilty people and we’re kind of like a victim which is how most of the people in the world think because they think that it’s real and they don’t realize that they’ve given those people all of the power to hurt them.

If there’s anybody in this world who can hurt you or make you feel bad it’s only because you’ve given that ability. You’ve given them that power to hurt you.

Rev. Jennifer Can you explain what that means when you say you’ve given them the power, like on a practical day to day basis? How do you give them the power?

Gary Well you have to remember that you made them up in the first place. And you give them the power by reacting. The ego reacts. The ego sees differences so it’s the ego that wants to see all these separate bodies and wants everybody to be different because if you have differences then you can have judgment. How can you have judgment without differences?

“The Holy Spirit… overlooks the body…” The Holy Spirit on the other hand, overlooks the body and sees

everybody as being the same. And if everybody is the same then there are no differences and there’s nothing to judge. There’s only innocence.

So when I say you overlook the body, what you’re doing is you are thinking of people as being what they really are instead of what they appear to be. And that’s one of the components of forgiveness.

I just wanted to finish this quotation and then I’ll get into that a little bit more. But this is kind of like the Holy Spirit thinks and this is also from I am as God created me which is Lesson 110. It says, “If you remain as God created you, appearances cannot replace the truth, health cannot



turn to sickness, nor can death be substitute for life, or fear for love. All this has not occurred, if you remain as God created you. You need no thought but just this one, to let redemption come to light the world and free it from that past.”

So it says once again, “In this one thought is all the past undone; the present saved to quietly extend into a timeless future.”

So that’s really the difference. It’s kind of like we’re choosing to either see with the ego or we’re choosing to see with the Holy Spirit. Now you asked how that looks in everyday life.

Well I think of forgiveness as having three components but they kind of like melt into one eventually. At first you start off by thinking of it in steps because you have to in order to learn it but as time goes on it’s kind of like just becomes automatic.

In those first 50 miracles principles at the beginning of the course it says, “Miracles are habits.” It’s kind of like you get into the habit of thinking this way. So what you do is when you notice yourself getting upset or angry or even just a little bit annoyed at somebody, that’s kind of like the red flag that you should be watching out for because that means that you’re thinking with the ego.

And the first step in this and maybe the hardest is just stop yourself. And that’s with the discipline of the workbook of the course comes in. If people don’t have their mind trained by the Holy Spirit then they’re just going to fall back into their old way of thinking and they’re going to reactive and that’s thinking with the ego.

So the first thing you have to do is stop yourself from thinking whatever judgmental thoughts you notice yourself to be thinking. Now the main reason that’s so important is because the second that you stop thinking with the ego, you can start to think with the Holy Spirit.

You can’t think with both at the same time. You have to choose. So you stop thinking with the ego. You start thinking with the Holy Spirit and then the Holy Spirit would kind of like counsel you and you would realize through your thoughts that what you’re seeing is really just a projection as the course calls it.


“Behold the great projection.” The course says, “Behold the great projection.” And we have to realize

that we put these people in our lives because we wanted them to be there, even the people in our lives because we wanted them to be there, even the people who are not good to us.

We put them there because we wanted the guilt to be in them instead of us. And when I say guilt, this is a deep oncoligal guilt that can be traced all the way back to the original idea of being separate from God and the tremendous guilt that that brought up on this massive metaphysical level which we are no longer in touch with because it’s unconscious.

And we have projected that guilt out into the world so that we can see it in other people. That was the ego’s plan. The ego wants the guilt to be in other people because then maybe you can tolerate it just enough so that you’ll stick around here forever.

And as long as you think that you’re a body which is the ego’s number one plan to convince you that you are a body, because if the body is real the separation is real. And if the separation is real then all of it is real which means that you’re really guilty and that you’ve really done something.

And the antidote to that is to stop thinking with the ego. Start thinking with the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit would say, “Look, you made up this whole thing and it can’t hurt you. There’s nothing there. It’s just a projection. It can’t have any affect on you unless you let it, unless you choose to think with the ego instead of the Holy Spirit.”

Now that’s when you can take the third step. You stop thinking with the ego. You start to realize it’s not real and you start looking at it as though it’s coming from you. Most people look at the world as if it’s coming at them. It’s being done by them.If that’s true, you’re a victim. But if the world is being done by you, if it’s a projection that is coming from you, if it’s coming from this projector that is hidden just like in a movie theatre, the place where that projector is hidden is in your own unconscious mind, then you can start to take responsibility for it and be a cause.



I don’t mean in a bad way because at first people hear that they’ll think, “Oh, gee I did this really terrible thing,” because there’s a lot of bad in the world. There’s a lot of crime and violence and tragedy and disasters and made up this terrible thing. But actually what they made up was nothing because there’s nothing there.

