EP12 – ACIM Will Brighten Your Future – Part 1

Learn about ACIM (A Course In Miracles) in this episode. A Course In Miracles is a spiritual self-study program that will awaken you to the truth of your oneness with God and Love, always. It will help alleviate stress and fear, strengthen loving relationships, and make you feel more connected to your Source. It has helped millions find happiness through peace in tough circumstances – it can do the same for you too!

Hey, everyone, welcome back to illuminated mind, I really appreciate you being here. And today we’re going to be talking about A Course in Miracles again. So we did an introduction to A Course in Miracles back on episode four, I believe. And it was really fascinating because this is something that, you know, I’ve come across multiple times in my life, and especially recently in my, my spiritual progress in my journey, you know, but this, this idea of a course, or a practice that you can do every day to really help you come from a place of love, and sort of reframe the way that you look at things that that happened in your life. This, this, of course, in miracles, for those that don’t know, you know, it’s a book that was channeled. And basically, the idea is that it wasn’t of human origin. This is what Matthew explained to me that he doesn’t believe it was from, you know, from any one particular person. However, one lady did transcribe what she was channeling the information she was receiving, but it’s really powerful. And it’s broken down basically into 365, daily lessons, or steps. And you, you just follow these lessons, and you go through the course. And it helps kind of break down and deconstruct your mind and your ego and the way that you look at things. And it gives you a new perspective, you know, a healthier perspective, a way to come from a place of love, as opposed to being afraid and in fear all the time. And I think right now that this information is really relevant, and I think it’s really important. In this episode, we’re actually going to go back and listen to a previous conscious community recording again, where Matthew is teaching a class on a course in miracles, and how it relates to hypnotherapy and the work that we do as hypnotherapist and sort of just some of the parallels and what we can pull from A Course in Miracles to help our clients get over some of the issues that they’re dealing with in their life, right and move past some of the trauma to heal that and to move forward and see again life in a new way, a new healthier perspective. And so if you’re dealing with anything right now that that is a little bit frustrating for you or you’ve got some you know, some things that you’d like to work out. Or if you’re just looking for some ways that you can help your clients you know, as a hypnotherapist or hypnotist, or therapist, or whatever it is that you might be doing. If you’re working with people to help them better their lives, right and to create a happier, healthier existence, that I think you’re really going to enjoy this episode. So because this is a longer class, again, I’m going to break this down into two parts. The first part will be about an hour, and it might end a little abruptly. But we’ll come back next week with part two to finish up this conscious community recording. However, I highly suggest that you listen to the introduction from Episode Four, as well as both of these episodes here because, again, this information this course, it really is a miracle and what it can do for you and your life. It really is truly transformative. Let’s go ahead and jump into it. I hope you enjoy this episode. Are you a hypnotist or hypnotherapist looking to grow your business online, because in 2021, you really should be. Our sponsor today, HypnotherapySites, is a website design company that specializes in building websites specifically for hypnotherapists. Now, full transparency. This is my company. And I’ve spent the last seven years in web design and marketing. And now as a practicing hypnotherapist myself, I know what it takes to get new clients contacting you through your website. We handle everything for you from designing and building your site, setting up all the technical stuff, and even providing ongoing support afterwards. It’s really never been easier for hypnotherapists to establish a professional online presence than this. And the important thing here is that you’ll be able to focus on the work that you do best while we build you an effective website that converts visitors into paying clients 24 seven even while you sleep, and for a limited time I wanted to offer 20% off to all illuminated mind listeners. So you can just head over to https://hypnotherapysites.com/illuminated to get started today. That’s https://hypnotherapysites.com/illuminated. There’s never been a better time than right now to establish a professional presence for your business. So just go to https://hypnotherapysites.com/illuminated and get 20% off our normal rate.

Welcome back to illuminated mind. I’m your host Corey Benschop. And this is your podcast for exploring some of the deeper ideas about what it means to be human in today’s complex world. We cover topics from psychology, philosophy, spirituality and hypnotherapy to find answers to life’s most interesting questions. Enjoy this episode.

Welcome to Monday night calm

Community class with me Matthew Brownstein. And the topic for tonight’s Monday conscious community class is a question miracles in relationship to hypnotherapy and hypnotherapy training. So I’m going to pretty much do an introduction. I’ve been having questions from a lot of our students. So on Sunday night, I do it’s online, monastery calm, the meditation system classes, that’s where I think the majority of our students have been going now, it tends to be a larger group making this group smaller, but all good. And, and just with our hypnotherapy, students and staff, and then this requests for A Course in Miracles group are going to do next week as well for a course miracles class, specifically on relationships and looking at the difference between special relationships and holy relationships. So that should be really good. There’s just a lot of buzz right now about the whole relationship category. And I’d be glad to share that. So next week, question miracles, looking at special relationships, and holy relationships. Welcome, I’m gonna say most names, since we’re recording, like if everybody’s here, again, feel free to use a chat pod and ask questions or share during the class. So some of you may be totally new to A Course in Miracles. So we’re definitely gonna start very basic. And you know, the course. So here it is, here’s a copy of the book. So in case you don’t know, you know, it is a book. And how did it come about? Let’s just start there. In the 1970s, there was a woman named Dr. Helen schucman. And a colleague of hers, Dr. William Thetford, they were both pretty high level psychiatry psychologists, and what they had discovered within their working relationship amongst their colleagues and people within the hospital and wherever they were, didn’t just weren’t working out. They weren’t feeling like they were, they weren’t happy. There’s a lot of anger and contention. So they simply had one simple idea. And they said, There’s got to be a better way. And of course, there’s a whole introduction about how this came about. So I’m pretty much just telling exactly what’s in the book itself that explains its own origins.

At some point, Helen started receiving a lot of interesting dreams, and eventually started hearing this inner voice I was talking to her and basically saying, you know, write this stuff down, Helens name is not on the cover, I definitely do not believe she wrote the book. In fact, it’s one of the few books that I can sincerely say, I don’t believe is a human origin, which makes it very trustworthy. Because most humans, unless they are very impressive.

