“Open-Mindedness” Online Retreat: Closing Session—How Is the Answer Already Given?

School and any form of education can be seen as a curriculum of judgment, and Jesus says that without judgment all outcomes are equally acceptable. While outcomes in form are emphasized in this world, real outcomes are a state of mind. In this talk, David details the power of decision and how the answer has already been given!

Gold Nugget:

“Wanting to go into that experience, that feeling of love. That’s what everyone is calling for. They want to just feel the love and the connection. And there seems to be these associations in the mind that seem to be just striking memories of not that. And then a hatred can rise up. A rage can rise up. Almost like, How could you do this to me? How could you treat myself or anyone in a hateful way? And that’s more of a projection of our own. If we believe in the ego, that’s where the self-hatred is. You know, we’re believing a lie about our identity, and this huge hatred that generates out of that rage, that most people aren’t aware of. You know, you can’t really continue to function as a human being with intense rage just coming from your heart and occupying your mind. It’s hard to even do anything or to function. So it’s pushed, it’s pushed, it’s repressed, it’s pushed out of mind, so that there can be some sense of functionality.

And yet, one of the ideas that Jesus shared, the one that really hit me the strongest, I think for me when I was reading the Course, was when Jesus said, until you are willing to look upon the full extent of your own self-hatred, you will not be willing to let it go. And I think the reason it hit me so strongly was that last part: you will not be willing to let it go. It was like he was saying, at some point, you will have to allow up into awareness that which has been denied and repressed, in order to let it go, only to let it go, not for any other reason.”

 

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