“You can overlook the illusion.” It’s not true. As the course would put it, “What we are seeing is not

true.” And actually that’s part of the way to get in touch with your own forgiveness. It’s to realize that you’ve actually done nothing and then you can overlook the illusion. You can overlook the dream. You can overlook the body and start to see spirit.

Now the course says, “Everywhere the Holy Spirit looks he sees himself.” So we said the ego sees differences. The ego sees all these bodies. The Holy Spirit sees same. The Holy Spirit looks beyond the body and sees perfect spirit everywhere.

So it’s kind of like you’re changing your interpretation. You’re saying, “Well I thought these people would be separate bodies but they’re not. They’re actually part of the way that I can get home by seeing them not as being separate. Not as just being part of it but actually being all of it.”

And that’s so important because however you think about another person it’s going to determine how you feel about yourself. It’s going to determine even what your own identity is as you’ll see it and believe that it is.

I’m not going to get into all the mechanics of that because we want to stick with what that looks like in everyday life. But the key is to stop yourself because when you start thinking with the Holy Spirit instead of the ego that’s what the course would call the holy instant. When you stop thinking with the ego and you switch, you choose. At one point the course would call it, “Choose once again.” You choose to think with the Holy Spirit. You realize that what you’re seeing isn’t true. It’s just a projection you made up.


Now you can forgive people not because they really did something. You can forgive them because they haven’t really done anything because you’re the one who made them up in the first place.

So that’s why the course says, “We forgive our brother for what he hasn’t done.” It’s not because he’s really done something but because he hasn’t really done anything. Then you can think about them as they really are.

They are as God created them, this perfect spirit which has never left heaven which is not just part of it but all of it. And eventually that is how you come to think about yourself and experience yourself. The key is how you see other people and think about other people because your unconscious mind will interpret whatever you think about another person to be about you because your unconscious mind knows that there’s really just one of us.

If you’re thinking negative judgmental thoughts about other people, your unconscious mind which knows everything including the idea that there’s just one of us, is going to interpret that to be about you. People think that their thoughts are going out to other people.

They’re not. They’re just going to themselves and that’s a very powerful idea because once you understand it you can use it. You can change the way that you think. You can change the way that you look at other people. You can change your attitude and you can’t help but change how you feel about yourself and how you see yourself. And it’s a very good habit to get into.

Rev. Jennifer Many people think that they can’t help but feel offended or hurt or upset. They really, really think that other people are making them feel things.

“An untrained mind can accomplish nothing.” Gary That’s why it’s so important to have a discipline which most people do

not. At the beginning of the workbook it says, “An untrained mind can accomplish nothing.” That’s a pretty powerful statement because it’s saying that 99% of the people in the world are accomplishing basically nothing with their spirituality because they don’t have a discipline. You



have to have a discipline and a thought system that enables you to reinterpret the world in a consistent way, in a positive way yes.

But the course is a complete thought system. It’s not just affirmations. It’s like a complete thought system and all of its parts fit together like a hologram. And they all support each other and it’s totally logical.

But I think if you’re going to stop yourself and think with the Holy Spirit instead of the ego, the Holy Spirit is not going to tell you that you’re a victim and that these people are making you feel bad.

The Holy Spirit is going to empower you. There’s no power in being a victim. There’s no power in being at the affect of the world but there’s plenty of power at being at cause and realizing that you made this whole thing up.

And you can forgive because are powerful to kind of like imagine yourself being in this mess. Then your mind also has the power to get you out of this mess. It’s kind of like one of my favorite quotes from the course. I only used one sentence of this because to pick Arten and Pursah just said one sentence of this quotation in the Disappearance of the Universe but I’d like to read the paragraph here because this is kind of like the course’s solution in terms of experience.

This is on Page 97 of the text and it says, “How well can you find joy in a joyless place except by realizing that you are not there? You cannot be anywhere God did not put you, and God created you as part of him. That is both where you are and what you are. It is completely unalterable. It is total inclusion. You cannot change it now or ever. It is forever true. It is not a belief but a fact. Anything that God created is as true as he is. It’s truth lies only in its perfect inclusion in him. Who alone is perfect? To deny this is to deny yourself and him, since it is impossible to accept one without the other.”

That’s like a totally uncompromising definitive paragraph where the course is saying you cannot be anywhere God did not put you and God created you in heaven with him. That is both where you are and what you are and nothing else is true.

Nothing that you think has happened in your life and it’s not just that other people haven’t done anything. The good news about that is that if


they haven’t done anything, guess what? You haven’t done anything either. Its truth lies only in its perfect inclusion in him. Who alone is perfect? To deny this is to deny yourself and him since it is impossible to accept one without the other. That’s like a totally uncompromising definitive paragraph where the course is saying, “You cannot be anywhere God did not put you and God created you in heaven with him. That is both where you are and what you are and nothing else is true.” Nothing that you think has happened in your life… It’s not just that other people haven’t done anything. The good news about that is that if they haven’t anything, guess what? You haven’t done anything either. And people kind of like forget that part because they’re still busy about thinking about what the other person did. This is the way out of hell for you. And those other people aren’t even there anyway.