You know, even the ones who are kind of higher functioning, who speak from deeper spiritual places, we still, you know, all of us, we still have tend to have our ego, our filters, our perceptions, our veils, our biases, that can get in the way of very pure teaching. So to find a book that is 100%, free of ego. I’m gonna say this is my honest opinion, of course. But as a religious scholar, 100% theologically sound, there’s no contradictions. It’s a completely coherent, consistent system of thought. And that’s pretty hard to find. Now, for those of you who have been brought up in the Christian, I say, Judeo Christian, but largely the Christian tradition. Some people, you know, have certainly become, oh, what’s the word disconcerted or even, you know, completely turned off by Christianity? Because sometimes if you change do seem to contradict themselves, or they’ll contradict modern science, right? And that’s always a struggle. So if you’re struggling with, well, I want to believe there’s God in creation, but I’ve got this huge movement called science, saying, well, there really is no, there’s no need for that. But so many of us are now willing to let go of spirituality. And we want a sure

true source of knowledge and wisdom, a way to guide our lives that we can trust. And so when there’s so that that’s a little bit of overview, from my personal point of view, I picked seven years for Dr. Helen schucman. To channel if you will, you could call this a channel book, because she didn’t write it herself for seven years to write everything down that I’m sure there was a big editing process. But I’ve never found a single typo, you know, proofreading grammatical error, the whole book. And again, I’ve never found anything that is theologically sound. The course itself is a Christian theology on the surface and honestly, I think, you know, as a religious scholar, so I learned about everything. I learned about A Course in Miracles back in 9294, whenever when I was really engaged in religious studies in college, religion, philosophy studies, so I came across it but it never didn’t really speak to me.

And then as I started meeting others who were in it, I wasn’t really impressed with them. So I instantly had one teacher of it, who was honestly, you know, a strong word, but I was kind of appalled by the character of this person. And you know, just watching the greed and the lies, I’m like, this is A Course in Miracles practitioner, you know, not impressed, not interested. But eventually, I started getting more and more into it. And once I was willing to go beyond the surface, which is a Christian theology uses only masculine pronouns, which to me, I would love to see it differently. But I understand why to do that. Right. So God is father. sonship is the child of God, the Holy Spirit is worded, even the Holy Spirit, which often in religious literature, is more of a feminine energy is still acknowledged as masculine, the core, so the masculine pronouns, it’s okay, but I feel like it’s a universal t shirt, you should be at least gender neutral, if not acknowledging he, she and acknowledging spirit as he she, yet, I couldn’t deny that the wisdom in the course was so profound. And because I was a religious scholar, I was a bit cocky and arrogant about, you know, what I knew. So I would read a lot of texts, including scriptures. And I would just say, you know, I don’t agree, that’s not theologically sound, you know, that contradicts itself, you can see where other authors have contributed to the text. And you know, if you study the Bible, the old the New Testament, there are about 30 different authors over a period of it’s debatable, but from the Old Testament, with the oldest book, most likely Genesis, you’re talking like 2000 years before Christ. And then the old the New Testament was written really around the time of crisis after his death, you know, over a period of about 100 200 years or so, again, multiple authors and edits and very clear edits. So again, it makes it hard for some people, not everybody, there’s lots of diehard people of faith who believe every word of it. But if you study it very intensely, with a critical mind, as a religious scholar, it’s, it’s sometimes hard to really believe everything that it’s saying. And that’s just my personal opinion, I really respect those who have 100% faith in it, because it makes it easy for them. For me studying and critically, it wasn’t easy to accept that is 100%. True. So when I saw a course in miracles, I was like, well, it’s a Christian theology, it’s using only masculine pronouns. But eventually, I started realizing, whenever I disagree with it, it’s right. It’s an it’s wiser than me, it knows better than me. So I had to just put aside the narrative side, but understand what they mean took it says, you know, God, the Father, say, Okay, well, that’s very, because we only have English in the course it was originally written English has been translated into many other languages. But it’s still only going to basically use very simple words for God. And just the word God can be misleading. And the word father certainly can be misleading.

But it’s certainly a scholar that benefit and I am A Course in Miracles teacher, you know, when you’re talking about what that means, how do you qualify for such a thing? And I’ll just say that right away, in a question, miracles can be a teacher of God to be a qualified teacher of A Course in Miracles is just that you want to, that’s all and I don’t want to teach any more, because I’m ready at my limit of how much I teach each week, which is, you know, many, many hours. But you know, I do love A Course in Miracles. Now, I trust it completely, like I’ve been saying, and be a teacher, and all you have to do is want to be a teacher of it. However, it does make it pretty clear that you need to go through all the workbook lessons,

to really qualify to be a teacher of God. And I would definitely agree with that, that you really can. He can know what it says, but you can’t know what it does to you until you go through all the workbook lessons. And let me just explain how that goes. The course itself has three sections. And then there are supplements that come about later. So they were added later. So there’s the cortex, I believe it’s 669 pages. Then there’s the workbook for students. That’s, there’s 365 lessons. So I had to take an entire year. And I always recommend when people are interested to start with the workbook lessons on January 1, because the wisdom that brought about the course understands as you’re moving through, you know, when the major holidays are this kindergarten making 70 so it’s not, you know, ancient ancient before our modern holiday, so when you get the Easter it’d be like okay, and today’s Easter, right, and this is what Easter is all about. And then here’s a Christmas and here’s what it’s all about. It’s really uncanny to go through the lessons, how they relate to what you need to know for that day. And my experience of working with the lessons and we’ll talk about this there’s a living presence within the book within you. That is a little

It’s not just something that was written a while ago, and then the author is no longer present. The presence of what brought the course my experiences is a living reality that you can tap into anytime you want. And that’s the goal of the course. In the 365 lessons, it says once you go through them, no more lessons are needed. And I question that first. It’s like, Well, what do you mean? Like we’re just done learning. And what happens with each lesson similar title, we’ll talk about, of course hypnotherapy tonight, because we’re hypnotherapy school.

