Offer Your Career to the Holy Spirit
Time Is Money: Neither Is Spirit—Offer Your Career to the Holy Spirit
In this talk, David Hoffmeister looks at career, money, and reciprocity. Money is neutral to the Holy Spirit, but to the ego, it is full of meaning. Because the ego is the belief in lack, and money is a symbol that it made up to solve the lack. In A Course in Miracles, Jesus is getting us to question where we believe our safety is and where we believe our sustenance comes from. Are you willing to trust Jesus when he says, “If you will give love away, if you will extend love, everything will be taken care of for you.” Many examples and parables are given.
Gold Nugget:
“So if we come back to the situation, sometimes it is a temptation to ask a question of the Holy Spirit like ‘How can I keep my job?’ When we ask ‘How can I keep my job?’ we are presuming that we should keep our job. This means that maybe there are other prayers, other questions that we can ask. So in my life, I learned to ask, Is this the job I should keep? Is this the job, Holy Spirit, that you would want for me? Is working at this job best for the whole universe, or do you have something else for me? Because the Holy Spirit knows the prayer of our hearts before we speak a word. We learn from A Course in Miracles that in no situation do we perceive our own best interests, but the Holy Spirit always knows our best interests. It seems like when it comes to jobs or careers or relationships or houses that we put a lot of importance on these decisions. It is as if we say to the Holy Spirit, Help me be peaceful, and I will handle all the rest. I will handle the children, and the job and the house and the people. It is as if you are saying, You give me the peace, and I will run my life. We do not realize these goals do not go together, that when we try to run some aspects of our life, we are putting our personality in the first place and the Holy Spirit in the second place.
The ego will say, God is too busy to worry about you. You are so tiny, just one person. But there are many other people who God is answering their prayers. But really, our mind is very important to the Holy Spirit. Now, if you have desires for things in the world, like Ricki was talking about, the Holy Spirit will work with you on these. Remember there is no sacrifice, so the Holy Spirit will not try to take things away from you until you willingly offer them to the Holy Spirit. That is the only way they disappear, when we willingly offer something to the Holy Spirit. In my life, I was guided from one job to another job, in a series. I was not told ‘quit all your jobs,’ because I had debts, and that does not work very well, quit all your jobs when you have debts. But I was given a series of jobs in which the debts got paid, and the Spirit used these jobs to help me loosen my mind and become more dependent on the Spirit, asking the Spirit to show me which jobs I should take, and even at the job, ‘How can I be most helpful here?’ It was really learning to practice tuning in to guidance and using the backdrop of jobs. It was very practical, and this whole discussion has shown you that you just need to trust the Spirit to loosen your mind. With jobs and relationships, we cannot always tell what is advantageous and what is harmful.”
Recorded on March 8, 2014 at Camino de Los Quetzales in Monterrey, Mexico (with Spanish translation)
Recent Posts
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.