“…you can be released.” So by changing the way that you look at them you can be released. I

also love that quote from the course. It says, “Can you to whom God says release my son, be tempted to not listen when you understand it as your own release for whom he asks?” You may think I’m letting this person off the hook. I’m releasing this person. Well what you’re really doing is you’re releasing yourself. You’re really letting yourself off the hook by letting the other person be free of guilt.

I think that what this does, Jennifer, as you do it and of course your relationships are the place where you’re going to practice the most because that’s who you spend the most time with. Cindy and I once in a while we’re have a disagreement and we’ll have to forgive each other but the thing you notice about people who practice forgiveness is that those disagreements don’t last. They’re much shorter in duration because of forgiveness. There are some people who will hold a grudge for a lifetime.

That’s a pretty miserable way to go through life. And if they could just let it go they would feel better so much quicker and they would just get over things so much more faster.



I don’t think that people who do the course should think that they’re never going to get upset or that they’re never going to get angry. The course teaches that anger is never justified. Why, because it really is a projection that is coming from you. But even though the course says that anger is never justified, it doesn’t say that you’ll never get angry.

I can pretty much guarantee that you will but the question is how long do you stay that way? There’s a big difference between being upset for 30 minutes and being upset for 30 days. If you’re only upset for 30 minutes instead of 30 days well that’s 30 days of your life that you spent being peaceful instead of being upset.

Rev. Jennifer When many people get upset then they move in the direction of the upset. So they do things like they start thinking about revenge over and over again, even if they don’t take revenge they start thinking about it. They hold the energy of taking offense, holding a grudge.

We’ve all done this where you have the argument in your mind over and over again which you always win and they lose. So it’s like you keep reliving, even more upset in your mind.

Then sometimes of course people actually go into sabotage, whether they sabotage somebody else. It happens all the time in the workplace a lot. Sometimes they take the sabotage against themselves and they self-sabotage. So interrupting those patterns, how did you learn to interrupt those patterns?

Gary Well first you mentioned revenge. Cindy and I had a good laugh. We were driving through Hollywood and we saw this big billboard for a new TV series. It’s called Revenge. The slogan for the TV series is, “This is not a show about forgiveness.”

We laughed to hard because that’s what people think. You ask, “How do you break that pattern?” Well, I think you can only break it through mental discipline. I think that you have to be determined. I think it takes perseverance. I think you have to want it.

The course says about the words I want the peace of God. It says to say these words is nothing but to mean these words is everything. And the way that you mean it is that you practice forgiveness as consistently as possible. And the way that you do that is through mental discipline.


You have to be alert to what’s going on in your mind. The course says that you are far too tolerant of mind wandering. It’s like people are letting their mind wander. It’s almost like if you don’t train the mind then it will run wild and you will find yourself thinking things, judgmental thoughts, revenge thoughts, any kind of thoughts especially if someone appears to attack you and I’ve certainly had my share of that in the last eight or nine years.

By the way, I have a plan to deal with my critics. I’m going to outlive them. I’m going to outlive all of them and then when they’re all gone I’m going to run strongly worded articles. And they won’t be able to answer. It will be perfect. Anyway that’s the ego’s plan.

Rev. Jennifer You get the last word.

“… you wanted them to be the guilty party so you could be the victim…” Gary My plan is it’s been good for me to practice forgiveness. You start to

realize that those people are there because you wanted them to be there. You wanted them to be the guilty party so you could be the victim, so the guilt would be in them instead of you.

People don’t realize that the things that they don’t like about other people are actually, as the course calls it once again in that final section of the text called, “Choose once again.” It describes it as, “The secret sins and hidden hates.” Those are the secret sins and hidden hates that we actually have about ourselves that we’ve chosen to see in other people because we wanted it to be in them instead of us.

Somewhere in your unconscious mind because your unconscious mind knows everything, your unconscious mind knows that it’s really about you. And if you have the discipline to forgive that other person then your mind will be healed, not by you but by the Holy Spirit who does the big part of the job. And all that we’re asked to do is to forgive whatever is there in front of our face. And usually what’s there in front of our face is our relationships.

And even if the things that you have to forgive are occurring on television, it’s still the same principle. Maybe this politician comes on



the TV who you can’t stand. Maybe there’s somebody who rubs you the wrong way. I see these terrible disasters happening.

It always comes back to how you think about those beings that appear to be out there. At one point the course just describes them images. It says, “The images you make cannot prevail against what God himself would have you be.”

So we’re seeing these images out there which are very much like a holographic movie. By the way, I saw this cute cartoon. It’s on my office wall here. These two parents are talking to their son who’s about 12-years-old and the father says to him, he says, “Billy, since that you’re old enough to hear this now, you’re a hologram.” I thought that was kind of cute.