When you put an idea in the mind, it plants itself like a seed and intends to grow and blossom over time. And when you drill the lessons into your head one per day, that really is all you need for a radical inner transformation to occur that simply lead you to peace. And then there’s a manual for teachers with which is about 200 something pages, and it’s mostly question answer format. And the defines its terms, which is nice, because like I was saying, When you hear the term Father, for God, what is that is that the bearded man in the cloud, right? That would turn people off pretty quick, in this day and age. But again, once you understand what the words mean, and you know, I would prefer honestly, if I use Sanskrit, you know, you study the religion of India. And the words for the divine are very well mapped out beyond just the word God and Father, which again, extremely limiting. So my advice for anybody who might be interested in getting into this, is be willing to cut through the old word Christian theology, and just grasp the essence of what it say. Alright, so let’s talk about what is it saying and who is the author, right? If it’s not the woman who is the scribe, I, you know, at some point, you’re reading the course. And it seems like the voice for the Holy Spirit, which would use that term, and I’ll define that tonight. I it seems like that’s the voice. It’s just the voice for God divine mind is giving us this. But the more you get into a you start hearing, first person pronouns, the word is being used. And the voices speaking sound like when I said that, in the Bible, when they quoted me in the Bible, this is actually what I met. So you don’t have to believe this. And I was brought up, not religious but brought up Jewish so you know, the idea of Jesus or Christ was not really part of my upbringing. Yet, if you read the course, the author, the one is really claiming to be writing it is really Jesus. Now, again, I don’t really say that, from a religious point of view. I’m just saying it is a student of the course that whoever’s giving us this book appears to be that being, it doesn’t really matter, because I remember last night, when I was teaching our meditation system, meditation system, I eventually said, you know, the messenger is an important. Hi, who I am really doesn’t matter, when it comes to deep spiritual teaching. And who wrote the book really doesn’t matter. The message is very valuable. It’s up to you to believe who the author is, just like any scripture, you know how to these things come about, totally up to you to believe what you want. To me, it’s just extremely practical to honor that these teachings are real and worth taking some time to learn for sure. So there are times in my life where I’ve devoured the material, you can hear it on audio from YouTube. So I’ve downloaded those recordings to my cell phone. And I’ve just played them over and over again, in meditation just for days or like months. So just playing over and over. And the benefit of getting your head filled with this is I can pretty well guarantee you, the thoughts in A Course in Miracles are better than your thoughts. Our thoughts are filled with fear, hurt, sadness, jealousy, lust, greed, anger, attack thoughts, we feel separate, we feel alone, we get miserable. We’re continually upset, of course in miracles would basically call us insane that uses that word now in a clinical sense. But it helps us to understand the nature of the ego, and the ego is insane. And once you realize your mind is insane, according to the Course in Miracles standards, then thank god, there’s this other voice you can listen to. And the more you listen to a Course of Miracles or read it, you get that voice in your head. And we know in hypnotherapy, we have something called the inner child, and the inner parent, the inner child and the appeal of therapy is seen as the emotional self. It is part of your ego, because we’ll talk about ego tonight. And the inner child is filled with negative beliefs about him or herself. I like I’m stupid, I’m bad, I’m unlovable, I’m useless. I’m not deserving of good things. You know, we talk about belief systems all the time in hypnotherapy, and there’s other negative emotions and then negative behaviors that come out of that. Then we have the inner parent, which is usually an inner critical voice that speaks for the voice of our parents. So if you had good loving kind parents, you’ve got a nice inner voice in there. You don’t really fight against yourself. You don’t really suffer that much. But most people especially

Our clients in hypnotherapy had pretty crummy upbringings. And the voice in your head for your inner parent is really punitive and disruptive. It says things so the inner child like, you know, you’re stupid, and you’re bad, and you’re not good enough, and you’re not capable. And you know, nobody likes you and you shouldn’t be you should be seen and not heard. So there’s a lot of suppression of the inner child. My point is, with enough conditioning, you will develop a certain voice in your head. And yeah, then then eventually, you have your adult sense of self, the adult ego state, and the adult is usually just kind of like, what the hell is going on inside of me, I got this emotionally wounded inner child, I’ve got this guilt using inner critic voice that is punishing my inner child. And I can barely function in this world. Right? So those are three different voices. What A Course in Miracles does is it offer it introduces you to where you can call it calls the voice of the Holy Spirit. Now, you might not believe that that some other mind although you know, it’s perfectly comfortable with that and hypnotherapy, we have the idea of a subconscious mind, which is largely where your inner child and inner parent are stored and then your conscious mind, which is largely where your adult self sense of self is stored. And then hypnotherapy, we all must be always honor. We don’t teach it as much in the beginning of our schools training, case reign State Institute of hypnotherapy, calm, fully stay license 500 hour hypnotherapy training. Our next class starts January 25. So June 24, in few days, so welcome to our new students. But what I want to say, especially with a new class starting soon, is that it’s not a religious school, it is very deep spiritual undertones that eventually we come across in the clinical and the transpersonal training. But in fundamentals, we don’t go very deep into spiritual themes, but we do introduce the idea of three levels of your mind subconscious, conscious, and super conscious. So to understand the Holy Spirit, and of course, in miracles because again, it’s just a word, two words, Holy Spirit, what is that referring to? It is referring to a mind, I think it’s a capital M mind. And if it helps you to consider that to be your higher self, or the over soul, or your super kind of just mine, you would be safe to associate it that in that way, you know, work to establish a little bit of what is the theology of A Course in Miracles. But what it’s doing, essentially, and we could just be very down to earth about this is is putting a new voice in your head. So if you listened to the last text, and again, I recommend listening to it, because you get to put that play in over and over and over and over. It’s gonna speak to you about you know, talking like what is the course page, it’s teaching you really only about love and forgiveness as the means to return to love and peace. And you know, the different words, but what is bringing us to, but the one reality is very desirable, always beneficial, extremely practical, it’s only gonna make your life better. And the more you get that in your mind, you have that to turn to so when your inner child is sad, your inner critic is telling you how worthless you are, your inner adult is all confused. Enough conditioning will get you in touch with that voice. But I’m not saying that voice doesn’t exist is another mind that’s bigger than you just for those who might be a bit more down to earth about things more on the psychological side of things drives with enough conditioning, you’ll get a healthy voice in your head, if you’re listening to one, when you do the workbook lessons, the there’s two major parts of the workbook. They’re beginning and my opinion, if you will, but I think it’s very accurate is a deconstructing every ego, it’s gonna tear down the insane mental structure that you built up yourself. There’s a Zen Master, I forget who it was. He said, I spent the first 20 years of my life developing my ego, I spent I forget how old maybe he was like 80. So I spent the next 60 years of my life, dismantling my ego. But you can’t really dismantle your own ego. It’s way too tricky for that. So of course, miracles, workbook lessons part one starts to dismantle your ego, very gently, very wise. So very few human beings, I think of any good ever designed to really get I don’t think this is of human origin, good design such a good system. The second part is meant to restructure you if you will, in alignment with who you really are as spirit. So what is the course about what is it teaching it essentially, it’s a path back to peace and it begins with this line.

