How to Really Listen

Modern Mysticism | Commitment, Guidance, Intuition, Leap of Faith, Listen and Follow, Memory, Paauilo Hawaii, Self-Concepts, Series Unwind Your Mind Easter Retreat, Transcendence, with Friends

Desire to Hear—How to Really Listen

In this powerful session, David Hoffmeister talks about various video clips to remind us that love and joy are always beaming! When we want more, we block the flow of Spirit’s guidance. The first question then to ask is, “Who am I in service to? The ego or Spirit?” When we are in service to the Spirit, we begin to loosen from our self-concepts and open up to an experience of inner listening. Free of future fears and past regrets, we can receive the eternal happiness of the present moment! David inspires us to take the leap, be committed to Love, and place the future in the hands of God!

Download “Desire to Hear”

Gold Nugget:

“When people pray for things, it really means they just don’t want to be forgotten! That’s really what this is all about. This is why there is such fear and resistance to the Holy Spirit. The ego doesn’t want to be forgotten and that is precisely what is required. You have to forget the ego, because it’s a false memory; like a memory of pain, of hurt, of separation, of guilt, of shame. It’s a death wish that is being held in memory. It’s almost like having a virus on a computer. You could try to keep using that computer and make the best of it. It would get slow and sluggish; it would get heavy; it may flicker, it may become more unstable and more inconsistent the more you left it go. But what you would be told if you went to an expert, is that you need to remove the virus from the hard drive.

The hard drive is just a symbol of memory. That’s what a computer is; it’s always accessing memory. But you actually have to forget the ego. You don’t try to destroy it or kill it. But you have to forget the ego to remember God. The two memories don’t go together. The ego memory is recalling that fall from grace, recalling that descent into hell, recalling that error. Constantly recalling that with the power of your mind is blocking the remembrance of God’s Love. And Jesus says in A Course in Miracles that memory was the ego’s skill you made up, but now the Holy Spirit can use it. The Holy Spirit would use memory only for one thing: to remember the Holy instant; remember the I-Am Presence before time was; remember the innocence; remember the Love; remember God. That is how we remember God; we actually forget the ego. We are cleansed and washed of that memory of the unholy instant, so that the holy instant can have a total eclipse over the unholy instant. It is really all about memory!”

Recorded at the Unwind Your Mind Easter retreat on April 8, 2015 at the Center for the Waking Mind in Paauilo, Hawaii

I Taught the World to Teach Me

I Taught the World to Teach Me – In this session, David Hoffmeister emphasizes the importance of loyalty to the Spirit, the inner teacher, over personal desires and external opinions. This loyalty stems from truth and a deep connection with the Holy Spirit, not the ego’s demands. David shares parables of taking full responsibility for our state of mind by recognizing that we taught the world to teach us. By keeping this empowering thought in mind, it’s possible to remember that we don’t need to wait for externals to choose to be happy.

Coming Together with the Purpose of Healing

Coming Together with the Purpose of Healing – David Hoffmeister explores the perceptual problem, which pertains to the belief that the subject and the object are different, that the observer is different from the observed, and that the personality-self is different from the world that surrounds it. When we see an issue in the world, it really is just a split in the mind. This belief can result in significant problems such as conflict, climate change, and hunger, all of which can be traced back to the division within the mind. “Let me recognize the problem so it can be solved,” (W-79) and “Let me recognize my problems have been solved.” W-80 By examining the projected world, we often fail to identify the core problem because it manifests in many forms. You may resolve a few problems today, only to encounter more tomorrow. Therefore, the key lies in our perspective, which stems from our interpretation.

Relax, Step Back, and Unwind from the World

Relax, Step Back, and Unwind from the World – David Hoffmeister shares about the importance of placing the future in God’s hands, a concept that requires enormous trust. This trust is crucial as we have been conditioned to learn the past and plan the future. Trust is the foundation of a teacher of God and allows us to relax and feel divine ease. During this profound talk, David also gives an overview of the very first Strawberry Fields Festival in 2009. Jesus tells us to go from nightmares to waking with a transition between happy dreams and gentle waking. This process helps us feel softer and gentler, making the struggle and challenge easier. Enjoy this deep discussion with the participants that goes deep and yet fun.

Opening to Deeper Prayer

Opening to Deeper Prayer – David Hoffmeister begins this 4-day Japan retreat by exploring the concept of undoing the self-concept—a conditioned expectation that obstructs our understanding of the world. The ego arises from the mind’s pursuit of self-improvement, crafting illusory goals that keep the mind preoccupied and detached from its boundless nature. The ego’s game is endless, as it neither begins nor concludes. The purpose of our practice is to abandon the pursuit of temporal goals and relinquish the false identity—the mask of the ego. In doing so, we experience the mind’s all-encompassing nature, recognizing that the world, society, and everything once perceived as external are within the mind. As the mind reaches a state of rest, the external world reflects this peace, becoming more harmonious.

A Path of Gentle Letting Go

A Path of Gentle Letting Go – In this session, David Hoffmeister speaks about Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, focusing on self-actualization as the top goal. This concept is based on the Greek belief that ‘know thyself’ is the ultimate goal of human development. The ego attempts to deny this through hypnotism, mesmerism and imagination, covering the truth with unreal images. Atonement, the correction, is the awareness that the separation never happened.

Teaching the Holy Instant

Teaching the Holy Instant – At the beginning of this talk, David Hoffmeister discusses the concept of choice and the duality of life. We seem to live in a world of duality, where one of the primary goals is to find a life partner. We can see even that is dualistic because even a successful life match involves two, while reality involves only one.