It’s like this whole thing fits together in forgiveness. And forgiveness is so obviously the great teaching of the course. It’s just amazing how many people don’t know that, how many people you’ll hear talk about the course and never mention forgiveness. I mean like some of the most famous teachers of the course.

You never hear them talk very much about forgiveness. And they take the love and fear idea and put it in the world so it’s really special love. And then they’re going to change the world and here’s A Course In Miracles saying, “Seek not to change the world. Seek rather to change your mind about the world.” And that’s because the course is done at the level of the mind. And whatever you do at the level of the world that’s fine, but whatever you do is going to be shaped by how you think.

So it will still come back to whether or not you’re being guided by the Holy Spirit or not and the best way to be guided by the Holy Spirit is to practice forgiveness. Undo the ego then the Holy Spirit is all that’s left and then someday you realize that you are the Holy Spirit, that that’s what you were the whole time. It’s just you’re kind of like out of touch with it. But you start to re-become what you’ve always been but had denied.

It’s like we denied the truth and now we’re getting back to the truth. It’s kind of like we’re returning to home. That’s actually an exciting process once you get it going because it starts to change your experience.


Rev. Jennifer It really does. That’s one of the things I wanted to ask you about is over these 18 years that you’ve been studying the course… I’ve seen you in the years I’ve known you but also I’ve seen you through your writing that you are much less judgmental and all of these things. And you’ve had a number of challenges as you’ve said over the years, but doesn’t it seem that the more you forgive the easier your life is and that you have fewer challenges?

I was at your house last week and we were talking about how… Doesn’t it seem as though when we practice forgiveness and when we’re willing to forgive and willing to see our brothers and sisters as being one with us and not separate from us, that we don’t need the intense challenges in order to be willing to see the willingness… I mean to see the oneness. We’re already there.

Karen and Forgiveness Gary Yeah, absolutely. A good example that comes to mind for me is I got

divorced four years ago and I moved to California. And as any relationship that breaks up and this was a very long term relationship, there’s forgiveness there that needs to be done. And my wife, Karen, she really got back into A Course In Miracles. She really started studying it in detail, learned it well. And there was a lot of forgiveness.

Now, last week on Wednesday, Karen and I, my former wife, got together with Cindy, my current wife and Karen’s boyfriend in Hawaii, David Tasaka. And the four of us had lunch together. Now if you told me four years ago that that could happen, that I’d be sitting there at the Olive Garden with my former wife Karen, my current wife Cindy and David… And by the way, Karen met David through me because I was in Hawaii doing workshops at Unity Diamond Head. It’s like the four of us sitting there and it took us a couple of minutes to loosen up. But it was like there’s all this forgiveness going on and there’s all this forgiveness that has been going on.

In fact after the lunch we had our picture taken together and I put it in Facebook. And it’s amazing the number of comments that we’ve gotten about that because it’s like wow, that’s forgiveness. When you can be there together like that and so I’m really proud of Karen and David and



of course Cindy too. And I’m proud of myself because that can only happen with forgiveness.

Without forgiveness it would be impossible. And we can move on and have great lives. I think that Karen is better off in Hawaii because she lives in Hawaii. I always wanted to live in Hawaii. She does. She’s better off there than she was in Maine.

Maine is a very rural place. It’s not easy to make friends, even though we did have friends there because I went to the same study group for like 11 years in Maine. But we had to drive from one town that had no sidewalks 45 minutes to another town that has no sidewalks and meet with a few people. But it was great.

The only reason I bring that up is because forgiveness can accomplish great things. Even though it’s not about the world, it shows up in the world because as the course says, “What you do is a result of what you think.”

That’s why the emphasis of course is on the mind. It’s on how you think whether or not you forgive. And then what you do is a result of that. People focus so much on what they’re doing they forget to think.

By thinking I mean they forget to choose the Holy Spirit instead of the ego. And if you’re being guided by the Holy Spirit you’re going to be guided to things that are good for you. You’re going to be guided to things that work.

And many times the ego will not guide you to things that work. In fact at one point the course says, “To this impossible situation to which the ego always leads you.” The ego always leads you to an impossible situation. The Holy Spirit knows what it’s for. The Holy Spirit knows what everything is for and that’s forgiveness.

It’s always going to come back to that. You’ll notice that no matter what Arten and Pursah talked about in the books, sooner or later they’ll always bring the conversation back around to forgiveness because that’s what it’s really all for. That’s what it’s really all about. Of course some people, they’ll read my books and they don’t really read them. They don’t really see them. And I think that that’s true with the course also.


I think the reason for that is because they’re such unconscious resistance to this because this is like death to the ego. And the ego really has to make us think that we’re bodies. And one of the best ways that the ego makes us think that we’re bodies is to give us problems because what is it that has to be defended, but the body? What is it that needs anything? What is it that needs food and success and fame and money and all these things except the body?