What is real cannot be threatened.

What is unreal does not exist. Herein lies the peace of God. So it makes it very clear distinction between truth and illusion and it overgeneralize is in a really good way. So basically, any form of upset anytime you’re upset in any way

That could mean hurt, sad, angry, guilty, fearful. Those are the major emotions, but any negative emotion, depressed, anxious, that’s a form of upset, which means you’re not at peace. And of course, in miracles, it’s all about miracles. Obviously, peace, is health, care return to help to heal your body to heal your life to heal your relationships to heal your mind, we apply the miracle. So of course, miracles all about the miracle. But it takes a lot of time to explain what is the ego, because that’s the problem. And it says, this is a course on love. It’s a required course, meaning nothing, I pick a course in miracles, you don’t have to study this book. It’s not saying that this is the only path to salvation or freedom or healing. But it basically saying it’s part of a universal curriculum. And the universal curriculum is required for everybody, you’re eventually going to, it’s kind of like saying, so how can you understand that? Imagine a fish in the ocean, who wrapped himself up in bubble wrap in saran wrap, and paints or painting the surface of that shell and adjust enough water you know, not to survive. And but it’s trapped in this very dark and comfortable place, feeling separate from the whole ocean, and separate from all other beings, A Course in Miracles. So that would be the ego, right? Is this craziness, a bubble wrap and saran wrap and paint. I just made that up that the fish put around itself. It can’t undo it on

logon call that facade costume masquerading because it actually values it, put it there because it wanted it there felt scared and thought it would be helpful. And it becomes its own identity. And that’s the ego. So have you thought about fish? Sorry. So the best example, but maybe this? If you said to a fish you are you it would let’s say the skin color is not a great tie day and age talked about skin color. But let’s just say it painted itself purple. And you said Who are you? And the fish would say well, I’m a purple fish. And you’d say well, who are you? Well, I’m alone. I’m scared. And I’m separate. But I have these people who are these other fish who look like me who I like, I don’t like all the other ones. Right? So it’s in its very limited sense of self called the ego. And again, it can unravel in its own undoing. So

So essentially, if you can see that that would be the ego spirit is the ocean is the all of the water of all that is including what makes up the fish and its very essence. But that fish is feeling separate from the ocean, the great poet Kabir. He said, I laugh when I hear that the fish in the ocean is thirsty. So that’s kind of where that metaphor comes from, I guess.

So what would be happening in this sense of the fish experiencing but really is it would need some form of wisdom and some guide who knows better to help it to slowly realize how value lists. It’s sad as you don’t need that purple, pink, you don’t need that saran wrap. You don’t need that bubble wrap. Just be a fish in the ocean and you have everything you need all the nutrients, all the guidance, everything is there. And of course in miracles, it teaches that there are there’s one problem, one problem and if you really grasp that, as a hypnotherapist, you’re quite empowered now by clients to heal in really profound ways. The one problem is separation, we feel separate from the ocean separate from our source. That’s the problem. And the one solution is oneness. No one is the atonement right at one mint. When you feel one with the source of all love and peace, and joy, and bliss and wisdom, your problems are over. And that’s really what the course is guiding us to We live in an apparently meaningless universe. Or if you’re separate, where we cling to things, and people especially that we think are gonna make us be okay. We turn other people into our salvation, usually by attacking them. But again, when we understand the ego from a Course of Miracles, we see how insane it is. So next week, I’m intensely not going to go too deep into relationships tonight. Next week, we’ll talk about special relationships, as opposed to NSA verses, because there’s no fight here and of course in miracles, especially relationships as opposed to holy relationships. And it’s really a huge part of understanding of course, miracles. And I’m sorry, understanding many teacher of God, anybody who really is a true Course of Miracles teacher who’s gone through the lessons and embodied the teachings for quite a while they’re going to function from holy relationships. And instead of special relations, it’s very hard for people who are still functioning and special relations to grass. So that’ll be next time. But I’m sure I’ll touch upon it a bit tonight. So we have like I was saying major over generalizations. Love