If you could give up the world and I’m not saying that that’s an easy task. But if you could give up all of your psychological attachment to the world, then you could really do A Course In Miracles because you could choose the Holy Spirit consistently.

Jesus Following the Holy Spirit I like to say that people think that Jesus was the ultimate leader. But the

truth is he was the ultimate follower. He says in the course, “Eventually I just listened to one voice.” So eventually he just listened to the Holy Spirit and he was willing to listen.

And if you’re willing to listen and if you really do want the peace of God, then I think you’re willing to follow the Holy Spirit rather than having to be the leader.

Now I’m not saying that we don’t need teachers, I’m just saying that any teach should realize that this is not coming from them. If you’re teaching A Course In Miracles it’s not you. You didn’t write A Course In Miracles. You didn’t make it up. So the ideas are not yours. The ideas are the Holy Spirit’s and you have to learn to listen. You have to learn to be a follower of the Holy Spirit. Let the Holy Spirit be the boss.

If you own a business and you’re the boss at work, you don’t have to tell them that you’re not the boss. You can still act like the boss. I’m just saying that now you’re being guided by the Holy Spirit instead of the ego and that’s going to lead to good things. That’s because the Holy Spirit can see everything.

The Holy Spirit can see everything that ever happened from the beginning of time to the end of time. Whose judgment is going to be



better, yours or something that can see something all the way from the beginning of time to the end of time?

Rev. Jennifer I want to ask you a practical question because you’re talking about how your relationships have changed and shifted, how you have changed and shifted over the years. So many people are going through relationship changes that are very difficult, very challenging. And one of the questions I get all the time is from people who say, “How do you know when to walk away from someone? How do you know when to end the relationship?” What do you say to someone who their relationship is in turmoil and they really just want to walk away or they want to get out of there. What do you say to them?

Gary The first thing I want to say to them is you don’t want to feel guilty. The Holy Spirit doesn’t want you to feel guilty. What you want to do is you want to consult with the Holy Spirit. And maybe the reason to walk away is because it’s going to be the best thing for everybody.

Well she’s actually better off without me. Now maybe I wouldn’t have liked to think that because it takes a certain amount of humility to say that. But at the same time I think she’s better. I think that I’m better off. I think we both have better lives than we did in Maine.

If you follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit then you’re going to be led not to just what’s best for you. You’re going to be led to what’s best for everybody because the Holy Spirit can see everything.

The way that you know when it’s time to either stay or walk away will be because you’ll feel actually like you’re being guided by the Holy Spirit. And probably you’re not going to feel that way until you’ve tried everything.

You’re going to ask yourself, have I tried everything? Did I do everything that I could do to make this relationship work? And maybe you haven’t done everything that you could because maybe you were too reactive as well which is why the course teaches that, “Whoever’s saner at the time is the one that should be practicing forgiveness.” But maybe there’s a time when you’re both upset.


It’s still possible by practicing forgiveness whenever you can, to be guided by the Holy Spirit as to what you should do. And the Holy Spirit will guide you to what’s best for everybody.

People think that if they really forgive somebody then that means that they would stay in the relationship. That’s not true. The Holy Spirit may guide you that it’s time to move on. It’s time for you to learn different lessons, other lessons.

Rev. Jennifer And to be clear, you’re still in a relationship with Karen.

Gary Oh, yeah, sure. Karen and I, we exchange e-mails. We exchange messages at Facebook. We talk on the telephone. We’re friends. She supports me. I support her. And that really means a lot to me that it could go that way and that’s the way things are turning out. Once again, that couldn’t have happened without forgiveness.

I think that she knows the course very well and that she practices. So do I. So does Cindy. So does David. That’s why the four of us were able to sit there together and be able to actually have a good time, really have a good time. And you can see how happy we look in the picture that we took.

“There will be upset at the time of a breakup…” It’s just a great thing. There will be upset at the time of a breakup of a

relationship. The breakup of a relationship isn’t that different than going through the death of a loved one. What happens is you go through stages.

If somebody whom you love passes away, especially if it’s a surprise, then it could start off as anger. You could be angry about what happened. That anger may turn into denial. That denial, hopefully, eventually will turn into acceptance. And that sadness, eventually, hopefully will turn into love, because eventually love is all that’s left.

We see the temporary. We see bodies. We see these people and that’s not what they are. What they really are is something that is immortal that we’re going to always be with. We can’t really ever lose anybody. We can’t lose anybody else anymore than we can lose God.



It would be impossible because we’re not separate and we’re going to be together forever. And eventually we will experience our perfect oneness with God and each other which means that you will be closer to these people in heaven than you could ever be with them here. And that includes all the people who you’ve ever loved. It includes every animal that you’ve ever loved because nothing can be left out in perfect oneness. And you’ll be closer to them than your own heart because in that perfect oneness you achieve true union.