Fear. Of course in math most teachers, there’s only two emotions, love or fear. But you say, well, there’s a whole lot of emotions. There’s well there’s love, there’s joy, there’s peace that list. Those words love, peace, joy, bliss. Those are just qualities of the ocean. Those are qualities of God. They’re not necessarily emotions. It’s just who you are. It’s the nature of spirit. If you said like, well, water is wet waters, clear water moves, water has waves. Spirit is the Spirit is joy and Spirit is love. Spirit extends itself. Spirit is a creative force. The idea of creation ism, is explained in a course in miracles. And I’ll go back to this overgeneralization theme in just a moment, I was mentioning that the apparent author of A Course in Miracles is the same one who left 2000 years ago with a nailed to a cross. Right? So you know, you can call him Jesus, or probably the most accurate pronunciation of the name actually is Yeshua. YEHU. A, but I could be wrong. 100% sure. But anyway, this guy, the idea that he he, and by the way, he mentioned religious scholar, if you study the writings of Paul, in the New Testament, Paul, who was Saul, who had a major conversion experience on the road to Damascus, I think it was,

he writes in the Bible, you know, and it’s in what are the epistles I believe, but he writes that it is shameful and is so wrong for a man to have long hair, which means a historical Jesus probably didn’t have long hair. He also by the way, probably wasn’t Caucasian. So, you know, it’s it’s really a an exploration of, well, who is the voice giving us a course in miracles. But the reason I mentioned that is what it says, like when you hear repeated multiple times, so here’s an example of what I’m working to say. And of course, in miracles, it says something like, when Judas, you know, he’s the one who supposedly betrayed Jesus. It says, when the Bible says Judas betrayed me, that’s impossible, because I can’t be betrayed. It’s this complete reframe, not contradicting the Bible, it’s so wise, it would never make somebody lose faith in their religion of you know, it’s Christianity. You know, or Judaism, like the Old Testament, you could absolutely be Jewish or Christian and embrace A Course in Miracles teachings, maybe not if you’re hardcore fundamental, because there’s not a lot of open mindedness there. Yet, if you’re willing to open your mind to what it’s teaching, it’s incredibly practical for hypnotherapy. And I think many people have found it is such a high source of inspiration and clarity and guidance, it just becomes a huge part, maybe not the only part but a huge part of your spiritual path.

So there’s many references throughout the person miracles, that kind of reframe scripture to help you to understand it better, it’ll literally give you lines of Scripture and say things like, to here’s what it says I’m like, in the Bible, it says, the sins of the fathers are cast down through the seventh through seven generations of Him who loves me something like that. But it talks about in the Bible sin. And you know, obviously, Hellfire and damnation and punishment in a vengeful God, you know, we all kind of know that. And a lot of people have been turned off because of that, of course, in miracles explains that through the mind of the Holy Spirit, we could every interpretations of that, so the sins of the fathers are passed down through seven generations, through the ego sounds like God is just this horrible being that’s going to punish you for something that happened seven generations ago.

Excuse me. And of course, miracles. The way that the Holy Spirit could interpret them

is that the errors of past generations continue to play out through current generations. And until we make new choices, we’ll keep repeating the same patterns. So it’s an extremely same logical, compassionate way of thinking. And again, go back to the overgeneralization idea. It helps us to ship which is what the miracle is, to ship from fear, to love, from ego to spirit, from illusion to truth, and from everything that would be destructive, including lack poverty, limitations. Again, special relationships with kind of seem nice on the surface, but there and of course, a medical is a special relationship is rooted in fear and hatred. Explain that briefly.

The ego is a very confused aspect of your mind. It has no idea who it really is. It’s masquerading as something that it’s not, and it has identified completely with the body thinks you are this limited finite body

A Course in Miracles, the teaching is very clearly you were not a body, you are free, you are still as God created you get when you think your body and then identify with a limited form, you feel very separate and alone. Your thoughts start I identifying with the human and claiming that you’re human, right? Like I’m limited, I’m separate, I’m laughing, I’m alone. I’m bad. The ego is very invested in your past and your future. So when it identifies you as being so alone, and fear based and miserable, it tries to find things outside of itself to feel better, and that usually the other people, but it’s so scared of losing the person that it found, is it salvation, that it secretly hates that person? So a lot of relationships, as we all know, are rooted in fear and anger and A Course in Miracles while overgeneralizing this way says that is an insane mind. It’s an attacking mind. It’s a murderous mind. Man, these are strong words. And at first, I’m like, wow, that’s just really strong.

Because if you’ve done enough spiritual growth work, you might think you’re free of ego, right? So when I came across this stuff, I’ve done tons of meditation spiritual practice. And I knew my ego was purifying once it was clear at all those getting cleaned up. And I was like, I’m not murderous, I’m not rageful.

Yet, if you are willing to overgeneralize anytime you’re upset to any degree, you acknowledge it as he go. And then you got to be you have to be humble enough to do that. Because again, any form of upset and of course, in miracles, there are no small upsets. They’re all equally disturbing, pure peace of mind. So it doesn’t matter if it’s annoyed, prostate rated, irritable, angry, rageful, or a hatred. That’s all ego. This is an extremely valuable point in hypnotherapy when you’re working with clients, is the Oh, and by the way, and of course, in miracles, there are two supplements that used to be separate books. Now they’re added in the main book. The supplement our reference array is called psychotherapy, purpose, process and practice is the subtitle. Even though it’s hypnotherapist we wouldn’t claim to be psychotherapists. The teachings are extremely relevant to us in our profession. And I have devoured that book, it’s only about 33 pages that talk to you about the question of payment. And actually, let’s talk about this for a moment. It says, Here’s psychotherapy, which really is just referring to any profession that heals the mind, not just for either analysis, or cognitive behavioral therapy, is psychotherapy profession. So Strictly speaking, no. Because how could something that everyone is involved in be an individual profession, however, some recall, to take up more of a career in working in that way? Yeah, we’re all part of this collective process of becoming free. That means for that is the miracle. So what is a miracle? Question merit? So you have you need to understand this overgeneralization to understand the miracle, because a miracle is a shift. In your mind, it’s a shift in perception. So the ego functions in the realm of perception, perceptions can be right or wrong, right. So you could look at this screen right now. And you could say, this is a feature. This is someone who seems to know something, this is someone who seems to be kind. And I think it’d be safe to say your perceptions are right, or you could project on to the person who’s speaking to you. And you could have completely wrong perceptions. In the Course of Miracles, it really doesn’t matter, because all perception is false. All perception is projection and projection is perception. So how did it How does that work? How do we understand that, of course, miracles teaches when you think you see reality, you’re really only seeing your perceptions. And first, you see what you want to see inside of you.