That’s not possible on the level of the physical. Bodies can’t really join. I’m not saying that we won’t try. I’m just saying that it’s not permanent like it is in heaven. In heaven this is something that is a constant state where in this world everything is temporary.

In a way when you choose to overlook the body and see immortality, something that is invulnerable in this perfect spirit that is incapable of being threatened by the world, which is what the course means right at the beginning when it says, “Nothing real can be threatened.” That’s kind of like a choice. That nothing really can be threatened is this perfect spirit that is beyond the body. Nothing unreal exists, well that would be anything else, anything that is not this perfect oneness with God.

Herein lies the peace of God is because that’s a choice that we have to make between one of two things which is why you can say that the course is simple. The course itself says that it’s simple. It’s something like 158 times it uses the word simple. But you’ll never hear anybody say that it’s easy because we’re confronted, seemingly by this world that’s always right there in our face.

And we have an endless series of problems which is one of the ego’s favorite devices for keeping your attention focused on the world so that you won’t go into the bind where the answer is. Maybe it will want you to get sick as a way of convincing you that you’re a body.

Oh, and by the way, nobody should feel bad if they get sick. Don’t be one of those A Course In Miracles students who’s code is that workbook lesson. Whenever you see somebody who’s sick you say, “What’s the deal? What’s the matter with you? Don’t you know the course says


sickness is a defense against the truth?” Well, I’ve got news for them. Everybody is going to get sick at one point or another. It’s not a question of if. It’s a question of when.

Rev. Jennifer To me every challenge is an opportunity to heal a pattern of the ego thought system. And if we can recognize that our challenges are that opportunity for healing then we can say, “This is my moment to transcend all this negativity in my life right here. I can choose love.”

Gary Yes, absolutely. And I want to finish what I’m saying because I don’t want people to misunderstand me. It’s not whether or not you get sick, it’s always your perception. It’s always how you look at it.

I’ve had a couple of very close friends die from cancer in the last two years, two, three years. It’s difficult to let them go. You know what they really are if you’re a course student. You know that that’s not them but at the same time you miss them. You miss being able to talk to them in that form.

At the same time one of my friends who passed away from cancer was very peaceful about the whole thing because he knew what it was for. People have all kinds of assumptions that they make about spirituality.

“The body is outside of us and not our concern.” For example they assume that it’s more spiritual to have a healthy body

than a sick body. But how can that be true if the body is surreal? At one point the course says that the body is outside of us and not our concern. Because what it really is is a projection that’s coming from the mind just like everything else that we see. And that means that it’s no more real than any of these other parts of the projection that we’re looking at which means that it’s not us.

So it’s not more spiritual to have a healthy body than a sick body. What we need to understand is that neither one is true. Then we can understand that we’re innocent. If we do happen to get sick we can use it for forgiveness, to learn that we are not bodies and that that is not us.

You see in the message of the crucifixion in the course how meaningless the body has become to Jesus’ reality. It wasn’t even him. And eventually the time will come when, as the course puts it, “You gently



lay the body aside for the final time.” If you’re a master you like Jesus, to us crucifixion probably did not look like Jesus was gently leaving his body around for the final time because our perception was that if we went through that it would cause us terrible pain. So it must have caused him pain.

Rev. Jennifer Right.

Gary But what people don’t realize is that as the course says, “The guiltless mind cannot suffer.” So Jesus could not feel any pain. And if he could not feel any pain then he was gently leaving his body aside for the final time because he couldn’t feel any pain, which is what the course means by that, that the guiltless mind cannot suffer.

That’s the point where we want to get to where it’s impossible for us to feel any physical pain. And that’s the ultimate goal of the master. A master at the end of his life cannot feel any physical pain.

And when you think about it, how important would our problems be in this life if there was no pain associated with them? It’s not the problem that is the problem. It’s the pain. If you could take away that pain and that uncomfortableness then it wouldn’t be a problem. It would just be like some neutral thing that is happening in the word.

It’s like there’s a lot of suffering going on in the world right now around the area of scarcity. There’s a lot of people that are hurting. There’s a lot of seeming scarcity in the world and people think that they can fix it by getting more money or by fixing the problem which, yeah, that might make you feel more comfortable temporarily.

But what the course says is that, “A sense of separation from God is the only lack you really need correct.” And if you could correct that one lack which is the one real problem, that sense of separation from God. If you could correct that one lack then all the rest would take care of themselves because you’d never feel lack. You’d always feel abundant even you were broke, even if you didn’t have any money.

You would still feel abundant. If you had a little bit of money you could say to yourself, “Wow! I have money.” Instead of looking at it like you don’t have enough which is the way that my parents went through life. They would always say, “Oh, we don’t have enough. We can’t pay our


bills. We can’t afford this. We can’t afford that.” They were always saying that.