Then you project it out on the external world. And then you see it there. So anything you see about me honestly, is going to be your projection. Because any label you give if you say even if you said future, if you said, Man, if you said CEO, if you said President, if you said executive director, silly title, right from Chris medicals level of cares, but you know, so my credentials, whatever.

First of all, you need to understand, well, you don’t need to but you can understand, you’re very much looking at the past, right? If you said Oh, Matthew is the one who founded the Institute of interpersonal hypnotherapy. Did that in 2006 with the help of my dear mentor, Mr. Gill boyan.

Okay, great. We did that. But that’s the path. It’s not

Who I am now, who you are now, who I am now is spirit. So the difference between the there’s a dichotomy, you know, the overgeneralization, we have perception. And then we have true knowledge, it’s very important to understand that perception is not your knowledge. So perception, again, is when you’re going to want to see something in your reality first, that sense inside of you. So you might say something like, I want Matthew on, let’s not use me, um,

pick somebody else, you know, in your life, I want that person to be my significant other. Right? So you’re looking at that person, internally, you’re saying, I want a relationship, I want somebody who I think I’m compatible with. So you want it inside, in brain science. And most people in our fields know about what’s called the our a s, the reticular activating system, the way that part of your brain works, and has other functions, but when you want to find something, it goes on a search for it, right? If you’re thinking about, I think I want to buy a new certain car, like you want the new the new Jeep, you’re driving around, you’re you’re subconsciously looking everywhere for Jeeps, and you’re gonna find that that’s the reticular activating system, the way perception works, and of course in miracles is first you see it inside based on the world, you want to see, you projected onto the world out there. And then you start perceiving it out there, you’re not actually seeing the reality that God created. You’re not seeing truth, you’re not in a space of pure knowledge. You’re seeing your own ego perceptions. Again, you can’t unravel those on your own, because you believe what you believe. But if you said but the physical world is solid and real, and I’m a man or whoever you are, I’m a woman and I am a mother and I have kids and I’m, I have this job, and this is who I am. Now, if those perceptions are accurate, they’re right, you know, in the relative plane. in there, they’re serving you, you’re not showing a question, I’m just gonna keep doing your thing because your life is pretty good. When the perceptions are negative. Here suffering in your life isn’t going away in one two, either way, whether it’s positive or negative. It’s a reality made up in a person miracles, we have this ability to have this dichotomies overgeneralization with the ego we have, it’s called Making or make believe with spirit we have what’s called creation. Spirit creates, I like to say, and the ego makes shit up. Right? So ego just make stuff up. And what are you making up the stuff that you want to see in your reality, for better or worse, the Course in Miracles teaches at the ego. And those of us who are caught in the ego has confused pleasure and pain, when you think why should be pleasurable for you is actually usually quite painful, which could include, so let’s say,

you’re a woman who was brought up in a very conservative, religious, male dominated type, religious setting, and you were kind of taught.

Women are subservient to men, you just live to serve men, you have no rights, you’re not important. And you know, you’re just a thing to be used. That horrible type of negative subconscious programming, you’re seeing inside of you first set your internal map of who you are. Part of you wants to be good to your parents wants to be good to society wants to have a relationship. And because your programming is so limited about men, you end up seeing no one, actually wanting that kind of relationship, and then you pull into your life because you perceive it out there, you find it, you pull it in, it becomes a special relationship rooted in the ego, terrified that that person can hurt you terrify that that person could leave you. Right. So wholly, ego Express relationships are rooted in perception. You seeing what you want to see, based on your given already here, current programming, which is usually very disruptive. Again, if the programming was pretty good, relatively speaking, then your perceptions are healthy, and he might have a pretty decent life. But remember, right perception or wrong perception or still have the ego, true knowledge, which is of spirit

is a totally different world. So we’ll talk about that, of course. But it’s important to understand

that so much of A Course in Miracles is helping us to understand the nature of ego, because it’s so easy for the ego to trick us that Oh, but I am vegetarian and I

have read some Rumi poems. Therefore, I’m spiritual now. And, you know, just because you’re living with might be called a spiritual lifestyle, which can be a huge trap. It doesn’t actually mean you’re awakened or enlightened. It just means maybe you start dabbling in certain spiritual things.

So it’s important to understand just how tricky the ego REALLY IS A Course in Miracles talks about ego dynamics, but it says there’s really no such thing. Because the ego is false. It doesn’t really exist. If God getting created, it doesn’t exist. So how can you talk about the dynamics of something that doesn’t even exist?

So let’s talk a little bit on that notion. So we got this idea of this duality apparent to ality, between ego and spirit, illusion, truth, fear and love. But remember how Of course, a miracle starts, what is real cannot be threatened that spirit, what is unreal does not exist. That’s ego. Herein lies the peace of God. It’s not a fight between the two. Because there’s only one thing there’s only one reality called God. But because we’re so immersed in our ego, we need a mind that understands that to get us out of it. So transcendent, if you will, to all that confusion and the need for this miracle or this shift is the world we’ll call what the question happens, calls the fog. So what is that?

We use the word God, right, and of course in miracles, but you don’t want to project anything onto that, because we just talked about perception. And a nice quote from the philosopher Voltaire. He said, God created men, but then man created God right back. So you know, if you get turned off by the word, God or the word, Father, just realize that you could, God doesn’t have a problem with it. Because God is just God. But God again, isn’t actually what you think God is. So if I rewrote the chorus, I would definitely say father, mother God. But, you know, how much does that really help? It’s a little better. Lisa acknowledges that women are equal to men, and that we’re all the same spiritual being in our essence. So, word said, perhaps help us to understand universal spirit.

Source.

One reality, not necessarily universe I know a lot of spiritual people like the word universe, God is universe. But it’s important to understand the universe you perceive, when you look out the window, you know, a night and you see the stars and the moon and all that. That’s not God. in accord. This is hard to grasp. And of course, in miracles, God, you’re not praying your body. Sorry.

And God did not create the world you experience.

That’s hard for people to grasp. But realize, God only craves that which is eternal, and perfect. Your body is an eternal, imperfect, and you’re not your body. God doesn’t create illusions, God doesn’t create temporary finite realities, co creates perfect, eternal unchanging realities, which means you’re not perceiving reality. Because look around you, everything you’re saying, for your eyes,

is not reality your eyes don’t see. And of course, America is one of the lessons. And one of the most powerful lesson says, my that’s my opinion.

My opinion, those lessons when you get to this one, it says, above all else I want to see, which means your man see, perception is not seeing is not knowledge is not her wisdom, you’re not perceiving God, you can perceive God, you can no God. So again, ego makes God creates, in a Course of Miracles, you are a creation of God, you are not your own creator. Okay. And again, I’m only playing from course miracles model. You don’t have to agree with this. Yet, I’m gonna get to hypnotherapy more and more through the class tonight.

This is such a valuable point of view to realize you’re not your own creator, and that who you are, is still innocent, and guiltless. Because our clients come in, they don’t feel innocent, they’re filled with guilt. And they don’t think they’re pure. They think that they’re wounded and broken and damaged, that they are lovable and not good enough that they’ve somehow have been turned into something unworthy of their highest ideal. So the low self esteem of the ego that comes into our office can be radically transformed very quickly, when we know how to perform miracles. And literally again, this is a course in miracles. It’s easy to get caught up in the theology, the philosophy, the workbook lessons, and not necessarily grasp the title, A Course in Miracles, how do you perform miracles? Okay, a little bit about my story in relationship to this with my first you know, just first major spiritual awakening in 1992. I was in college, it sent me on a path to start studying philosophy, religion, and mysticism. And what I learned during that time, we’ve had a lot to deal with the idea that consciousness is who we are, that we are spirit, we are consciousness there is this thing called energy. When our energy gets blocked, we end up getting sick

Physically, mentally emotionally sick.

So, you know, long story short, I was saying, Okay, well how do I remove those blockages, of course miracles begins. This I told you a little bit of this paragraph. This is a course in love. It’s required course. However, it’s up to you how long you want to take the course. This is a course, where it’s up to you how long you want to take to get through all the lessons, not necessary the course lessons, but the universal curriculum lessons, there’s no way to avoid that. Eventually, after the word learn isn’t the best word. I won’t nitpick it here. But eventually, you have to learn all the universal lessons and that’s already turned to love. And it says, this is a course of love. But love cannot be taught that is beyond what we can use words to teach. However, we can help you to remove the awareness. So we can remove the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence, which is your natural inheritance. So this is a course designed to remove the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence. For me, that was my entire journey was I no one to know God and have others to know God? You know, what is his word spirit. Of course, Americans use the word God. So we’re gonna use it tonight. Again, not defining it, you know, nailing that word down. So for people to know who they are a spirit was my instalay is my life mission and goal. Because everything you need is contained in who you are. If that fish will just get the paint and the saran wrap and the bubble wrap off, then nothing wrong with that fish is perfectly fine. We can just do that fish thing. It’s one with the ocean, no problem. Remember, the one problem is separation. The solution is oneness. And you’re already one with your source. So all we have to do is remove the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence, which is your natural inheritance.

The miracle in A Course in Miracles right when you start the text is defined in 15 different

set paragraphs, they’re not even four paragraphs are just short setting, you know, two or three sentences at most. So 50 ways to define it. I’ve listened to about that literally 1000s of times,

hundreds upon hundreds of times for sure. And

I think it’s still always good to have a beginner’s mind, and I think you fully understand it. But here’s chapter one, verse 24,

miracles, enable you to heal the sick, and raise the dead, because you made sickness and death yourself. Therefore, you can easily abolish both, you are a miracle capable of creating in the likeness, the image and likeness of your Creator. Everything only the creator everything else is your own nightmare, and does not exist. Only the creations of light are real. Only the creations of later real only what God created is real. Everything else is your own nightmare doesn’t exist. That is so glaringly obvious, Lee apparent with my clients, it is my clients over the years and I’m seeing a handful of clients now. It’s just so obvious and I quote that all the time.

And it’s just so obvious that when a client comes to me suffering, they’re in their own made up nightmare that doesn’t really exist. It’s a world of perception, fear, wrong identity of Who do you think you are all the false beliefs we use? hypnotherapy is clear, all the negative emotions that we use hypnotherapist clear and other negative behaviors and symptoms that we clear. The so we as you know, this institute of interpersonal hypnotherapy, we are interpersonal hypnotherapy, it’s our brand it’s my book is one of my books is entitled interpersonal hypnotherapy and the idea of the miracle.

The miracle is always interpersonal. Their miracle is always rooted in a relationship. When you understand that there hypnotherapy, you are far more effective hypnotherapist you’re not treating symptoms anymore. You’re not only modifying behaviors, you’re not only dealing with limited emotions, and of course you’re looking at false beliefs. But what you’re really looking at deep down on the site, is what A Course in Miracles calls on forgiveness.

So now let’s let’s look at that word forgiveness. We teach forgiveness, of course, and I hypnotherapy training, but honestly, I have you know, I design their training very carefully over you know, it was here, it’s in development, for a curriculum to be what it is. And I don’t teach forgiveness in the first 100 hours, maybe we touch upon the second 100 it’s only the third $100 that we we start teaching forgiveness because the EDL of really resists against it. The blocks to love’s presence are valued you might think but that’s insane and it is insane. Why would you hold on to hatred, but you do because you think it here’s this is from this question miracles quote, pretty well exact from the psychotherapy manual.