I’m certainly not putting them down because I loved them more than ever and I still communicate with them in my mind. The only thing is is if you could turn that around, if you could think, “Oh, wow! I have money.” And come from a place of abundance and gratitude, especially it’s much easier if you’ve undone that sense of separation from God to do that, then you would be opening yourself up to receive.

By coming from that place of abundance and gratitude and, “Hey, I have money.” Instead of saying I don’t have enough money, you’re saying, “I have money.” Well you’d probably get more because you’re putting yourself open to receive where if you’re coming from that place where you’re saying, “I don’t have enough money.” You’re shutting yourself off from receiving.

Rev. Jennifer As long as we are interested in harboring attack thoughts about our brothers and sisters, we’re always going to be experiencing lack.

“And as long as you see separation, you’re seeing lack.” Gary Yep. I think that’s true. And as long as you see separation, you’re seeing

lack. At one point the course says, “As long as you believe you’re a body, you will believe that you were deprived.” It’s because you need things. What if you didn’t need anything? The course says, “Christ needs nothing and wants to join with others out of a mutual awareness of abundance.” So now you’re joining with people not because you need them and not because you’re looking to get something from them. You’re joining with them out of this mutual awareness of abundance which is spirit, which has it all.

By definition in perfect oneness you would have to have it all. You can’t have anything lacking in perfect oneness or else it wouldn’t be perfect oneness. You have everything. And that’s the attitude that forgiveness leads to. The more you see spirit, the more you experience spirit. The more you experience spirit the more you experience your own innocence, your own abundance.



It really is a higher quality of life. It really is better to be spirit than to be a body. It really is better to be a butterfly than a caterpillar. It’s just a more freeing experience. It’s more fun. And the irony is, especially with a happy kind of a spirituality like A Course In Miracles. It talks about a happy dream and being a happy learner.

One of the ten characteristics of a teacher of God is joy. I remember after suffering through my first few presentations in front of people, I was letting the Holy Spirit in and I was getting more used to that. And I was getting used to it. I just heard this guidance before I went out one morning to do a workshop. And the guidance was, “Hey, don’t forget to have fun.”

That’s when I started telling more jokes in my workshops and started to loosen up. I remembered this is a joy to do this. It’s a privilege to do this. And it beats working in a factory. It’s kind of like, “Wow! This is really a good opportunity.” So even though traveling can be a grind sometimes, we just got back from Colorado. Now we’ve got a think in Palm Springs tomorrow night. And there are months when we seem to always be going.

But forgiveness goes a long way. If you’re willing to practice forgiveness then instead of having it be a real hassle it can be an opportunity. It’s not always fun to fly. It’s not always fun to get treated every week like you’re a suspect.

Even though you’re a regular customer carrying the same bag with the same stuff in it every week, totally harmless, every week you get treated like you’re a suspect now. Forget about the idea of customer service. Those days are over when it comes to traveling. Everybody thinks they’re a cop and all the people that work for the airlines.

So that gives me new forgiveness opportunities every week. And most weeks I’m not upset by it but once in awhile it gets to be a little silly. But what is that? Everything that happens the course asks us a simple question. The question is, “What is it for? Is it to stay imprisoned by the ego or is it to practice forgiveness and be free?” And I think the more you do it, the more you get into the habit of forgiveness. And the more you do that it’s like there’s a snowball going down a hill. It gets bigger


and faster as it goes along. It may start out kind of slow but that’s okay. The main thing is to start.

Rev. Jennifer That’s it.

Gary It’s to really be determined. I think this takes determination, perseverance. You have to really want it. But that’s true of anything. I mean who’s going to be a great piano player unless they really want it? Who’s going to be really good at anything unless they really want it and they’re willing to practice and they’re willing to make it a priority?

Rev. Jennifer Your little willingness is all that’s required.

Gary Yeah, at the beginning. I think that Jesus pulled a fast one on us in the course because early in the course he says that this requires little willingness. Then you notice at the end in the Manual for Teachers, all of a sudden he says, “It requires abundant willingness.” I’m thinking, “Wait a minute. Wait a minute here.”

Rev. Jennifer God’s always a bait and switch operation.

Gary Yes, absolutely.

Rev. Jennifer You never are going anywhere for the reason you think you’re going. You’re never upset for the reason you think you are.

“… we end up at the beginning.” Gary That’s true. And the reason that we’re upset can be traced all the way

back to that original idea of being separate from God. That’s why we end up at the beginning. The last quote that my teachers had me use in the Disappearance of the Universe, Jesus says, “Help me now to lead you back to where journey was begun to make another choice with me.” To choose the Holy Spirit once and for all is where we’re going to end up. You undo the ego. The course says salvation is undoing. That’s all you have to do.

You don’t have to worry about spirit. You’re already spirit. You’re already perfect. You don’t have to do anything about that. You will be love. If you actually practice forgiveness the way that it’s taught in the course, then it leads to love automatically because spirit is love.