The one fundamental error, that every use the word patient, we use the word claims

But I’ll say patient with that qualification. The one fundamental error that every patient walks into your office with is the belief that anger brings brings him something he wants. And that by justifying attack, he is protecting himself to the extent he is willing to let that go. To that extent is he truly healed? I’m gonna say that again.

The one fun thing about it, it’s so powerful. If you’re a hypnotherapist, and you get this, you don’t have to worry about the theology and you know, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, that that stuff. And those are just words, the mechanism of the miracle once you grasp what it is, Will radically change your life and the way you work with your clients. The one fundamental error, meaning every single client that comes in has this problem, the one fundamental error that every patient walks into your office has, is the belief that anger brings him something that he wants, and that by justifying attack, he is protecting himself. To the extent he is willing to let that go. To that extent, because he truly healed, of course, in miracles teaches your love. And love needs no defense.

Mind that has chosen forgiveness completely, which we’ll talk about as the class unfolds, has no defenses, your clients will freak out. And our students would freak out if we introduced that idea right away, because you have this fundamental idea that you need to be angry to protect and defend yourself that anger brings you what you want, you’re driving down the road, somebody is driving to the store in front of you, you get angry, you think that anger will somehow make that better.

Right, your spouse isn’t treating you or your kids aren’t acting the way you want them to. You get angry at them thinking that will solve the problem. It’s not saying you shouldn’t feel anger.

It’s saying you are making up anger. And you don’t have to do that. Of course miracle says there’s always another way to see it. And you can say there’s always another way to see this, I could see peace. Instead of this you can choose to see anger because you’re choosing your perceptions based on what you want to see based on what you think is valuable again, that’s make believe in its ego, once you realize you’re suffering the means for the miracle is there. And the miracle will be a shift in your mind that brings you back into spirit. So again, what is spirit? Why would we want to go there? It doesn’t mean you leave your body and go somewhere else or the body dies of course in miracles teaches nothing is accomplished through death. So death isn’t the answer here at all. And by the way, I don’t know how much we’ll get into tonight. But of course miracles is a very beautiful and in depth in

Mexico, right word, beyond the word I use a lot which is profound.

Um, I can’t find the word because there’s nothing there is an English word for how much I respect the interpretation of the crucifixion and of course in miracles Alright, so this was getting to the Course in Miracles ism very well, what’s the word?

ingenious. But beyond even that word, in ingenious interpretation of what the crucifixion is all about, let’s talk about everything.

The whole idea in Christianity is the idea of the atonement, right that eventually all the children of God are going to be suffering.

And the idea usually in religion is that many are called

What is it like fewer chosen but an MPV even fewer make it through or something like that. But in question mecho says all are chosen, but if you choose, so the atonement, and again Seaquarium, question vehicles, is a principle that was put in place, the moment that God’s children decided to play the game of the fall. So what is the fall? What is the separation? What is this Adam and Eve long guilt trip, A Course in Miracles causes the detour into fear. When the perfect children of God said, we’re going to pretend to be something else. We’re going to pretend to be human, you know, simply stated, and we’re going to feel separate from God, we’re going to take the detour into fear, we’re going to take that ego and identity that we’re really not we’re going to feel separate from our source, therefore we will be afraid. And we will feel like we’re in our own mental health when we’re doing that.

At that moment, God said, Oh, well, better get away, you know, create a way to get them be able to come back home. That’s the principle of the atonement, but in Christianity, the idea that Christ is responsible for the atonement.

And a lot of that has to do with the whole thing about the crucifixion. So what is the message of the crucifixion from A Course in Miracles standpoint?

The Course in Miracles says the crucifixion, you know, which is if you think about it, during the Roman occupation

what can we just say the I don’t know the exact history to give Exactly. But you know, Jerusalem, that whole area, that whole area, you know, the Jews were basically the people of that time, not just Jews were ruled by the Romans and the way that they would punish people was through their capital punishment device, the cross the cross, while Christian Demeter is such a big thing is a it’s like the electric chair. It’s like the gas chamber. It’s a capital punishment. debase is a horrible, absolutely horrible way to die, if you’ve never, you know, research that. And, you know, so technically the historical Jesus as much as we understand that, that history, you know, it’s now and died to across and that means a lot, obviously, if they’re Christians, and they wear that symbol on their neck.

In a course, in miracles, one way to understand that is that it’s the last useless journey of the sonship. It’s kind of saying and it’s in, it’s in Christianity as well, it just depends on who you talk to. The mission is being completed is a crisis, kind of saying, Hey, get it, you don’t have to do it anymore, which means you don’t have to keep crucifying yourself. You don’t have to keep punishing yourself. You don’t have to be a martyr. There’s a plan for salvation, but it is not pain and suffering. And you might say, Oh, good. So I’m not nailing myself to a cross, but you’re nailing yourself to across all the time, through your fear, your hurt, your anger, your jealousy, your last year, greed, your guilt, you’re constantly upset. You know, most people are constantly upset. They’re not at peace. And no matter what degree of upset, there’s no hell, or a child of God, except I feel separate from God. All right, thank you so much for listening to this episode of illuminated mind podcast. If you haven’t done so already, make sure you subscribe to our podcast because we release a new episode every week. And also please leave us a rating and review on iTunes. It helps us get found by more listeners just like you. Plus, we’d love to see your feedback. And let us know if there’s any topics or ideas that you’d like us to cover on this show. Finally, if you’re interested in pursuing hypnotherapy as a career for yourself, make sure you head over to our website Institute of hypnotherapy Comm. We’ve got a lot of free resources, our blog, and conscious community classes there that you can check out and every couple of months we’re starting a new certification course as well. So check out all of that at our website Institute of hypnotherapy.com thank you so much for listening. And remember, choose happiness, my friends