And when you undo the ego spirit is all that’s left which means that love is all that’s left. So that part will take care of itself and you will be more loving and you will have inspired ideas. And you don’t have to turn your back on the world. You don’t have to give up the world. There is no world according to the course.

So everything that you do in your life can become an extension of love. It’s like you’re expressing love in everything that you do. And those people around who are not expressing love then the course would say that they’re calling out for love.

Now it may not be easy for you to be coming from a place of love when somebody’s calling out for love because they can call out for love in some pretty strange ways like shooting 20 people. And they don’t know what they’re doing. It’s like Jesus said, “Forgive them Father. They know not what they do.”

And that’s literally true. People who are acting out with the ego really don’t know what they’re doing. And once again, that’s why the course says that whoever’s saner at the time, that’s the one who needs to practice forgiveness.

Rev. Jennifer Gary, I just want to let you know that we’re at time here. So I want to give you the opportunity to finish your thought but we’re over our time here.

Gary Yeah, I would just say it’s okay to remember to do the normal thing in the world. If you know from being a witness that the people next door are abusing their children, yes, the course would say forgive them. But it doesn’t mean that you might not feel guided by the Holy Spirit to alert the authorities.

So that’s why I stress being normal because sometimes you just want to do the normal thing. If you get sued by somebody the Holy Spirit may guide you to get a good lawyer. So sometimes doing the practical, everyday thing is what you should do. It’s just that now you’re not doing it alone. You’re doing it with the Holy Spirit. And if you’re doing it with the Holy Spirit you’re connected.

So you’re actually undoing the idea of separation in your mind. Where if you make your decisions by yourself and you’re alone, then you’re


actually reinforcing the idea of separation in your mind. Even these simple ideas that are in the course are actually very important, because it’s the difference between being with the Holy Spirit, being in a place of love or reacting with the ego. It’s always going to come back to that choice.

Rev. Jennifer Yes indeed. This has been so wonderful. Before we close out I’d like to remind people that they have 48 hours to listen to this class again and again and again, totally for free on the website at LivingACourseInMiracles.com. It will be posted within about an hour and you’ll be able to pause it, fast forward it, rewind it. And also I want to encourage you as I said before, really consider inviting your friends and loved ones to listen with you. The more you listen, the more you’ll get out of it because as Gary talked about, the ego mind resists the understanding. It resists the learning and the undoing.

The more we listen to it the more we open our mind to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit which is our true teacher. For those of you who already purchased the transcripts, those will be available in a day or two and we’ll post those on the website as well. You can download them. So if you’ve purchased that option, I encourage you to read along as you listen.

For those of you who are new to Gary Renard, you can learn a lot more about Gary Renard at GaryRenard.com. And his books, Disappearance of the Universe, Your Immortal Reality, I also highly, highly recommend Gary’s audios. What’s the name of the six-hour audio one? I love that so much, Gary.

Gary That one is called Secrets of the Immortal.

Rev. Jennifer Yes, I love that one. I’ve listened to that many, many times. All his programs are so beneficial and the more you listen the more you’ll get out of them. And then I know a bunch of you are going to be with us in Kansas City next week for our retreat at Unity Village. And you can learn more about that at LivingACourseInMiracles.com/live, or at GaryRenard.com.

Tomorrow, in just about 12 hours from now I’ll be doing the Homework class. Again that class is totally free as well and you’ll have 48 hours to listen to that class as well. So I encourage you to make an



appointment to listen to that as well. That will be a real companion to this class still talking about forgiveness and relationships.

Closing Prayer I’m going to invite everyone to place your hand on your heart with me

and we’re going to bless ourselves out. So in gratitude we’re so grateful and so thankful that our minds are opening, our hearts are opening even more to this healing that we’ve called forth, releasing that unconscious guilt, releasing the blame and the shame and the habits of taking offense, the habits of holding grudges and holding onto upset.

We are consciously giving the Holy Spirit the heavy lifting, inviting the Holy Spirit into our mind to help us undo these patterns. We are so grateful and so thankful that we can have a healing. We can let go of the past. We can be free and experience true peace, true forgiveness, true love which is our heart’s desire.

In grace and in gratitude we share these holy benefits with everyone because we’re one with them. All are lifted. All boats rise on this holy tide of love. In gratitude we accept our healing. We allow it to be and so it is. Amen, Amen, Amen.

Thank you so much, Gary. I love you. I appreciate you and I thank God for you.

Gary I feel the same way, Jennifer. I’m really looking forward to Kansas City. And it will be great and this was a great call and thanks so much. It means a lot to me. And I think there are so many people who are getting a lot out of these calls from the feedback that I get. You’re the one that puts this together so thanks a lot for doing this. I really appreciate it.

Rev. Jennifer My joy and my pleasure. Thank you. God bless everyone. Goodnight.

Living A Course in Miracleslivingacourseinmiracles.com/.../10/LACIM2-Week1-Renard.pdf · 2017. 2....

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